![]() ![]() Present day students of the First World War can be excused for scratching their heads in wonder as to what really transpired on those hot August days in 1914 to beget a fragment of folklore that won so many adherents and has had such staying power. The Guardsmen followed the glowing figure across an open field to a hidden, sunken road which enabled them to escape. She was tall and slim, wearing a white flowing gown. Whitehouse reports an angel then appeared as a dimly outlined female figure. states that after the battle on what is known as the Retreat from Mons some Coldstream Guards being the last to withdraw, got lost in the area of the Mormal Forest and had dug-in to make a. Daniel David in his bock, THE 1914 CAMPAIGN reports that "Some beleaguered soldiers reported being rescued by angels and ghostly bowmen." Arch Whitehouse in an earlier book, HEROES AND LEGENDS OF WORLD WAR I. Trevor Wilson and Martin Gilbert mention the apparition in their recent works. Henceforth, Tommy Atkins and his family on the homefront believed in a somewhat standardized legend of the Angel of Mons whose timely appearance showed the Lord's sanction and active support for the opponents of the Kaiser's legions - at least the British opponents.įurthermore, military historians who have studied Mons have enthusiastically incorporated the legend of the Angel of Mons into their writings up to the present day. In the consensus version, the nature of the apparition was angelic rather than, say, saintly or ghostly. The contemporary diaries and letters of many sane, sober people show that by 1915, in something of a focusing of national collective consciousness, the British had accepted that a supernatural event had taken place at Mons. Nevertheless, the Angel did leave a trail. Nor did such regiments active in the battle or retreat such as the West Kents and the 2nd Scots Borderers chronicle anything but the brutal combat. The Units that suffered most heavily on the 23rd, the 4th Royal Fusiliers and the 4th Middlesex did not record any peculiar events whatsoever. In the histories of the regiments most seriously involved in the fighting there is no mention of any events that could be construed as a distraction or an intervention in the fighting. It would be expected that if some dramatic event had occurred and the men of a particular battalion or company had seen something unusual around Mons, it would be would be mentioned somewhere. Most of the "Old Contemptibles", the regulars who fought in the early actions of the Great War, were killed off early. British Army veterans who later told of seeing the Angel were suspect. None of these eyewitnesses, however, who later asserted having viewed the Angel came forward in 1914 and had his name recorded in any log or document. After, he apparently became not only a teetotaler but a pillar of the community. He had recounted that before this he had been a hard drinker. An employee of his grandfather, a veteran of Mons, became convinced that he had seen the angel. ![]() Present day writer Philip Haythornthwaite gives a curious example of the story's lasting power. Michael the Archangel, the Virgin Mary, even Joan of Arc. Aside from these beings, Bunson states that soldiers later claimed to have seen St. Another story spoke of three angelic beings seen by the British, hovering in the air over German lines, providing a source of deep inspiration for them. The angelic host's assistance could not have come at a more propitious moment as the British were being driven back by the relentless German advance."īunson also relates one version supposedly corroborated by German prisoners describing a force of phantoms armed with bows and arrows and led by a towering figure on a shining white horse who spurred on English forces during an assault on German trenches. In his book ANGELS A TO Z Matthew Bunson recounts, 'One of the most famous episodes of angelic intervention, the supposedly widely reported descent of an angelic army in August 1914, which came to the aid of the British forces against the Germans in Mons. One of the abiding legends of the Great War is of an intercession by a heavenly agent - allegedly observed by many soldiers - during the opening action at Mons, Belgium, part of the larger action known as the Battle of the Frontiers in August 1914. The Legends and Traditions of the Great War: The Case of the Elusive Angel of Mons ![]()
0 Comments
Leave a Reply. |