Bratmicae here in welcome to the edition of the Art of Manliness Podcast. One of the

most famous stories to come out of World War I is that of the Christmas truce of 1914,

in which German and British forces engaged in a spontaneous and unofficial ceasefire and

spent the holiday fraternizing with each other. In the popular imagination, the Christmas

truce was a time in which enemies put aside their differences to seeing carols, exchange

gifts and even placed soccer and represented a sentimental flowering of peace and good will.

How much of the popular legend around the Christmas truce is true and how much is myth?

Oh my guest day will unpack that for us. His name is Peter Hart and he served as moral

historian at the Imperial War Museum for 40 years and is the author of several books

in military history, including The Great War, Combat History of the First World War.

Then on the show, Peter gives us some background on the start of World War I, what led up to

the Christmas truce and what life was like for soldiers in the trenches. We then discuss

how the Christmas truce began and what happened during it, including whether the soldiers

really played soccer, what the leaders of the participating military started the unofficial

ceasefire, how long the truce lasted and how it ended. Peter explains that while the

truce was certainly motivated partly by sentiment, it was primarily done for more practical

and even strategic reasons. We enter conversation with why, even though the real Christmas truce

is a less romantic event than commonly conceived, it's still a wonderful story about our shared

humanity. Out of the shows over, check out our show notes at

a-m dot is slash Christmas truce.

Peter Hart welcome to the show. Thank you very much looking forward to this, Brett.

So you are a historian who has spent his career researching and writing about World War I,

...