'No shelling or sniping heard': Commemorating The Christmas Truce of 1914

One hundred years later on Christmas Eve 2014, Tom Burke travelled to Flanders to commemorate The Christmas Truce of 1914. As another war wages in 2022, he recalls his pilgrimage and the hope it represents

Wild poppies grow in the 'Trench of Death', a preserved Belgian World War One trench system. Picture: Jack Taylor/Getty Images

“Very quiet day, no shelling or sniping heard. Christmas Day. Slight frost”, noted the war diary of the 2nd Royal Dublin Fusiliers who were behind the front line at Hill 63 dugouts on Christmas Day 1914. 

The previous day, Christmas Eve, the Battalion had been in the front-line fire trenches at St Yves on the edge of Ploegsteert Wood in Flanders.