The Angels of Mons

The Angels of Mons

This article relates to Angel Down

Daniel Kraus's novel Angel Down is set on a WWI battlefield in France. After a particularly brutal shelling, Private Cyril Bagger is sent along with a small group of others to "take care of" someone shrieking nonstop in No Man's Land. Instead of a wounded comrade, however, he discovers what appears to be an angel. One of the squad believes she's the Angel of Mons, referring to an incident that occurred during the Battle of Mons on August 22-23, 1914. The rest of the novel follows Bagger's attempts to keep this enigmatic creature safe.

The British declared war on Germany early in August of 1914, and the first troops from the British Expeditionary Force (BEF) were sent to France soon thereafter. The army was positioned at Mons, Belgium on August 22, where they engaged German forces the following day in what was Britain's first major battle of the war. The British forces were vastly outnumbered, 75,000 men and 300 guns to Germany's 150,000 men and 600 guns, but they held off the enemy for most of a day. They were eventually forced to retreat, however, and the Germans won the battle but incurred heavier losses (5,000 casualties compared with Britain's 1,600).

The British public was devastated that their first battle ended in failure, and in search of comfort, a journalist, 51-year-old Arthur Machen, wrote a story inspired by the event. He was touched by the fact that the BEF held off the enemy and endured an exhausting retreat without food or rest, and he crafted these elements into the tale he eventually penned, titled "The Bowmen." In it, a soldier calls upon St. George, who appears on a white stallion surrounded by Welsh longbowmen who then help hold off the Germans. The story was published on the front page of the London Evening News on September 29, 1914, at which point Machen expected it to be forgotten; it was, after all, just a fantasy—a work of fiction. (The full text of the story can be found here, along with the author's introduction and additional stories.)

Some, though, began to take the account literally. Machen was approached by writers for two different publications asking if "The Bowmen" was based on facts (in both cases Machen replied in the negative). A couple of months later, Father Edward Russell, a deacon of St. Alban the Martyr Church in Holborn, asked if he could publish the story in the November issue of his parish magazine, and Machen agreed. Father Russell contacted him again in February saying the account was so popular that he'd like to publish it again, only this time he asked Machen who his sources were. The journalist reiterated that it was a work of fiction, but remarkably, Father Russell refused to believe him.

The story developed a life of its own after that; tales of miraculous rescue at Mons seemed to be everywhere. Soldiers on leave reported that while they themselves didn't witness the event, they'd spoken to others who had. It was even said that German POWs had mentioned witnessing supernatural beings defending British troops. Many variations arose; in some cases the savior was St. George and his archers, but others reported a cloud of blinding light, angels (anywhere from one to hundreds), Jesus, the Virgin Mary, and even Joan of Arc.

The British population, desperate for good news, embraced the tale, happy to know that God was on their side in spite of the mounting casualties, and The Angels of Mons, as the legend became known, had a positive impact on British morale. Even today, despite plenty of evidence to the contrary, many people believe the Angels of Mons were real.

Angel of Mons, Eastleigh War Memorial, courtesy of David Dixon and licensed for reuse under a cc-by-sa/2.0 Creative Commons License

Filed under People, Eras & Events

This "beyond the book article" relates to Angel Down. It originally ran in July 2025 and has been updated for the May 2026 paperback edition. Go to magazine.