Main content

The Christmas Truce

Dan Snow looks at the Christmas truce, when troops on both sides briefly called a ceasefire, through the recollections of those that were there.

There are now no living veterans of WW1, but it is still possible to go back to the First World War through the memories of those who actually took part. In a unique partnership between the Imperial War Museums and the ±«Óãtv, two sound archive collections featuring survivors of the war are brought together for the first time. The Imperial War Museums' holdings include a major oral history resource of remarkable recordings made in the 1980s and early 1990s with the remaining survivors of the conflict. The interviews were done not for immediate use or broadcast, but because it was felt that this diminishing resource that could never be replenished, would be of unique value in the future. Among the ±«Óãtv's extensive collection of archive featuring first hand recollections of the conflict a century ago, are the interviews recorded for the 1964 TV series 'The Great War', which vividly bring to life the human experience of those fighting and living through the war.
Dan Snow narrates this new oral history, which will be broadcast in short seasons throughout the commemorative period.

Programme 10 - The Christmas Truce
In the last of the series for 1914, veterans of the First World War recall the few hours of impromptu ceasefire on 25th December 1914, when German and British troops mingled and played football in No Man's Land on the Western Front. Drawing on the recollections of soldiers in the oral history collection of the Imperial War Museum and the ±«Óãtv archive. Narrated by Dan Snow.

Available now

30 minutes

Last on

Christmas Day 2014 13:15

Broadcasts

  • Fri 7 Nov 2014 13:45
  • Christmas Day 2014 13:15

World War One on TV and Radio

Marking the centenary of World War One across the ±«Óãtv

Tommies

Drama following those on and behind the WW1 battlefront.

World War One at ±«Óãtv

Discover how the people and places around you changed during WW1.

Podcast