WW1 Christmas day truce and football match

by BurgundyIsntPurple

How did each side organise and agree on the christmas day truce and football match from the trenches?

mikedash

I covered this in an earlier answer here. Briefly, there was no general "organisation" of a truce; terms were agreed on locally by individual units and their opposite numbers. Much the same applies to the famous "football match" (of which there were at least four); these evolved out of small incidents and could not be considered organised matches in a normal sense. For a longer treatment of the football matches specifically, see my 2011 essay for Smithsonian, here.