Wine, Cognac and Football: The Christmas Truce of 1914

On Christmas 1914, along the frozen trenches of the Western Front, something almost unbelievable happened. The guns fell silent, men who had spent weeks trying to kill one another climbed out of their trenches to meet in No Man’s Land, and enemies shared carols, cigarettes, a game of football — and wine, cognac and beer¹. It was one of history’s strangest and most moving ceasefires, and shared drink was at the very heart of it. (See also: the Dutch and the wine trade.)

The war that was meant to be over by Christmas

When war broke out in August 1914, soldiers on all sides were told they would be home “before the leaves fall” — certainly by Christmas⁶. Instead the fighting had ground to a halt in a line of trenches stretching from the North Sea to Switzerland, and the first winter brought only mud, cold, lice and death.

In places the opposing trenches lay only a few dozen metres apart, close enough for the enemies to hear one another cough and sing. It was into this misery, on Christmas Eve, that an extraordinary calm descended.

Silent night

It began with light and song. Along the German lines, soldiers set little Christmas trees and candles on the parapets of their trenches and began to sing carols — above all Stille Nacht, “Silent Night”². The British, astonished, called out their approval and answered with carols of their own, the two sides serenading each other across the dark.

Then the boldest men climbed out. Shouting Christmas greetings, unarmed soldiers clambered over the parapet and walked into No Man’s Land to meet the enemy face to face. By Christmas Day the truce had spread along much of the front, drawing in perhaps a hundred thousand men⁴.

Wine, cognac and football

What followed reads like a dream. In the churned ground between the trenches, enemies shook hands, swapped names and shared whatever they had — and much of what they had was food, tobacco and drink³.

We shook hands, wished each other a Merry Christmas, and talked like old friends.— a British soldier’s letter, Christmas 1914²

Men who spoke no common language toasted one another, passed round bottles and showed off photographs of wives and children back home. They used the lull to bury their dead, side by side. And — most famously of all — here and there a football appeared, and impromptu games broke out; one match, recorded in several soldiers’ letters, ended in a 3–2 win for the Germans⁴.

The truce that couldn’t last

It could not survive contact with the generals. When word of the fraternisation reached the High Commands, they were horrified: an army that treats the enemy as human is an army reluctant to kill⁵. Orders came down forbidding any repeat, threatening punishment for those who fraternised, and the war resumed its grinding course.

Smaller, quieter truces flickered along the front in later years, but nothing on the scale of 1914 ever happened again. The war would go on for four more years and cost millions of lives.

A toast across No Man’s Land

More than a century on, the Christmas Truce is remembered because it is almost unbearably human¹. In the middle of one of history’s cruellest wars, ordinary men chose, for a single day, to sing together, play together and drink together rather than fight. That they sealed their fragile peace with shared wine, cognac and beer feels exactly right: for as long as there has been conflict, the shared cup has been one of humanity’s oldest gestures of friendship — and on Christmas 1914, it briefly stopped a war.

Frequently asked questions

Read more

• Rationing of wine in World War I
• Wine, the Nazis and Göring’s cellar
• Why champagne is connected to wealth

References

1. Encyclopaedia Britannica — The Christmas Truce. ↑
2. Imperial War Museums — The Real Story of the Christmas Truce. ↑
3. National Army Museum — A First World War Christmas. ↑
4. World History Encyclopedia — The Christmas Truce. ↑
5. The Long, Long Trail — Legends, myths and realities: the Christmas Truce, 1914. ↑
6. Encyclopaedia Britannica — World War I. ↑

Recommended reading

Vintage: The Story of Wine

Hugh Johnson

A grand history of wine and its place in human life — in celebration, and even in the trenches of war.

A History of the World in 6 Glasses

Tom Standage

On how shared drink has bound people together across cultures and conflicts throughout history.

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