The Rest Is History - 629. WWI: The Christmas Truce

Episode Date: December 25, 2025

Did the Christmas Truce - which saw a number of unofficial ceasefires between the combatants of the First World War, during the Christmas of 1914 - really occur, or has it all a myth? What is the real story behind this legendary event? And, did German and British soldiers really play football across no-man's land? Join Dominic and Tom as they delve into the history behind one of the most famous and moving events of the First World War. _______ Hive. Know your power. Visit https://hivehome.com to find out more. _______ Get our exclusive NordVPN deal here ➼ https://nordvpn.com/restishistory It's risk-free with Nord's 30-day money-back guarantee ✅ _______ Join The Rest Is History Club: Unlock the full experience of the show – with exclusive bonus episodes, ad-free listening, early access to every series and live show tickets, a members-only newsletter, discounted books from the show, and access to our private Discord chatroom. Sign up directly at therestishistory.com _______ For more Goalhanger Podcasts, head to ⁠www.goalhanger.com⁠ _______ Twitter: @TheRestHistory @holland_tom @dcsandbrook Video Editor: Jack Meek Social Producer: Harry Balden Assistant Producer: Aaliyah Akude Producer: Tabby Syrett Senior Producer: Theo Young-Smith Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices

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SEG tariff Dear mother I'm writing from the trenches it is 11 o'clock in the morning beside me is a coke fire opposite me a dug out with straw in it the ground is sloppy in the actual trench

but frozen elsewhere in my mouth is a pipe presented by the princess mary in the pipe is tobacco of course you say but wait in the pipe is german tobacco ha ha you say from a prisoner or found in a captured trench oh dear no from a german soldier yes a live german soldier from his own trench yesterday the british and germans met and shook hands in the ground between the trenches and exchanged souvenirs and shook hands

yes all day Christmas Day and as I write marvellous isn't it so that was the 19 year old Henry Williamson of the London Rifle Brigade writing to his parents in Southeast London on the 26th of December

1914 about the previous day, Christmas Day, 1914. And Dominic, what could possibly be more festive than this topic? You're right, Tom. So he's describing the Christmas truce. And Henry Williamson, some of our listeners may be familiar with that name because he is the author of a book called Tark the Otter, a nature classic that I think was published about a decade after the First World War and has never been out of print since then. A real kind of perennial children's classic.

Right water was the film, isn't it? That's right, yeah, Ring of Bright Water, exactly. So he's describing there a story that I think most people would rank as one of the most poignant of the 20th century. So it's the informal truce between British and German soldiers in no man's land on Christmas Day, 1914. And I think we always imagine it as this sort of precious oasis, this moment of peace amid the slaughter, hope amid the horror. The very best of humanity, Tom, in the grimmest circumstances in human history. And Dominic, your tone, your tone there. I'm fearful of where you may be heading with this festive episode.

Where am I going to take it? I mean, actually, who cares about what I think? Because what people really think when they think about the first world was, what does Paul McCartney think? I tell you what Paul McCartney thinks, he lights a candle to our love. Because in love, our problems disappear. Yeah, of course. And that's from the Pipes of Peace, 1983, which was, I think, a number one in Britain and in Ireland, but not in America, which is sad from the Americans. Well, Paul is playing both a British officer and a German officer on either sides of the trenches, and they get up and they exchange photographs, don't they?

That's right, yeah. And there are some examples. So the Christmas truce often appears in popular culture. So for younger listeners, in Britain, there was a very celebrated ad. an advert for Sainsbury's the supermarket in 2014, which a lot of people may remember. Which was the centenary of it happening. Exactly. And it's one of those ads that kind of went viral and it had the soldiers playing football

between the trenches and will come to this issue whether or not they played football. People who like Doctor Who, the very last Peter Capaldi story, was set in no man's land on Christmas Day. That was on 2017. Again, it was the kind of Christmas truce as the backdrop. And I guess it plays a huge part, a central part actually, in what Michael Goulders. Gove when he was education secretary called the kind of black adder version of the First World War. So this is the idea that basically the war was for nothing. It was a tragic waste.

There were these corrupt, cruel old generals sending young men to die when actually the young men just wanted to shake hands, exchange tobacco. Play football. Play football. Exactly. And Tom, it will astound you. I know you're nervous about where I'm going to take this. I'm not nervous at all. I'm full of festive excitement. It would astound you to hear. I have my suspicions as to where you're going with this. That the reality of the Christmas juice was a bit more complicated. Who knew? So we'll be asking today, did it happen?

Who started it? And why did they start it? What did the ordinary soldiers think about it? Did they really play football between the trenches? And here's the big question. If they could stop on Christmas Day, how is it that they carried on? Why didn't they just shake hands and go home? That is the question that Paul asks in the Pipes of Peace.

Well, Paul, if you're listening, we're going to, answer that question today. Let us set the festive scene. So it's December 1914. The First World War has been going for almost five months, Britain, France and Russia on one side, the Allies or the Entente, and Germany and Austria, Hungary on the other. And people who listened to our series in the summer, that was episodes 594 onwards, will recall that in the sort of late summer in autumn, the Germans launched this huge offensive in the West. They're driven back at the battle of them on, and they end up cutting these trench networks in the chalk, this long defensive line, like a kind of scar through Flanders in Belgium and Eastern France. And they dig deeper and

deeper as the rains come, and they basically dig in for the long haul. And there's constant attempts to break the defences, but by the, let's say, the end of November, 1914, the weather has changed, it's pouring with rain, and the fighting sort of, it doesn't dwindle to nothing, but it just dies down a little bit and becomes kind of institutionalised. So that's when you basically get the Western Front. In the winter, there is still a feeling, isn't that this is kind of temporary and that come the summer, you know, it's the fighting season, they'll get out of the trenches and have a traditional Napoleonic-style war. So there isn't yet the sense that this is going to be grinding horror with rats and mud forever and ever. No, there's rats at the moment,

but people think it will end, it will change, you know, come the spring. That said, by the end of 1914, some people are already, rather like Paul McCartney, calling for peace, the pipes of peace. So there's an open letter by 101 British women's suffrage campaigners addressed to the women of Germany and Austria, saying, you know, why can't we, let's all put pressure on our governments to stop the killing. This is madness. Yeah, like Aristophanes. Right, exactly. And then the Pope gets involved, Pope Benedict the 15th. He publishes a paper in cyclical in November. He says the war is the suicide of civilised Europe. He says, I'd like to mediate a truce.

