SOURCE: Clarke, David. “Rumours of Angels: A Legend of the First World War.” Folklore 113 (2002): 151-73.

[In the following essay, Clarke asserts that Arthur Machen's “The Bowmen” was inspired by the Angel of Mons legend, which offered encouragement to the British troops during World War I.]

It's true, Sister. We all saw it. First there was a sort of a yellow mist like, sort of risin' before the Germans as they came to the top of the hill, come on like a solid wall they did—springing out of the earth just solid, no end to ‘em. I just gave up. No use fighting the whole German race, thinks I; it's all up with us. The next minute comes this funny cloud of light, and when it clears off there's a tall man with yellow hair in golden armour, on a white horse, holding his sword up, and his mouth open as if he was saying, “Come on boys! I'll put the kybosh on the devils.” … The minute I saw it, I knew we were going to win. It fair bucked me up—yes, sister, thank you. I'm as comfortable as can be (Lancashire Fusilier describes the Battle of Mons to nurse Phyllis Campbell; “The Angels of Mons.” London Evening News [31 July 1915], 7).

… It was strong evidence, as I say. Or, rather, it would have been strong evidence but for one circumstance—there was not one word of truth in it. Or, in the stronger phrase of Wemmick, these stories were lies: “Every one of ‘em lies, sir”.

(Machen 1938, 87)

BACKGROUND

During the decade that preceded the outbreak of the First World War, British society was awash with rumours and fears that were directed outwards towards perceived external aggressors. From 1909 claims of widespread German espionage and phantom Zeppelin airships hovering above the English coastline were circulated by newspapers (Clarke 1999, 39-64). The fear of invasion by foreign hordes was magnified following Britain's entry into the war against Germany in August 1914. Within weeks of the departure to France of the British Expeditionary Force a rumour was spread, largely by newspapers, which claimed that convoys of trains containing a vast Russian army had been seen, travelling under great secrecy from the Scottish ports through England en route to join the Allied effort on the Western front. Belief in the reality of the “Russian myth” persisted until September, when it was denied by the official Press Bureau (Watson and Oldroyd 1995, 193).

In other cases, rumours that appealed to long-established beliefs and traditions would become legends and their influence persisted long after the armistice. In the case of the Angels of Mons, a popular belief developed that a miracle had occurred at a crucial stage in the battle, with the outcome that the British Army was preserved from destruction. This twentieth-century belief emerged from a background of religious and martial traditions that had their ultimate origins in the Middle Ages. St. George, who it was claimed had appeared to lead troops fighting at Mons, was traditionally regarded as the patron of English fighting men. In earlier centuries, St. George had been invoked during the Crusades and on the field of Agincourt (Hole 1965, 24). As the rumours spread, claims were made that French soldiers had seen a vision of Joan of Arc and St. Michael, while Russian infantry had been rallied by their own national hero, General Skobeleff (Shirley 1915, 10).

In 1915, when the war had reached stalemate on the Western Front, rumours originating from the first months of the conflict became immortalised by a stream of newspaper stories, pamphlets and books. As a result, many thousands of people both in Britain and across the world were led to believe that angels had intervened on the Allied side at a decisive point in the first battle of the Great War, and that the course of the conflict had been changed as a result. One historian wrote that the angels of Mons “entered the realm of legend within a fortnight” of the battle (Terraine 1992, 18), and by the spring of 1915 it had become “unpatriotic, almost treasonable, to doubt it” (Fussell 1975, 116). There are many different opinions concerning the origins of the legend. The Imperial War Museum, summarising the popular accounts that were published in 1915, concluded that “to pursue the supporting stories to source is to make a journey into a fog” (Imperial War Museum, undated, 2). The most recent detailed attempt to collate the source material, by Kevin McClure, led to the conclusion: “I still don't know what happened during the Retreat from Mons: I doubt that I ever will” (McClure 1994, 23).

Since 1915, biographical and autobiographical material has carefully documented the everyday experiences of those who fought in the early engagements of the war but few mention angelic visions, or any other supernatural or miraculous event. A number of contemporary historians have touched upon the Mons legend in their accounts of the conflict and have followed established traditions of belief and disbelief in their analysis of the story. As an example of the former, A. J. P. Taylor writes how Mons was the only battle of the Great War where “supernatural intervention was observed, more or less reliably, on the British side” (Taylor 1966, 29). Others have dismissed the stories as the product of imagination or hallucination, and John Terraine included the angels among his list of “myths and anti-myths” of the Great War (Terraine 1992, 17-18). Discussions of the legend by folklore scholars have been few and far between, although Simpson and Roud recently contrasted the fictional elements of the story with the content of the oral rumours. Both versions, they concluded “are best explained as a contemporary legend which satisfied religious and patriotic needs, and became a powerful and enduring part of the mythology of the Great War” (Simpson and Roud 2000, 6).

THE BATTLE OF MONS

Fear of war brought visions of invasion and catastrophe to peoples across Europe during the hot summer of 1914. Alongside fear came hope that the war would be brief and deliver a decisive victory. For those caught up in the horrors of the battlefield, collective fears were replaced by visions of both comfort and disaster as the pace of conflict quickened. As hundreds of thousands of men were mobilised, the armies of two great empires charged towards a collision on the outskirts of a tiny Belgian mining town. Mons was the scene of the first confrontation between the British Expeditionary Force and the German army. Under the Schlieffen Plan, two million German troops marched through Belgium into northern France. They were under orders to circle south and east to surround Paris and outflank the Allied armies, ending the war within six weeks (Taylor 1966, 20-1). At the battle of Mons, the progress of the seemingly unstoppable German army was checked for one day by a smaller British force.

Military historians have minutely documented the chronology of events on the Mons battlefield. The 70,000 strong British Expeditionary Force (BEF) arrived in France on 14 August 1914 as the Belgian army was retreating and while the French were being pushed back on the southern end of the front. The BEF, under the command of Sir John French, were professional soldiers, many of whom had fought in the South African wars. After almost four days of continual marching, 36,000 men from this small but resourceful army were immediately thrown into a clash with a vastly superior German force.

