Ralph Shirley - The Angel Warriors at Mons -Including Numerous Confirmatory Testimonies...-1915-28pp

8/13/2019 Ralph Shirley - The Angel Warriors at Mons -Including Numerous Confirmatory Testimonies...-1915-28pp

1/24

^g^nggg^

SHIRLEYThe Angel Warriors at Mons.

D523S47


2/24

Digitized by the Internet Archivein 2008 with funding from

IVIicrosoft Corporation

http://www.archive.org/details/angelwarriorsatmOOshir


3/24

ONJ^ l^EltfV[lt

THE ANGELWARRIORSAT MONSIncludingNUMEROUS CONFIKMATOSY TESTIMONIESEVIDENCE OFTHE WOUNDEDand

CERTAIN CUEIOUS BISTORICAL PARALLELS

AN AUTHENTIC RECORDBY

RALPH SHIRLEYEDITOR OF THE OCCULT REVIEW


4/24


5/24

THE ANGEL WARRIORSAT MONSThe press in this country has recently given publicity tovarious stories claiming to be authentic of appearancesof phantom warriors who are stated to have come to therescue of the hardly-pressed armies of France and Englandat the time of the retreat from Mons. At this date it willbe recollected that the German army was carrying every-thing before it in a triumphant advance towards Paris,and it seemed to the majority of people both in this countryand across the Channel that nothing could prevent thecapture of the French capital. Suddenly there came achange over the whole outlooka change that was ex-plained in all sorts of different ways according to theconceptions of the military situation as seen from the pointof view of innumerable armchair strategists. An opinionwhich held favour with many, and which rumour loudlysupported, was that a Russian army had come by sea toan English port, and passing through this country andacross the Channel had landed on the French coast, andwas threatening the German line of retreat. This bubblewas soon burst, but people still continued to ask themselveshow it was that the triumphant onward march of the


6/24

2 THE ANGEL WARRIORS AT MONS

The BowmenIt was about this time (September 29, 19 14, to be precise)that a circumstantial narrative which might have beenintended to be taken either as fact or fiction appeared in thecolumns of the Swewn^g News under the title of The Bowmen.This story narrated how at a critical point in the retreat ofthe Allies an apparition of an army of English bowmenwith St. George at their head had come to the rescue ofthe retreating forces of General Joffre and Sir John French,and had struck terror into the German armies. Manyreaders took this charmingly-written tale as a statementof fact, but a letter addressed to the author, Mr. Machen,by the present writer, elicited the response that the narrativehad no foundation outside the writer's vivid fancy. Soon,however, correspondence began to reach the papers fromvarious quarters giving records more or less circumstantialof appearances of phantom warriors who, it was confidentlyaverred, had actually come to the rescue of the defeatedarmies at this critical moment. These correspondentswould have none of Mr. Machen's statement that his storywas pure romance. ' It might not be, they said in effect,that the phantom English bowmen had been seen on thebattlefield (though one of the narratives actually maintainsthis), but they stoutly declared that of the apparitions ofspirit warriors and especially of St. George on his whitecharger, there could be no possible doubt. These storieswere in their turn borne out by the French wounded, manyof whom maintained that while the English had seen thefigure they took for St. George, they themselves had seenSt. Michael, while many others had witnessed the apparitionof Joan of Arc riding at their head in full armour.Such stories had indeed been widely current in France


