The developers behind World War I shooter Verdun have announced that beginning this week, it will be recreating the famous Christmas Truce of 1914 in-game, allowing players to temporarily put aside their weapons for a brief moment of peace, much as some of the combatants in WWI did over 100 years ago.

“From December 22 – January 4 2016 the game Verdun will reproduce the WW1 Christmas Truce,” the developers said in an announcement on the Verdun Steam page. “This is done by releasing a new dedicated winter map where players can throw snowballs at each other, play a few football matches, sing along with Christmas carols and write Christmas cards to their loved ones. Sharing these cards might even win you an extra Steam key for your friend or enemy.”

While it may sound somewhat unbelievable today, the unplanned truce that occurred on Christmas in 1914 really did involve fraternization between men who had been killing each other only hours before. The men sang Christmas songs, shared gifts such as chocolate and cigarettes, and even played a few friendly soccer games.

Aftermath of the Christmas Truce

While the Christmas Truce is often remembered as one of the few moments of humanity in a very inhumane war, it also demonstrates one of the saddest facts of World War I. That is, that many of the rank and file soldiers of WWI were fighting out of obligation rather than choice and, given the chance, would have easily chosen to make peace and end the war.

The truce frightened many of the military commanders at the time. Aside from worries about security and surprise attacks, disobedience and civil unrest among the military were real concerns for many countries at the time. Less than three years after the Christmas Truce, for example, the Russian tsar and his family would be killed in a revolution that would eventually lead to the formation of the Soviet Union.

Meanwhile, in the US (which admittedly was not yet part of the war), the memory of the American Civil War had not yet faded, and its effects could still be felt in some states. In fact, the Civil War was nearly as recent to the Americans living during World War I as the Vietnam War is to us today.

As a result of these fears, military commanders gave strict orders the following years that there were to be no truces on Christmas.

Learn more

If all of this talk about World War I has gotten you interested in learning more about it, Dan Carlin’s “Hardcore History” podcast has an excellent (and lengthy) six part series on the war called “Blueprint for Armageddon.”

You can also check out the YouTube channel The Great War, which is an ongoing video series recounting each week of the war as it happened exactly 100 years ago. That means that the series is currently covering the end of 1915, with several more years remaining before the end of the war.

Image courtesy of M2H and Blackmill Games via Steam