27 June 2010

So England was dumped out of the World Cup 2010 in humiliating fashion, having lost 1-4 to Germany.  Let’s break the chronology of my BoB post-blog for a bit of digression. As bitterly disappointing as its outcome was, the yesterday’s football (soccer to our American visitors) match serves as a powerful reminder about something entirely dfifferent.

It’s how the memory of the Battle of Britain lives on today.

A friend of mine who runs an aviation memorabilia business once mentioned that World War II has become as distant to today’s generation as the Peloponnessian war. Among his clients, the F-18 Hornet seemes to have achieved a more recognisable status than the Mustang, Corsair, or Spitfire. Others would agree that education in secondary schools is lacking any form of Battle of Britain syllabubs, producing adults of today who never heard about people such as Bader, Dowding, or Park.

I’m perhaps more representative of a “previous” generation, but I’m getting a point. At least I used to. Then came this week’s World Cup match between England and Germany and I suddenly realised how much the emotions and importance that this event brought to light relate to the developments of 70 years ago: the Battle of Britain.

To the British, a World Cup match between England and Germany is unlike any other football game. It is a matter of national pride, utmost rivalry, sending shivers down the collective English spine.

The football history of England vs. Germany dates back to the end of the 19th century. The first official game took place in Berlin on 23 November 1899. The German side lost 13-2. Two days later a slightly altered German side lost 10-2. The third and fourth matches were played in Prague and Karlsruhe against a combined Austrian and German side and were won by England.

Then came the Great War, and with it the trenches of the western front. The first year of the war brought one of the most memorable episodes in football history, which occurred in Flanders on Christmas Day 1914.

By end-December, soldiers of both sides were preparing to celebrate Christmas – their first in the cold, frozen trenches of Flanders. Although there was no formal cessation of hostilities, on 24 December the artillery in the region fell silent. That day, German troops lit candles around their emplacements and on trees, then started singing Christmas carols. The British responded by singing carols of their own. The two sides continued by shouting Christmas greetings to each other. Soon thereafter, there were excursions across the no-man’s land, and even to the trenches of the opposing side. Small gifts were exchanged, such as food, tobacco and alcohol, and souvenirs such as buttons and hats. To the dismay of superiors on both sides, the gestures of goodwill and fraternisation swelled up across the entire front.

“British Expeditionary Force, Friday December 25th 1914
My Dear Mater, This will be the most memorable Christmas I’ve ever spent or likely to spend.
(…)
The Germans commenced by placing lights all along the edge of their trenches and coming over to us – wishing us a Happy Christmas etc … Some of our chaps went over to their lines.”
Unknown British soldier in a letter to his parents

That day, a football match was played on the frozen mud of no-man’s land between the Bedfordshire Regiment and the German soldiers of the 19th Corps. Although there was no referee and only very loose adherence to the rules, the regimental records of the 133rd Saxon Regiment also record the result: 3-2 to Germany. Some say that the game was put to an abrupt end when the ball was deflated on a barbed wire entanglement. Others claim that there were several matches played along the front.

Hostilities were officially resumed on Boxing Day, ceremonial pistol shots marking the occasion, but the intricate relationship between Anglo-German football and war was born.

British football team greets the public with a Nazi salute, Berlin 1938

The next two collisions between football and World history took place during the 1930s, after Hitler’s raise to power. In December 1935, the match was played at White Hart Lane in London. To that game, the Germans sent previously unheard-of number of “supporters” – a 8,000-strong contingent, carefully orchestrated by the Nazi party and sent by special trains. At the next match in May 1938 in Berlin, Britain was in appeasement mode. By instruction of the Foreign Office, English players performed a Nazi salute in front of the public of 100,000.  Although the gesture could have been appreciated by the hosts,  footballer Eddie Hapgood who played with English team described it as “as the worst moment of his life and one that he would not willingly go through again”.  Both events got to be harshly criticised in the British press which felt that football and the English team were being cynically exploited for Nazi propaganda purposes. As for the score, England won 3-0 in the first match and lost 3-6 in another.

During the Battle of Britain, the tacit bond between football and war elevated to a new level. With aerial battle taking place high overhead and relayed to the public by radio and newspapers, the similarity of a common man’s experience with that of a sports event was particularly apparent. Newsagents in London were quick to grasp the analogy, and exploited it in a brilliantly humorous way. I have already mentioned one quote from a newsagent’s blackboard: “France fell: we’re in the finals”. When aerial battles intensified, the daily score of aircraft destroyed would be chalked on a scoreboard, just as a result of a sports match. If dogfights continued in the evening, additional inscription stated: “After extra time”.

Today, 70 years on, World War II is a thing of the past, England plays against re-united Germany and Europe has enjoyed its best half-century of peace and prosperity for ages. Yet the tone of the British press before yesterday’s game cannot be  faulted.

Once again, the tabloid press has been filled with World War II-inspired articles predicting a showdown with “The Hun,” reckoning with “The Old Enemy”, or fearing a “Knockout Blow” or “Blitz”.

It has been like that for as long as I can remember. Back in 1990, The Sun previewed a World Cup semifinal against Germany with the front-page headline: “We beat them in ’45, we beat them in ’66, now the battle of ’90″.  Six years later, prior to European Championship semifinal, the Daily Mirror declared a “soccer war”, promising, somewhat insensibly, that the national team would “Blitz the Fritz”. Needless to say, England lost both matches.

Today’s headline in Daily Mail follows along the same tune, comparing the players’ poor performance with the circumstances of the Battle of Britain:

“If The Few had defended as badly as England we’d all be speaking German now”

So, in the world of football, the Battle of Britain lives on, and lives well, if only in tabloids, if only at times of the World Cup. 70 years after the Battle, it would seem that no other image would bring more satisfaction to the British media than that of a German coach at the press conference, saying:  “Vee would have done better if vee had a schquadron of Schpifeuers”.

It may happen one day. Or no, it won’t. But let’s not forget that in the real Battle of Britain, we’ve beaten them anyway.

References
Wikipedia: England and Germany football rivalry