Here it is again – a suspicious noise from the other side of no man’s land, where the
Germans are crouched in their trenches waiting to take you down at the first opportunity.
Although you’re used to hearing gunfire and shooting on a daily basis, it never gets
easier.
As soon as you hear a loud noise, your heart pounds and you’re overcome with nausea.
Today is no exception.
For a while this evening, everything has been eerily quiet.
It might be nighttime, but everyone knows that’s when a trench attack is most likely
to be successful – you can’t afford to get complacent.
So, hearing a strange sound after hours of silence has spooked you.
Everyone around you is crouched in silence and on high alert, trying to figure out what’s
going on.
You’re in the wet, muddy ground of a trench near Belgium, breathing in a foul odor that
smells like a mix of cigarettes, stale food, and disease.
The dampness is so familiar now that you’ve almost forgotten what it felt like to be dry.
As for the smell, you try not to think about what could cause such a horrific odor – but
knowing how many men have fallen ill since you’ve been here, it’s not hard to guess.
There it comes again – that noise in the distance.
But for once, it doesn’t sound like shooting, gunfire, or even angry screaming.
It might sound crazy, but it sounds more like… singing.
You glance around at your companions, and they look equally confused.
You manage to make out two words: Stille Nacht.
The classic carol Silent Night sang in its original German.
You’re stunned.
Your superiors had told everyone not to shoot unless they were shot at now that it was Christmas
time, but you hadn’t dared to hope that the other side would reciprocate this initiative
– never mind start singing.
The far-off carols might have been a nice, innocent sound once upon a time, but now you
can’t help but feel suspicious.
You were at war, after all.
Was this some kind of weird trap?
It’s 1914, and you’ve been fighting in World War I for four months already.
You’d expected to be back with your family in Britain by now – everyone had – but
here you are.
Lying in a damp trench by Belgium on Christmas eve.
When the singing didn’t subdue after a few minutes, you could feel the tension in the
air begin to lift.
A look of sadness and nostalgia was starting to appear on the faces of some of your companions.
But you weren’t prepared to slip into a sense of security that easily.
Then, much to your horror, some men started joining in, singing the same songs and carols
but in English.
It would almost be cute – if it wasn’t for the thought in the back of your mind that
this would be a great time to attack this trench.
You hissed at them to be quiet, but nobody ever paid much attention to a low-level soldier
like you.
Well, you might not be able to stop this foolery, but at least you could remain on high alert
to protect these idiots when their illusion was cruelly shattered.
You refused to join in, giving everyone the evils and trying to keep your eyes and ears
open.
But minutes passed, then hours passed, and still, the singing continued.
Some guys said they could see lights on the other side of No Man’s Land, claiming the
Germans had climbed out their trenches and were making merry out in the open.
You roll your eyes – surely not?
And you certainly weren’t peering outside to take a look.
Still, by the end of the evening, it had become clear there would be no fighting tonight.
You even joined in with a few of the last carols, much to the delight of your companions,
who cheered you on.
There was magic in the air, as you saw many of your friends smile for the first time in
days and you almost forgot how horrible the mud felt beneath your legs.
But it also felt dangerously fragile.
As you fell asleep that night in exhaustion, you couldn’t help but wonder what would
be in store for you tomorrow.
Christmas Day.
Surely, this couldn’t continue?
The Christmas truce took place in the first year of World War One, in 1914.
Interestingly, it was never officially mandated.
Earlier in December, the Pope had suggested a ceasefire over the Christmas period in the
hope that it would lead to everlasting peace, but the idea was shot down by the powers that
be.
High-ranking generals and governments had no appetite for a truce or peace.
But clearly, the soldiers themselves had other ideas.
The truce began during the night on Christmas Eve, the most important time to celebrate
Christmas for Germans.
It mostly seemed to happen spontaneously and at a grassroots level – various British
soldiers later reported suddenly hearing carol singing instead of gunfire and mostly decided
to reciprocate.
Just like that, the fighting stopped.
Most soldiers had signed up for the Great War under false illusions that the fighting
would be over by Christmas, when they’d be home with their families to celebrate.
Obviously, that’s not quite how events unfolded – the war ended up lasting more than four
years.
It became apparent within a few months that this tight deadline probably wasn’t going
to be met.
Before Christmas, thousands of soldiers had already died yet neither side was close to
winning.
To make matters worse, it had also been raining a lot, which is the last thing you want when
you’re living in a trench on the ground.
Basically, these guys were in desperate need of a vacation.
But obviously, a vacation wasn’t exactly on the cards, so they had to make do with
a spot of carol singing instead.
The German emperor had also sent a few Christmas trees to the front lines to boost morale,
so that was a nice touch.
However, not all the soldiers fighting in the first world war were lucky enough to enjoy
a Christmas truce.
It might have been a miracle for peace to spontaneously arise against formal commands,
but not so much of a miracle that it spontaneously arose in every single territory.
The ceasefire mostly took place along the Western Front, the major frontline of the
war near Belgium that spanned 48 kilometers.
If you were deployed in France or the Eastern Front, then tough luck – it was business
as usual.
But that’s still an estimated 100,000 soldiers that took part.
What exactly did they do on the main day of this unprecedented ceasefire?
You woke up in the morning to the sound you’d been dreading.
An unfamiliar voice shouting in an unfamiliar language from outside the trench.
