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In 1915, it was the Canadian Corps’ first Christmas on the Western Front and in a trench near Ypres their enemy was inviting them over for a party.

The year before had seen the famous Christmas Truce, when thousands of Allied and Entente soldiers had sprung from their trenches to trade gifts and play soccer in no-man’s-land.

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“Merry Christmas, Canadians,” said the opposing Germans, poking their heads above the parapet and waving a box of cigars. A Canadian sergeant responded by opening fire, hitting two of the merrymakers.

“When they returned it, one of our lads was shot through the head. That put an end to our Christmas gathering quickly,” Lance Cpl. George D’All wrote in a letter home.

It was a preview of coming developments. Canadian soldiers would emerge from the First World War with a reputation for winning victories that others could not. But even in a war of unparalleled ferocity, enemy and ally alike would remember the Canadians as having been particularly brutal.