7/24


8/24

4 THE ANGEL WARRIORS AT MOXSregard to the cloud, that it quite hid them from the enemy.Numerous references have been made in the pulpits to thesephenomena, some of the clergy going so far as to readletters from soldiers at the front to their congregations.Mr. Lancaster, for instance, a Weymouth clergyman, readone of these letters from a soldier who said that his regimentwas pursued by a large number of German cavahry, fromwhich they took refuge in a quarry, where the Germansfound them and were on the point of shooting them, At that moment, said the writer, the whole top edgeof the quarry was lined by angels, who were seen by allthe soldiers and the Germans as well. The Germanssuddenly stopped, turned round, and galloped away attop speed. The Universe, a Roman Catholic paper, givesa story told by a Roman Catholic officer at the front, of anapparition of men with bows and arrows, and states thatwhen he was talking to a German prisoner afterwardsthe man asked who was the officer on a great white horsewho led them, for although he was such a conspicuousfit^ure they had none of them been able to hit him. Thisis the single instance above alluded to where the storytalhes with Mr. Machen's bowmen.Such stories as that of the apparitions at Mons have beentold in connexion with various great historical battles,but they have always been put down as legendary. Themost famous instance of this is that so brilUantly utihzedby Lord Macaulay in his ballad entitled The Battle ofLake Regillus, where two mysterious horsemen appear,who lead the Roman army to victory and are subsequentlyaverred to have been the great Twin Brethren of RomanMythology, Castor and Pollux, Among Bible records wehave the story of the siege of Dothan by the King ofAssyria, when Elisha is narrated as turning to his terrified be with us are more


9/24

THE ANGEL WARRIORS AT MONS 5continues the Bible narrative, The Lord opened the eyesof the young man and he saw, and behold, the mountainwas full of horses and chariots of fire round about Elisha.A somewhat similar story is told with regard to thevictory of Judas Maccabeus in the second century b.c. overLysias, the General of Antiochus Epiphanes. The army ofJudas only consisted of 10,000 men whereas that of Lj-siasnumbered 80,000. When they were at Jerusalem, saysthe historian,* there appeared before them on horsebackone in white apparel shaking his armour of gold. Thusthey marched forward in their armour, having an helperfrom heaven; for the Lord was merciful unto them.Among the most important records of psychic phenomenaoccurring on the occasion of the Battle of Mons is that ofMiss Phyllis Campbell, who has for many months of thewar been a nurse at a hospital near the front. It fell toher lot to tend various wounded soldiers who had witnessedthese strange phenomena and she gave a record of herexperiences in the form of an article which appeared in theAugust issue of the Occult Review.^ c On one occasion whileshe was bandaging a shattered arm, the President of thepost, Mme de A , came and took her place, asking herto attend to an Englishman who was begging for a holypicture. The idea of an English soldier making such arequest at such a time seemed curious enough, but shehurried off to attend to his needs. He proved to be aLancashire FusiUer.

St. George at MonsHe was propped in a corner (says Miss Campbell), hisleft arm tied up in a peasant woman's head kerchief, and

his head newly bandaged. He should have been in a stateof collapse from loss of blood, for his tattered uniform wassoaked and caked in blood, and his face paper-white underthe dirt of conflict. He looked at me with bright courageouseyes and asked for a picture or a medal (he did not care


10/24

6 THE ANGEL WARRIORS AT MONSwhich) of St. George. I asked if he was a Catholic. No,he was a Wesleyan Methodist, and he wanted a picture,or a medal of St. George, because he had seen him on a whitehorse, leading the British at Vitry-le-Frangois, when theAlhes turned. There was an R.F.A. man, wounded in theleg, sitting beside him on the floor ; he saw my look ofamazement, and hastened in, It's true, Sister, he said. We all saw it. First there was a sort of yellow mist,sort of risin' before the Germans as they come on to thetop of the hill, come on like a solid wall they didspringingout of the earth just solidno end to 'em. I just give up.No use fighting the whole German race, thinks I ; it's allup with us. The next minute comes this funny cloud oflight, and when it clears off there's a tall man with yellowhair, in golden armour, on a white horse, holding his swordup, and his mouth open as if he was saying, ' Come on,boys I'll put the k^'bosh on the devils.' Sort of ' Thisis my picnic ' expression. Then, before you could say' knife,' the Germans had turned, and we were after them,fighting like ninety. We had a few scores to settle, Sister,and we fair settled them.Both these soldiers knew it was St. George, for Had not

they seen him with his sword on every quid they'd everhad ? The Frenchies, however, they admitted,maintained that it was St. Michael. The French woundedMiss Campbell describes as being in a curiously exaltedconditiona sort of rapture of happiness. It was quitetrue, they maintained. The Germans were in full retreat,and the Allies were being led to victory by St. Michaeland Joan of Arc. One of the wounded French soldiershappened to have come from Domremy, Joan of Arc'snative home, and declared that he saw her brandishingher sword and crying, Turn turn advance Nowonder, he cried, the Boches fled down the hill.