Everybody ignores him. But he wasn't wrong, was he? Yeah, he was quite right. It's very rare that you get me commending the Pope. But I'd take my hat off to him on this occasion. Well, that's, again, the festive spirit. Exactly. So a month later, after he's been ignored, he basically appeals to both sides,

says, please stop fighting over Christmas. And I quote, so that the guns may fall silent, at least upon the night the angels sang. Very nice. And everybody, again, completely ignores him. So people listen to this may think, well, why did these appeals fail? Because both sides had already lost a lot of men. So why did they want to carry on fighting? And the short answer, we talked about this at the end of our First World War series,

is that they actually want to keep fighting. They want to achieve their war aims. So the Allies, the British and French, for example, they want to drive the Germans out. The Germans are still in Belgium. They're occupying a 10th of France. So the Allies aren't going to stop. And the Germans themselves aren't going to stop.

Because they think of the war as this desperate struggle for survival. They think they're encircled. They think that if they lose, it will be a total and utter national disaster. I mean, to be honest, they're not wrong because they do lose and it is. I mean, you just have to look at Ukraine, don't you? Where there's quite a similar kind of deadlock, there are even trenches. Yeah. I think there was a kind of a Christmas truce.

But obviously it didn't last because neither side is going to just walk away. Yeah, they believe in their cause and they want to achieve their goals. And actually the fact they've lost so many men makes, you know, actually emboldens them, makes them their resistance more dogged. So the British expeditionary force has been almost completely destroyed by this point and replaced by new men. The Germans and the French have lost about half a million men each. But they don't want to stop because they think if they did that, it would dishonour the

sacrifice of those men who have fallen. So that's the context. Let's get into the trenches in December 1914. And specifically, we're going to be looking at the 20 miles. stretch of the Western Front, which is held by the British on one side and the Germans and the other south of Ypres in Belgium. So the men in these lines are newcomers by and large. They are reservists, their new recruits who have been rushed in to take the place of the forces that were originally destroyed in the first few months of the war. And that's true of the Germans as

well. So they have poured in kind of young, inexperienced men, often from Saxony and Bavaria, from Prussia. The British always said, the Prussians are the worst. They're kind of dour and dogged and formidable. Bullet-headed. Yeah. Whereas the Saxons and the Bavarians were jollier. Yes. So you get the first reports of fraternisation

between the trenches. This is so interesting. It may surprise some listeners. The fraternisation actually begins well before Christmas. So it actually happens from early November or so, from the point at which they dig in. And what would happen is, there would be a sort of informal shouted arrangement or possibly, you know, sort of agreed by two men in meeting in no man's land or something,

you know, we'll have a pause at this particular point in the day so that we can both wash or we can have our evening meals or because there's loads of bodies piled up in no man's land and we'd like to retrieve our mates and bury the dead, or because the weather is really terrible, you know, it's pouring and pouring with rain, the trenches on both sides are flooded and basically someone shouts out, you know, should we have a break so that both of us can repair our trenches, which might strike people as mad, but I mean, you know. Well, but maybe it doesn't if you are not a professional soldier and, you know, you've working in a shop or an office or something and suddenly you find yourself in the winter,

in mud, facing people, you know really nothing about. Wouldn't that make it likelier that you might kind of try and reach out and have an accommodation because you're not a professional soldier? Yeah, of course. Well, I mean, by this point, you are a professional soldier, but you know what I mean. You haven't been raised to it. You haven't been trained to it over many years to fight. Of course.

I mean, it's worth stressing there is always fraternization in wars. You know, this is not unheard of, right? There have been lots of examples in wars before this. Remember that in this case, the front lines are very close together. I mean, you can shout from one line and the other line will hear you. And the fraternization generally starts with the Germans. They're shouting in English. And the reason it works that way is because,

there had been a real trend before the First World War for young German men, almost like kind of Australians or something today, to come and work in London for a little while to improve their English. They work as waiters. It's a kind of stereotype before the war, the German waiter in a London restaurant. Yeah, so just to focus in on another angle then about what might have fostered fraternisation, is there a sense even now that there is still a degree of commonality between Britain and Germany? because certainly that's there before the war breaks out, isn't it? And I guess this is likely to happen between British and Germans and say French and Germans. Yeah. So the reason it wouldn't happen between French and Germans is, of course, the war is being fought on French soil. French losses have been much heavier.

And for the French, this is existential, right? This is their homeland from which they're trying to drive the invader. The British are fighting on what they regard as, you know, it's a sort of neutral venue. It's in a way match for them as it is for the Germans. And I think, you know, we talked about this in previous series. Before the First World War, there was so much stuff about the kind of, the fraternal links between England and Germany, you know, the Anglo-Saxon heritage, all of that. And of course, that ends up being erased by wartime propaganda. But we're only a few months into the war.

