During the First World War, Germans and British laid down their arms on December 25 to play ball.
The First World War, which lasted from 1914 to 1918, was called the Great War because it was the war that affected the largest number of countries and because it spanned more than one continent. In one of the battles that took place on Belgian territory, near Ypres, the two fronts expected a movement of the enemy before such an important date, Christmas Eve or New Year’s Eve.
On December 24, 1914, British troops heard a familiar sound in the stillness of the night: it was a Christmas carol sung from the German trenches, who had also placed candles to decorate the trees that populated the area.
The next morning, not only was the truce upheld, but both decided not to fire their guns and exchanged whatever food they had. Someone took advantage of the celebratory atmosphere to save a ball lying in the trenches and thus play a match on the same battlefield with nearly a hundred players and their helmets as improvised targets.
“My name is Tom Palmer and I am a Scottish soldier of the British Empire. I have only one assignment: to kill Germans. And today, Christmas Day 1914, I played football with them,” said this soldier in one of the letters to his family members.
A cross long remembered the scene where this ‘Christmas Truce’ took place. Recently, coinciding with the 100th anniversary of this brotherly story in 2014, UEFA inaugurated a sculpture recalling this wonderful Christmas story with a soccer ball as the protagonist.
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Source: Goal