Rumours of angels: a legend of the First World War

by David Clarke

Abstract

The present paper examines the origin and socio-historical context of the Angels of Mons, a belief-legend that was a source of inspiration for British civilians and troops serving on the Western Front during the war of 1914-8. I trace the source of the legend to a fictional story that was in itself inspired by traditions of supernatural intervention in battle that were of great antiquity. During 1915 two versions, one based upon fiction and the other created from the cauldron of rumour and popular belief, became combined and transformed during oral transmission into a belief-legend that continues to survive in English folklore. My conclusion is that the Angel of Mons can only be interpreted within the context of what Fussell describes as "a world of reinvigorated myth" that appeared in the midst of a war characterised by industrialism and materialism (Fussell 1975, 115).

**********

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.