Hey! My book is now out!

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 Dean wrote:

 Kati wrote:

Awww I know this story very well, it's beautiful and sad at the same time, the spirit of Christmas both sides also sang, Oh, Holy Night and Stille Nacht! Heil'ge nacht... they were only soldiers, boys, men who were being told what to do but that night for Christmas they made a truce, for one night only, no fighting, for all to enjoy the spirit of Christmas.  
That's the romanticised version. As I understand it (and I obviously haven't read Terri's book yet), small truces occurred at various times throughout the first 18 or so months of the war, often to allow each side to collect and bury the bodies of the fallen. The 1914 christmas truce was not a single event, but a number of small impromptu truces along the Western Front (and at least one on the Eastern Front between a few Austrian and Russian troops), not all of these involved carol singing and the exchange of gifts. I also understand it that the idea that there were football matches between the two sides is also somewhat romanticised, the conditions in no-man's land would have been far to grim for that, however several soldier's letters tell of friendly kick-a-bouts occurring during the truces, mostly amongst the men on one side though there are a few were opposing sides played together.

Much as I hate to disagree with Kati (suppose she stops sending me hugs), Dean is correct.  My book is an attempt to correct the romanticized version of the truce, and then use that to disagree with the conventional narrative of the First World War.  Here's a passage from the book that sums up my argument:

"The Christmas truce, shorn of its mythology, is impossible to categorize
simply, yet even those who challenge the conventional
narrative of the war can’t seem to resist the conventional narrative of the
truce. The myth of the 1914 armistice is based on the belief that the soldiers
who took part in it shared our modern sensibilities, hated war as we hate war,
and rebelled against that futile conflict as we are certain we would have
rebelled against it. The truce resonates with us today because we have long
since decided where our sympathies lie, which is with the poets who represented
the soldiers in the trenches and who captured their plight in such vivid
language. As a result, the story of what really happened during the two weeks
that started on Christmas Eve 1914 and finally ended about 10 January 1915
rarely cites the letters and diaries of the men involved, but relies instead on
postwar memories that reinforce what we already believe. Christmas was
celebrated in the trenches on 25 December 1914 as a sentimental rather than a
religious holiday, and the widespread but not universal cease-fires and
fraternizations were entered into in that spirit by a largely professional army
composed of men who supported the war that they were fighting. To comprehend
that viewpoint, it is necessary to reject much of what we now believe about the
First World War, but to continue to impose a narrative on the truce that is
contradicted by the accounts written home by those who took part in it does a
disservice to the very soldiers whom we now view as victimized. They did not
see themselves in that way, and imputing to them a consciousness that thoroughly
misrepresents their perception of the conflict does not help us understand either
the war or the truce."

While it is true that there were many references in letters and diaries to football matches, they were mostly to matches that happened elsewhere (i.e., "We heard that XXX battalion played the Germans at football") and only three references to matches that actually took place (out of 54 battalions involved), so the idea that everyone played football at the truce(s) is just another myth.

Well, I just gave away the ending, so now I've saved you all the trouble of reading the book. 