SPECIAL SERIES: The secret origins of WW I – part 37 – : The Unholy Spirit

Not untypically, the different churches could also fall out over their individual contributions to the war effort. No religious group wanted to appear less supportive than the other and the issue of priest, ministers or vicars joining the ranks became a sore point between the Church of England and Non-conformist clergy.

——————

Editor’s note:
to read all the previous posts of this series got to page “First World War”

———————

by Gerry Docherty and Jim Macgregor

published here in cooperation with the authors
first published on their blog 1 Oct 2014

Not untypically, the different churches could also fall out over their individual contributions to the war effort. No religious group wanted to appear less supportive than the other and the issue of priest, ministers or vicars joining the ranks became a sore point between the Church of England and Non-conformist clergy.

At the start of the war the Anglican Archbishops and Bishops agreed that their priests and curates were most needed to bring pastoral comfort to their parishes at home. The ‘ecclesiastical authorities’ declared that vicars and curates should not be allowed to obtain commissions or enlist in the ranks. That had not stopped young men who had not yet completed their divinity courses from joining up. The Bishop of Birmingham pointed out that, ‘our theological colleges, which are ordinarily full of young men about to take [holy] orders…are practically empty because the students have gone to take colours.’ [1] But keeping the ordained clergy out of the firing line remained a bone of contention. In fairness 2,000 Anglican clergymen offered their services at the start of the war to the Chaplain-General to serve with the armed forces [2] The Church of England tried to justify its position. The Bishop of Birmingham wrote in September 1914:

“I know the delights of being at the front and I confess a great longing to be there again…My young clergy think that I am hard because I disapprove of them becoming combatant soldiers…but the clergy are serving England bravely when they minister comfort to the soldier’s widow wife or mother, when they help to send out to help fight for their country, young men who fear God and fear no-one else.’”[3]

Delights of being at the front? He penned that letter just after the retreat from Mons and the first Battle of the Aisne, where the prolonged valour of the British Expeditionary Force bought invaluable time for the defence of Paris at enormous cost. Soldiers would have shuddered at the very notion of the ‘delights of being at the front.’ The mayhem of attack and retreat was steadily replaced by the entrenchment ordered by Sir John French. Thousands on both sides had already been slaughtered but the myth persisted that it would all be over by Christmas. The concept of serving England bravely by comforting those in need of solace hardly acted as inspiration but the roll of recruitment sergeant in holy orders had a powerful effect.

A storm broke after a short letter to The Times on 19 February, 1915 in which the question was raised as to why Anglican vicars stayed ‘comfortably at home’ while Non-conformist and Roman Catholic clergy were enlisting. Chaplains were invaluable in the field, ministering to the wounded and dying, consoling those who had suffered mental and physical exhaustion and providing comfort in desperate situations. The problem was that other clergymen were fighting at the front. A number of non-conformist ministers joined the ranks. [4] The contrast with France was embarrassing. Prior to the war the rift between the Catholic Church and state in France had been absolute, but the necessities of war closed the breech. The Times gave extensive coverage to The Church Militant in France where military chaplains had been reintroduced and priests and monks had joined the army as soldiers. Sympathetic stories of noble Catholic priests found expression in newspapers that had previously ignored them and religion merged into propaganda with unconscionable ease.

And the Bishop of London? Winnington-Ingram continued to enjoy his war. He wrote to Sir John French and invited himself to the Western Front for two weeks over Easter  in 1915. [5] He took a large box of hymn sheets and ten thousand copies of a short pamphlets of prayers and meditations which he himself had written. He met the Field Marshall and ‘every General in the British army to whose quarters he came.’ [6] He addressed the troops as often as he could. His carefully chosen texts included, ‘Thou therefore endure hardness as a good soldier of Christ’ and he praised the virtue of ‘fortitude’ by which he meant sticking it out in the trenches. His itinerary had been personally approved by Sir John French and it included a promise that he would not go up to the trenches. The Bishop kept his promise. The drama of the recorded visit contained an assurance that although he could not go up to the trenches, shells fell close to his entourage ‘once at least’. [7]  He was of course a precious cargo. On another day they ‘had tea close to the German lines in what was known as a warm quarter’. [8] Winnington-Ingram’s only stipulation was to spend Easter Sunday with ‘his own regiment’, the London Rifle Brigade. [9]