So I think there's still a lot of sort of, well, not a lot, but there are still a slight element of fellow feeling. And I mean, a very obvious symbol of that cultural influence. of Germany on Britain is the Christmas tree, right? Which had been brought over by various roles, but particularly by Prince Albert, Queen Victoria's husband. And so, you know, that is a very vivid symbol of this shared culture. I mean, football will come to football. The Germans have basically imported football from Britain. And some of these people who've been waiters in London are shouting out about football. They're saying, who's top of the first division? How are, you know, Tottenham Hotsburgh getting on or whatever? Although, at this point,

point, football isn't the kind of obsession that it will become for Germans. It's much bigger in Britain, isn't it, than in Germany? Yeah, agreed. So there were sort of reports of informal fraternisation. And actually, as Christmas approaches, some of the senior commanders are worried that this might get out of hand. So we talked before about a guy called General Horace Smith Dorian, and he was this sort of very gallant kind of swashbuckling British commander who actually before the war had shocked people at the public school officer training corps by saying there should never be a war in Europe. It will destroy civilization. You know, and everyone had thought, gosh, this guy's an absolute, you know, look at this, this pinko pacifist kind of

telling us that he doesn't agree with war and whatnot. Anyway, he's now ended up in command. And he issues an order on the 5th of December. And he says, if, you know, it's very common, he says, when you're close to the enemy for men to slide into, a live and let live theory of life. They can become too pally. They lose sight of what he calls the sole object of war and sink into a military lethargy from which it's difficult to arouse them. And so as a result, he says, however tempting and occasionally amusing they may be, friendly intercourse with the enemy, unofficial armistices and the exchange of tobacco and other comforts are absolutely prohibited. However, I think those key.

words there are, however tempting and occasionally amusing they may be, because it shows that even the man at the top can see the appeal. That actually sometimes, it's a moment of tremendous relief in escapism to shake hands with the opponent. Anyway, we approach Christmas Day. The weather has been dreadful, pouring with rain, and so the recent fighting has been very desultry. And on both sides, British and German, people are thinking a lot about Christmas. So in the British newspapers, there have been all these appeals for the public to send tobacco. and sweets and chocolates and Christmas puddings even. I don't know how they'd cook them,

but anyway, Christmas puddings, plum puddings to the front. The Royal Family have organised the sending of 350,000 Princess Mary gift tin. So Henry Williamson, in that quotation, mentioned his Princess Mary stuff. So you'd basically get a tin, and it had Princess Mary's face on it, and inside there was some chocolate and tobacco and cigarettes and stuff,

and you got a lovely Christmas message from George V. And that's great. And it's also great because in a hundred years' time, it will enable Sainsbury's to use that as a way of flogging their own groceries, won't it? Exactly. Exactly. So everyone's a winner. Because it's a huge thing with chocolate or some sort of and tins in the Sainsbury's adverts. Now that said, although they've got this inspiring message from George V, one of Britain's very finest kings, most of the men are pretty miserable because they've been sitting there in this rain.

They're cold, they're muddy, all of this. But the magic of Christmas. When they wake on Christmas Eve, something has changed. So the rain has stopped. There's been a hard frost overnight, and the ground is kind of dusted with ice and snow. So rather like you see in the adverts and the Pormacana's video and stuff. Christmas Eve is as normal. There's this sort of slightly desultry fighting and firing on both sides, gunfire.

But late that afternoon, the firing starts to die down as normal. And then the Germans do something unexpected. So we mentioned the presents that the British have had from home, and the Germans have had presents too. The Kaiser, our old friend the Kaiser, has sent them cigarettes and tobacco. But he and his men have also sent them lots of little Christmas trees, hundreds of little Christmas trees all across the front. And as night falls, the Germans start putting up these Christmas trees

on the kind of parapets of their trenches, and they light candles. Go on, Tom. I can see you're giving up to say something sardonic about the German candle lighting. No, not at all. I just wanted to mention at this point a podcast by a mutual friend of ours, Jonathan Wilson, with Rob Draper. It Was What It Was. Great title. Yeah, it's maybe not the best. But his podcast about the history of football. And in that, they mention a top fact, which is that these Christmas trees that get sent out to all the various regiments and places, they also send them to U-boats. And they had a very entertaining debate about how exactly you would balance a Christmas tree on a U-boat. How would you balance a Christmas show on a U-boat? Maybe you've lit it with candles and the risk of burning to death in a U-boat, which would be not festive at all. Anyway, I just mentioned that in passing. And also, I just wanted to say about Christmas trees and Christmas Eve for Germans.

The Germans have, like most people on the continent, have a weird attitude to Christmas. Namely, they don't actually celebrate it on Christmas, do they? The main focus is Christmas Eve, which always seems to me mad. It is mad. I don't agree with that. I mean, it's wrong. But presumably the British are not really aware of this. And so they would be, they'd be startled by the sudden appearance of Christmas trees.

They are startled. So that evening, at about 8.30, you get the first reports of Carol singing. Again, this is part of the kind of cliche of the Christmas truce, but it's absolutely true. So at 8.30, a Royal Irish Rifles officer reports to headquarters. Germans have illuminated their trenches, are singing songs and are wishing us a happy Christmas. Compliments are being exchanged, but are nevertheless taking all military precautions. So you get more reports flooding in that the Germans are singing

Stillenacht silent night and the British are replying with the first Noel. I think it's actually quite revealing that these are such mournful carols, aren't they? They're kind of like almost slow kind of laments. Very moving, but you're not going to be singing heart the herald angels sing. You're not going to be belting that out

in the middle of the First World War. And there's some excellent books about the Christmas trees which I'll mention a little bit later, but just for the time being, there are loads of accounts of people lighting candles and singing carols, loads of quotations on an online article by the historian Simon Jones. If you Google the Christmas truce, you'll see it. And there's no doubt whatsoever that it's the Germans who take the lead and they start

encouraging the British to come out of their trenches. I'll just give one quotation. It's a British soldier called Private Frederick Heath. He wrote a letter home a few days later. And he said, all down our line of trenches, there came to our ears a greeting unique in war. English soldier. A Merry Christmas. A Merry Christmas. They spoke just like that, the Germans. For some little time, we were cautious and did not even answer. Officers fearing treachery ordered the men to be silent. But up and down our line, one heard the men answering that Christmas greeting from the enemy. How could we resist wishing each other a Merry Christmas, even though we might be at each other's throats immediately afterwards? And so they spend the night singing to each other across. no man's land, as he puts it, a night made easier by songs from the German trenches, the pipings of picolos, and from our broad lines, laughter and Christmas carols.

