Christmas Day truce of 1914 was not a one-off, unearthed letters reveal

The Christmas Day truce of 1914, when troops from both sides played football in no man’s land, may not have been a one-off, a historian has said.

Soldiers downing weapons after months of trench warfare is one of the most arresting images and famous events of the Great War.

But now Professor Thomas Weber has found evidence of up to 100 similar truces in 1915 alone — most of which were kept secret from the public.

The historian at the University of Aberdeen made the discoveries, which include a Christmas day truce in 1916, while researching soldiers’ accounts to their families for a new book.

He said he came across “a surprising number” of references to truces that “wartime censors, commanding officers and a post-war generation battling with the meaning of the war did not want us to see,” he said.

One example is a truce between German and Canadian troops at Vimy Ridge, northern France, in 1916 — something denied in official records.

One soldier, Ronald MacKinnon, wrote home: “I had quite a good Xmas considering I was in the front line. Xmas eve was pretty stiff, sentry-go up to the hips in mud of course.

MORE: Girl, seven, finds ‘deadly scorpion in supermarket-bought tangerines’
MORE: Drunk student apologises after crashing through a stranger’s garage roof

“We had a truce on Xmas Day and our German friends were quite friendly. They came over to see us and we traded bully beef for cigars.”

Professor Weber said: “It goes against our standard understanding of the war and I was fortunate to be given access to so many private accounts of those who fought in the trenches”.

“It was felt it would not be easy to encourage British soldiers to fight against people with whom you could enjoy a jolly Christmas. They wanted to dehumanise the enemy.”

Professor Weber also discovered another truce between German and British soldiers reportedly took place at Loos, between Arras and Lille, during Christmas 1916.

He found a letter home from Private Arthur Burke to his family in Salford on Christmas Day 1916.

“It got so frequent it had to be stopped and even after our order to quit, two of our boys got 28 days for going out and meeting them half way for a chat,” he wrote of the truces.

“There’s never a rifle or machine gun shot fired by either side for many days, although we got orders to fire we knew it was hopeless to do so – so we didn’t.”