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1914 Christmas truce 'planned by thousands of German soldiers'
The Christmas truce of the Great War in 1914 was started by a "peace movement" of German soldiers who won over their trenchbound British foes by lobbing chocolate cake at them instead of hand grenades, a new book claims.

The interpretation of the events on the Western Front on Christmas Eve 1914 is made by Michael Jürgs whose book, The Small Peace in the Great War is the first to be written about the ceasefire from a German perspective.

The book has received wide publicity in Germany where its findings have been welcomed, not least because they help to dispel the stereotype of the German soldier as a ruthless fighting machine....