MYTHCONCEPTIONS

263: THE SOCCER TRUCE

The myth

On 25 December 1914, amid the unprecedented awfulness of the Great War, groups of British and German soldiers emerged from their trenches at Flanders and met in No-Man’s Land for a game of football. There’s even a famous photo to prove it.

The “truth”

The photo is the first casualty: that single, familiar picture of half-adozen or so uniformed men competing in the air to head a soccer ball wasn’t taken in Flanders in 1914, but in Greece in 1915. All the footballers in it are British, members of the 26th Division stationed in Salonika to support Serbia against Bulgaria. The Christmas Day truce itself – that extraordinary event that strikes subsequent generations as aching with such potential and such waste – certainly occurred. Contemporary letters and diaries record troops meeting between the trenches (although some pioneers did fall victim to snipers), illegally fraternising with the opposition, sharing smokes and grub and handshakes. It’s quite possible that some of them kicked a ball or a tin can around for a bit, but none of the known truce photographs show such a thing. Nor is there much written evidence of organised ball games, and none at all from German documents. The often quoted Germany 3 Britain 2 scoreline comes from a 1960s short story. But the football truce has become semi-official history, marked by statuary and other commemorations, and this Christmas, as every year, TV and newspapers will show us a photo of British soldiers in Greece heading a ball and caption it “Flanders, 1914”.

Disclaimer

If your great-grandad was in goal, or running on with the magic sponge, and you happen to have a photo, please do write in.

Sources

theconversation.com/the-christmas-truce-football-match-a-picture-of-agreek-kickabout-is-misappropriated-yearly-173468; www.theguardian.com/world/2014/dec/16/truce-trenches-football-tales-shot-in-dark

Mythchaser

Is the story that a football match took place between British and German soldiers as widely known in Germany as in the UK and US? Or is this purely an Allied legend?