This is how the Christmas truce happened on the Western Front in 1914 Peter Hart, Military History Magazine December 24, 2020 The Illustrated London News's illustration of the Christmas Truce: "British and German Soldiers Arm-in-Arm Exchanging Headgear: A Christmas Truce between Opposing Trenches" (via Wikimedia Commons) In the lead-up to Christmas 1914 soldiers on either side of the Western Front no man’s land set aside fear and their weapons to exchange surreal holiday greetings. By late December 1914 World War I had been raging for nearly five months. Had anyone really believed it would be “all over by Christmas,” then it was clear they had been cruelly mistaken. With the strength of imperial Germany now evident to all, there appeared to be no chance of victory in the foreseeable future. By this time men were beginning, almost despite themselves, to gain a kind of grudging respect for their opposite numbers lurking across no man’s land. They were enduring the same terrible weather, the same dreadful living conditions, and, after all, they had managed to fight each other to an absolute standstill. The earlier rumors of atrocities, knavish tricks and the callous use of “dum-dum” bullets had abated as more experience was gained of the destructive power of high-velocity bullets, shrapnel bullets and shell fragments. The war had become the new reality for countless men, as they were wrapped up into the stultifying routines and deadly horrors of trench warfare. There seemed no respite in sight, but it was critical to maintain a high level of watchfulness, or else the consequences were often fatal.