Ze Xmas TrUcE???????? during WW1!

FULL story below:

Roughly 100,000 British and German troops were involved in the informal cessations of hostility along the Western Front.

The Germans placed candles on their trenches and on Christmas trees, then continued the celebration by singing Christmas carols. The British responded by singing carols of their own. The two sides continued by shouting Christmas greetings to each other.

Soon thereafter, there were excursions across No Man's Land, where small gifts were exchanged, such as food, tobacco, alcohol and souvenirs, such as buttons and hats.

The truce also allowed a breathing spell where recently kil*ed soldiers could be brought back behind their lines by burial parties. Joint services were held.

On Christmas Day, Geney Walter Congreve of the 18th Infantry Brigade wrote a letter recalling the Germans declared a truce for the day.

One of his men bravely lifted his head above the parapet and others from both sides walked onto no man's land. Officers and men shook hands and exchanged cigarettes and cigars, one of his captains "smoked a cigar with the best shot in the German army", the latter no more than 18 years old. Congreve admitted he was reluctant to witness the truce for fear of German snipers.

According to an officer "I wouldn't have missed that unique and weird Christmas Day for anything.... I spotted a German officer, and being a bit of a collector, I intimated to him that I had taken a fancy to some of his buttons.... I brought out my wire clippers and, with a few snips, removed a couple of his buttons and put them in my pocket. I then gave him two of mine in exchange.... The last I saw was one of my machine gunners, who was an amateur hairdresser in civil life, cutting the unnaturally long hair of a docile Boche, who was patiently kneeling on the ground whilst the automatic clippers crept up the back of his neck.