Goosebumps ran up your arms and you switched into high alert mode.
It was almost certainly a German, and that was almost certainly not a good thing.
At first, you couldn’t understand what the man was saying and assumed he was speaking
to you in German, but when you listened more closely, you could make out the words.
It’s just that it wasn’t what you were expecting to hear at all.
He seemed to be saying that you should come with him – that he wouldn’t shoot you
if you didn’t shoot him.
At first, you were wary, and opted to stay back in the trenches.
Just because nothing went wrong last night, it didn’t mean nothing would go wrong today
– maybe it was all an elaborate plan to give you a false sense of security.
But as man after man joined the Germans, you began to doubt your suspicions.
Nobody was shooting.
Nobody was fighting.
Maybe this wasn’t a trap after all.
Maybe there actually was going to be peace, just for Christmas Day.
You tentatively began to leave the trench, and already you could see Germans shaking
hands with Allied soldiers all along No Man’s Land.
You could scarcely believe it.
You glanced at a few Germans who were grouped together suspiciously close by your trench,
but they waved their weaponless hands in the air to show you they meant no harm.
You nodded at them awkwardly.
As if last night wasn’t surreal enough, it now seemed like everyone wanted to pretend
they were best friends.
As you stood in disbelief, a German soldier approached you and held out a cigarette.
You automatically shook your head and took a state back – more because you were in
a state of shock than anything else.
It was only when he walked away from you that you realized he’d been offering you a cigarette.
Maybe these Germans weren’t so bad after all…
Then, one of the guys from your trench called you over from behind.
He and two other British soldiers were sharing plum pudding with a few of the Germans.
You shook hands with them one by one and settled down on to the grass.
As the day went on, the festivities increased.
After you’d all eaten your fair share of plum pudding, sausage, and more, one of the
soldiers went to the trench and returned with a tin can.
At first, you assumed it was more food, but instead, the man kicked the empty can as if
it were a ball.
A few of the other men began to join in, standing up and kicking the can around playfully.
Feeling bad for being so suspicious earlier, you decided to join them, and motioned for
your new German friends to come too.
They shared a quick look amongst themselves, shrugged, and accepted your invitation.
Before long, there were dozens of men from both sides of the frontline playing an informal
game of soccer, with the goalposts marked by caps and no clear teams.
In the context of the world you’d come to know over the last few months, it made no
sense at all.
Yet if you went back to just a few weeks before the war, it would have been completely normal.
A few men kicking a ball around together – it was the most natural thing in the world.
That night, some German soldiers turned up with rolled barrels of beers they said they’d
taken from a brewery nearby, and you spent the night drinking together as if there wasn’t
a war at all.
As you sat down in the ground, the familiar feeling of the alcohol coursing through your
body you heard a sudden noise in the distance.
A gunshot.
Everyone froze.
And then, a few seconds later, another one.
Just like that, the atmosphere changed, and you realized everyone was probably thinking
the same thing.
The shot sounded distant enough to not be any immediate danger to you, but it served
as a stark reminder that Christmas day was coming to an end, and all this would suddenly
be over.
What now?
What would happen tomorrow?
The Christmas truce was only made possible by the astonishing level of communication
between the two sides, which was mostly thanks to the German troops.
Many Germans had worked in Britain before the war and had some knowledge of the language,
allowing them to initiate the ceasefire.
Since it was the Germans winning the war at that point, it also made sense for them to
be the initiators – they had more to lose from taking such a huge risk.
But it wasn’t all fun and games.
Whilst some soldiers went around smoking and playing soccer, others took the opportunity
to honor the dead.
Abandoned bodies had been lying around for weeks on no man’s land, with no one able
to retrieve them without risking their lives.
The ceasefire offered the chance to finally carry out ceremonies and bury bodies.
Others took advantage of the opportunity for a touch of home improvement.
Thanks to the terrible weather, the trenches were overridden with mud and diseases, but
the truce made it possible to slightly improve this grim situation.
Naturally, not everyone approved of the ceasefire.
Amongst them was none other than Adolf Hitler, who proclaimed those who took part had no
German honor.
Many of the highest-ranking generals also disapproved, as they hadn’t sanctioned the
move and were worried it could lose them the war.
A few unfortunate men died the day of the ceasefire, killed by those who decided to
shoot instead of observing peace.
Most people look back on the Christmas Truce as being a day of universal peace, but this
doesn’t tell the whole story.
It was also a day when many soldiers realized how different they were from their superiors,
who didn’t want peace at all.
If it wasn’t for their commands, the war might have ended that very day instead of
years down the line.
You woke up the next day in much the same way as you had every other day for the last
four months except tomorrow: to gunshots and firing.
Normality returned as quickly as it had vanished.
If it wasn’t for the after-effects of the alcohol and the improvement of the trenches
visibly in place, you’d scarcely have believed that yesterday was real.
Immediately your body sprung into high alert mode, as if nothing had changed.
Apparently, the top commanders had mandated that a ceasefire would never take place again.
There were your New Year’s plans out the window.
A couple of days ago you would have felt relieved to know that reckless behavior was being quelled,
but now you couldn’t help but feel a little confused.
It made you think about who the enemy really was – surely not those normal men who shared
plum pudding with you yesterday?
To learn more about the world wars, check out our videos about whether we’re on the
way to another world war and a bear who fought alongside soldiers in the second world war.