Christmas Day Truce 1914: Volunteers re-enact football game on Belgium fields
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Version 0 of 1. Volunteers dressed as First World War soldiers from the British and German armed forces took part in a re-enactment of the Armistice truce in Belgium. Men in authentic period uniforms of the Lancashire Fusiliers and Seaforth Highlanders re-enacted the moment on Christmas Day 1914 when silence fell and men climbed out of mud-filled trenches on both sides to play football together. The brief ceasefire has become enshrined in the collective British memory as a rare moment during the vicious conflict that claimed 37 million civilian and military lives. Although fighting did continue elsewhere along the frontline in Belgium, in small spots a brief ceasefire allowed both sides to retrieve their dead and rescue their wounded from the swampy no-mans’ land. After reports of the unofficial ceasefire emerged, military leaders on both sides of the conflict were enraged by this apparent “softening” of attitudes. The following Christmases shellfire was continuous, preventing a similar brief period of peace to descend upon the trenches again. |