War or peace at Christmas

jonniebgood1 · 17-12-2010 8:07pm #1

Leading on from Cdfm's idea of a thread on Irish Christmas traditions I came across some information about christmas in WWI. I remember reading about the 2 sides stopping for Christmas day and even playing games of football in no-mans land during the day. I think this first hand account is also very interesting:

"On Christmas morning we stuck up a board with 'A Merry Christmas' on it. The enemy had stuck up a similar one. Platoons would sometimes go out for twenty-four hours' rest - it was a day at least out of the trench and relieved the monotony a bit - and my platoon had gone out in this way the night before, but a few of us stayed behind to see what would happen. Two of our men then threw their equipment off and jumped on the parapet with their hands above their heads. Two of the Germans done the same and commenced to walk up the river bank, our two men going to meet them. They met and shook hands and then we all got out of the trench.

Buffalo Bill [the Company Commander] rushed into the trench and endeavoured to prevent it, but he was too late: the whole of the Company were now out, and so were the Germans. He had to accept the situation, so soon he and the other company officers climbed out too. We and the Germans met in the middle of no-man's-land. Their officers was also now out. Our officers exchanged greetings with them. One of the German officers said that he wished he had a camera to take a snapshot, but they were not allowed to carry cameras. Neither were our officers.

We mucked in all day with one another. They were Saxons and some of them could speak English. By the look of them their trenches were in as bad a state as our own. One of their men, speaking in English, mentioned that he had worked in Brighton for some years and that he was fed up to the neck with this damned war and would be glad when it was all over. We told him that he wasn't the only one that was fed up with it. We did not allow them in our trench and they did not allow us in theirs.

The German Company-Commander asked Buffalo Bill if he would accept a couple of barrels of beer and assured him that they would not make his men drunk. They had plenty of it in the brewery. He accepted the offer with thanks and a couple of their men rolled the barrels over and we took them into our trench. The German officer sent one of his men back to the trench, who appeared shortly after carrying a tray with bottles and glasses on it. Officers of both sides clinked glasses and drunk one another's health. Buffalo Bill had presented them with a plum pudding just before. The officers came to an understanding that the unofficial truce would end at midnight. At dusk we went back to our respective trenches.

...The two barrels of beer were drunk, and the German officer was right: if it was possible for a man to have drunk the two barrels himself he would have bursted before he had got drunk. French beer was rotten stuff.

Just before midnight we all made it up not to commence firing before they did. At night there was always plenty of firing by both sides if there were no working parties or patrols out. Mr Richardson, a young officer who had just joined the Battalion and was now a platoon officer in my company wrote a poem during the night about the Briton and the Bosche meeting in no-man's-land on Christmas Day, which he read out to us. A few days later it was published in The Times or Morning Post, I believe.

During the whole of Boxing Day [the day after Christmas] we never fired a shot, and they the same, each side seemed to be waiting for the other to set the ball a-rolling. One of their men shouted across in English and inquired how we had enjoyed the beer. We shouted back and told him it was very weak but that we were very grateful for it. We were conversing off and on during the whole of the day.

We were relieved that evening at dusk by a battalion of another brigade. We were mighty surprised as we had heard no whisper of any relief during the day. We told the men who relieved us how we had spent the last couple of days with the enemy, and they told us that by what they had been told the whole of the British troops in the line, with one or two exceptions, had mucked in with the enemy. They had only been out of action themselves forty-eight hours after being twenty-eight days in the front-line trenches. They also told us that the French people had heard how we had spent Christmas Day and were saying all manner of nasty things about the British Army."

http://www.eyewitnesstohistory.com/trenches.htm

I also vaguely remember the PIRA calling ceasefires over Christmas' past. Does anyone have other examples of wartime adversaries coming together for joint celebrations. I wonder did it happen in WWII as the type of warfare may not have permitted it as easily?