On 22 August, the 2nd Corps of the BEF set up defensive positions along a salient formed by the Mons-Conde canal with orders to hold the German advance for twenty-four hours. At 6:00 a.m. the following morning, General Alexander von Kluck's infantry attacked the British line. Initially, the Germans advanced in close formation and were cut down by rapid fire from the men of the Middlesex Regiment and Royal Fusiliers, who at the time were regarded as some of the finest rifle marksmen in the world. At one point in the battle, German field officers reported back to von Kluck that the British were using machine guns because they were firing so rapidly and inflicting many casualties upon the Germans. In addition, the British troops carried an entrenching tool that allowed them to move quickly out of the range of German artillery and rapidly throw up new trenches protected by mounds of earth.

The German forces slowly overwhelmed the British force, however, and some regiments were in danger of being surrounded. Although placed in a precarious position, the BEF lost 1,600 men in the initial battle and were able to make an orderly retreat towards the French frontier where, at Le Cateau, the German advance was more severely checked. The Schlieffen Plan was finally halted in the bloodbath of the Marne where, in the course of six days from 5 September, half a million men lost their lives.

Stories of angelic intervention did not originate from Le Cateau or the Marne, but centred upon the Retreat from Mons, which took place between 23 and 26 August. In the meantime, vivid and exaggerated accounts of the plight of the British Army were sent by English journalists to the London newspapers. These were passed for publication by the British Government Press censor who quickly realised their propaganda value on the Home Front. The most influential was the account of the Mons battle written by Arthur Moore published in The Times on 30 August 1914. It opened with these words: “The battle is joined and has so far gone ill for the Allies … yesterday was a day of bad news, and we fear that more must follow.” Moore spoke of “very great losses” suffered by the BEF, which he said was “a retreating, broken army” and of waves of German troops so numerous “that they could no more be stopped than the waves of the sea.” Moore's account ended with a paragraph inserted by the Director of the British Government's Press Bureau, which read: “England should realise, and should realise at once, that she must send reinforcements … we want men and we want them now” (Harris 1982, 2826).

“THE BOWMEN”

The newspaper accounts concerning the fate of British troops at Mons, although far removed from the facts known to the War Office, had two immediate results that were to have a major impact upon the public perception of events.

First, the newspaper reports shook their English audience and, more importantly for the seeding of rumour, predisposed sections of society towards a belief that the BEF had escaped destruction as a result of a miracle. Once this idea had become established, the path was prepared for claims of supernatural intervention on the battlefield.

Second, the published accounts of the Mons battle inspired a leader writer on the London Evening News, Arthur Machen, to produce a short story—“The Bowmen”—that he would later claim to be the single source for the angels legend (Machen 1915). Although employed as a journalist, Machen was an accomplished author who specialised in mystical and supernatural themes that drew heavily upon mythology and Celtic tradition (Reynolds and Charlton 1963, 117-9). On 17 September 1914, the London Evening News published a Machen short story, “The Ceaseless Bugle Call”, that McClure describes as a “trial run” for “The Bowmen” (McClure 1994, 3). Machen said the latter was not one of his best works, but its artistic merit had no relationship to the impact its publication was to have upon British society at the opening of the war. Filling just seventeen column inches, it appeared on page 3 of the edition published on 29 September 1914, three days after the feast of St. Michael and All Angels.

Whatever its shortcomings may have been, “The Bowmen” was a timely piece of patriotic wish fulfilment that caught the mood of the nation. Machen was later to write that his inspiration came while in church, after reading newspaper accounts of the retreat from Mons:

“… I seemed to see a furnace of torment and death and agony and terror seven times heated, and in the midst of the burning was the British Army. In the midst of the flame, consumed by it and yet aureoled in it, scattered like ashes and yet triumphant, martyred and forever glorious. So I saw our men with a shining about them …”

(Machen 1915, 8)

“The Bowmen” opens by setting the scene. The action is focused upon a stand made by a single regiment of the BEF against the relentless advance of the German infantry. Blown limb from limb by an artillery barrage and reduced to half their strength, the men lose hope as columns of German troops advance towards their trenches. Then, in the heat of battle, one of the soldiers remembers a vegetarian restaurant in London, where plates are decorated with pictures of St. George. In desperation, the soldier repeats an invocation that he remembers had been printed around the edge of the plates—“Adsit Anglis Sanctus Georgius” (“St. George help the English”). Immediately, he feels “something between a shudder and an electric shock pass through his body” and perceives the deafening roar of battle die down. In its place the men hear a multitude of voices invoking St. George and before the British lines, beyond the trench, appear a long line of shapes “with a shining about them.” The figures are the ghostly shapes of bowmen who fell during the battles of the Hundred Years' War. With another shout, a cloud of arrows flies through the air towards the German army. To their astonishment the BEF then see the advancing Germans falling by the thousand. After the engagement, 10,000 dead German soldiers lie on the battlefield, and the general staff, unable to find any wounds upon their bodies, concludes that the English must have used poison gas. Machen concluded his account with the words: “but the soldier who knew Latin knew also that St. George had brought his Agincourt bowmen to help the English” (Machen 1914, 3).

BOWMEN INTO ANGELS

Although “The Bowmen” was written and presented as unambiguous fiction, within days the newspaper's editor had received letters from The Occult Review and from the spiritualist magazine Light. They wished to reprint the story and had interpreted the events described not as fiction, but as fact. Both magazines asked for the identity of the sources upon which the story was based, and Machen replied to the effect that “I could not give my authorities, since I had none, the tale being pure invention” (Machen 1915, 14-15). There the matter ended and six months passed without any further published stories or rumours.

By the spring of 1915, the war had entered the stalemate of trench warfare. Tens of thousands of lives had been lost on both sides and hopes of a decisive victory before Christmas had long been abandoned. It was in these circumstances that Machen's story re-appeared in a new form, as a rumour reported within the pages of one of the same magazines that had initially responded so emotionally to Machen's fictional story. A number of writers have asked why the story re-appeared, in many different sources, seven months after it was originally published. McClure describes this “missing link” as “perhaps the greatest mystery of the way the Mons stories unfolded” (McClure 1994, 3). One of the earliest versions of the rumour has been traced to an issue of Light published in London on 24 April 1915 under the headline: “The Invisible Allies: Strange Story from the Front.” The date of publication is significant, as the feast day of St. George was 23 April. The newly re-born legend soon featured as the centrepiece of a series of patriotic sermons preached in parish churches across England. This explains the “missing link” that connects the two chronological strands of the rumour. In its article Light described how stories had been circulating since the previous September and, although the magazine had suspected that Machen's story was “founded on fact,” it was not until April 1915 when the magazine received a visit from a “military officer” that they had begun to take them seriously.

