The Christmas Truce of 1914

At Christmastime in 1914, months after World War I began, hundreds of soldiers in Flanders spontaneously stopped fighting one another, left their trenches, and shook hands in no man’s land. For several days, even weeks, British and German soldiers barely fired a shot, helped bury one another’s dead, and even played soccer together.

One interpretation of the unofficial truce was that the men in the trenches, in defiance of commanders and politicians safely behind the lines, refused to hate their enemies and had no wish to fight them. But how accurate is this characterization? Join historian and battlefield guide Simon Jones as he tells the story of what really happened in Flanders during the Christmas season in 1914.

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