jonniebgood1 · 18-12-2010 10:48am

It seems that Hitler liked all the glitter and glitz of Christmas but did'nt particularly take to the images of the baby Jesus (Jewish baby Jesus). Christmas carols were changed to remove references to Jesus and other religous iconography.
http://www.telegraph.co.uk/topics/christmas/6587738/How-Hitler-and-the-Nazis-tried-to-steal-Christmas.html

the star that traditionally crowns the Christmas tree presented an almost insurmountable problem. “Either it was the six-pointed star of David, which was Jewish, or it was the five-pointed star of the Bolshevik Soviet Union,” said Mrs Breuer. “And both of them were anathema to the regime.” So the Nazis replaced the star with swastikas, Germanic “sun wheels” and the Nordic “sig runes” used by the regime’s fanatical Waffen SS as their insignia.

Housewives were encouraged to bake biscuits in similar shapes. One of the exhibits is a page from a Nazi women’s magazine with a baking recipe: “Every boy will want to bake a sig (SS) rune,” proclaims the accompanying text.

The Nazification of Christmas did not end there. The Christmas tree crib was replaced by a Christmas garden containing wooden toy deer and rabbits. Mary and Jesus became the Germanic mother and child, while dozens of Christmas carols, including the famous German hymn “Silent Night”, were rewritten with all references to God, Christ and religion expunged. At the height of the anti-Christian campaign, an attempt was made to replace the coming of Christ the Saviour with the coming of Adolf Hitler – the “Saviour Führer.”

“We cannot accept that a German Christmas tree has anything to do with a crib in a manger in Bethlehem,” wrote the Nazi propagandist Friedrich Rehm in 1937. “It is inconceivable for us that Christmas and all its deep soulful content is the product of an oriental religion,” he added.

http://www.sanfranciscosentinel.com/?p=53517

GhostInTheRuins · 18-12-2010 1:41pm

jonniebgood1 wrote: »

It seems that Hitler liked all the glitter and glitz of Christmas but did'nt particularly take to the images of the baby Jesus (Jewish baby Jesus). Christmas carols were changed to remove references to Jesus and other religous iconography.
http://www.telegraph.co.uk/topics/christmas/6587738/How-Hitler-and-the-Nazis-tried-to-steal-Christmas.html

http://www.sanfranciscosentinel.com/?p=53517

That's mad. Although not what I was expecting because I read recently that Hitler tried to argue that Jesus was not a jew at all, and was actually Celtic. So I wouldn't have thought they'd try to erase him from christmas.

While some writers stressed his Jewishness, the growth of anti-Semitic racial theory led others, such as Emile Burnouf and Houston Stewart Chamberlain, to argue that he [Jesus] was racially an "Aryan." This led to portrayals of Jesus as a blond Nordic individual, a concept that was taken up by the Nazi ideologue Alfred Rosenberg and by Hitler himself. As quoted within the book Hitler's Table Talk, Hitler argued that Jesus was of Celtic ancestry on the grounds that "The Jews would never have handed one of their own people to the Roman courts; they would have condemned Him themselves. It is quite probable that a large number of the descendants of the Roman legionaries, mostly Gauls, were living in Galilee, and Jesus was probably one of them."

MarchDub · 18-12-2010 2:31pm

I remember LWT - London Weekend Television - had a series about Christmas back in the 1980s and I bought the book to the series. According to that the Christmas truce of 1914 was initiated by 'the ordinary German soldier' who came to the line holding a small tree and lantern. The London Illustrated News of Jan 9th 1915 had a drawing of this moment:

Cover of "Illustrated London News", January 9, 1915. A German soldier approaches his British enemies with a lantern and a small Christmas tree and organizes a cease fire.

MarchDub · 18-12-2010 2:44pm

I found this description written by Dr Hubertus Hoffman about the WWI Christmas truce.

Millions of men in arms, hundred of thousands died by machinegun fire, sharp-shooters or artillery fire in the Great War, later called World War I.

