Spanning 1914 to 1918, the First World War was a devastating watershed for the 20th-century.
Huge armies deployed new weapons to devastating effect. Empires crumbled, revolution engulfed
Russia and America rose to become a dominant world power. By the war’s end, an estimated
16 million soldiers and civilians had died, with countless others physically and psychologically
wounded. Its shadow looms large to this day. But there are a few moments of hope that shine
out from those dark days, none more so than the Christmas Day Truce of 1914.
There are examples of similar, smaller cease-fires in earlier conflicts dating back to the American
Civil War, but nothing before nor since matched the scale of the Christmas Truces. Sworn enemies
putting down their weapons to exchange gifts and have a friendly kick-about... but what
really happened that day, and how did it come about?
The First World War was a global conflict fought on many fronts (across eastern and
southern europe, Africa and the middle east), but is typified in the consciousness as the
Western Front and trench warfare. It was these very particular, grim, monotonous and muddy
circumstances that set the stage for one of the most unlikely of war-time interludes.
The heavy firepower and early heavy casualties of fighting along this front led to soldiers
digging in positions to protect themselves from the sustained volley of bullets. The
entrenched positions led to stalemate, with artillery and explosives developed to blast
the enemy from their positions. By the time winter approached in 1914, it
was still early in the war, but it had been suitably gruelling for each side to bed in
to their trenches for the winter. Many had expected a swift victory, instead the war
had become a miserable grind; long days with not very much happening. Countless soldiers
were living in misery in the trenches on the fronts, while tens of thousands had already
died.
Then Christmas Eve came and a chance to break the monotony.
Grimly holding position in their trenches, each side was low in morale but the festive
spirit had been kindled with gifts sent from back home such as chocolates and cigarettes.
the Germans started singing ‘Stille Nacht’. The Allies may not have recognised the words,
but they knew the tune: Silent Night.
The British troops joined in... and soon, tentatively they were meeting and exchanging
greetings in no man’s land. The pause in fighting allowed each side to bury their dead,
share a moment of empathy in all the misery and madness.
Good faith established and a willingness to share a moment of peace, Christmas Day 1914
saw small pockets of French, German, Belgian and British troops held impromptu cease-fires
across the Western Front, with reports of some on the Eastern Front as well.
The men exchanged gifts, chatted, and most iconically, had a game of football.
One British fighter named Ernie Williams recalls the moment: “The ball appeared from somewhere,
I don't know where... They made up some goals and one fellow went in goal and then it was
just a general kick-about. I should think there were about a couple of hundred taking
part.”
German Lieutenant Kurt Zehmisch of the 134 Saxons Infantry, a schoolteacher describes
the game in his diary. “Eventually the English brought a soccer ball from their trenches,
and pretty soon a lively game ensued. How marvellously wonderful, yet how strange it
was. Thus Christmas, the celebration of Love, managed to bring mortal enemies together as
friends for a time.”
The German and British soldiers didn't always have a ball. Instead, they improvised. On
certain sections of the front, soldiers kicked around a lump of straw tied together with
string, or even an empty jam box. According to letters and diaries 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 frequency of these games across the whole
of the Front is logistically questionable. The land between the trenches was often torn
up from gunfire and shrapnel and covered by bodies lying in no-man's land or flung onto
barbed wire. The reports of football matches did not come out of every regiment. Most soldiers
did not report participating in matches. Instead, they met with their enemies in No Man’s
land and traded a variety of goods while attempting to engage in conversation with them.
Military leaders on both sides of the conflict were enraged by the apparent “softening”
of attitudes. But it wasn’t just the generals who put paid to any further men-led truces.
In the war years that followed, British poet Robert Graves, who fought, suggests why the
Truces were never repeated: “Warfare had grown impersonal, the desire to wage it quite
personal”. Today, a memorial stands in England’s National
Memorial Arboretum commemorating the Christmas Truce; it was dedicated by Prince William
of England. On the 100 anniversary in 2014, the English and German national soccer teams
staged a friendly match in England in remembrance of the soldiers’ impromptu football game
in 1914. England won 1-0. As stories go, the Christmas Truce has been
embellished, focusing on the friendly kickabout over the burying of the dead, but stopping
a war to play football is just too enduring an image. It speaks of who we want to be,
it of nostalgia and fair play, of gentleman's agreements... and most importantly, the power
of football to unite people.