The truce was over at that point and they didn't want their officers to know that they established lasting friendships with the enemy. That unfortunate French soldier had German help to travel back home to visit his mother and he was allowed to pass through enemy lines at the war front and remain unscathed.
A soldier could face the firing squad for such things and they didn't want to meet this end. The soldier should have changed back into his French uniform when he returned to the front but then he might have been shot by the Germans. He kept the German uniform because of naivete but it showed that he trusted his newfound German friends with his life even as he was supposed to be at war with them. What a conflict of interest.
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