Hi Joe,

The "Christmas truce" of 1914 was/is widely known about in Britain, and fairly extensively documented. The site here gives several published accounts by participants.
In the show/film "Oh what a lovely war" it is intimated that the truce so annoyed the British high command that they ordered an artillary shoot into the area. There is no mention of this in the eye witness accounts at the site above so that may have been included for dramatic effect.

On that point, I recall reading that as part of the research into "tit for tat" behaviour, it was found that in many places on the Western Front, an unofficial modus vivendi was developed whereby each side kept to srtict "rules" of behaviour designed to minimise conflict. On at least one occasion this lead to the local commander crossing no mans land to apologise to his opposite number when an out of area battery shelled "his" opponents thereby breaking the rules.

Apparently, this kind of arrangement by the troops was so effective that it led to the British GCHQ policy of "agressive patrolling" and rotating units into the front line on regular basis to prevent these arrangements based on mutual tust, forming.

The start of the song "Two years ago...." is a bit ambiguous, and I haven't heard of similar truces later in the war, given the changed circumstances, it is less likely.

Incidently, the last line "And on each end of the rifle we're the same" is reminiscent of the second world war pacifist slogan "A bayonet is a weapon with a worker at each end".

Pete M