LONDON
— The Christmas Truce, when British and German soldiers were said to
have suddenly stopped fighting on the Western Front for a few hours on
Christmas Day 1914, is written in history.
What
started with the singing of “Stille Nacht” on the German side, followed
by a response of “Silent Night,” was said to have included an impromptu
soccer game on the No Man’s Land between the opposing trenches.
“We
all grew up with the story of soldiers from both sides putting down
their arms on Christmas Day when gunfire gave way to gifts,” Prince
William said at a ceremony in England two weeks ago to unveil a memorial
to the event.
“Football,”
the prince continued, “has the power to bring people together and break
down barriers. It is vital that 100 years on, we keep the Christmas
Truce story alive. It remains wholly relevant today as a message of hope
and humanity, even in the bleakest of times.”
Hope and humanity and perhaps, ultimately, futility.
Soccer
is a remarkable game that crosses boundaries around this world. But
whatever took place on that day a century ago did not stop the carnage
that took an estimated 16 million lives, nor did it break down barriers
to prevent wars today.
“Sport, not war” has to be among the most contrite of phrases.
The
sculpture unveiled by Prince William was designed by a 10-year-old boy,
Spencer Turner. It depicts two hands clasped in friendship inside the
outline of a ball. It is simple, brilliant and full of boyish hope.
And
grown men are running with that hope. There have been re-enactments of
the reported No Man’s Land game, including a match between the British
Army and German Army teams in Aldershot, England, and a game in Belgium
this week near the Flemish field where the truce happened.
UEFA, the European soccer authority, put together a short video
in which former stars — England’s Bobby Charlton, Germany’s Paul
Breitner and France’s Didier Deschamps — read a narrative and current
players — Wayne Rooney, Philipp Lahm and Hugo Lloris — read aloud
soldiers’ letters from the front lines in 1914.
All
of it is heartfelt. For the record, Germany, the current world
champion, has won four World Cups to England’s one in the sport now
played by 209 national associations.
The
brief cease-fire on the Western Front in Belgium followed a published
letter from women’s suffrage advocates in England calling upon “the
Women of Germany and Austria” to demand peace at Christmastime in 1914.
Undoubtedly, some men on the front lines did leave their frozen, muddied
trenches to not only bury their dead, but to exchange gifts of tobacco
or even tunic button.
Henry
Williamson, then a 19-year-old private in the London Rifle Brigade who
survived the war to become an author, sent a letter from the front to
his mother. “In my mouth,” he wrote, “is a pipe presented by the
Princess Mary. In the pipe is German tobacco. Ha ha, you say, from a
prisoner or found in a captured trench, Oh dear, no! From a German
soldier. Yes a live German soldier from his own trench. Marvelous, isn’t
it?”
Other
letters, published in The Times of London, alluded to the game or games
that broke out. Some suggest that they were kick-abouts, mainly between
English soldiers using made up balls — some say a can of corned beef
served as a substitute.
Fewer
accounts came from the German side, although Richard Schirrmann wrote
the following December that his regiment, which was holding a position
in the hills of occupied Belgium, received a request from Belgian troops
to be allowed to send letters to their families. “Something
fantastically unmilitary occurred,” Schirrmann reported. “German and
French troops spontaneously made peace and ceased hostilities. They
visited each other and exchanged wine, cognac and cigarettes for
Westphalian black bread, biscuits and ham.”
Schirrmann survived the war and set up the German Youth Hostel Association in 1919.
By
the following Christmas, the truce was banned under threat of a court
martial for any soldier on either side who dared to fraternize with the
enemy.
The
story of the Christmas Truce, and soccer’s part in it, became gilded
over the decades. It is implausible, but not impossible, that any
soldier smuggled a leather ball — or even the inflatable pig’s bladder
inside the casing — to the trenches. But that is how it has become
depicted in accounts fictionalized and made more beautiful.
Robert Graves, the British poet and writer, in 1962 reconstructed a story of the event, with Germany’s 133rd Royal Saxon Regiment taking on what he called Scottish troops. In Graves’s account, the Germans won, 3-2.
In the match between the British and German army teams last week in Aldershot, the British won, 1-0.
Soccer
and war have intersected again over the past century. Perhaps the most
evocative of triumphs was strife-torn Iraq emerging as the winner of the
2007 Asian Cup that was played across four countries: Indonesia,
Malaysia, Thailand and Vietnam.
Soccer
can indeed survive hostilities. But only at Christmastime will a story
be believed that both sides would put down their arms to meet in No
Man’s Land. A beautiful memory, made more beautiful in the subsequent
years of man’s imagination.
http://www.nytimes.com/2014/12/24/sports/soccer/tale-of-1914-christmas-day-truce-soccer-game.html?_r=0
