(A.N. This has been nagging at the back of my head for some time now. Some of you may have seen the Hetalia Christmas strip where Germany is in the trenches and England kicks a soccer/football ball into his face. This is based on the historical event that that strip was: The Christmas Truces. It's pretty cool. And they made a movie about it. ^_^ But anyway, on with the story!)
Disclaimer: Nothing is mine! Nothing, I say! NOTHING!

The time was World War One.
The location was Ypres, Belgium.

Nobody had expected the fighting to last long. The Allied forces of England, France, Russia, the United States, Italy, and Japan believed that victory would be theirs fairly quickly. The Central Powers (Germany, Austria-Hungary, Bulgaria, and Turkey) believed that they would be the winners. And so, through a system of alliances that ended up acting like a domino chain, practically the whole world was at war with each other. The war started in 1914. It was Christmas, now. "I really don't want to fight on Christmas. It is the season of goodwill, after all." Nobody really felt like fighting. Not the British, not the Germans. Especially not on Christmas Eve. Germany was sitting in the trenches at Ypres looking at a calendar. From his position, he could see some of his soldiers, both dead and alive, further down the trench, and his older brother Prussia sleeping next to him. Just as the sun began to rise in the sky, he heard music. Why could he hear music? None of his troops were singing... (1)
Could it be the English singing?
Carefully, cautiously, Germany poked his head up out of his side of the trenches. Mein gott, they weresinging! They were bringing out christmas trees and England was walking toward the German trenches carrying a football and a box. As if to test the waters, England threw the box into the German trenches. Surprised and a little scared, Germany swatted it away and the chocolates spilled out. "So it was just chocolate..." "Of course it was just chocolate. I may not like you very much, but I wouldn't bomb you on Christmas. Do you want to take a break from fighting today? Let's play football."
'He seems so...sincere. I don't trust him very much, but it is Christmas. He says he doesn't want to fight, and I don't either, so...' "Sure, I don't see why n-"
Germany got a football to the face. "Mein gott! What was that for?" "That was for the Merchant Navy (2)!"
England got a football to the face.
The game was on.

In other parts of the field, soldiers were exchanging food, drink, and souvenirs from both sides. One of England's machine gunners was cutting the hair of one of Germany's soldiers whose hair was unnaturally long. Some caught sight of Germany and England's football match, and soon it became a free-for-all with fifty on each side (3) before they agreed upon regular matches with eleven on each who would switch out periodically. Small fires were lit and chestnuts were roasted (4). The end of the day found Germany and England lying side by side beside each other, looking at the sunset. "I suppose we'll have to keep fighting tomorrow," England said, sad that something so good had to end. "The men seemed to have fun today." "Do we have to?" Germany wondered out loud. "The high command probably would." (5) "To hell with the high command, when we aren't shooting at each other, we can recover bodies from no-man's land and bury them properly. And these truces might help relations after the war. (6) Let's keep the ceasefire until the new year. (7) The men will support it, at least."
The men supported it so much, they wanted to have another one the next year, assuming the war went on that long.
The high command opposed it so much, they gave the soldiers schedules to fire artillery towards the enemy lines, even on Christmas and New Year's.
That didn't stop the French and German troops stationed on the Bernhardstein (one of the mountains in the Vosges) from exchanging wine, cognac and cigarettes for Westphalian black bread, biscuits, and ham in December of 1915. They liked that so much, that those soldiers maintained their friendship even after Christmas (8).

(A.N. OK, so this is the first chapter for The Christmas Truce (and other military disasters). Basically, the rest of the fic is based on the pretense that if you look deep enough, there are kooky, random things that happen between enemies (or allies, for that matter). Next up: The Great Desert Raid!
History Notes
1. Technically, the Germans sang first, but there was singing!
2. The total dead from the Merchant Navy was 14,661. Of course, that figure is from the end of WWI, but still... O.o
3. That actually happened. One guy brought out a soccer/football ball and everybody joined in.
4. This is referencing a bit of fanart that I saw at a Hetalia History panel someone had taped on YouTube. If you type in Hetalia History in the YouTube search bar, it's the video that's like two hours long. It's really good, though!
5. They didn't. They really didn't. Fun-wreckers...
6. That didn't work, either. Germany went into major debt at the end of the war because of England and France.
7. In some places, the Christmas Truces did last until New Year's Day, some only lasted until Christmas Day.
8. Again, this happened. Funnily enough, the fighting at Bernhardstein was some of the most violent. Funny how these things happen...)