Angels of Mons

[Walkwolf]

Lol - A soldier having survived any battle in the First World War
would be cause enough to believe angels were on your side.

That guy in post #1 on the card is going to get his
if he doesn't find some cover.........!

[bigmacglenn]

Here's something to add...
cheers, Glenn

[Spitace41]

If there is any truth to the story at all, for me the most likely explanation would be some sort of mass hallucination. By the time "sightings" occurred the BEF was on its chinstrap so to speak. Tiredness and hunger can make people see things.

[Wagriff]

Is it possible they were all swacked on the same batch of morphine....or maybe Absynthe?

Morphine, I can believe...but Absinthe actually Clears the perception....it can be fun stuff and was a favorite of Ernest Hemingway! lol

[lithgow]

'Absynthe makes the heart grow fonder'-but as far as the angels go, everybody claimed God as an ally-note the 'God is with us' belt buckles the Kaiser's army wore as they rampaged through Belgium...

[Nigel Lesgate]

Yeah, I was wondering if they had a sweet little nurse making the rounds giving all the poor wounded lads a taste of the " little green fairy ".....? Geez, laudenum, opium,......? Few can fathom the horror of what those kids endured.

[HARRY THE MOLE]

If there is any truth to the story at all, for me the most likely explanation would be some sort of mass hallucination. By the time "sightings" occurred the BEF was on its chinstrap so to speak. Tiredness and hunger can make people see things.

There is no evidence of any such happening, only the fanciful thinking of people who (at the time) should have known better. You really need to read the original story of the 'The Bowmen' to understand how this story came about. It wasn't those at the front that started it, it was those back home.

A quick hello to Gunny. And thanks for the remark. I've been tied up with my next book. All the hard work (75,000 + words) is done. There are some more stories to come yet. There should be about 18 veterans from my Bty, 9 (Plassey) Bty who have contributed. Title is.... Andersonstown, the toughest nut to crack. This is after a remark made by Lt- General Sir Harry Tuzo, KCB,OBE, MC, General Officer Commanding Northern Ireland. Quote... " You were certainly confronted with the toughest nut and you have made great progress in cracking it." Major General R C Ford, CBE, Commander Land Forces, Northern Ireland said... "Your area has probably been the most difficult one in Northern Ireland and I have nothing but the highest praise for the extremely efficient manner in which you have handled it." Over 400 shootings, bombings and riots in a four months period speaks for itself in terms of how bad that tour from November 1971 to March 1972 actually was. many of my former comrades said that it was a book which simply had to be written, and that Gunny, is what I have been doing!
Cheers,
Steve.

[StefanM]

An interesting account that might predate The Bowmen by 14 days.... if the original letter sent by Brigadier-General John Charteris to his wife in England on 5 September 1914 could be examined:

"...then there is the story of the ‘Angels 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. Men’s nerves and imagination play weird pranks in these strenuous times."

This paragraph – apparently taken from a letter sent by Brigadier-General John Charteris to his wife in England on 5 September 1914 – is the earliest documentary reference to the angel of Mons. If genuine, it predates The Bowmen by 14 days, and destroys Machen’s claim that his piece of fiction was the single and only source for the legend. But how authentic is the entry, and is Charteris, whose expertise lay in the shadowy fields of intelligence and counter-intelligence, a reliable source?

The account appears in At GHQ, a book published in 1931 that was assembled from an enormous collection of letters dating from1914-18. Charteris was a compulsive writer, and produced more than 1200 separate letters describing his experiences during the campaign, sometimes several in one day. These were gathered by his wife Noel after the war and edited into the form in which they appear in the book. As such they cannot be claimed as original or untouched."

[StefanM]

A bright white cross was reported in the sky over the Flanders battlefield in June 1916. Claims abounded that it was seen by both sides in the trenches and even caused a temporary cease-fire.

No source for this report.

[Nigel Lesgate]

Yes, was reported.... but no source. That kind of sums up this goofy stuff. I do like hearing about it though.