Thought strikes me, which is that we discussed in the series we did earlier this year about the atrocities in Belgium and the sense that the Germans have put themselves beyond the pale, you know, the evil Han and all of that. You didn't get that conclusion from me, Tom. No, I know. I know. But there is a sense on the home front, isn't there? That the Germans are just monstrous. Yeah. But clearly there's not a sense of that at all here. They're not thinking this might be a trap. No, I suppose not. But is that not because they have been there for weeks? They know that the Germans men just like them. And as they will, of course, will discover even more the next day. But that's what's interesting, isn't it? Because I would guess that the effect of propaganda in Britain and indeed in Germany is to make them think, well, are they men like us? Are they not monsters out to destroy everyone?

It seems clear that that hasn't entirely taken root, that propaganda war. As we will see later in this episode, there are more truces after this, but they dwindle and they disappear by 1916 and 17. And I think the truth is that over time people became brutalized. But at this point, they're not fully brutalized. So they still see their opponents as human beings like themselves and not as, you know, not simply as the enemy to kill or be killed by. I suppose also there is a lot of sport-based propaganda, isn't there?

Certainly in Britain. I don't know whether it's the same in Germany. So, you know, you mentioned this is kind of the equivalent of half-time. Perhaps that's also the sense that, you know, you fight hard, but shake hands. Exactly. So that's Christmas Eve. What about Christmas Day? Christmas Day, dawns, cold and foggy, but by mid-morning, the fog has cleared,

and it turns out to be a lovely kind of crisp winter's day. It's not raining, crucially. For a lot of people, the most striking thing is how quiet it is. The guns have been roaring all this time. But on both sides, a lot of officers say, well, we won't fire on Christmas Day, so they just stop. And once one side stops, the other generally then stops as well. And then tentatively at first, you know, they've been making a lot of arrangements over the night. Oh, we'll get out of the trench if you do tomorrow morning.

And men start to do it. And when no one shoots them, other men start doing it. And bit by bit, along probably about two-thirds of this stretch, so we're talking about over a kind of... 12-15-mile stretch, people get out of the trenches and they venture into no man's land on both sides. And when they get there, what do they do? Well, first of all, they have made arrangements often, I'll give you a tin if you give me, you know, some tobacco or whatever. So they exchange their buttons, they exchange souvenirs. Actually, Henry Williamson used the word souvenirs, I think, didn't he?

They exchange buttons and badges. Sometimes they exchange their caps. That seems reckless because you might be shot by your own side. Yeah, I mean, explaining to the Sergeant Major of that in the morning. Why you're dressed as a German. The Germans hand over cigars. The British will give them jam or tit. But, you know, they'll basically sort of, there's a sort of barter system.

Or a bar of St. Breeze chocolate. Exactly. Sometimes they have lunch together. There's a lovely account of the sixth Cheshers who managed to catch a pig and they roasted it in no man's land and shared it with the Germans. How did they get a pig from? God knows. There was a guy called Bruce Bairn's father who's often quoted in accounts of the Christmas trees because he became a very popular newspaper cartoonist between the wars. He says, I spotted a German officer, some sort of lieutenants, I should think.

And being a bit of a collector, I intimated to him that I'd taken a fancy to some of his buttons. I brought out my wire clippers and with a few deft snips removed a couple of his buttons and put them in my pocket. I then gave him two of mine in exchange. And then Ben's father says of the of the truce,

the last sight he had a bit was one of his machine gunners who was a bit of an amateur hairdresser in civil life, cutting the unnaturally long hair of the docile Bosch, who was patiently kneeling on the ground while the automatic clippers

crept up the back of his neck. My sense of Germans in the First World War is not that they had mullets. That's an unexpected discovery. Yeah, but he's been in the trenches all this time. The mad thing is, this bloke's got a load of clippers. Now, some activities are a bit more mundane. So actually, they're both sides, spend a lot of the truth fixing up their trenches.

And they're even shared tools with each other to work on their trenches, which is very sweet. Some activities are not so sweet and a bit more sinister. So Simon Jones already mentioned, he quotes a British officer who had a cigar with a shared a cigar with the German sniper. And this sniper very foolishly said, you know, I'm the best shot in the German army. I've killed more men than, you know,

most of my comrades put together. And this British officer said, okay. Right. And he noted down this bloke's position so that he could shoot him himself the next day. That's harsh.

But actually, the most common thing they did was to bury the dead. There are loads of accounts. Actually, you get one from Henry Williamson, of these mass burials. And so they'll bury them all together. the German officers and men will line up on one side of the grave, the British on the other,

they sing psalms, they read prayers in both languages and whatnot. I mean, none of this sounds that exciting, frankly. There's an awful lot of just sort of loitering and hanging around with your hands in your pockets. But it's clear from people's accounts that men on both sides found this a really remarkable and memorable day. You know, all these letters, the most extraordinary Christmas Day imaginable. I wouldn't have missed that unique and weird Christmas Day for anything. This one from Captain Sir Edward Hulse. He describes singing old Langsine,

with which we all, English, Scots, Irish, Prussians, Vertembergers joined in. It was absolutely astounding. And if I had seen it on a cinematograph film, I should have sworn that it was faked. But one question as we head into the break. Do they talk about the war? I mean, that's the thing that would puzzle. You would think they would, right?

that they talk about what they're doing. Well, unless they want a holiday in every sense from the war. Yeah, a little bit. I think they do talk about it a bit, but as you say, it's boring to a lot of them. They don't really want, they're not going to start discussing the Archduke, Franz Ferdinand. They want to talk about Gavin and Stacey. Yeah, they want to talk about football or something, or about how cold they are, about the quality of their food or whatever.