He [the officer] explained that, whether Mr. Machen's story was pure invention or not, it was certainly stated in some quarters that a curious phenomenon had been witnessed by several officers and men in connection with the retreat from Mons. It took the form of a strange cloud interposed between the Germans and the British. Other wonders were heard or seen in connection with this cloud which, it seems, had the effect of protecting the British against the overwhelming hordes of the enemy.

(“The Invisible Allies: Strange Story from the Front.” Light [24 April 1915], 201)

Within a week of the appearance of this story, a new version was published in a Catholic newspaper, The Universe. This was in the form of a second-hand account of the contents of a letter allegedly sent home by an officer who was present at Mons:

A party of about 30 men and an officer was cut off in a trench, when the officer said to his men, “Look here, we must either stay here and be caught like rats in a trap, or make a sortie against the enemy. We haven't much of a chance, but personally I don't want to be caught here.” The men all agreed with him, and with a yell of “St. George for England!” they dashed out into the open. The officer tells how, as they ran on, he became aware of a large company of men with bows and arrows going along with them, and even leading them on against the enemy's trenches. And afterwards when he was talking to a German prisoner, the man asked him who was the officer on a great white horse who led them, for although he was such a conspicuous figure, none of them had been able to hit him.

(“St. George and the Phantom Army.” Light [15 May 1915], 233)

The officer's account appears to have been based upon the main elements of Machen's story, specifically the invocation to St. George and the appearance of the bowmen. This version introduces one additional detail: the figure on horseback did not feature in the original story, and his identity remains unstated in this account. A Protestant version of this story, which contains a variation of the “vegetarian restaurant” motif, was published a short time later and further clarified the identity of the horseman who led the bowmen. It was published in an account of a sermon preached by the Revd Fielding Ould, the vicar of St. Albans, and reproduced in Light. The clergyman said he heard the story from three sources and added: “I think it may be true.”

A sergeant in our army had frequented a house of the Young Men's Christian Association, and had seen there a picture of St. George slaying the dragon. He had been deeply impressed by it and when, at the front, he found himself in an advanced and rather isolated trench, he told the story of St. George to his men … when shortly afterwards a sudden charge of the grey-coated Germans in greatly superior numbers threatened the sergeant's trench he cried: “Remember St. George for England!” to his men as they advanced to meet the foe. A few moments afterwards the enemy hesitated, stopped and finally fled, leaving some prisoners in our hands. One of the latter, who seemed dazed and astonished, demanded to be told who were “the horsemen in armour” who led the charge. Surely they could not have been Belgians dressed in such a way.

(“St. George and the Phantom Army.” Light [15 May 1915], 233)

The source for both stories, as proved to be the case in virtually all the others that followed them into print, remained anonymous. The witnesses are identified by the newspapers and magazines that reprinted them as “a soldier,” “an officer,” “a nurse,” or “a story heard by Mrs M—.” This slow trickle of rumour soon broke into a flood, with spiritualists adding their own variations to the theme. Miss Callow, secretary of the Higher Thought Centre in Kensington, told the London Weekly Dispatch how an officer had sent a detailed account of a vision that appeared to himself and others “when fighting against fearful odds at Mons.” He saw:

an apparition representing St. George, the patron saint of England, an exact counterpart of a picture that hangs today in a London restaurant. So terrible was their plight at the time that the officer could not refrain from appealing to the vision to help them. Then, as if the enemy had also seen the apparition, the Germans abandoned their positions in precipitate terror.

(Harris 1982, 2828)

Adding to this mounting “evidence” in May 1915, an issue of The Occult Review contained an article by A. P. Sinnett, a theosophist, who claimed there had been an intervention of “spiritual beings” during the Retreat from Mons. He said: “Those who could see said they saw ‘a row of shining beings’ between the two armies” (“‘The Bowmen’ on the Battlefield: A Rival to the Great Russian Fable.” London Evening News [3 May 1915], 4). Machen's conviction that “The Bowmen” was the source for all the rumours in circulation was strengthened by Sinnett's account. His story contained the words “a long line of shapes, with a shining about them,” and Machen saw this as the connecting thread that had transformed his Agincourt warriors into angelic guardians of the British troops.

I conjecture that the word “shining” is the link between my tale and the derivative from it … in the popular view shining and benevolent supernatural beings are angels and nothing else … and so, I believe, the Bowmen of my story have become “the Angels of Mons”.

(Machen 1915, 18)

The most important stage in the transformation of the rumour from the motif of “bowmen/St. George” to that of the more familiar “angels” occurred within the pages of a parish magazine published by All Saints Church at Clifton, Bristol. From the standpoint of the Church of England, angels were a more appropriate medium for the visions at Mons than Machen's bowmen. The All Saints version was attributed to a Miss Marrable, “the daughter of the well-known Canon Marrable,” a Christian lady whose evidence was treated with respect. In the magazine, the Revd M. P. Gilson, the vicar of All Saints church, described how Miss Marrable had met in England two British Army officers “both of whom had seen angels which had saved their left wing from the Germans when they came right upon them during our retreat from Mons.” The Revd Gilson's account continued:

They expected annihilation as they were almost helpless when to their amazement they stood like dazed men, never so much as touched their guns, nor stirred till they had turned round and escaped by some crossroads. One of Miss M—'s friends, who was not a religious man, told her that he saw a troop of angels between us and the enemy. He has been a changed man ever since. The other man she met in London. She asked him if he had heard the wonderful stories of angels. He said he had seen them himself and under the following circumstances: While he and his company were retreating, they heard the German cavalry tearing after them. They saw a place where they thought a stand might be made, with sure hope of safety; but before they could reach it, the German cavalry were upon them. They therefore turned round and faced the enemy, expecting nothing but instant death, when to their wonder they saw, between them and the enemy, a whole troop of angels. The German horses turned round terrified and regularly stampeded. The men tugged at their bridles, while the poor beasts tore away in every direction from our men. The officer swore he saw the angels, which the horses saw plainly enough. This gave them time to reach the little fort, or whatever it was, and save themselves.

(“An Angelic Guard.” Church Family Newspaper [14 May 1915], 12)

Within weeks of publication, all the copies of the magazine had been sold and requests for more poured in. Writing in June 1915, the Revd Gilson describes how surprised he was:

to find that our modest little parish magazine has suddenly sprung into almost world-wide notoriety; every post … has brought letters from all over the country, not asking merely for single copies, but for dozens of copies, enclosing quite embarrassing numbers of stamps and postal orders, the more so since there were no more magazines to be had.