It was the European eruption of self-destruction, which later led directly to the destruction of the old aristocratic systems in Germany and Austria and the rise of WW I private Adolf Hitler whose bitterness and amoral killing instincts were first inflamed in the fire-rain of this war. The lost war gave him a mission and a once-in-a-lifetime chance fuelled by the frustration of millions of Germans in the vacuum afterwards. WW I also led to the October revolution in Russia, led by Lenin and later to the Cold War between the East and the West, which lasted until 1989. Like a domino effect, the Great War played out its negative dynamic for over 75 years to come. It gave birth to the destruction of Old Europe and the rise of the Nazi and Communist totalitarian dictatorships between 1918 and 1945 that resulted in the death of more than 50 million people in World War II and internal terror.

But on the Christmas Eve of December 24th, 1914, something happened which has never ever happened before: the German soldiers started – out of the blue – a grassroots movement for peace and a spontaneous cease-fire. On the frontline, they wanted to end fighting for the Christmas days and celebrate Peace on Earth.

At the beginning, the German star-journalist Michael Juergs writes in his new book (“Der Kleine Frieden im Großen Krieg,” Random House), German infantrymen in Belgium started to sing their favorite Christmas songs “Stille Nacht, Heilige Nacht” (Silent Night, Holy Night) and “Oh Tannenbaum” (“Oh Christmas Tree”). On the other side, only 100 meters away, the British and French soldiers started to applaud and shouted: “Good, old Fritz”, “Encore, Encore” and “More, More.” The Germans answered, “Merry Christmas, Englishmen” and “ We not shoot, you not shoot!” They put candles on their rifles and held them in the air to show them to the other side. Some built up Christmas trees with candles like in the living rooms at home.

The English were first suspicious about these acts of peace from the hated “ Huns”, “Barbarians” and “Krauts.” Was this a perverse dirty trick on Christmas?
No, not at all.

It was the mood of the German ordinary soldier who, instead of the expected “War Game,” a kind of “Gentleman’s Hunting event “or “Picknick in Arms” for some adventuroius weeks, was about to be killed and kill himself, living under the earth in mud with rats and the fate of an exploding grenade just a few feet or seconds away. It was not a heroic fight of the best, but brutal war machinery.

So this Christmas, a peace movement spread like a fire of candles from Belgium to France with thousands of men participating. In some places it went even further to bring together the Krauts with the Tommys and Jacques.

At the Yser canal, German soldiers stood up and just walked to the British troops shouting “Comrades, don’t shoot!” The Brits raised and walked to the Germans, they shook hands and smiled at each other.

The 16th and 17th Regiments from Bavaria had organized a cease-fire near the destroyed city of Messines to bury their dead. The 20th Bavarian Regiment fraternized with the French of the 99th Infantry Regiment.

The Saxonian Regiments (near Ploegsteet-Wald, Wulverge, Frelinghien) also made peace with their enemies.

The 14th Warshire Regiment, stationed behind St. Yvon, documented the Christmas surprise in its “War Diary.” A German soldier shouted: “Come over here, Warwicks!” Then he marched to the English trench. A Warshire rifleman came out to meet him half way, both without weapons. Were they brave or mentally ill? Suddenly, many more men came out of the trenches to join them. The German soldiers gave the English some of their Christmas presents like hard wurst; the British handed out their Princess-Mary Boxes, Bully Beef and chocolate. This lasted from 8pm in the evening until noon the next day - a Christmas peace on the battlefield.

The Commander of the 6th company of the 179th Royal Saxonian Regiment saw the Englishmen coming out of their trenches, waving and shouting “Merry Christmas!” He commanded: “No shooting!” and marched to the British officer. They wished themselves a Happy Christmas. Then they agreed on a local cease-fire for Christmas. Some soldiers even organized barbeques and soccer games together.

