A cry of: waiter! And the fighting stopped

Can you believe: at Christmas, 1914. British and German troops climbed out of the trenches[战壕] to play soccer in no man's land. Then the war resumed...

你能相信吗，1914年的圣诞节，英德两军阵前士兵爬出战壕，在两军中间的无人地带玩起了足球。之后战争再继续……

 
A new book by a German historian[历史学家] last night cast fresh light on one of the most extraordinary episodes[插曲] of the first world war and revealed[披露] that the celebrated 1914 Christmas truce[休战] took place only because many of the Germans stationed on the front had worked in England.

德国历史学家的一本新书，给一次世界大战中最奇异的一段事件带来了一个崭新的解释。它披露了1914年的庆圣诞休战的原因是，大多驻扎前线的德军曾在英国工作。

The book, Der Kleine Frieden im Grossen Krieg, or The Small Peace in the Big War, shows that the German and British soldiers who famously played football with each other in no man's land[两阵间的无人区] on Christmas Day 1914 didn't always have a ball. Instead, they improvised[临时准备的]. On certain sections of the front, soldiers kicked around a lump of straw[麦杆] tied together with string, or even an empty jam box.

这本书——《大战中的小和平》——告诉我们，1914年圣诞英德两军德士兵踢的那场著名的球赛并非事先准备有球，而是临时准备的。在前线的一些地方，士兵们踢一些麦杆编的球，甚至直接踢空罐头盒。

According to previously unseen letters and diaries sent home by Germans from the trenches, many of the passes[传球] went wildly astray[走偏] and shot off the icy pitch. The soldiers used sticks of wood, their caps and steel helmets[钢盔] as goalposts[门柱]. The games lasted about an hour. The sleep-deprived[缺乏睡眠的] players then collapsed[体力不支], exhausted[精疲力竭].

根据一些未曾被发现过的德军战士从前线寄回的信笺和日记，很多传球偏得踢倒了冰冷的帐篷。士兵们用木棍、帽子、钢盔来做门柱。比赛持续了一个小时，这些缺乏睡眠的运动员们就精疲力竭了。