15 Dec 2023 Imperial War Museums Newsletter : The real story of the Christmas Truce

What was the real story behind the First World War Christmas Truce? 

The Christmas Truce of 1914 has become a legendary story. So legendary that the event has started to sound farfetched with the passing of time. Did the Christmas Truce really happen? How is it possible that British and German soldiers left their trenches to play football against each other? What is the truth about this moment of peace in a brutal war? 

Late in the day on 24 December 1914, Christmas Eve, the men of the British Expeditionary Force (BEF) heard a rather different noise coming from the German side of the trenches. Instead of bullets and screams, music was reaching them! (Continue reading below)

The German soldiers were singing Christmas carols and patriotic songs. They had lanterns and fir trees decorating their trenches. Messages then began to be shouted between the ditches. According to Marmaduke Leslie Walkinton, of the Queen’s Westminster Rifles, a German soldier eventually said: ‘Tomorrow: you no shoot, we no shoot’. 

The following day, British and German soldiers met in no man’s land. They shook hands, exchanged gifts and took photographs. Some of them played impromptu games of football. To most, it was a surprise to find a football in such a desolated place. The men also buried casualties and repaired dugouts.   

After Boxing Day, however, meetings in no man’s land dwindled out. 

The truce was not a consensus, and it was not observed everywhere on the Western Front and casualties did occur on Christmas Day. Many officers were unhappy with the ceasefire and worried it would undermine fighting spirit. 

As the First Would War progressed, the High Commands on both sides tried to prevent any unofficial truces happening again. Despite this, there were isolated incidents of soldiers holding brief truces after 1914, and not only at Christmas. 

Sometimes, these truces were tacitly agreed. Short pause in hostilities, known as the ‘Live and Let Live’ system, allowed the troops to repair their trenches or gather their dead. (Continue reading below)

British officer John Wedderburn-Maxwell took part in the Christmas Truce and described the event for our podcast, ‘Voices of the First World War’:

‘After the war had recommenced, I went up to see the Lincoln colonel. And there I found the second-in-command and the adjutant sitting down to a jolly good Christmas, which they’d sent across and told me to come and join. And we had roast pheasant. It was wonderful the way they could cook in those trenches on charcoal fires.’ 

The truce offers a romantic image of enemies finding common ground, even when surrounded by widespread destruction. A number of incredible photographers, letters, newspaper articles and interviews are part of IWM’s collections, bearing witness to this key moment in European history. 

A truce like The Christmas Truce would never happen again after 1914. Yet, it was such a unique event that it is embedded in the symbolism of the First World War. See more about what really happened in the trenches in 1914 on our YouTube channel here.