After Christmas was over, the fights started again and led to the decline of Europe and the deaths of more and more young people.

jonniebgood1 · 18-12-2010 3:01pm

To follow up on my earlier comment regarding football matches between opposing sides during the Christmas truce, there are various sources with different descriptions of this. This would suggest that it was not a one off happening, but rather a re-occuring event. See this extract from a German soldiers letter home regarding the football match he bore witness to:

Lieutenant Johannes Niemann, 133rd Royal Saxon Regiment

"We came up to take over the trenches on the front between Frelinghien and Houplines, where our Regiment and
the Scottish Seaforth Highlanders were face to face. It was a cold, starry night and the Scots were a hundred or
so metres in front of us in their trenches where, as we discovered, like us they were up to their knees in mud.
My Company Commander and I, savouring the unaccustomed calm, sat with our orderlies round a Christmas tree
we had put up in our dugout.

Suddenly, for no apparent reason, our enemies began to fire on our lines. Our soldiers had hung little Christmas trees
covered with candles above the trenches and our enemies, seeing the lights, thought we were about to launch a surprise
attack. But, by midnight it was calm once more.

Next morning the mist was slow to clear and suddenly my orderly threw himself into my dugout to say that both the
German and Scottish soldiers had come out of their trenches and were fraternising along the front. I grabbed my binoculars
and looking cautiously over the parapet saw the incredible sight of our soldiers exchanging cigarettes, schnapps and
chocolate with the enemy. Later a Scottish soldier appeared with a football which seemed to come from nowhere and a
few minutes later a real football match got underway. The Scots marked their goal mouth with their strange caps and we
did the same with ours. It was far from easy to play on the frozen ground, but we continued, keeping rigorously to the rules,
despite the fact that it only lasted an hour and that we had no referee. A great many of the passes went wide, but all the
amateur footballers, although they must have been very tired, played with huge enthusiasm.

Us Germans really roared when a gust of wind revealed that the Scots wore no drawers under their kilts - and hooted and
whistled every time they caught an impudent glimpse of one posterior belonging to one of "yesterday's enemies.
" But after an hour's play, when our Commanding Officer heard about it, he sent an order that we must put a stop to it.
A little later we drifted back to our trenches and the fraternization ended.

The game finished with a score of three goals to two in favour of Fritz against Tommy."

Also see this great image (I hope its not posed):

This type of fraternising with enemy was frowned upon by the hierarchy:

Directive sent by Brigadier General G.T. Forrestier-Walker

"For it discourages initiative in commanders, and destroys offensive spirit in all ranks. . . .
Friendly intercourse with the enemy, unofficial armistices and exchange of tobacco and other comforts,
however tempting and occasionally amusing they may be, are absolutely prohibited."

jonniebgood1 · 18-12-2010 8:51pm

The Christmas truce was not just a feature of WWI. Other wars also saw Christmas marked with truces between wartime adveraries.

In the Peninsula War British and French Troops at times visited each others lines, drew water at the same wells and even sat around the same campfire sharing their rations and playing cards.

In the Crimean War British, French and Russians at quiet times also gathered around the same fire, smoking and drinking. In the American Civil War Yankees and Rebels traded tobacco, coffee and newspapers, fished peacefully on opposite sides of the same stream and even collected wild blackberries together. Similar stories are told of the Boer War, in which on one occasion, during a conference of commanders, the rank and file of both sides engaged in a friendly game of football.

Later wars too have their small crop of such stories. It is rare for a conflict at close quarters to continue very long without some generous gestures between enemies or an upsurge in the 'live and let live' spirit. So the Christmas truce of 1914 does not stand alone; on the other hand it is undoubtedly the greatest example of its kind.

http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/special_report/1998/10/98/world_war_i/197627.stm

fontanalis · 18-12-2010 9:21pm

A film was made recently about the WW1 truce.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=NXcseNVZGRM

jonniebgood1 · 20-12-2010 8:46pm

Does anybody know of any WWII Christmas events. I have got some first hand accounts that are interesting but predictable:

-An unknown German soldier

Christmas 1943 was just as harsh and brutal as those previously, but it too provided men with reason for hope, even if for but a short time. The following excerpt is of the experiences of Belgian Wallon volunteer troops on the Eastern Front.
"For Christmas of 1943 each hut had set up a Christmas tree, whitened with cotton wool taken from the medics."

