An interesting postscript to the legend occurred at the dawn of this century. ( Log Out /  Long expected; well prepared; Are encamped throughout the land In fact, the ground behind the British unit was empty. They went astray in the wilderness out of the way; The Bowmen (click to read!) The legend goes as follows. It is speculated that these men may have been part of a covert attempt by military intelligence to spread morale-boosting propaganda and disinformation. Maybe it was, after all, merely mass hysteria. In 2001, an article in The Sunday Times claimed that a diary, film and photographic evidence proving the existence of the Angels of Mons from a World War I soldier named William Doidge had been found. And lightning strikes like terror It changed the world more than any other single event in history. Begbie was impressed with the soldier’s transparent honesty. Over the miles, from the Swiss frontier to the Belgian fortress of Liege, the armies clashed and the casualties mounted. Whatever it was, the soldiers agreed, it had saved their lives. Out of the depths Lord, The cross is located at exactly the point where a motley outfit of cooks, store men, drivers and delivery men, about 50 in all from the regiment, held up the German advance for 11 hours. Enter your email address to follow this blog and receive notifications of new posts by email. These phantom men-at-arms cried aloud to St. George, and their swift arrows darkened the sky. It was claimed Marlon Brando and Tony Kaye were going to spend £350,000 to buy the evidence to make a film. For a faithful guardian and guide. During this battle more than a hundred British soldiers claim to have witnessed the vision of an angel which guided them to safety. A soldier of the Cheshire Regiment saw the angels too, and watched the German cavalry horses panic and bolt before their terrifying presence. Let Them Give Thanks Whom The Lord Has Redeemed Turn thou us unto thee, O Lord, Let Them Give Thanks Whom The Lord Has Redeemed, The Lord’s Prayer (from The Edenham Eucharist), The Twenty-Third Psalm (The Lord is my Shepherd). Adsit Anglis Sanctus Georgius it read, “May St. George be a present help to England.” Later, in Belgium, the soldier prayed for the saint’s help against the waves of German attackers and was rewarded by a host of shining bowmen, who charged the Germans with shouts of “Harrow! The odds were 4-to-1 against the BEF in infantry, plus the usual German superiority in guns. Because his compassion fails not. The sudden spread of rumours of further battlefield visions in the spring of 1915, six months after the events and Machen’s story was published, is also of note. The Catholic paper The Universe reported an account from a Catholic officer in which an isolated British party decided to charge the enemy head-on. Wound their feet. Change ), You are commenting using your Facebook account. The ill that I this day have done, The BEF fell back from Mons step by grudging step, leaving behind them more graves, more old friends buried far from England. No, he said, he was a Methodist, but he had seen St. George mounted on a white horse, leading the British into action against overwhelming odds. The soldier also told his story to another woman, a Red Cross hospital superintendent who interviewed the man and believed him implicitly. Are off to fight heroically, Gesturing to the tired guardsmen, she led them through the night to a sunken road, a way out of danger that Coldstream patrols had not been able to find—and afterwards could not find again on any map. Into an unknown land the Were the Angels of Mons in World War I Real, or Mass Hysteria? Keep me, O keep me, King of kings, A few said they couldn’t tell, but it had definitely been an angel, maybe more than one. Hungry and thirsty; their soul fainted in them. There have been countless thousands of published works devoted to all or of it. Fill in your details below or click an icon to log in: You are commenting using your WordPress.com account. So did Harold Begbie, a writer on the supernatural, who related this tale in his 1916 book, On the Side of the Angels. Each of the six movements can be performed separately including Out of the Depths which featured on Patrick’s Number-One-selling album ‘Angel’. Monseigneur St. George, Knight of Heaven, Sweet Saint, succor us!” The arrows of the phantom archers cut down the enemy en masse, and the German General Staff, finding the bodies of hundreds of their men lying on the battlefield with no discernible wounds, came to the conclusion that the British had used poisonous gas. Lee, who actually once met James, obviously enjoyed making this series and A Warning to the Curious is a real highlight – enjoy! Smith-Dorrien’s two divisions, stretched thin over 21 miles, found themselves attacked by two German corps, with another closely approaching and still another on the way. Ploughmen, thatchers, clerks and smiths Silence to song. Perhaps. It changed the world more than any other single event in history. Last week’s ghost story video seemed to go down pretty well, so here’s another M R James classic filmed by the BBC for your delectation: Please note that any abusive and/or annoying comments will be deleted. The Angel of Mons. Driven by the desire that An Englishwoman nursing in France wrote of a wounded Lancashire Fusilier who asked her for a religious medal. The other two were not so large, but were quite plainly distinct from the center one. That with the world, myself and