every time i hear or think about the story of the christmas truce; it strikes home how utterly terrible and unnecessary that war was.

No one actually on the ground had any real stake in the outcome of the war but only came because they believed their country demanded it of them, and that therefore their honor demanded they go.

there's no good reason that the christmas truce couldn't have ended the war, except that the generals far behind the lines commanded that it not: and were in fact so afraid of it's potential effects that they ended up essentially colluding to move those two groups who participated away from each other.