"At the front I had never seen Christmas be anything but sad. Men would drink, sing, joke. For an hour everything was fine. then each would recall Christmas at home: the blushing cheeks, the dazzled children, the tender wife, the sweet songs. Eyes would gaze into the distance with a far-away look, seeing hamlets and rooms once filled with joy. A soldier would leave, and we would find him crying all alone beneath the moon."

"That evening there were fifteen suicides in the division, hearts broken from the strain of so many months of separation and suffering."

I had wanted to visit all our volunteers' bunkers. Amid the snow and the darkness, I made ten kilometers, entering each smokey shelter. Some squads, the young especially, were putting a good face on things and whooping it up, but I found a great many more grave faces than smiling ones. One soldier who could not contain himself (any) longer had thrown himself to the earth and lay sobbing against the ground calling for his parents."

"At exactly midnight, at the moment when those who were still brazening it out had just started to intone 'O Holy Night' the sky burst into flames: it wasn't the Herald Angels, nor the trumpets of Bethlehem. It was an attack! The Reds, thinking that by this time our men would be under the table, had opened fire with all their artillery and were hastening to the combat."

"In fact, this was a relief. We leaped up. And in the snow illuminated by shells, by tracer bullets, by the flash of cannon fire, by the red, green and white flares of the signalers, we spent our Christmas Eve preventing a raging enemy from crossing the Olshanka River."

"A dawn the firing let up. Our chaplain gave Communion to the troops, who went up from their positions, squad by squad, to the Orthodox chapel where are Walloon priest dressed in Feldgrau joined in a truely Christian fashion with the old Russian village priest in his purple miter."

"There sad and bitter hearts were soothed. Their parents, wives, and beloved children had heard the same Mass back home and received the same Eucharist. The soldiers went back down with simple souls, pure as the great white steppe which glistened in the Christmas afternoon."

-Commander, Sturmbrigade Wallonien:
The final Christmas of WWII in Europe, Christmas 1944, was nothing to celebrate for most Germans. The Eastern and Western Fronts were quickly crumbling, millions of German men and woman had been thus far killed, hundreds of thousands of Germans were without homes and loved ones, the air campaign against the homeland had left many cities devastated and crippled - to say nothing about the unfortunate German troops awaiting the next Soviet onslaught along the Eastern Front, or those troops sent forward into the Ardennes region in the last-ditch "Battle of the Bulge" which saw American and German troops fighting bitterly without rest on Christmas day. The War virtually lost, Christmas came and went, leaving behind 6 long years of bitter warfare and conquest.

jonniebgood1 · 22-12-2010 10:02pm

Some inerteresting Christmas cards from world war 2
6830690.a81677ac.560.jpg

And propaganda cards dropped by germans on British army positions for christmas:

link to story http://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/newstopics/world-war-2/8115580/Nazi-calling-cards-propaganda-leaflets-warning-of-wayward-wives-to-be-sold.html

jonniebgood1 · 27-12-2010 12:46am

Now that Christmas day is over I wonder, how did they break the ice in 1914 after the 25th to begin the process of 'war' after sharing the christmas spirit between each other. this link shows several different ways that this was done:

IF initiating a truce in the middle of wartorn France seemed impossible then ending it was to prove even harder. On some parts of the Western Front the time limit and rules of a truce seem to have been clearly defined. For example:

Sergt W. Blundell, of the 1st Beds Regiment said: "They asked us not to fire that day and said they would not; and no firing was done until next day and then we were fighting for all we were worth." (The Bedfordshire Times and Independent of January 8, 1915)

And more poignantly, Lance-Corpl, Henderson, of the Royal Engineers:

"The alarm went about midnight, and we stood up till daybreak, when we found that our pals of the previous two days had tried to rush our position, but they got cut up as usual, and I believe the next morning the ground where we had been so chummy, and where Germans had wished us a merry Christmas, was now covered with their dead." (The Hampshire Chronicle of January 30, 1915)

But in other places the soldiers seemed reluctant to begin shooting at the very people they had been sharing jokes with just a few hours earlier.

