On a cold winter's day in December 1914,

the men of both sides emerged from their trenches,

not to fire to battle, not to attack,

but to take part in the Christmas truce.

For a brief while, there was peace in no man's land.

As the Great War Centenary approach, people began to think about what might be the most

contentious issues to be discussed over those four years of 2014 to 2018.

Would it be the generals, the high command?

Would it be strategy and tactics, the deployment of technology on the battlefield?

No, it was not going to be any of those things.

It was going to be football and a single day in December 1914 the Christmas truce. So while sure there were discussions about French and Hague who commanded the British

Expeditionary Force on the Western Front and while there were debates about the use of tactics on the battlefields

from the early attacks at New Chappelle to the first day on the Battle of the Somme and the Black

Day of the German Army in 1918, the reality was that one thing that in the popular media

people focused on was the idea that a football match took place across

vast sways of northern France and Flanders on Christmas Day 1914. Now it's a great story but what's

the truth behind it? What happened at Christmas 1914? Where was the British Army at that time? Was there

really football? And what was the significance of the Christmas truce? That's what we'll look

at in this episode of the old front line. So first of all, where was the British Army and what was it doing?

Well, the British Army had been at war since the 4th of August 1914

when Britain had declared war on Germany

and the first troops had arrived in France the very next day

...