And actually, the most striking encounter to them talking about the war for me is this guy. we began with Henry Williamson, 19 years old. He watches the burials, and he is struck by the fact that on the German crosses, they write the words, "'Fuevaterland and Freight for Fatherland and Freedom.'" And he's really stunned by this, and I quote, "'Freedom, how was this? We were fighting for freedom.

Our cause was just. We were defending Belgium's civilization. And he says to a German bloke standing next to me speaks English, what's all this? What are you? You're the baddies. What are you thinking? And the German says to him, well, of course we're fighting for freedom. Our cause is just. We are ringed with enemies. So war was thrust on us. We are defending our parents, our homes, a German soil. And Williamson has what he calls a most shaking, staggering thought that both sides thought they were fighting for the same cause. These fellows in grey were good families. They were strangely just men like ourselves. Very philosophical. And also, Dominic, I'm amazed that this hasn't turned out to be a myth. I was fully expecting you to debunk it.

Yeah, I don't like debunking. Not on Christmas Day. So there was a truce, but I suppose then the obvious question is, well, how does it come to an end? And also that question that you mentioned at the start of this first half, why didn't they just stop fighting? You know, why did they, when Boxing Day came, start shooting each other again? Why did the crumps return? And I suppose the biggest question of all, what about the football? Did they play that?

And if so, did the Germans win on penalties? We will find out after the break. So Christmas dawned, wrapped in mist to open itself and offer the day like a gift. for Harry, Hugo, Herman, Henry Heinz. With whistles, waves, cheers, shouts, laughs. Frue, Vainachton, Tommy, Merry Christmas, Fritz. A young Berliner, brandishing schnapps, was the first from his ditch to climb.

A Shropshire lad ran at him, like a rhyme. Then it was up and over every man to shake the hand of a foe as a friend or slap his back like a brother would, exchanging gifts of biscuits, tea, mackonicke's stew, tickler's jam, for cognac, sausages, cigars, beer, sauerkraut, or chase six hairs who jumped from a cabbage patch, or find a ball, and make of a battleground, a football pitch.

So that was the Christmas truce by William McGonagall. Oh, no, it wasn't. It was by Carol Ann Duffy, and it was published in 2011, and it was also released as an illustrated children's book. And Dominant, you've written, perfectly captures the slightly maudlin sentimentality that now surrounds this story.

Oh, no. I mean, there is a, there's a kind of Paddington-tinged quality of sentimentality about this whole story, I think. Yeah, there is. But I guess we'll maybe come on to that in a few minutes, but just for now, the idea that the soldiers made of a battleground, a football pitch. Yeah. Is this true? This is probably the most famous thing, isn't it, that people know about it? So this is the thing that has really gathered momentum in the last 20 years or so.

So we mentioned the Sainsbury's advert. one of the most discussed adverts of the 21st century in Britain. If you Google it, there's loads of commentary about it. It's currently got 26 million views on YouTube. And I think if you ask people now, especially children, what happened at the Christmas truce, they will say they played football. Now, this has become one of the most bizarrely, one of the most hotly debated kind of questions of the whole First World War, particularly online. Yeah, because I've read so many different opposing opinions on this. Yes, mad. And especially on social media, on Twitter or something. People will be ripping into each other about this question. But what's interesting,

it's quite like the Angels of Mons that we did a bonus on, you know, the story that kind of blows up. And that turns out to be completely rubbish. But this one seems to have a substratum of truth. A tiny substratum of truth, exactly. So let's get into the most, so the most celebrated football story of all. So the one you will see, if you Google it, or if you look in a random newspaper report, is that there was definitely a match, at least one match. It was played between the 133rd Royal Saxon Regiment, Germans, and a team of Scottish soldiers. They paid on frozen ground, caps for goalposts, and the result... Hmm. Mm-hmm.

The result, Tom, are you really scoffing? No, I'm not. I was, you know, caps for goalpost. Yeah? Caps for goalpost, I know. And the result was 3-2 to the Germans. So here's the most famous account that's often quoted from the British side. We provided the football and we set up stretch. as goalposts, stretches not caps. And the Reverend Jolly, our Padre, acted as ref. They beat

us three-two, but the Padre had showed a bit too much Christian charity. Their outside left shot the deciding goal, but he was miles offside and admitted it as soon as the whistle went. And we spectators were spread nearly too deep along the touchlines with loaded rifles slung on our shoulders. The Scots are the best at football in the world at this point, aren't they? They were their passing game and everything, whereas the Germans aren't really playing football. So I find it improbable that the Scots would lose three, two, to the Germans, actually. Well, you'd be right. You're right, Tom.

Your historical instincts have served you well. Because this story is total fiction. It's actually from a short story by Robert Graves. Now, Robert Graves did serve on the Western Front. He wrote a very, probably the most famous First World War memoir, goodbye to all that. But this is fiction. Yeah, but this is fiction because he didn't actually arrive until 1915. So this is very, again, like the Angels of Modern.

which begins with a piece of fiction that got recycled and is now taken as an authentic report. Yeah, that's right. Now, there are accounts that are not fiction. So here is one from a soldier who was in that regiment, the 133rd of the Saxons. Lieutenant Johannes Nieman, he gave an interview about it in the 1960s. He describes in this interview, you know, standard stuff. We met in no man's land. We exchanged cigarettes and shnaps and chocolate.