Company-Sergeant Major Frank Naden of the 6th Cheshire Territorials: "Next day we got an order that all communication and friendly intercourse with the enemey must cease but we did not fire at all that day, and the Germans did not fire at us." (Evening Mail (Newcastle) January 31, 1914)

And the Manchester Guardian's Paris Correspondent wrote on January 6, 1915: "The sequel was more interesting than the event itself. The French and German soldiers who had thus fraternised subsequently refused to fire on one another and had to be removed from the trenches and replaced by other men."

It's easy to understand that either side would want to record the first kill after the truce and there are reports of Germans warning Allied soldiers to 'keep their heads down' because a visiting senior officer meant they would have to start firing again. But while the truce may have extended or been repeated until New Year's Eve, it's clear that most soldiers were reporting 'business as usual' by early January. There is no such widespread repetition in 1915 or the following years.

http://www.christmastruce.co.uk/article.html

The fact that battalions had to be changed following the truce to get them to fight is fascinating. It can be taken IMO as proof of the folly of war that both sides felt they should not like to be the first to inflict casualties on the opposite side after the truce. This was broken on the orders of the few (visiting officers). I will try and find more sources to expand on these highlighted issues relating to ending the truce.

Capt'n Midnight · 27-12-2010 1:41am

I've heard of deals done between troops in quite areas where they would only attack/shell each other when the top brass cane to inspect. No sense in getting yourself killed for nothing.

I suspect the christmas ceasefires are part of this tradition

Also lots of attacks have been launched on holidays so no guarantee that the bods on the ground would be able to comply

CDfm · 27-12-2010 4:13pm

Great thread Johnnie - I just wonder does anyone know who the german soldier with the tree and lantern was and what happened to him.

loldog · 27-12-2010 4:26pm

Capt'n Midnight wrote: »

I've heard of deals done between troops in quite areas where they would only attack/shell each other when the top brass cane to inspect. No sense in getting yourself killed for nothing.

Makes me think it's a social class idea. The infantry probably saw they had more in common with their adversaries than their own commissioned officers.

.

CDfm · 27-12-2010 4:27pm

I came accross this looking for the german soldiers name

The Black Country Grenadier‎ > ‎
Christmas Truce
During Christmas 1914 Harry Hackett, 1st Battalion Grenadier Guards was in the trenches in Flanders and he sent a postcard home to his beloved Olive recording this unique event. It's postmarked by the Army Post Office as 9th January 1915 and it records a unique historical event which over time has come to be known as "The Christmas Truce". The postcard explains all really but to add it's very clear that Harry 'was there and involved in the fraternization, it's also key to note that he had the presence of mind to actually record the name's of two German soldiers that he must have met and spent time with in the killing field known as 'No Man's Land". The names can be seen on the right of the card and you van make out Rudolf Mausolff of Bad Pyrmont (which is in Lower Saxony south of Hanover) however the second name which looks like "Ernst ..." is less visible due to the post office stamp.

The postcard reads:

Dear O, I am sending you this postcard with two of the

German soldiers addresses on, which I got on Boxing Day.

I suppose you saw in the papers about us going across, out

of the trenches and having a word or two together. Hope

you are well as it leaves me at present.
With Love, from Harry.

The postcard also records the names of the two soldiers, this is what we can make out:

Rudolf Mausolff
Bad Pyrmont
..............
Ernst.........
Bielfelt

CAN YOU HELP ME?

GERMAN SOLDIER NAME 1 : RUDOLF MAUSOLFF

I'm currently trying to find out as much as possible about RUDOLF MAUSOLFF who appears at the top of the postcard. So far I've found a WW1 monument with his name on stated as R. MAUSOLFF in Bad Pyrmont, Germany which is the same town stated on the post card.