He held around sixty services at all the army bases. He visited, ward by ward, twenty-two hospitals in France and spoke to hundreds of men individually and thousands at meetings and services. [10] Sir John French sent a dispatch to Lord Kitchener, which though correctly fulsome in its praise of the bishop’s mission to the troops, added that

“personal fatigue and even danger were completely ignored by his lordship. The Bishop held service virtually under shell fire and it was with difficulty that he could be prevented from carrying on his ministrations under riffle-fire in the trenches.” [11]

Why spoil a good story by sticking to the facts? By such twists of truth, legends are born. He was exactly the kind of hero that the Secret Elite needed to keep recruits flooding across the channel to fuel their war.

There can be no doubt that the Church of England saw it as its duty to maintain the flow of recruits to the great slaughter. It turned Christianity into a jihad for Britain, the Empire and a spurious notion of ‘civilisation’.  When one thinks of the abandonment of humanity, the undermining of civilisation in the name of God and a Holy War, the arrogance of a ‘Christian’ justification that Germany alone was the instigator, the psychological damage inflicted on young minds from the pulpits of certainty, the Church of England has much to ponder in offering an apology for its role in the First World War.

[1] The Times, 20 February, 1915, p.9.
[2] E H Pearce, Letter to The Times 20 February, 1915, p.9.
[3] The Times, 30 September 1914.
[4] The Times, 23 January 1915, p.4.
[5] Rev G Vernon Smith, The Bishop of London’s Visit to the Front, p.10. https://archive.org/details/bishoplondonsvi00smitgoog
[6] Ibid., p. 19.
[7] Ibid., p. 46.
[8] Ibid., p. 49.
[9] Ibid., p. 58.
[10] Ibid., p. 84.
[11] Ibid., p 89.

The book is available at leading bookshops and can also be purchased on the internet at Amazon, Alibris, etc.

About the authors:
Gerry Docherty was born in 1948. He graduated from Edinburgh University in 1971 and was a secondary school teacher by profession. He taught economics and modern studies, developed a keen interest in the theatre and has written a number of plays with a historical theme including Czechmate in 1982, Montrose in 1993, and Lie of the Land in 2008. The last of these plays was the powerful story of two cousins from his home town of Tillicoultry who were both awarded the Victoria Cross at the Battle of Loos in 1915. Energised by the research he had undertaken to write this play, he was intrigued by Jim Macgregor’s work on the First World War, and their mutual interest developed into a passion to discover the truth amongst the lies and deceptions that the official records contained.
Jim Macgregor was born in Glasgow in 1947 and raised in a cottage in the grounds of Erskine Hospital for war disabled. He witnessed there the aftermath of war on a daily basis and, profoundly affected by what he saw, developed a life-long interest in war and the origins of global conflict. Leaving school at fifteen he worked in jobs as diverse as farm labourer, animal husbandry and medical research before graduating as a medical doctor in 1978. Jim left medical practice in 2001 to devote his energies full-time to researching the political failures in averting war. His numerous articles have been published on subjects such as miscarriages of justice, the Iraq War, global poverty, and the rise of fascism in the United States. His powerful anti-war novel The Iboga Visions was published to critical acclaim in 2009.

The authors encourage the reposting of this series for non-profit, educational purposes on non-commercial or communal websites provided full credit is given, a clickable link to the original posting is included and all links remain intact. For shortened versions or the reposting of parts please contact the authors via [email protected]

Disclaimer: The contents of this article are of sole responsibility of the authors(s). News Beacon Ireland will not be responsible for any inaccurate or incorrect content in this article. News Beacon Ireland grants permission to cross-post original News Beacon Ireland articles on community internet sites as long as the text & title are not modified. The source and the author’s copyright must be displayed. For publication of News Beacon Ireland articles in print or other forms including commercial internet sites, contact: [email protected]
www.news-beacon-ireland.info may contain copyrighted material the use of which has not always been specifically authorized by the copyright owner. We are making such material available to our readers under the provisions of “fair use” in an effort to advance a better understanding of political, economic, cultural, scientific, spiritual and social issues. The material on this site is distributed without profit to those who have expressed a prior interest in receiving it for research and educational purposes. If you wish to use copyrighted material for purposes other than “fair use” you must request permission from the copyright owner.