Christmas Day Truce 1914: Volunteers re-enact football game on Belgium fields

Men gathered in authentic uniforms to play football with their German counterparts

(EPA)

Volunteers dressed as First World War soldiers from the British and German armed forces took part in a re-enactment of the Armistice truce in Belgium.

Men in authentic period uniforms of the Lancashire Fusiliers and Seaforth Highlanders re-enacted the moment on Christmas Day 1914 when silence fell and men climbed out of mud-filled trenches on both sides to play football together.

The brief ceasefire has become enshrined in the collective British memory as a rare moment during the vicious conflict that claimed 37 million civilian and military lives.

Although fighting did continue elsewhere along the frontline in Belgium, in small spots a brief ceasefire allowed both sides to retrieve their dead and rescue their wounded from the swampy no-mans’ land.

After reports of the unofficial ceasefire emerged, military leaders on both sides of the conflict were enraged by this apparent “softening” of attitudes.

The following Christmases shellfire was continuous, preventing a similar brief period of peace to descend upon the trenches again.