This book was amazing.  It had me hooked from the very start.  It is truly awe inspiring book. I just loved the authors style of writing keeping the book light and following. Without packing it tight with facts that make it heavy reading. I just breezed on through it while learning so much. You could tell from the start that it was well researched.  It was fantastic reading the eyewitness accounts of the truces and the fraternization between enemies on minute,  friends the next then vice versa . I really enjoyed learning about how the officers and Higher up dealt with this. It was so factual and well layed out into nice easy chapters. I especially loved reading about one soldiers account of the truce from the Manchester regiment.  Which is my home town, so I felt even more connected with the book.
I can't wait to read more from this author as he is one to look out for.
So much praise goes out to the author and publishing team for bringing a truly stunning accounts of the truces during the first World War in such a fascinating style.

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On Christmas Eve, 1914, in trenches along the Western Front, some German soldiers laid down their arms, put up lights and started singing carols. Soon, the British soldiers did the same. This armistice lasted into Christmas Day and beyond, with a spontaneous meeting of the combatants in No Man’s Land. Gifts were exchanged and even football matches were played, and a legend was born. This book attempts to cut through the myths to tell the true story of the Christmas Truce.
The event has become almost mythological over the years and Anthony Richards reveals that even during the First World War itself some people doubted it had happened. As this excellent book reveals, there wasn’t one single truce but a series of small truces along different parts of the frontline, of varying duration. Drawing on newly discovered and translated German accounts of the Truce, we are able to get an insight into the other side of the story.
Anthony Richards sets the scene of the first few, arduous months of the First World War, when the harsh winter and other factors had forced both armies into trenches, leading to a kind of siege mentality. Eventually, the mutually awful living conditions would lead to a feeling of empathy -“live and let live” - between the German and Allied forces, and much fraternisation.
Soldiers on both sides received parcels of food and clothing at Christmas and their subsequent letters home, printed here, are poignant and revealing, as are the firsthand reports of the impromptu services and mutual goodwill on Christmas Day. Richards explores how the Christmas Truce was enacted in different places along the Western Front, including how both sides were soon helping the enemy bury their dead. However, the Truce was not recognised everywhere, and in some places the possibility of it was dismissed out of hand by one side or the other. It is also interesting that the Christmas Truce was viewed with suspicion by the senior commanders of both sides, and as an affront to the patriotic nationalism expected from the armies, resulting in official attempts to prevent future reoccurrence. As for the legendary organised football match, sadly this likely never happened, save for a few “rough kickabouts”. Richards also examines the causes and legacy of the Christmas Truce.
Full of riveting reminiscence from both German and British soldiers, this book is concise and well-researched. The legacy of the Christmas Truce will live on as one of the better events of the First World War. As the diary entry of a German officer succinctly noted at the time -“[We] were as happy as children at play”.