A Dying Guardsman's NarrativeMiss Phyllis Campbell told Mme de A her experience


11/24

THE ANGEL WARRIORS AT MONS 7three wounded Germans, and had therefore had no oppor-tunity of conversation. Miss Campbell mentions the caseof three men of the Irish Guard who were mortally woundedand asked for the Sacrament before death, and beforedying told the same story to the old abbe who confessedthem. The author of this remarkable article draws attentionto the fact that whereas immediately before the apparitionswere seen all the wounded soldiers who were brought inexpressed the conviction of swiftly approaching disaster,immediately afterwards there was a complete transforma-tion of their attitude, the sense of despair giving place toa state of strange exaltation and confidence of victory.It is only natural that long forced marches without adequatefood, under a condition of intense strain and anxiety,should produce a condition of the nerves which is far fromnormal, and however ready we may be to grant the genuine-ness of the experiences above narrated, it must be bornein mind that men in such a state of tension will be farmore susceptible to psychic influences than they wouldbe under normal, everyday conditions. Granted, however,that such conditions were prevalent, it is noteworthy thatvery similar, though not identical, experiences were under-gone, if the records are to be relied upon, by thousands ofFrench and English soldiers.The abnormal conditions induced by the intense strain

of the long marches enforced by the rearguard fighting ismade evident by a curious passage which appears in a re-cently published work entitled The Crucible, by Mabel Collins.She here cites a letter from a young officer who was killedimmediately afterwards, who says, I had the mostamazing hallucinations marching at night, so I was fastasleep, I think. Every one was reeling about the road andseeing things. And again, of the following night, headds, I saw aU sorts of things, enormous men walking


12/24


13/24

THE ANGEL WARRIORS AT MONS 9Chinese insurgents, who they took for granted would fireupon them. To their great surprise they failed to do so.An Englishman who was present on the occasion and whoknew Chinese as well as his own native language, took theopportunity afterwards of asking one of the Chinese soldierswhy they missed such a fine chance. The Chinaman gaveas a reason the fact that There were so many people inwhite between them and the British that they did not hketo fire.A valuable addition to the list of records in connexionwith the phenomena at :Mons was supphed by Miss Callow,secretary of the Higher Thought Centre, at South Kensing-ton, to the Weekly Dispatch. She writes :An officer has sent to one of the members of the Centre

a detailed account of a vision that appeared to himselfand others when fighting against fearful odds at Mons.He plainly saw an apparition representing St. George thepatron saint of England, the exact counterpart of a picturethat hangs to-day in a London restaurant. So terriblewas their plight at the time that the officer could not refrainfrom appealing to the vision to help them. Then, as if theenemy had also seen the apparition, the Germans abandonedtheir positions in precipitate terror. In other instancesmen had written about seeing Clouds of Celestial Horsemenhovering over the British lines.

Miss Callow also adds that a nurse at the front on oneoccasion asked her patients why they were so silent, towhich the men replied, We have had strange experiences,which we do not care to talk about. We have seen manyof our mates killed, but they are fighting for us still.Doubt has, not unnaturally, been cast upon the credi-bility of these records in England, owing to the publication

of Mr. Machen's story and his persistent affirmation that thisstory was purely evolved from his own inner consciousness.There appears, however, to be no question that at the time ofhis writing The Bowmen and for weeks before, these stories


14/24


15/24

THE ANGEL WARRIORS AT MONS iicamp and witnessed an amazing apparition in the sky.I't was that of the Virgin Mary, with the Infant Christ onone hand, the other hand pointing to the west.Our soldiers knelt on the ground and gazed ferventlyat the vision. After a time the apparition faded, and inits place came a great image of the Cross, shining againstthe dark night sky.Slowly it faded away.On the following day our army advanced westward tothe victorious battle of Augustovo.