And then he says, a Scottish soldier appeared with a football, which seemed to come from nowhere. and a real football match got underway. The Scots marked their goldmouth with their strange caps, and we did the same with ours. He said we played for about an hour, and then our commanding officer found out that we were playing, and he said, come on, stop all this. And we drifted back to our trenches,

and the fraternization ended. Now, this is one of many stories of people playing football. But it's from the 1960s. This is from the 1960s, from afterwards. So we'll come back to whether or not it is this particular story is true or not. There are tons of stories like this, and a lot of real kind of proper First World War military historians, this drives them absolutely bonkers. So there's a bloke who does a lot of sort of consultancy work for TV and documentaries

and stuff called Taff Gillingham. And if you look at his online presence, you will see that for the last 15 years, he has been trapped and unable to escape from a Christmas truce football-related rabbit hole. So he doesn't believe it? He doesn't believe it. He's investigated all these stories. I mean, that thing about that the German soldier says about the football, which seemed to come from nowhere, I mean, it's a bit like the pig, isn't it? But I think the pig is true.

I think the pig is true. But that's what I'm wondering. I mean, if there's a pig, why can't they be a football? Well, let's see what this bloke, Taff Gillingham says. He says, most of these stories are the product of frauds and fantasists after the war. Most accounts of football in letters and diaries at the time say they wanted to play, but they didn't have a ball. or they did have a ball but their commanding officer wouldn't let them

or they said we'll play in a few days but when the few days came around they were already fighting again so the football never happened however Tom this is the twist he thinks there are two stories that do stand up so not total debunking today so one of them is that story by

Johannes Neiman because there's another account by a German soldier in the same regiment who wrote to his mother and said we played British soldiers So two men in the same regiment. And these British soldiers were probably Scots, the second Argyll and Sutherland Highlanders. They were stationed at a place called Fralingen, which was right on the border between France and Belgium.

And then there's a second story that stands up. There was a group of the Norfolk and Cheshire regiments at a place called Vulvigem in Belgium. And there are, again, two different sources, a sergeant and a corporal who mentioned playing football. We had a rare old jollification, which included. did football in which the Germans took part. So actually, when you see the Sainsbury's advert, the bloke's in that advert are from these regiments, because this bloke, Taff Gillingham, was the military consultant. He said, they have to wear the right caps.

You know what, military consultants. I do. So he made a massive fuss about all this. They had the correct putties and whatnot. And so, you know, he was very happy. However, a lot of First World War historians are really bitter. as they see it, the football industry, meaning UEFA, and I'm sorry to say, the English Football Association, have hijacked the Christmas truce for their own self-interested PR reasons. Dominic, could I, and this is not something that you often hear on podcasts, stick up for FIFA at this point?

What? That's mad. I know it's Christmas, but that's absolutely disgraceful. The worst organisation of the world, Tom. in um it was what it was jonathan wilson and rob draper in their podcast on this they discuss the FIFA museum where i think rob had been uh and he reported that FIFA are very skeptical about it and the the salient reason that they think it's obviously nonsense is because the pitch would have been too churned up for them to play which i think is a really an excellent reason but the pitch was frozen yeah but you can't play on you know i mean there'd be i'll tell you

you why FIFA don't like it, because it's UEFA who are promoting it. So it's an internal football rivalry between two different organisations. So this has actually driven historians mad with rage. And lots of First World War historians are really keen to downplay the football. And they point out that actually a lot of soldiers had no interest in playing football. They just wanted to hobnob and smoke cigarettes and sort of bury the dead and all that kind of thing. Do you think this is because First World War historians were the kind of boy who never played football at school. Possibly. They hated sport. Every now and again, they catch a glimpse of Prince William at a memorial in his capacity is head of the FA. Your friend, Prince William, a fellow

Aston Villa supporter, Tom, and it drives them mad with rage. So we should stop talking about football because anyone listening to this who loves the First World War, we steam will be coming out there is. Let's go back to Henry Williamson, with whom we opened the episode. But can I just say, what have we decided about the football, that there were one or two? One or two desultry games, that's it. But it wasn't really a match. They were just kicking it about. No, they're just kicking a ball around. When it's like saying, oh, they're offside, they're playing left wing and stuff. They're not even playing proper positions.

They don't have a referee, it's all the shambles. Anyway, Henry Williamson, how does it end? He describes how it ended in an article they wrote, a very lyrical article for the Daily Express 20 years later. And he says, you know, the next day was quiet. We were waving to each other, which I think is probably true. They were waving to each other kind of to their mates, their new mates from Saxony or whatever. And then on the third day, after Christmas, a German sent across a message. At midnight, our staff officer's visit, and we must fire our automatic pistolan,

but we will fire high. Nevertheless, please keep undercover. Then two days after that, there is an order from British headquarters. If you fraternize with the enemy anymore, you will be court-martialed, and if you're found guilty, you'll suffer the death penalty. And then after that, says Henry Williamson, the very light soared over no man's land at night, and bullets cut showers of splinters from the trees and sometimes human flesh and bone. Now, behind all this is a really fascinating personal story,

which some listeners may already be familiar with. So Henry Williamson, as we mentioned, was 19 at the time. He served out the rest of the war. He became a machine gunner. He was gassed, and he didn't leave the army till 1919. And he's probably the most famous person to have written about the Christmas truce, in part because he was profoundly. affected by it. He wrote about it about three or four more times in his life, different accounts.

