The famous story of the 1914 Christmas truce, when British and German soldiers came out

of their trenches to celebrate the holiday together in fellowship, is one of those stories

that everyone's heard and nobody ever thinks to doubt.

And as it turns out, they should, because while the part about celebrating peacefully is true,

much of the rest of it isn't quite so much.

And that's up next on Skeptoid.

For the podcast that you love, want to find out more?

Visit Skeptoid.com slash giving, or call 877-215-0277 today.

That's 877-215-0277 or Skeptoid.com slash giving, skepi-to-id.com slash giving.

You're listening to Skeptoid.

I'm Brian Dunning from Skeptoid.com.

Did the 1914 Christmas truce really happen?

Every Christmas season, the media fills with heartwarming stories of holiday cheer.

None is more ubiquitous than the famous 1914 Christmas truce, the story of British and German soldiers in World War I,

who set their rifles aside and stepped out of the trenches for an unprecedented moment of mutual goodwill.

They sang Christmas carols and shared warm drinks, and even played a game of football,

soccer to you Americans, an element of the story repeated more often than any other,

said to have been won by the Germans for the score of 3-2.

It's the kind of story that we all want to hear so much that many of us never think to wonder how much truth there is behind it.

Such an event would stand in glowing contrast to the other memories from World War I.

It was a terrible war, in large part because of where it fell in the timeline of weapons technology.

We didn't yet have the ways to kill so quickly and efficiently as we did in World War II,

...