This strange state of psychic exaltation is also doubtlessaccountable for the remarkable and well-attested pheno-mena which took place nightly for some months after theBattle of Edge Hill, in the Enghsh Civil War, on the subjectof which Lord Nugent makes comment that the worldabounds with histories of preternatural appearances, themost utterly incredible, supported by testimonies the mostundeniable. Here is a ghost story of the most prepos-terous sort. Yet is this story, he adds, attested uponthe oath of three officers, men of honour and distinction,and of three other gentlemen of credit, selected by theKing as commissioners to report upon these prodigies,and to tranquillize and disabuse the alarms of a countrytown. The record of these phenomena is given in a rareand curious tract entitled A Great Wonder in Heaven,showing the late Apparitions and Prodigious Noyses of Warand Battels, seen on Edge Hill, neere Keinton in Northampton-shire. Certified under the Hands of William Wood, Esquire,and Justice for the Peace in the said Countie, Samuel Marshall,Preacher of Gods Word in Keinton, and other Persons ofQualitie.London : Printed for Thomas Jackson, January23, ArmoDom. 1642 (1643 ?). Its bearing on the questionunder discussion seems to me to warrant its reproductionhere in the words of the narrator:

The Battle of Edge Hill


16/24

12 THE ANGEL WARRIORS AT MONScountry-men, and travellers, first the sound of drummesafar off, and the noyse of souldiers, as it were, giving outtheir last groanes ; at which they were much amazed, andamazed stood still, till it seemed, by the neernesse of thenoyse, to approach them ; at which too much affrighted,they sought to withdraw as fast as possibly they could ;but then, on the sudden, whilest they were in these cogita-tions, appeared in the ayre the same incorporeall souldiersthat made those clamours, and immediately, with ensignesdisplay'd, drummes beating, musquets going off, cannonsdischarged, horses neyghing, which also to these men werevisible, the alarum or entrance to this game of death wasstrucke up, one Army, which gave the first charge, havingthe King's colours, and the other the Parliaments, in theirhead or front of the battells, and so pell mell to it they went ;the battell that appeared to the Kings forces seeming atfirst to have the best, but afterwards to be put into apparentrout ; but till two or three in the morning in equal scalecontinued this dreadful fight, the clattering of Armes,noyse of cannons, cries of souldiers, so amazing and terifyingthe poore men, that they could not believe they weremortall, or give credit to their eares and eyes ; runne awaythey durst not, for feare of being made a prey to theseinfernall souldiers, and so they, with much feare and affright,stayed to behold the successe of the businesse, which atlast suited to this effect : after some three hours fight,that Army which carryed the Kings colours withdrew, orrather appeared to flie ; the other remaining, as it were,masters of the field, stayed a good space triumphing, andexpressing all the signes of joy and conquest, and then,with all their drummes, trumpets, ordinance, and souldiers,vanished ; the poore men were glad they were gone, thathad so long staid them there against their wills, made withall haste to Keinton, and there knocking up Mr. Wood, aJustice of Peace, who called up his neighbour, Mr. Marshall,the Minister, they gave them an account of the wholepassage, and averred it upon their oaths to be true. AtW':Z\ich affirmation of theirs, being much amazed, theyshould hardly have given credit to it, but would have con-jectured the men to have been either mad or drunk, hadthey not knowne some of them to have been of approvedintegritie : and so, suspending their judgements till the