(“The Angelic Guard at Mons: Comments by the Vicar of All Saints.” Bladud, The Bath Society Paper [9 June 1915], 14)

Miss Marrable's circumstantial account was accepted by thousands who had hitherto remained sceptical. Her story was featured as the centrepiece of a sermon delivered by an influential nonconformist pastor, the Revd R. F. Horton, in Manchester on 13 June 1915 against a backdrop of stalemate in Ypres and at Gallipoli. Horton said of the angels: “… this is a story repeated by so many witnesses that if anything can be established by contemporary evidence it is established … of the retreat from Mons.” Horton claimed the appearance of the angels was “the salvation of our men” and was of the opinion that:

when soldiers and officers, who were in the retreat from Mons say they saw a batch of angels between them and the enemy, and that the horses of the German cavalry stampeded and thus our troops were saved from destruction, no thoroughly modern man is foolish enough to disbelieve the statement or to pooh-pooh the experience as hallucination.

(“Dr Horton and ‘The Bowmen’.” London Evening News [17 June 1915], 2)

Miss Marrable's testimony and the Revd Horton's sermon broke the floodgates. The story was reprinted by the national and regional newspapers and was reproduced in pamphlets distributed to soldiers fighting on the Western Front. It was the first to stand apart from the early rumours that had drawn largely upon the imagery in “The Bowmen.” The “angels” in Miss Marrable's story appear without warning and protect the English soldiers from harm, rather than attacking the enemy as was the case in Machen's tale. On the surface the story appeared to have been drawn indirectly from a personal experience described by two individuals known to the narrator. This was not in fact the case. It was based not upon first-hand testimony from “soldiers and officers,” as the Revd Horton had assured his congregation, but came from a source that remained, like the others that had preceded it, unnamed and untraceable. Newspapers and an investigator from the Society for Psychical Research (SPR) pursued Miss Marrable and tried to obtain direct testimony from a named officer who had been present at the battle of Mons. When pressed for names, Miss Marrable said she could not corroborate the story for, contrary to Revd Gilson's account, she did not personally know the officers. Evidently annoyed that she had been misquoted, she wrote to the London Evening News: “I shall be much obliged if you will inform the Editor of The Occult Review that I know nothing whatever of officers or men who saw the angels” (“No Escape from the Bowmen.” London Evening News [30 July 1915], 2). Similarly, in a reply to the SPR dated 28 May 1915, she wrote: “I cannot give you the names of the men … as the story I heard was quite anonymous, and I do not know who they are” (Verrall 1915, 108).

Despite these retractions, the Marrable story continued to circulate, with her name conveniently omitted, in newspapers, magazines and pamphlets published throughout the course of the war. A leaflet circulated on the Western Front in 1916, which was preserved in the personal bible of a soldier who served in the Yorkshire and Lancashire Regiment, contains the discredited story under the following heading: “an authentic account of the marvellous deliverance of our Troops from the Germans” (Angels at Mons 1915). The source is attributed to “an extract from a letter sent to a Clergyman” and ends with a quote from Psalm 34:7, “The Angel of the Lord encampeth round about them that fear Him and delivereth them.”

Throughout the ensuing controversy, Arthur Machen continued to insist that his imagination was the source for all these stories and “… it began to dawn on me that if I had failed in the art of letters, I had succeeded, unwittingly, in the art of deceit … the snowball of rumour that was then set rolling has been rolling ever since, growing bigger and bigger, till it is now swollen to a monstrous size” (Machen 1915, 15). Ironically, although he was champion of both Catholic and pagan mystical and spiritual viewpoints, Machen suddenly found himself forced to adopt a materialistic stand in his role as an objective journalist. As a result, he publicly denied the reality of the visions in the absence of authentic first-hand testimony and demanded those who were promoting the claims of “divine intervention” adhere to the same rules of evidence as were followed in a court of law.

Caught up in a wave of patriotic fervour, Machen was pressed to issue “The Bowmen” in book form in August 1915 (see Figure 1). He reluctantly obliged, adding an introduction that carefully explained how his original story had become transformed into a living legend. The Bowmen and other Legends of the War became an instant success, with 3000 copies sold in London on the first day of publication in August 1915 (“The Bowmen: 3,000 Copies a Day, and Yet not Enough.” London Evening News [16 August 1915], 3). Within months, the book had been translated into six languages and new editions were soon produced in India, the USA and South Africa. A second edition published in the same year contained five additional short stories (McClure 1994, 15). “The Bowmen” also appeared in an omnibus edition of his work published posthumously (Machen 1949). Throughout his life, Machen believed that he was the author, rather than the historian, of the Angels of Mons. His book, although successful, did nothing to dampen the desire of the masses to believe in and identify with the idea of supernatural intervention in the war. For simultaneously, the British public was overwhelmed with further published accounts providing new testimony and “evidence,” all supporting the claims that angels had indeed appeared on the battlefield!

Variations of the angels rumour were by now being circulated and published at an astonishing rate. In England, where the public was receiving dreadful news of great losses from the Western Front every day, the clergy used the story in Sunday sermons as a method of boosting morale on the Home Front and to foster belief in the rightness of the British cause. Published sermons, pamphlets and books appeared alongside the stories, filling columns of the daily newspapers and a mass of correspondence hotly debating the rumours. Ralph Shirley, editor of the Occult Review, issued a booklet called The Angel Warriors At Mons, which he claimed to be an “authentic record” of the visions including “numerous confirmatory testimonies,” but which contained little more than hearsay and speculation (Shirley 1915, 1).

ON THE SIDE OF THE ANGELS

Those who believed in “divine intervention” insisted that Machen had consciously, or unconsciously, translated a vision experienced by soldiers into a work of fiction. The writer Harold Begbie, author of On the Side of the Angels, subtitled “an answer to Arthur Machen,” went one step further. Begbie was a patriot who realised the story was an inspiration to the British war effort and felt it should be defended. He suggested that telepathy rather than coincidence best explained the source of Machen's inspiration, writing: “Mr. Machen, on that Sunday morning, when he read with supreme sympathy that ‘awful account’ in his newspaper … may have received from the brain of a wounded or a dying British soldier in France some powerful impression of the battlefield at Mons” (Begbie 1915, 21).