To see information on a German website regarding the monument click here. Note the name on the monument is stated as R. MAUSOLFF who died on 16 May 1915. If anyone has any further information it would be much appreciated as it would be great to trace the soldiers family and maybe even make contact with them. He is also listed as "Gefr." the abbreviation for "Gefreiter" which is comparable to a British Lance Corporal.

I think the word underneath Bad Pyrmont may be in brackets and looks like it ends in "...ldark".

GERMAN SOLDIER NAME 2 : ERNST...........

The second name looks like "Ernst ...dorf" and the word under Ernst looks like "Bielefelt". Note a place called Bielefeld is only an hour from Bad Pyrmont. So far, that's all I've managed to find as it's proven difficult to decipher the writing especially as it's obscured by the postmark.

Location of Harry at the time of the truce?

Unsure exactly where he'd be however the 7th Division, 20th Brigade were at Bois Grenier, La Boutillerie and on the Fromelles road.

The nearest German Division to them was the 13th Division, at Fromelles and on Rue des Bois Blancs. This would have included:

25th Brigade 158th Infantry Regiment, 13th Infantry Regiment and 11th Jaeger Battalion
26th Brigade, 55th Infantry Regiment and 15th Infantry Regiment

Many thanks to the Chambers family for providing the information regarding the postcard. It's truly a unique piece of history.

http://sites.google.com/site/andyr46/home/the-christmas-truce-1914

And

In areas German soldiers invited 'Tommy' to step across No Man's Land and to pay a visit to the same German opponents they had been so wrapped up in killing but a few hours earlier.

Edward Hulse, a 25-year old lieutenant in the Scots Guards, wrote in his battalion's war history:

"We got into conversation with the Germans who were anxious to arrange an Armistice during Xmas.* A scout named F. Murker went out and met a German Patrol and was given a glass of whisky and some cigars, and a message was sent back saying that if we didn't fire at them they would not fire at us."

And here another guy is named

According to previously unseen letters and diaries sent home by Germans from the trenches, many of the passes went wildly astray and shot off the icy pitch. The soldiers used sticks of wood, their caps and steel helmets as goalposts. The games lasted about an hour. The sleep-deprived players then collapsed, exhausted.

The book, by the German author Michael Jurgs, is the first to be written from a German perspective about the impromptu Christmas ceasefire that spread across the western front - in defiance of official orders and to the horror of the British high command - some five months after the outbreak of war.

It includes extracts from an extra-ordinary diary by a German lieutenant, Kurt Zehmisch, discovered four years ago in an attic near Leipzig. Zehmisch was a schoolteacher who spoke English and French. He describes how, on Christmas Eve, the shooting suddenly stopped. His Saxon regiment then blew a whistle on two fingers. The English immediately whistled back.

"Soldier Mockel from my company, who had lived in England for many years, called to the British in English, and soon a lively conversation developed between us."

A couple of soldiers from each side then climbed out of their trenches, shook hands in no man's land, and wished each other a merry Christmas. They agreed not to shoot the following day.

http://www.ww2f.com/wwii-today/11164-new-light-christmas-truce-1914-a.html

jonniebgood1 · 27-12-2010 10:06pm

I have been trying to find evidence of where the truce may have went wrong, i.e. accidental shootings, taking prisoners etc. I also am interested if anyone has any sources related to Irish involvement in the Truce of 1914???

These 2 are both referenced in pages 50 & 51 & 52 of this book link http://books.google.ie/books?id=yhVrS4iMsiIC&pg=PA52&lpg=PA52&dq=irish+soldiers+christmas+truce&source=bl&ots=BCnWnpv2DL&sig=7C6SFdpNUZU1XRnnUQgRY-K43Os&hl=en&ei=PtYYTc2dLZKbhQfA6Ki3Dg&sa=X&oi=book_result&ct=result&resnum=5&ved=0CDsQ6AEwBA#v=onepage&q=irish%20soldiers%20christmas%20truce&f=false
Furthermore there is also an interesting idea that links those battalions that took part in the truce with future indiscipline.

War or peace at Christmas

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