17/24

THE ANGEL WARRIORS AT MONS 15houre after their arrivall, on Sunday, being Christmasnight, appeared in the same tumultuous warhke manner,the same two adverse Armies, fighting with as much spiteand spleen as formerly. The next night they appeared not,nor all the week, so that the dwellers thereabout were ingood hope they had for ever departed ; but on the ensuingSaturday night, in the same place, and at the same houre,they were again scene with far greater tumult* fighting inthe manner afore-mentioned for foure houres, and thenvanished, appearing againe on Sunday night, and per-forming the same actions of hostilitie and bloodshed ; sothat both Mr. Wood and others, whose faith, it shouldseeme, was not strong enough to carry them out againstthese delusions, forsook their habitations thereabout, andretired themselves to other more secure dwellings ; butMr. Marshall stayed, and some other ; and so successivelythe next Saturday and Sunday the same tumults andprodigious sights and actions were put in the state andcondition they were formerly. The rumour whereof comingto his Majestic at Oxford, he immediately dispatchedthither Colonell Lewis Kirke, Captaine Dudley, CaptaineWainman, and three other gentlemen of credit, to takethe full view and notice of the said businesse, who, firsthearing the true attestation and relation of Mr. Marshalland others staid there till Saturday night following, whereinthey heard and saw the fore-mentioned prodigies, and soon Sunday, distinctly knowing divers of the apparitionsor incorporeall substances by their faces, as that of SirEdmund Varney, and others that were there slaine ; ofwhich upon oath they made testimony to his Majestic.What this does portend God only knoweth, and timeperhaps will discover ; but doubtlessly it is a signe of hiswrath against this Land, for these civil wars, which Hein His good time finish, and send a sudden peace betweenhis Majestic and Parliament.

This strange psychic record is not indeed in any sensean exact parallel to the phenomena which have excitedso great an interest at the present time, but it serves toshow the effect that war is liable to produce upon thepsychic atmosphere, and in this manner may render such


18/24

14 THE ANGEL WARRIORS AT MONSthem as old wives' tales. If the phenomena following theBattle of Edge Hill so fully substantiated by contemporaryevidence actually took place, why should it not be possiblefor psychic phenomena of a certainly no more remarkablekind, to be one of the concomitant circumstances of thegreatest war in the world's history ? Would it not ratherbe strange it if were otherwise ?These records do not in fact stand alone. The ghostly

story of the Battle of Edge Hill which has been perpetuatedin the Memorials of John Hampden, His Party and Times,by Lord Nugent, finds a close parallel in the record of theBattle of Mook-Heath of April 13, 1574, as narrated inMotley's Rise of the Dutch Republic. In both cases wereindividual combatants identified. In both cases thephenomena were not confined to experiences of the sightalone. The shouts of the combatants and the dischargeof cannon and the rattle of musketry were clearly audiblein both instances. The main difference indeed lay inthe curious fact that whereas the phenomena at Edge Hillfollowed the date of the battle, in the case of Mook-Heaththey preceded it by some tvi^o months. It appears, indeed,that in some peculiar way great wars open up fresh channelsfor the psychic senses, and the physical struggle of greatarmies appears ever to have its counterpart on the spiritualplane, by the bringing into action of psychic forces workingfor good or e\dl, on the side of Light or of Darkness principaUties and powers mustering their unseen array upon whose efforts no less than upon the efforts of thosenow living on the physical plane the great and final issuesof this vast world-conflict ultimately depend.

