 The proximity of trench lines made it easy for soldiers to shout greetings to each other , and this may have been the most common method of arranging informal truces during 1914 . Men would frequently exchange news or greetings , helped by a common language ; many German soldiers had lived in England , particularly London , and were familiar with the language and the culture . Several British soldiers recorded instances of Germans asking about news from the football leagues , while other conversations could be as banal as discussions of the weather or as plaintive as messages for a sweetheart . One unusual phenomenon that grew in intensity was music ; in peaceful sectors , it was not uncommon for units to sing in the evenings , sometimes deliberately with an eye towards entertaining or gently taunting their opposite numbers . This shaded gently into more festive activity ; in early December , Sir Edward Hulse of the Scots Guards wrote that he was planning to organise a concert party for Christmas Day , which would " give the enemy every conceivable form of song in harmony " in response to frequent choruses of Deutschland Über Alles . 