Furthermore, Begbie questioned Machen's claim that the legend arose directly from the publication of his story in the London Evening News. His argument was that, even if the visions had no factual basis, Machen's story was not the origin of the rumour. What Begbie called his “powerful defence” of the angels story suffered a major blow when one of his principal pieces of evidence was revealed as a hoax. This was the testimony of Private 10515 Robert Cleaver of the 1st Cheshire Regiment. Cleaver wrote to the Daily Mail claiming he was present at the Battle of Mons and had seen the angels with his own eyes. Furthermore, he swore an affidavit to this effect before a Justice of the Peace, George Hazelhurst, in the county of Flint, North Wales. His testimony was seized upon as “striking confirmation” in Begbie's book. After publication, Hazelhurst heard rumours that suggested the private had not, after all, fought at the battle of Mons. The J.P. contacted Cleaver's headquarters in Salisbury, and asked for confirmation of his movements. The Record Officer replied that Cleaver was mobilised at Chester on 22 August 1914 and was posted to France on 22 September—a month after the battle of Mons! (Harris 1982, 2846).

Hazelhurst wrote to the Daily Mail asking readers to draw their own conclusions. He ended his letter with the sad plea: “Will none of the officers who were at Mons and saw the Angels of whom Miss Marrable speaks come forward and confess it?” Despite these revelations, both Cleaver's false testimony, and the uncorroborated story of Miss Marrable continued to be printed, circulated and believed years after they had been discredited. Of Begbie's remaining “powerful evidence,” there was little more than third-, fourth- and even fifth-hand testimony, much of which was drawn from witnesses who remained anonymous and untraceable.

Both Begbie's and Shirley's defence of the angels story relied heavily upon the writings of a young British nurse, Phyllis Campbell. Campbell was in France at the outbreak of the war and had immediately volunteered for nursing duties in the field dressing stations near the front line. As the daughter of the novelist Francis Campbell and a cousin of Lady Archibald Campbell, the young nurse had a family background steeped in supernatural tradition and belief. Before the outbreak of war, she had contributed a collection of French ghost stories to The Occult Review under the name “Phil Campbell.” In August 1915, that same magazine published the first of a series of articles describing how nurse Campbell had heard stories of visions and miracles directly from the wounded and dying soldiers she had tended in the field hospitals of Belgium and France. Some of these anecdotes were published in her book, Back of the Front, which appeared upon her return to England. In one passage she describes events during the Retreat from Mons in the following way:

… as the immense wall of the German army came up, a kind of luminous mist settled down between it and the Allied forces—and out of the mist came two mounted figures—Joan of Arc and St. Michael on white horses. The men who related these stories varied them in this way—that the British saw St. George and the French St. Joan and St. Michael. There did not seem to be any religious sentiment in the stories, but those who told them had left the fight in the certainty that victory was with the Allies.

(Campbell 1915, 113)

One soldier from Domremy told Campbell he had seen Joan of Arc brandishing a sword and crying “Advance!” while three others of the Irish Guards told of seeing “St. George riding on a white horse between them and the Germans.” A similar story was told by a Lancashire Fusilier and an Royal Field Artillery man before they died of their wounds. “All the French asked eagerly for medals of Joan of Arc and St. Michael, and these two men demanded a medal, or a picture of St. George—because they had seen him—these men came from in or about Vitry-le-François—where the Allies turned. These men were sure they had seen St. George, because they were familiar with his figure on the English sovereign and had recognised it” (Campbell 1915, 113).

Machen used his position as a London Evening News leader writer to challenge Campbell's claims, and demanded that she produce the names of soldiers who had made statements before they could be accepted as evidence. She countered his argument by claiming that troops were forbidden by the Army to discuss what they had seen, adding a conspiracy of silence to the claims she had already made. Campbell promised that “the evidence exists … and when the war is over and the embargo of silence is removed, Mr. Machen will be overwhelmed with corroborative evidence” (Harris 1982, 2849). The conspiracy theory was also mentioned by Begbie, who claimed there was “a definite military order that soldiers are not to speak of their experiences at the front … until after the war” (Begbie 1915, 30).

Although she continued to be championed by the believers in “divine intervention,” Campbell was unable to explain why she had not communicated the accounts she claimed to have collected to a second party before the rumours appeared in newspapers early in May 1915. Furthermore, her stories are not corroborated by the memoirs of the Field Ambulance Corps and the other more senior nursing sisters, such as Vera Brittain who had attended the casualties from Mons and Le Cateau (Harris 1982, 2848-9). Campbell's writings drew heavily upon the story variants that were already in circulation both in England and on the front when she came forward in August 1915. Furthermore, her credibility has been severely questioned by Melvin Harris, who discussed her “angel” stories alongside the German atrocities that she claimed to have personally witnessed in Belgium, also reported in Back of the Front (Campbell 1915). These allegations have since been discredited by historians as propaganda (see Terraine 1992, 22-34). Harris contends that Campbell was “driven by a fanatical patriotism, which led her to accept and repeat every atrocity story that came her way.” Her standing as an objective reporter of events in Belgium is destroyed in the light of an undisguised hatred of the enemy, evident from her own account. One example, from Back of the Front, is the passage that reads: “All the wickedness, the lust, the hate and cruelty and greed—the filthiness unimaginable that exists can be summed up in one word: German!” (Campbell 1915, 118). Harris writes that to Campbell: “The Hun was so loathsome that anything could be used as a weapon against him—even lies” (Harris 1982, 2894).

VISIONS AT MONS

Harold Begbie's central argument was that “British soldiers in France believed that angels had appeared to them” before Machen was inspired to write “The Bowmen” (Begbie 1915, 7). The evidence he marshalled in support of this argument was not convincing and relied upon hearsay evidence. During 1915 a number of named soldiers did come forward to relate personal experiences of battlefield visions that were published in the newspapers, but none appeared until a year after the events they claimed to describe. Others came forward in later years with more elaborate stories, but these cannot be regarded as reliable as they were all influenced by the publicity the claims had received during 1915. One of the most widely quoted came from a wounded lance-corporal. He remained anonymous, but his identity was known to both Machen and the Daily Mail, which published his account during August 1915.

