The famous Christmas Truce 1914

Mossie · **Posted:** Thu Dec 25, 2014 4:46 am

This advert has received a lot of praise in the UK at the moment.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=NWF2JBb1bvM

Richard W. · **Posted:** Fri Dec 26, 2014 8:45 am

That is marvelous. Thanks for the link.

Pat Carry · **Posted:** Fri Dec 26, 2014 9:32 am

that is pretty darn awesome.

Mike · **Joined:** Tue May 04, 2004 8:54 am **Posts:** 3331

And Sainsbury's have sold a lot of chocolate because of it. A LOT of chocolate!

p51 · **Posted:** Sat Dec 27, 2014 6:38 pm

I always liked this: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=J7ErrZ-ipoE
I talked to a WW1 vet in the 1980s who swore he'd been there. He said it wasn't an actual soccer game at all in his sector, just kicking a ball around and the soldiers trying to talk with one another.

Jesse C. · **Posted:** Sat Dec 27, 2014 6:41 pm

http://www.cbsnews.com/news/the-world-w ... mas-truce/

Invader26 · **Joined:** Wed Aug 11, 2010 7:56 am **Posts:** 843

Quote:

I talked to a WW1 vet in the 1980s who swore he'd been there. He said it wasn't an actual soccer game at all in his sector, just kicking a ball around and the soldiers trying to talk with one another.

I take it he was English as the US didn't turn up for the soccer wars until 1917 three years after kick-off....

No Canadians in the Xmas "games" either..http://www.veterans.gc.ca/eng/remembran ... truce-1914

p51 · **Posted:** Mon Dec 29, 2014 1:59 am

Invader26 wrote:

I take it he was English as the US didn't turn up for the soccer wars until 1917 three years after kick-off....

He was, indeed. It was a very long time ago, can't recall his unit now but he was a British soldier in 1014 in France.

Mossie · **Posted:** Mon Dec 29, 2014 4:40 pm

1914 was the only time that this sort of thing could happen. Not long after, the Lucitania had been torpedoed , gas attacks, the Somme, Paschendale etc. meant there would be no further acts of goodwill towards men !

p51 · **Posted:** Mon Dec 29, 2014 5:45 pm

Mossie wrote:

1914 was the only time that this sort of thing could happen. Not long after, the Lucitania had been torpedoed , gas attacks, the Somme, Paschendale etc. meant there would be no further acts of goodwill towards men !

Not in groups, but there are countless stories of individuals or small groups meeting in no man's land without fighting.
I also talked to a US WW1 vet many moons ago and he told me of him and a pal of his stuck in no man's land during an attack and following counterattack, and sharing a shell crater with three Germans. Neither fought the other. I don't recall him saying that any of them spoke with other's language but that they all held their rifles by the barrel and moved their trigger hands well away from the actions to show no intent. After some time had passed, they all slinked back to their own lines.
Bet that kind of thing happened a lot.

I can't be alone with knowing of the story of some GIs and Germans in 1944 during the Bulge, sharing a cabin over Christmas after agreeing the put a hold on fighting...

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The famous Christmas Truce 1914

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