World War I Christmas Day Truce 1914/1915 Newspaper Articles
Pages of American newspaper articles from around the United States covering the subject of Christmas Day truces from 1914 and 1915.
The Christmas truce was a series of widespread unofficial ceasefires along the Western Front of World War I around Christmas 1914. The truce occurred during the relatively early period of the war.
"Miracle is Wrought by Christmas Spirit in Hostile Trenches," announced the Philadelphia’s Evening Public Ledger for March 24, 1915. Following months of trench warfare, unofficial ceasefires erupt along the Western Front during Christmas of 1914. Climbing from their trenches onto battle-scarred "no man’s land," British and German soldiers shake hands, swap cigarettes and jokes, and even play football. "We all have wives and children…we’re just the same kind of men as you are," one German said.
Newspapers covered: Pope Benedict XV's failure to arrange a truce among warring European nations during the Christmas holidays. In January through March 1915, word reaches America that an unofficial “Christmas truce” was celebrated in trenches on the Western Front. During Christmas 1915 newspapers reported that no such spontaneous armistice occurs the following Christmas.
