The Greatest Christmas Truce
Score one for humanity!

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The words drifted across the frozen battlefield: “Stille Nacht. Heilige Nacht. Alles Schlaft, einsam wacht.” To the ears of the British troops peering over their trench, the lyrics may have been unfamiliar but the haunting ‘Silent Night’ tune was unmistakable. After the last note a lone German infantryman appeared holding a small tree glowing with light. “Merry Christmas. We not shoot, you not shoot.”

Just after dawn on a bitingly cold Christmas Day in 1914, ninety nine years ago, one of the most extraordinary incidents of the Great War was about to unfold.

Weary men climbed hesitantly at first out of trenches and stumbled into no man’s land. They shook hands, sang carols, lit each other’s cigarettes, swapped tunic buttons and addresses and, most famously, played football, kicking around empty bully-beef cans and using their caps or steel helmets as goalposts. The unauthorized Christmas truce spread across much of the 500-mile Western Front where more than a million men were encamped.
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Posted Dec 2013

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