The Pros and ConsOne important point is inevitably raised with regard to

these apparitions on the European battlefields. They have


19/24

rfHE ANGEL WARRIORS AT MONS 15Arc. Were all three of these heroes of the past actuallypresent on the battlefield, or indeed were any of them ?Even assuming that we accept the authenticity of thevisions, we are not, I think, called upon to say that they were.Spirit is plastic. May we not rather say that it is Protean ?It is clothed upon by the imagination of the beholder toan almost hmitless extent. In a further account of MissPhyUis Campbell's which she gave to the editor of theEvening News, she relates how a soldier of the Irish Guards,an enormous man who stood over six feet five inches, toldher, narrating his own experiences, that St. George v/asin golden armour, bareheaded, and riding a white horse.He cried Come on as he brandished his sword. Whj-,we may ask, was St. George in golden armour ? Doubtlessbecause the Irish guardsman had seen him most recentlyon the back of a sovereign. Here also he is brandishinga sword. The apparitions which created such a sensationin the South of France a few months before the outbreakof war had the same tendency to vary according to thetemperament of the beholder. Here, too, Joan of Arcwas seen (among others) and foretold the fact that shewas the harbinger of a great war, by making stars appearfrom out of a clouded sky at the request of the village cure.WTio can doubt that if a Theosophist had been present atthe retreat of Mons he would have witnessed an apparitionof one of the Mahatmas, just as the Russian soldiers sawthe phantom of General Skobeleff ? ^ The gods of ancientdays, according to classical story, became visible to*theheroes whose causes they espoused, in the guise of mortalmen. The radiant forms of the spiritual hierarchies can


20/24

Rider's Shilling LibraryFICTIONDRACULA. -^y Bram Stoker, is net.THE LADY OF THE SHROIDA Romance of adventure, the scene of wiiich is laidin the Balkan Provinces.By Bram Stoker. Small crown 8vo. Cloth gilt.

Price IS net.

THE MYSTERY OF THE SEABy Bram Stoker. is net.THE JEWEL OF THE SEVEN STARSBy Bram Stoker. is net.WIND ALONG THE WASTEA Story of Parisian Life.By Maude Annesley. Uniform with above. Crown8vo. Cloth, IS net.

POSSESSEDBy Firth Scott, Author of The Track of Midnight.This is such a tale of mystery and imagination as Poe himselfwould have been proud to own. The Globe.

THE RAKE'S PROGRESSBy Marjorie Bowen, Author of The V^perof Milan.'

' ' 1 he Rake's Progress ' is a feast of colour, of grace, and ofscenery. Westminster Gazette.NYRIABy Mrs. Campbell Praed, Author of The Other

Mrs. Jacobs.This celebrated reincarnation story depicts the life-history of a

slave girl in the days of Domitian.THE HOUR OF OPPORTUNITYBy Orison Swett Marden, assisted by Abner Bay-ley, is net.

Twenty Thousand sold since October 31PROPHECIES AND OMENS OF THEGREAT WARThird and Enlarged Edition. By Ralph Shirley,Editor of the Occult Review. Crown 8vo, So pp.


21/24


22/24

^ the WAR will ENDSCIENTIFIC PREDICTION BYALAN LEOEditor of Modern Astrology

12 pages. One Penny. Post free, i|dAN HISTORICAL DOCUMENT

THE END OF THE KAISERRead Brother Johannes' Amazing Three-hundred-year-oldProphecy of the Great WarTHE PROPHECY PROVED GENUINECritical Introduction by RALPH SHIRLEY

Editor of the Occult ReviewCrown 8to. Coloured Cover. One Penny. Post free, i|d.CHARACTER READINGFROM HANDWRITINGA Simple Guide lo the Art with numerous IllustrationsBy GRAPHOCrown 8to. 64 pages. Sixpence net. Post free, yd.

Third EditionPOPULAR CARD GAMESHOW TO PLAY AND WINBy F. R. INGSNap, Whist, Crib, Poker, Brag, Euchre, Koon-Kan,Solo Whist, Bridge and Auction, Vingt-unand BaccaratCrown 8vo. 64 pages. Sixpence net. Post free yd.

FIRINGthe RIFLE


23/24

UC SOUTHERN REGIONAL LIBRARY FACILITY

AA 000 460 748 7University of CaliforniaSOUTHERN REGIONAL LIBRARY FACILITY

305 De Neve Drive - Parking Lot 17 Box 951388LOS ANGELES, CALIFORNIA 90095-1388Return this material to the library from which it was borrowed.


24/24

UniversiSouthLibr

Ralph Shirley - The Angel Warriors at Mons -Including Numerous Confirmatory Testimonies...-1915-28pp

Documents

Transcript of Ralph Shirley - The Angel Warriors at Mons -Including Numerous Confirmatory Testimonies...-1915-28pp