Christmas Truce
(Level: intermediate to upper-intermediate / B2 to C1 / ** to ***)

The 'Christmas Truce' refers to a series of unofficial cessations of hostilities that occurred along the Western Front around Christmas 1914. 

It started on Christmas Eve when the German soldiers started singing Christmas carols and placing Christmas trees lit with candles above the trenches, particularly in the Ypres region and in the Comines and Ploegsteert sectors. Soldiers from both sides left their trenches and ventured into no man's land to shake hands, drink and smoke together. 

During Christmas Truce
Photo credit: www.spiritofremembrance.com

No-one knows for sure when the truce ended and fighting recommenced.  
In some areas, the Truce lasted until after Christmas Day and in other sectors until New Year's Day. But it stopped anyway after the higher command on both sides had issued orders to resume fighting and killing the enemy. 

Letters were sent home by the soldiers who were there and some were even published in local newspapers. 
Those letters can be considered first-hand accounts of what the Truce was really like. 


You are now going to watch a BBC report focusing on that war event.

Click HERE





If you are interested, here is another site (http://www.history.com/topics) on which you can find an interesting account of the Christmas Truce. 
Click HERE