'If you don't shoot we won't': Lost letter from a Lieutenant on the Western front reveals how German soldiers kicked off the 1914 Christmas truce by singing loud carols and asking 'how's that, English?

'If you don't shoot we won't': Lost letter from a Lieutenant on the Western front reveals how German soldiers kicked off the 1914 Christmas truce by singing loud carols and asking 'how's that, English?' 

Lieutenant Hugh Barker (top right), who served in the London Rifle Brigade, sent a message containing details about the Christmas truce while serving on the Western Front at the beginning of the war. He described how enemy soldiers expressed their displeasure at having to fight their Anglo-Saxon cousins and documented how both sides exchanged 'banter' while in their respective trenches. The 102-year-old letter (left) is now being auctioned on March 30 and is expected to be sold as part of a collection for around £3,000. British soldiers are pictured in one of the trenches (bottom right).