The Angels of Mons
In the first battle of the First World War, British soldiers were said to have been saved by angels in the sky. The writer who started the story said he made it up.
What was reported
In August 1914, the British Army fought its first major battle of the First World War at Mons, in Belgium, and was forced to retreat. A month later, the writer Arthur Machen published a short story, 'The Bowmen', in a London newspaper, in which the ghosts of English archers from the Battle of Agincourt appear to protect the soldiers.
Soon, sermons and pamphlets were claiming the story was true. Accounts appeared of soldiers who had seen angels, shining figures or a strange cloud between them and the enemy at Mons.
Explanations offered
Machen insisted for the rest of his life that he had invented it. Historians think his story mixed with the stress of battle, rumours and the need for comfort in wartime, until people believed it had happened. No first-hand account from before the story was published has been found.
- When
- August 1914; story published in September 1914
- Where
- Mons, Hainaut, Belgium
- Witnesses
- Soldiers' reported accounts, after a short story
- Status
- Began as fiction
Famous cases are real, widely reported events. Each file sets out what witnesses said and the explanations that have been offered, without taking a side.
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