This soldier described a vision witnessed above the German lines on or about 28 August 1914, following the Retreat from Mons:

The weather was very hot and clear, and between eight and nine o'clock in the evening I was standing with a party of nine other men on duty, and some distance on either side there were parties of ten on guard … An officer suddenly came up to us in a state of great anxiety and asked us if we had seen anything startling … taking me and some others a few yards away showed us the sky. I could see quite plainly in mid-air a strange light which seemed to be quite distinctly outlined and was not a reflection of the moon, nor were there any clouds in the neighbourhood. The light became brighter and I could see quite distinctly three shapes, one in the centre having what looked like outspread wings, the other two were not so large, but were quite plainly distinct from the centre one. They appeared to have a long loose-hanging garment of a golden tint, and they were above the German line facing us.

(“Angels of Mons.” Daily Mail [12 August 1915], 3)

The Lance-Corporal claimed he had not read any of the stories describing the Mons angels before he decided to confide his story to the lady Superintendent of the field hospital in which he was recuperating from his wounds. Attempts were made by the SPR to interview the soldier following his discharge from hospital, but he could not be traced. His narrative was recorded eleven months after Machen's story was published so its value as a contemporaneous account is lessened.

One contemporary second-hand account that has survived might allow us to establish that rumours of a vision were circulating among the men of the BEF during the immediate aftermath of the battle, but before publication of “The Bowmen”, as Begbie had argued. The reference appears in a collection of letters and diaries produced by Brigadier-General John Charteris, who was one of the most senior officers in the BEF under General Sir Douglas Haig. Charteris kept a daily record of events during the campaign in Belgium, and these were collected and published in 1931. A diary entry dated 5 September 1914—twenty-two days before Machen's story appeared—refers to the rumour. Charteris writes of:

… the story of the Angel of Mons going strong through the 2nd Corps of how the angel of the Lord on the traditional white horse, and clad all in white with flaming sword, faced the advancing Germans at Mons and forbade their further progress.

(Charteris 1931, 25-6)

In a follow-up entry, the officer describes the efforts he made to “trace the rumour to its source,” and concludes:

The best I can make of it is that some religiously minded man wrote home that the Germans halted at Mons, AS IF an Angel of the Lord had appeared in front of them. In due course the letter appeared in a parish magazine, which in time was sent back to some other men at the front. From them the story went back home with the “as if” omitted, and at home it went the rounds in its expurgated form.

(Charteris 1931, 75)

The officer's testimony is significant only if the entries can be demonstrated as being contemporary with the dates provided by the diary. Unfortunately, it appears that some of the entries were completed at a later date. In the case of entry dated 11 February 1915, Charteris refers to the appearance of the “angels” story in a parish magazine that must, by inference, refer to that published by All Saints, Clifton. However, this account did not appear until May 1915, so could not have been referred to by an officer at the front in February of that year! This also casts doubt upon the authenticity of the original entry. Charteris does, however, make a perceptive comment about the conditions under which the visions were reported, by men who were exhausted after days of marching and lack of sleep. He suggested that the story was the result of hallucination triggered by battle fatigue, adding: “Men's nerves and imagination play weird pranks in these strenuous times …” (Charteris 1915, 26).

In the days that followed the battle of Mons, exhausted and weary British soldiers retreated south towards the French frontier where, on 25 August, the BEF regrouped at Le Cateau. After joining with French armies a fearsome battle ensued that temporarily halted the German advance, but left the British forces exhausted and disheartened. This was the context in which Private Frank Richards, who was later to become the author of the Billy Bunter books, wrote of visions in an account published in his autobiography.

If any angels were seen on the retirement, as the newspaper accounts said they were, they were seen that night [August 26] … March, march, for hour after hour, without a halt; we were now breaking into the fifth day of continuous marching with practically no sleep in between … Stevens said: “There's a fine castle there, see?” pointing to one side of the road. But there was nothing there. Very nearly everyone was seeing things, we were all so dead beat.

(Richards 1964, 19)

It is significant that both Charteris and Richards attributed the visions described by fellow soldiers to hallucinations triggered by lack of sleep and exhaustion. Other similar accounts of visual and auditory hallucinations experienced by exhausted soldiers, in the Western, African and Middle Eastern theatres of war, were published after the end of the conflict (see Whitton 1918, 515; Bewley 1997, 30-1). The influence and role of psycho-physiological factors upon individual and group perception on the battlefield require comment and study by scholars from the appropriate disciplines. As folklorists, we are concerned with the symbolic content of the more elaborate rumours and personal narratives that were published during the summer of 1915.

Both Phyllis Campbell and Ralph Shirley claimed that angels intervened to protect the Allies in a string of battles from the Marne to the carnage at Ypres. Another pro-angels writer, Rosa Stuart, wrote that:

our men claim to have derived inspiration from apparitions and visions [and] similar stories centre round the engagements at Neuve-Chappelle, Loos and other places the names of which will be handed down to history. …

(Stuart 1917, 59)

Such claims were few following the Battle of the Somme in July 1916, when almost 20,000 British soldiers were killed on the first day. By this stage, collective visions had been replaced by highly personal accounts of a “White Helper” or “Comrade in White,” identified with Jesus Christ, who it was said had appeared on the battlefield to bring comfort and reassurance to individual soldiers (McClure 1994, 10-12; Evans 1984, 116-17).

It was not until the spring of 1918 that angel rumours were again spread through the elaborate grapevine that had developed in the trenches of the Western Front. With the arrival of American soldiers fighting on the Allied side, the war was now entering its final phase. In the spring of that year, the German High Command ordered a final massive offensive that initially provoked fears of an Allied disaster. It was within this context, with its striking similarities to the aftermath of Mons in 1914, that signs and portents once again appeared as symbols of hope and victory. One story concerned the leaning statue of the Virgin and Child, which balanced precariously upon the ruined Basilica at Albert. A rumour gained ground among the British and German troops that the war would end when the statue finally fell, and both tried in vain to destroy it with artillery shells. The statue—that was referred to as “the angel” by the soldiers—was finally dislodged by British shellfire in April 1918. Newspapers quickly declared that “the Germans had wantonly destroyed it” (Fussell 1975, 132). Another story from 1918 that may have originated as propaganda describes how a troop of ghostly White Cavalry intervened to halt a German offensive at Bethune in Belgium. The horsemen evaded a devastating artillery barrage and their appearance caused the enemy infantry to panic and flee. As in 1914, the inference was that the leader of the phantom horsemen was St. George (“The White Cavalry.” Household Brigade Magazine Winter 1942, 16).