It completely defined his life. He became completely obsessed by this idea of the kinship between British and German soldiers. So by the 1930s, by which time he'd become a best-selling writer, the writer of these nature classics for children, he had also become a pacifist. And he came to believe that another trench veteran who claimed to speak for all. soldiers was also a pacifist like him. And who was this soldier? What was the name of that man, Dominic? The name of that man. Oh, but Einstein? No. It was Adolf Hitler. Oh, no. Yeah. Henry Williamson's had a shocking moment there. So he became a huge fan of Hitler. He said Hitler's a pacifist. Hitler loves the kinship between our two nations. And then in 1930, when war broke out,

Henry Williamson, by this point, was basically a fascist. And he said, I shall fly immediately. to Germany. He had to be dissuaded by friends or whatever. He said, I want to fly to Germany to meet Hitler. And let's settle this as man to man as trench veterans. So like Rudolf Hess in reverse. Like Rudolph Hess in reverse. If I could see him as a common soldier who had fraternized on that faraway Christmas day of 1914, Henry Williamson is under misapprehension here. He thinks that Hitler was at the Christmas truce, which he wasn't. Might I not be able to give him the amity he's so desired from England, the country he admired. You know, this terrible error of judgment from Williamson made him an outcast, really,

a political outlast. So, you know, if you Google him now, it says, author of Tarka the Otter, everybody loves this book, also a bit of a fascist, which is unfortunate. And actually, Tom, it's an object lesson, something I always tell Theo, which is crusading left-wing idealism and pacifism can lead you into some very dark places. So that's the important lesson of today's episode. If that's not an opportune Christmas message, I don't know what is. Exactly.

So what did Henry Williamson's fellow soldiers think about it? Well, actually, first of all, we know that a lot of British officers were seriously alarmed by the Christmas truce. They thought the officers, the war was bound to start again, the Germans will attack again, and our soldiers will struggle to fight and to defend themselves if they're sort of wiping away manly tears at the thought of shared tins of jam and roasted. pigs and football matches and stuff. I think that's, they're not wrong. I mean, there's a historian called Mike Dash, who quotes the young officer, Lieutenant Richards of the East Lancashire Regiment.

This boat, Lieutenant Richards, was absolutely appalled by the Christmas truce, and he was delighted when this firing started again. He said, you know, good old-fashioned sniping, he said, great to see some good old-fashioned sniping. Because he was really worried. He thought, you know, my men will be killed when the Germans attack, because they'll just be trying to shake hands and the Germans will ban at them or something. So this is why, you know, the headquarters on both sides issue orders, no more fraternization

in the period between Christmas and New Year. People like General Smith Dorian, he'd been to the front lines on Boxing Day, and he said, come on, this is a bit slack. You know, we can't be doing all this because the war will start again, and, you know, we need to be in kind of fighting mood. So that's the officers. What's about the ordinary tommies? Now, most of the accounts that we have from Ordinary Tom is come, as you've already mentioned,

from years afterwards, from a point at which it was common to see the war as a tragic waste. But at the time, the letters and dires show that most men still very sincerely believed in their cause and wanted to fight at the end. Well, Dominant, even Henry Williamson, who goes on to become a pacifist, I mean, you said he becomes a machine gunner and he's still having a cracker people in 1919, which I think shows excess enthusiasm for the war. Yeah, yeah, exactly, exactly. So another British soldier wrote later, there was not an atom of hate on either side that day, and yet on our side, not for a moment, was the will to war and the will to beat them relaxed.

But that's very kind of sporting ideology, isn't it? You know, you shake hands, but then you go out and you play hard. Well, here's a perfect sporting message for you. George Ede of the Rifle Brigade. He wrote to his family about the truce, and he said, I made friends with a German artilleryman who spoke good English. And when we parted, he said, the German bloke said to me, Today we have peace. Tomorrow, you fight for your country. I fight for mine. Good luck.

Now that's lovely, but it doesn't suggest to me that they want the war to stop. It suggests that exact as you say, it's like sportsmen in a rugby match, a half-time, you know, smiling and shaking hands, and I'm going to absolutely go for you in the second half. And here is something actually that will surprise people about ordinary soldiers. There were quite a lot of ordinary soldiers who did not approve of the truth at all and refused to honor it. So the second grenadier guards, they had suffered heavy losses before Christmas. When the Germans popped up from their trench and shouted Merry Christmas, the Grenadier guards shot them. That would make a brilliant same series advert. There are accounts of Germans coming across no man's land and the

British just shooting them. I mean, this is not unheard of. There are accounts of British units after Christmas, fighting among themselves, those who have honored the truce and those who have not. Because the guys who have not honored the truce say to the others, you are traitors, you are weak, all of this kind of thing. What were you thinking of? You know, my mate died on, you know, the 12th of December or something. And here are you shaking hands with the people who killed them? And actually, very strikingly, remember this is happening, as we said, it's in a way fixture

in Belgium and France. Simon Jones gives the example of a Royal Welch Fusiliers unit They'd spent Christmas Day drinking with the Germans They were withdrawn from the line on Boxing Day And as they marched back French women lined the streets to spit at them Saying how dare you have a great laugh

With the people who have invaded our territory And to spoil our towns Do we know? Was there any fraternisation Between German and French soldiers? No, not at all really I mean, not surprising. The French are fighting for their native land And they've lost far more men than the British have.

Well, actually, we'll come to an example later in the war where there is a truth between France and Germany. But that's jumping ahead a little bit. So how does it all end? The fighting restarts on Boxing Day in a very half-hearted fashion. It's actually not because the men are reluctant. It's because the weather turns bad again because the snow turns to sleet. There's flooding in the trenches. So that means there's not that much fighting until New Year.

And then in the New Year, the weather improves and the fighting can begin. in earnest. Now, by this point, news of the truce has gone around the world. It was broken by the New York Times, tellingly, I think, a paper from a neutral country on the 31st of December. And then you get a series of reports, mainly in Britain, actually. It's interesting that the reports really are predominantly in Britain. So there aren't any in Germany, really, or France? Not really. There are some reports in Germany, none at all really in France. I think it's because in Britain, the stakes are not quite as high as they are. I mean, they're pretty high. I mean, don't get me wrong, they're still high, but it's not quite as existential as it is

for the French and the Germans. And actually, the interesting thing, so the Manchester Guardian is then, was the voice of liberal opinion says, oh, in fact, most papers say, oh, isn't it lovely they had a truce on Christmas Day? Quite surprising that even in the mid of propaganda, people, they applaud it. Manchester Guardian, the simple and unexamined impulse of human souls drawn together in the face of a common and desperate plight. And then the Guardian has this. line in the editorial. It says, what would an alien from outer space make of the fact that we could stop on Christmas day and then start again?

