In August 1914, the British Expeditionary Force faced overwhelming odds at the Battle of Mons. Outnumbered three to one by the German Army, the British soldiers were forced into a desperate retreat. Amidst the chaos and exhaustion of the front lines, a strange report began to circulate among the troops and the public back home.
Soldiers claimed that phantom figures had intervened to protect them from the advancing German columns. These accounts described celestial entities or medieval archers standing between the two armies, stopping the enemy in their tracks. While many believed a miracle had occurred on the battlefield, the actual origins of this event trace back to a specific piece of writing and a series of psychological pressures.
A Short Story Becomes Reality
On September 29, 1914, just weeks after the battle, an author named Arthur Machen published a work of fiction titled “The Bowmen” in the London Evening News. His story described British soldiers at Mons calling upon Saint George, which resulted in a host of spectral archers from the Battle of Agincourt appearing to slaughter the German side with invisible arrows. Machen later stated that his story was entirely made up.
However, many readers accepted the account as a factual report from the front. Because the story was written in the first person and lacked a disclaimer, it was reprinted in parish magazines and newspapers as a true occurrence.
Soldier Accounts and Mass Hallucination
Despite Machen’s public admission that he invented the tale, actual soldiers began to come forward with their own versions of the event. Brigadier-General John Charteris mentioned the rumors in his private correspondence, noting that the story of the “Angel of Mons” was spreading rapidly through the ranks.
Military historians have noted that the British troops were suffering from extreme sleep deprivation and physical exhaustion during the long retreat. Scientific analysis suggests that these conditions, combined with the power of suggestion from Machen’s popular story, led to various reports of figures in the sky. Some soldiers described seeing “tall, luminous shapes,” while others insisted they saw a cloud that blocked the German view.
German Reactions and Investigation
The reports were not limited to the British side. Rumors circulated that German prisoners of war had expressed confusion as to why their strikes failed to hit the British lines or why they had seen ancient warriors on the field.
However, official German military records from the time do not contain any mentions of supernatural intervention. Investigations by the Society for Psychical Research in 1915 failed to find any direct eyewitnesses who could provide a firsthand, verifiable account of the figures before the publication of Machen’s story. Every detailed claim examined by researchers was found to be based on hearsay or second-hand information that emerged after “The Bowmen” became a national sensation.