SUPERNATURAL INTERVENTION ON THE BATTLEFIELD

The alleged visions at Mons were certainly not the first or last time that stories of supernatural intervention in war have become an integral part of popular belief and of national identity. Similar stories can be found in the folklore and the mythology of many nations. These include the vision of the Holy Cross to the Emperor Constantine before the battle of Milvian Bridge and the legends of King Arthur and Frederick Barbarossa, who are said to lie sleeping in caves waiting for the call to defend their country in a future conflict (Temperley 1915, 188-9). In the case of the visions at Mons, an interesting avenue of investigation relates to the substitution within popular belief of King Arthur with St. George as the identity of the “figure on horseback” who scatters the German cavalry. The source of this motif can be found in Machen's story, where the soldier recalls the invocation to St. George printed upon plates in a vegetarian restaurant. Furthermore, Arthur Machen's writings were directly influenced by patriotic and martial traditions drawn from the mythology of Britain. “The Bowmen” was in itself a development of an earlier short story, “The Ceaseless Bugle Call,” that was published by the London Evening News on 17 September 1914. One month after the declaration of war against Germany, Machen was using the columns of a national newspaper as the medium to transmit imaginative fiction at a time of great national crisis. In “The Ceaseless Bugle Call,” he summoned both St. George and King Arthur “from their magic sleep in Avalon … that they may strike one final shattering blow for the Isle of Britain against the heathen horde” (McClure 1994, 3).

Little is known of the life of St. George other than he was a soldier martyred in what is present day Syria, during the late third or early fourth century A.D. His cult spread through Western Europe by the sixth century, and at a later stage he was adopted as patron saint of England. In 1914 his appearance before English troops on the battlefields of Europe was in keeping with a tradition of considerable antiquity, dating back to the First Crusade. It was at Antioch in 1098 that St. George had appeared as the Christian army was trapped between the sea and the advancing Saracens.

Suddenly they saw a mighty host charging down the hillside to their aid, with banner flying and horse hoofs thundering … heartened by this marvellous sight, the Crusaders rallied, and at the end of the day, against all normal expectations, the victory was theirs.

(Hole 1965, 23-4)

St. George as a phantom horseman also appeared to Christian troops at the Siege of Jerusalem:

… ffro the Mount of Olyvet appiered a Knyght which was not knowen ne never might be founden. This Knyght began to shake and meve his shelde … and made signe to all peple that they shold now retorne and come agayne to the assault.

(Hayward 1944, 48)

The cult of St. George was nurtured at the court of Edward III and the saint became a divine protector of English soldiers in battle. By the fifteenth century, St. George intervened on the side of the English against the armies of other Christian nations, further cementing his identification as the totem protector of that army. His banner was carried alongside Our Lady and the Royal Standard at the battle of Agincourt in 1415, and tradition has it that “he was seen by many during the fight, riding in the sky above the English host” (Hole 1965, 31).

Ralph Shirley, in his Angel Warriors of Mons, refers to a number of historical accounts of wartime visions, including the phantom re-enactment of the Battle of Edgehill during the English Civil Wars (Shirley 1915, 10-14). He also drew attention to popular belief in Russia where the apparition of General Skobeleff, a folk hero who led the Tsar's forces during the Russo-Turkish war of 1877-8, performed a similar role to that of St. George. During November 1914 it was claimed that stories were “widely current in the Russian army … that many Russian sentinels have seen the famous ghost of General Skobeleff in white uniform and riding his white charger” (Shirley 1915, 10). In traditional stories, this vision appeared when the armies of the Tsar were in imminent danger and could create panic in the ranks of the enemy.

Harold Temperley described a similar belief current among the Serbian Army during the Balkan Wars. The Serb tradition was centred upon Marko Kraljevic, a national hero from the wars against the Turks who, like King Arthur, was said to be “sleeping … and will awake and come to their aid when the Turk is finally to be expelled from Serbian soil” (Temperley 1916, 195). One such appearance, apparently witnessed by “some hundreds if not thousands of men,” occurred during the battle of Prilep and was recorded within days of the events. The battle was centred upon the siege of the Turkish-held fort of Castle Marko, which was subject to a withering artillery barrage. During the action, Serb infantry ignored orders from their commander-in-chief and were seen “shouting frantically … and running like wolves straight to the Castle of Marko.”

An observer described how he heard his Captain commanding his men to stop and await the General's orders.

When the immediate commanders saw that discipline proved futile, they essayed in vain to appeal to the soldiers' reason, assuring them of certain death if they would not wait at least the effect of our artillery. Our warriors, deafened by the roaring of the Turkish siege-can-non … ran straight into the fire, and appeared to fall in dozens. The sight was horrible [and] my blood froze. In a little while our artillery ceased firing, least they should kill their own comrades. A few minutes later we saw the Serbian national colours fluttering on the donjon of Marko's castle. The Turks were fleeing in the greatest disorder. The Serbian victory was as complete as it was rapid … [afterwards] I heard from thousands of soldiers in majestic union: “Kraljevitch Marko commanded us all the time: Forward! Did you not see him on his Shabatz? [famous steed]”.

(Temperley 1916, 193-4)

POST-1918 EVOLUTION OF THE LEGEND

Stories and alleged personal accounts from BEF veterans of visions witnessed at Mons and elsewhere continued to appear following the end of the Great War, but the accounts became more elaborate in their re-telling (for two good examples, see Carlew 1974, 198-9; Whitehouse 1964, 15-21). In 1930, newspapers in New York and London printed a new variation of the legend that was credited to a former member of the Imperial German Intelligence Service, one Colonel Friedrich Herzenwirth. The Colonel claimed the Angels of Mons were in fact “motion pictures thrown upon ‘screens’ of foggy white cloudbanks in Flanders by cinematographic projecting machines mounted on German aeroplanes which hovered above the British lines.” He claimed the object of the exercise was to induce terror and panic among the British troops, but the stunt backfired.

“What we had not figured on was that the English should turn the vision to their own benefit. This was a magnificent bit of counter-propaganda, for some of the English must have been fully aware of the mechanism of our trick. Their method of interpreting our angels as protectors of their own troops turned the scales completely upon us. Had the British command contented itself with simply issuing an Army order unmasking our trickery it would not have been half as effective.” The following day a telegram from Berlin appeared in the same newspaper, quoting a member of the Intelligence Department in the present German Ministry. The official declared the story a hoax and said Herzenwirth was himself a myth.