Why would we start the killing? And the Guardian says, we might reply with great reason that there was very much to be done yet. The Belgium must be freed from the hideous yoke that has been thrust upon her, that Germany must be taught that culture cannot be carried by the sword. There's the answer. There is so much at stake as they see it, and even in liberal opinion, that people want to restart the war.

They're not doing it reluctantly. They're doing it because they believe in it. You see, this is the classic Sanbrook Twist on our Christmas Day special. Ah, thanks. So by mid-January, the war is back on an earnest. We'll be coming to the story of the First World War in 1915 next summer, in the summer of 2026. Worth saying this isn't the last truce of the war.

There was an official truce at Gallipoli, uniquely in the whole course of the First World War in May 1915 to enable both sides Right, because that wouldn't have been a Christmas truce, would it? No, Australians and Turks to bury their dead. There were more small-scale trucees at Christmas 1915 And actually, Theo will be shocked to hear this, there was a truce between French and German troops in the Vosges,

Christmas 1915, and that actually inspired a German soldier, Richard Sherman, to set up the first youth hostess on association after the war because he was so inspired. He wasn't Sherman as in the tanks as well. No, no, no, no, no. I mean, that would be quite a double bill, wouldn't it?

That would be a twist. But by 1916, 1917, there are no truces. Why? Because the battles of the Somme and Verdum, you know, the massive bloodletting means it's pretty much impossible. And also, you couldn't play football on the battlefield of the Somme. I mean, that would be total mess. Well, people tried to.

A bloke started when the first day of the Somme, there's a very famous story about a man kicking a ball and chasing off and he was shot immediately. Yeah, but it's not a match. I mean, you can kick a ball, but you can't dribble. He wrote on the ball the great European Cup tie final, and then he was shot dead. Oh, God. Yeah, terrible. So what happened to the memory of the Christmas truce?

Here's an interesting thing. Everybody forgot about it. It was completely eclipsed after the war by allied joy and German, you know, bitterness and victimhood and whatnot. And actually, the Christmas truce, as we know it, to do, is really a product of the 1960s. And specifically, the play, Oh, What a Lovely War,

produced by Joan Littlewood and her theatre workshop. In Britain. And so this is something that is only happening in Britain. It's not happening in Germany, say. Exactly. And the theatre workshop was the sort of massive,

there were massive lefties and pacifists and whatnot in the early 1960s. And what they produced, Oh, What a Lovely War, the play and then the film at the end of the 60s, was an indictment of the First World War and particularly of the generals and the political establishment and the kind of social hierarchy that lay behind the war.

And so the sequence in the film, it's a very moving and memorable sequence to the soundtrack of Silent Night. The whole thing is designed to hammer home the madness of the Western Front. And this is what turns the truce into a kind of symbol for what people see is the horror and the futility of war.

So I mentioned at the beginning. There were some excellent books on this. There was a book for the 70th anniversary by Malcolm Brown and Shirley Seaton in 1984. And then another excellent book by an American historian Stanley Weintraub in 2001. And then, you know, we heard Caroline Duffy's poem, but the real peak of interest came in 2014 with the centenary. Why, I think this actually is also a reflection of its context. You know, the Iraq war is just a few years old. The war in Afghanistan is still going on.

This is the point 2014 when there's lots of stuff in the British headlines about the physical and mental health of ex-servicemen, service women. People are wearing help for heroes, wristbands and whatnot. So that's sort of when the first World War centenary rolled around, I think the idea of the horror and the pity and the futility of war was very much on people's minds. And the truce was a brilliant symbol of that for people. Do you think also that there's just a deep vein of sentimentality about football? in the British national character. I don't know whether it's as virulent in other countries, probably not. But here, I mean, there's nothing like memories of an old football star or something

to bring tears, a manly tear to the eye. Yeah. If you ever go to a Remembrance Day match, you know, in November, early November, it's a Premier League game. You know, these days, there's quite a big palaver about, you know, soldiers marching out and maybe a band and the last post and all of that. kind of thing. I don't remember that happening decades ago, but it's become kind of institutionalized now. And actually, you know, football took over the 2014 commemoration. So your friend, Prince William,

and the then-England manager, Roy Hodgson, unveiled a memorial, which was people shaking hands inside, surprise, surprise, a football. Roy Hodgson, very intelligent. Positively erudite, Tom. Owl-like. Yeah. Surely he listens to the rest of it. I'd love to think so. In one of his eight languages. Exactly. Exactly. The great irony of all this is the men in the trenches would be amazed that the truce looms so large. Because as we've said, the war went on for them because they believed in it and they wanted to fight it. And that is a really hard thing, I think, for most people now to accept. So I think we delude ourselves into thinking that the 1,565 days of war with the aberration and the truce better reflects human nature.

And that is the Dominic Sambrook, message to the nation and the world on Christmas Day. Brilliant. Happy Christmas, everyone. Yeah. However, Tom, however, it is Christmas. I agree the lesson of history is that your neighbours are plotting to kill and eat you. But let's end on a positive Christmassy note. And I think you should take us out with some.

some lovely poetry from Caroline Duffey's festive poem to inspire the nation. Yeah, so some festive poetry and then perhaps right at the end, a little bit of music. And all that marvellous festive day and night, they came and went, the officers, the rank and file, their fallen comrades side by side beneath the makeshift crosses of midwinter graves, beneath the shivering, shy stars and the pinned moon and the yawn of history, the high, bright bullets, which each man later only aimed. at the sky. But Dominic, let's leave the last words on this Christmas morning to Sir Paul McCartney. I light a candle to our love. In love, our problems disappear. But all in all, we soon discover

that one and one is all we long to hear. Happy Christmas. Happy Christmas, everybody. Thank you. Thank you.