thee, The worst of the fighting was around Le Cateau, fought on the anniversary of Edward III’s great victory over the French at Crecy. As England’s white cliffs sail from sight Volunteers by veterans led The battle of Mons took place on 23 August 1914 and within weeks tales of the ‘Angel of Mons’ had entered the realms of legend. The woman, unconvinced, repeated the story later, and a British colonel told her simply: “Young lady, the thing happened. Many of the men had reached the end of their endurance; some had not eaten in 24 hours. Others said the “Angels of Mons” might have been St. Michael, since he carried a gleaming sword. On August 22-23,1914, the first major engagement of the British Expeditionary Force in the First World War occurred at the Battle of Mons. The British carried the German trench, and a German prisoner later asked the officer who the “officer on a great white horse” had been, for the German riflemen had not been able to hit him. The stories published then often attributed their sources to anonymous British officers. The unintended result, however, was that Machen had a number of requests to provide evidence for his sources for the story soon after its publication, from readers who thought it was true, to which he responded that it was completely imaginary (he had no desire to create a hoax). In those terrible days of August heat, the powerful German right wing swung like a great fist west and southwest from the Belgian frontier and struck deep into France. Hard-pressed English soldiers swore they had seen angels, ghostly archers—or even St. George himself—riding to their aid near Mons in World War I. We heard the German cavalry tearing after us and ran for a place where we thought a stand could be made. I have a record of fifteen years’ good service, and I should be very sorry to make fool of myself by telling a story merely to please anyone.”. (lower voices) The BEF comprised much of Britain’s tiny regular army, a minuscule force of four infantry divisions and five cavalry brigades when compared to the multitude of German … The only link between the Mons retreat and Machen’s story, in fact, was its beginning, which observed that troops of the British Expeditionary Force were in retreat: Mons itself was not mentioned. He could see, he said, “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. The men interviewed had no doubt who authored their salvation: “It was God did it,” they said. To follow me on Twitter or Facebook click on one of the links below. Accounts of heavenly aid abounded in Britain. It was not a place the II Corps commander would have chosen to fight, but Smith-Dorrien wisely elected to make a stand rather than try to disengage and withdraw in the face of overwhelming numbers. The Angel of Mons – a popular story about a group of angels who supposedly protected members of the British army in the Battle of Mons – is perhaps the most enduring supernatural legend of the First World War. New post from Anilbalan’s Ghost Cities Blog: The Angel of Mons | Hugh Paxton's Blog, A Ghost Story for Christmas: The Tractate Middoth, Dead of Night: The Ghost Stories of Oliver Onions, Out of the Deep: Walter de la Mare’s Supernatural Tales, Devilishly Good: The Best of Dennis Wheatley. With Him is plenteous redemption. 6731 Whittier Avenue, Suite C-100 McLean, VA 22101, From Tolkien to Hitler: Famous Soldiers of World War I, The Battle for Omaha Beach: The Men of the D-Day Invasion, Napoleon Bonaparte’s Last Campaign: The Battle of Waterloo, Operation Barbarossa: World War II’s Eastern Front, The Battle of Gettysburg: Turning Point of the American Civil War. In God they trust. During the retreat, some soldiers swore that they had seen the face of the patron saint of England. We saw between us and the enemy a whole troop of Angels.”, A soldier of the West Riding Regiment told a group of Canadians that he had actually seen the angel, and a wounded soldier described to a young woman the same thing: an angel, wings spread, standing between his unit and the Germans. Sorry, your blog cannot share posts by email. Forgive me, Lord, for thy dear Son, I have been haunted by the writings of M R James since childhood but when asked what is my favourite of all his ghostly tales I’ve never fully been able to answer. In chaotic mystery the opening The BEF comprised much of Britain’s tiny regular army, a minuscule force of four infantry divisions and five cavalry brigades when compared to the multitude of German army corps advancing on Paris. On the 23rd August 1914 the Battle of Mons took place – the first major conflict between the British and the Germans in World War I. The same magazine told the story of another soldier who had seen the same troop of angels standing between him and onrushing German cavalry. Arthur Machen was basically a jobbing journalist and fiction writer in London in the early years of the last century. There, on Sunday, August 23, Sir Horace Smith-Dorrien’s II Corps took on the German juggernaut along the Conde Canal. Nor grieve the children of men. His men were tired, time was short, and the roads were clogged with transport columns and hordes of refugees. In the night of the 26th, the third day of the retreat west through Belgium, weary British soldiers saw tall, unearthly figures materialize in the gloom above the German lines. In 2000 the BBC produced a series called Ghost Stories for Christmas, with Christopher Lee in which Lee played M R James reading four of his own stories.