(Harris 1982, 2896)

Real or imaginary, Herzenwirth's theory took its place among the popular stories surrounding the angels of Mons. A more recent version claimed that:

according to at least one report … the Germans dissuaded French troops from firing upon them by projecting a picture of the Virgin Mary onto the side of a farmhouse.

(Harlow 1997, 9)

The Daily Mirror's Old Codgers column resurrected the legend in 1954 after the paper received a letter asking “who were the Angels of Mons?” After publishing a summary of the claims made in 1915 that explained the roles of Arthur Machen and “overworked imagination” in the creation of the story, the paper received a letter from Harold Malpas, one of the few surviving veterans of the “Old Contemptibles,” as the BEF were affectionately known. His account read:

In the morning [of 23 August 1914] about eight or nine o'clock, as far as my memory recalls, there appeared in the sky a large white light, brighter than daylight. It stayed for two or three minutes. At the same time there was a lull in the battle, and a sudden hush of silence settled over the battlefield. My own experience was an uncanny feeling of awe. The men about me felt the same way. As to what it was I cannot express any opinion, but it certainly was NOT angels.

(Malpas 1954, 12)

CONCLUSIONS

When all the stories and rumours are collected, one fact remains that—Charteris' account aside—not a single published account of supernatural visions at Mons appeared in print prior to the publication of Machen's story in the London Evening News. Nor do any official histories of the war make reference to miracles or apparitions at Mons. However one approaches the vast corpus of stories and rumours, it remains an inescapable fact that none were published until the spring of 1915, more than six months after the idea of supernatural intervention had taken root in England.

As the rumours multiplied, many story variations appeared in the newspapers within the context of “established fact.” Kevin McClure believes there were initially two separate stories that he classifies as “The Bowmen” and “The Angels” with quite different formats and characteristics. “Though there are certainly later accounts in which both appear, the two forms having apparently been amalgamated … anyone familiar with the development of folklore will be aware of how easily such changes occur” (McClure 1994, 22).

“The Bowmen” and the invocation to St. George can be traced directly to Machen's short story that he believed was the ultimate source for all the rumours. By May 1915, the martial bowmen of Machen's story had been replaced by “The Angels,” a version that ultimately proved to be more enduring and acceptable to both Protestants, Catholics and spiritualists alike. This subtle transformation appealed both to national and to religious instincts united by the horrors of the unfolding war in Europe. Of the many different story variants, the earliest form of the post-Machen rumour appears to be the “mysterious cloud” that, it was claimed, interposed itself between the retreating BEF and the German cavalry as the former were in danger of destruction. “The Angels” and the “mysterious cloud” were linked in that both were said to have appeared spontaneously, without invocation, at a crucial stage in the rearguard action that followed the battle. In my view, both stories had their origins partly in fiction and partly from the background of popular belief and tradition upon which “The Bowmen” was itself based. From the summer of 1915, “The Angels” became the dominant version as the legend took form out of a number of constituent parts that included literary fiction, rumours and lies.

In 1915 a careful inquiry set in motion by the SPR arrived at a similar conclusion. This said of the first-hand testimony, “we have received none at all, and of testimony at second-hand we have none that would justify us in assuming the occurrence of any supernormal phenomenon.” The SPR established how many of the stories relating to alleged “visions” on the battlefield, circulated during the spring and summer of 1915, “prove on investigation to be founded on mere rumour, and cannot be traced to any authoritative source.” Despite this poverty of evidence they concluded:

… after the rumours had been discounted, we are left with a small residue of evidence, which seems to indicate that a certain number of men who took part in the retreat from Mons honestly believe themselves to have had at that time supernormal experiences of a remarkable character.

(Verrall 1915, 117)

McClure reached a similar conclusion: “… that the men of the BEF—or a number of them, anyway—were aware of reports of a ‘cloud’ or of ‘angels’ before the publication of The Bowmen” (McClure 1994, 22). However, in the immediate aftermath of the war not a single Mons veteran came forward with a clear and unambiguous account of an angelic vision that he had personally witnessed. The historian Lyn Macdonald, who has collected a large amount of contemporary material from the era, assured me that:

… in 25 years of research I have never known any soldier refer to this “phenomenon” either by documentation in my extensive archive nor in the 1500 hours of oral recordings with veterans of the First World War. …

(Lyn Macdonald, personal communication 14 November 2000)

She adds a caveat to the effect that: “It's fair to say, however, that it is not a topic I would have pursued with the many hundreds of soldiers I spoke to.”

When the stories are examined objectively and in hindsight, their interest lies in the complete absence of any first-hand, authenticated accounts from named witnesses. Three factors are apparent from analysis of their content and context:

• The obvious presence of literary invention.

• The power of propaganda and lies.

• The influence of tradition and folklore.

What emerges from this palimpsest of belief, lies and invention is a legend that has no connection with real experience. The origins of the angels of Mons lie not so much in the events of the battle itself, but at a time when the war had entered a new, bleak phase of trench warfare and unremitting suffering. It was within this context that claims of divine intervention on the side of the Allies were invented, circulated and widely believed despite a complete absence of evidence. An Imperial nation had narrowly avoided defeat in the first month of the conflict and faced appalling loss of life in a war that it was believed would end all wars. The angels of Mons was part of a “plethora of very un-modern superstitions, talismans, wonders, miracles, relics, legends and rumours” that emerged as a reaction to the horrors of battlefield (Fussell 1975, 115). The artistic talents of Arthur Machen had combined with the power of the media to create a rumour of angels that appealed to a deep well of belief and tradition invoked in times of national crisis. To the evident surprise of author and newspaper editor alike, “The Bowmen” set in motion a chain of events that could not be defused. Ultimately, this resulted in the creation of an enduring legend that outlived the short story that inspired it.

Notes

The author wishes to acknowledge the British Academy who provided the small grant that made this research possible. I also wish to thank friends and colleagues who provided assistance, advice and additional references, in particular Kevin McClure, Hilary Evans, the Society for Psychical Research, the Imperial War Museum, the York and Lancashire Regimental Museum, Granville Oldroyd, Andy Roberts, Lyn Macdonald, Dr Vanessa Toulmin, and Dr Gillian Bennett.

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