WWII - Playing football on Xmas Day?

[Buttonstoo]

I was watching VH1 and they showed the Paul McCartney Video 'Pipes of Peace'. Is it a myth or did the English and Germans really play football in the trenches on Christmas Day?

[lynneuk74]

It was world war one. And, yes, it definitely happened. WWII wasn't really trench based - only WWI.

[Golden Shred]

The full story can be read at this link

http://www.thesoutherncross.co.za/features/christmas_truce_1914.htm

[david small]

december 1914

[Golem]

Would highly recommend a children's book called War Game by Michael Foreman published by Puffin that describes this exact event.

Can be read in an hour or so, but contains a depth of emotion that has stayed with me for the 10 years since I first read it.

[kempie]

The film Joyeux No�l has just been released in the UK and is based on these events.

http://uk.imdb.com/title/tt0424205/

[kempie]

*oops - retitled Merry Christmas for its UK release.

[stanleyman]

Just read a book about the trenches called Trench Warefare 1914-1918 The Live and Let Live System. A bit heavy going but basicly it is about how in the early part of the war they left each other alone but if they had to, they never opened fire at meal or change over times and also sang and talked to each other in places. later on it was frowned upon to fratenise with the enemy and efforts were made to make them more agressive to them by high command. Things changed when they used tricks like playing bands in the trenches to trick the Germans into the open before attacking them.

[NiceCupOfTea]

Stanleyman - that book sounds amazing. I know they used to have and follow a sort of 'polite code of war' - sickly ironic though that sounds. Also, I'm sure I've read that during the Boer war the English (wearing their peacock coloured uniforms) complained about the enemies' 'camouflage' being just not cricket.

[jno]

the last survivor just died; see here

[Peter Pedant]

While it occurred, the problem is the baggage that occurred in the mean time. (Second world war)

In the fifties and sixties this was played down, and air time given to the officers who were threatening to shoot the troops who fraternised....I think the time they sort of got together was over a limited front for not more than two hours.

Now that the Germans are good whereas previously they were bad, it means that time is dilated.

As for the Boer War, again, I remember a black and white documentary by a rather outre historian - Llewellyn Griffiths (anyway a very welsh name) who was interviewing Boer Dutch veterans. They were very keen (as eventual losers) to bad mouth the British - and don't forget concentration camps ! - Objectively 90 -98% of the bullet injuries were to the head as the British squaddies could not be stopped from peering over rocks.

[keza_91]

Yep its definatley true!!!!!!!!!

[keza_91]

yep it definatley happened!

[Grafixboy]

It is a true fact that the british and german front line soldiers threw xmas presents to each other on xmas day, now think about the movies and how far no-mans land stretches for and now work out how far a normal man could throw a tin of beef or a bottle of whisky and you realise that the front lines were a lot closer than most people believe. I also think that the germans won the football match 3-1. After the truce none of the frontline troops on both sides wanted to continue fighting and it was the british commanding officers who forced the fighting to continue when they went to the front lines to find out why the hell no-one was killing each other