Rumours of angels: a legend of the First World War

Folklore, Oct, 2002 by David Clarke

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: