On a recent gray December afternoon, a feeble-looking soccer goal sat on a patch of grass behind the Manhattan headquarters of the United Nations, just down a walkway from a preserved segment of the Berlin Wall and directly across the river from the Pepsi-Cola sign on the Queens shore. Two junior diplomats from the United Kingdom’s U.N. delegation stood nearby and watched the orange plastic edges of the net flutter in the chilly wind. “It’s going to stay up, isn’t it?” one of them said. “I think so,” his companion replied.
The pair had set up the goal that morning for a commemoration, hosted by the delegations from the U.K. and Germany, of the Christmas Truce of 1914, when troops on parts of the Western Front climbed out of the trenches and spent the day talking, singing, and playing soccer with enemy soldiers who had been trying to kill them just hours earlier. It’s perhaps the most famous event of the First World War, and certainly the most camera-ready—an island of sweet and simple humanity in the ocean of a bloody and arcane conflict. The truce has been memorialized many times this year, for the centenary of the event. (Christmas, 1914, fell just a couple of months after the start of the war, and Christmas truces didn’t happen on any scale for the remainder of the conflict; it seems the two sides had a harder time recognizing their common humanity in subsequent years.) Monuments have been built, re-creations have been staged, and, in England, a Christmas Truce-themed commercial for chocolate from the grocery store Sainsbury's has gone viral online.
At the U.N.—the institution that rose from the ashes of the war that followed the War to End All Wars—delegates from ten member nations would divide into two teams (determined alphabetically, but coincidentally pitting the U.K. and Germany against each other once again) and compete in a soccer penalty-kick shootout. As competitors and spectators began to arrive, one member of the U.K. delegation, who was dressed casually in jeans, a purple sweater, and a down vest, didn’t harbor any overconfidence about his country’s chances. “By tradition, it’s the Germans who win these things,” he said. For the benefit of an American, who seemed to be the only person around who wasn’t already aware, he pointed to the 1990 World Cup semi-final and to the semi-final of the 1996 European Champions, both of which England lost to Germany after a penalty shootout. “It was 3-2 for us in 1914,” a German diplomat commented to a colleague. “At least, that’s what we found in the records.”
Ambassadors and spectators from various delegations began to arrive. “A lot of the Security Council is showing up,” one of the two Brits who had set up the net observed. “That’s good to see.” His friend handed the competing Ambassadors T-shirts—white for Algeria, Austria, Germany, Liechtenstein, and Eritrea, and a powdery U.N. blue for Peru, Slovakia, Slovenia, Tunisia, and the United Kingdom. The word “Truce” was printed where a soccer player’s name would usually be, and everyone was number 14. Some of the Ambassadors gamely pulled the shirts over their expensive-looking suits. Martin Sajdik, from Austria, a husky man with white hair and a jolly face, abandoned any sartorial preciousness, pulling his white shirt snugly over his suit jacket and pairing it with broken-in white tennis shoes and white athletic socks that peeped out from beneath his rolled-up pant legs. Christian Wenewesar, of Liechtenstein, looked dashing, with a rooster’s coiffe and sleek, black athletic shoes. He removed his suit jacket and thick knitted scarf in order to put his T-shirt on underneath, then he rearranged the jacket and scarf on top—a new outfit.
The British diplomat in the down vest stood next to a German colleague. “We ran a practice camp. It was really tough,” the German joked. “Of course, we’re taking it very seriously; we’re German. Don’t write that down,” he said to a nearby reporter. He did agree that history, in soccer if not in war, favored the Germans. “Here’s what you should write down,” he instructed the reporter. “If there’s one thing the English can’t do, it’s shoot goals.”
A slight hush fell on the crowd. “I think the referee has arrived,” someone said, as the Secretary-General, Ban Ki-moon, climbed onto the small stage set up at the edge of the field. In a short ceremony, the Ambassador from Germany (Harald Braun, a scholarly looking man with short gray whiskers and James Joyce glasses, already wearing his tennis shoes) and the Ambassador from the U.K. (Mark Lyall Grant, a tall Old Etonian in a navy wool coat and a red tie) read letters from soldiers who wrote home about the truce. From the British side, Captain R. J. Armes described singing with the Germans and exchanging permission to bury the dead. “If one gets through this show it will be a Christmas time to live in one’s memory,” Armes wrote. He died in 1916, fighting in Mesopotamia.
The crowd was led in a rendition of “Silent Night,” first in English and then in German. Everyone joined in heartily. As the German version started, the German diplomat leaned over the shoulder of the Englishman in the down vest and tapped menacingly at the German words printed in the program. “I’m watching you,” he whispered. The German version was no less hearty.
For the shootout, Secretary General Ban donned a black-and-white version of the Truce 14 shirt. He blew a referee’s whistle and waved a yellow penalty card over his head as the Ambassadors got ready to take their kicks.
First came Algeria, from the white team, still wearing shiny leather dress shoes with his suit. He gave a timid kick that was easily caught by the goalkeeper—an American employee of the secretariat, a semi-professional soccer player dressed in actual athletic gear. Austria, with his socks, eagerly stepped up next, but voices in the crowd shouted, “No! It has to be blue!” Peru came instead and delivered a strong kick that, while it missed, was greeted by cheers for its audacity. Austria’s kick was caught, but it was followed by goals from both Eritrea and Tunisia, making the score 1-1. Slovenia missed by a long shot, sailing past the corner of the net. (“Oooooh,” said the crowd.) Germany missed, despite clearing spectators out of the way to make room for a long approach. Slovakia missed, too, after jokingly placing the ball just a few feet from the net before moving it back to the regular distance. Liechtenstein placed a sharp goal smartly into the net. (“I hear he plays quite seriously,” a British diplomat commented later.) The United Kingdom also scored, a fumbly shot through the hands of the goalie. (Ambassador Lyall Grant played a bit at Cambridge.)
The score, in the end, was 2-2, as friendly an outcome as any peace lover could ask for. But nobody took much notice of the score. Almost as soon as the last shot was kicked, someone called out, “I think Canada wants a go!” The Canadian Ambassador was seen walking out to make a kick, pulling off his overcoat as he went. He was followed by a flood of his colleagues. Ambassador Lyall Grant stood nearby, shouting out the countries of the Ambassadors as they approached: Malta, Croatia, Japan, France, Kazakhstan. Bahrain put in a strong goal, as did Bosnia and Herzegovina, the only female Ambassador to take a shot. The crowd became almost raucous, laughing and cheering as their country’s representatives volunteered, or allowed themselves to be goaded into, joining the parade of sportsmanlike abandon, shedding bulky outerwear and decorum to send the soccer ball flying toward the still-standing net, like festive missiles of transnational goodwill. A voice came over the sound system: “I’m told that the Secretary-General himself wants to take a shot.” Ban, still wearing his referee T-shirt over his suit, lobbed a slow kick to the goalie, who caught it easily.
After the Christmas Truce in 1914, the soldiers headed back to the trenches. “It’s weird to think that tomorrow night we shall be hard at it again,” Captain Armes wrote at the end of his letter. The crowd at the U.N. sipped on mulled wine from little bubble-shaped mugs before heading back to their offices or to lunch meetings. The goalie, the American semi-pro, lingered under the net for a few minutes, chatting and posing for pictures. If the level of play wasn’t up to the standard he was used to, he was diplomatic about it. “You can always do better,” he said.
