I'm Welcome back, everyone to 1001 Heroes, Legends, Histories, and Mysteries podcast.

This is your host, John Haggardorn.

As I begin to write this story, the World Cup Games of 2022 are playing out in Qatar.

Games between the world's best football slash soccer teams, which have been proven thus far peaceful,

even though in some cases cases the competing countries have maintained

tense relations with each other, proving that indeed there are ways men and countries with vast

differences can come together in peace to compete. In this case, according to the best account

I could find, Scotland played Germany during a brief break near the outset of the Great War,

the war that many of us call World War I, somewhere between Christmas and New Year's Day in Belgium,

and we'll share an eyewitness account of that from William Cook as we get near the end of today's story.

108 years ago in 1914, at Christmas time, in Flanders, Belgium, five months into a raging

war in Europe that knew no peace and quiet, and certainly no silent nights.

A number of situations occurred, which many today look upon as a Christmas miracle.

One of these situations was an impromptu soccer match between hated

enemies, German soldiers, and British soldiers. The story of the Christmas truce began, as

best as anyone can remember, with a German soldier singing Silent Night. Soon a British voice responded. night.

Soon a British voice responded.

Other voices joined in. It was sporadic, but it continued up and down the lines of what was called then the

Western Front.

The trench lines were sometimes within 100 yards of each other.

In between was no man's land.

In some places, men called out for a momentary truce.

...