The Angels of Mons

The Angels of Mons (or The Bowmen and other Legends of the War) is a collection of stories written by Welsh author Arthur Machen. In September 1914, two months after the outbreak of World War One, Machen published a short story called The Bowmen in the London Evening News. It describes how phantom archers from the Battle of Agincourt had come to the rescue of British soldiers fighting against the Germans in the Battle of Mons a month earlier. The story was not labelled as fiction and the author soon became to receive enquiries from readers asking for verification of these ghostly archers, who had apparently been summoned by Saint George, the patron saint of England. It appears Machen did not intend to create a hoax, but that the public, just starting to grasp the full horrors of World War One’s mechanized warfare and its heavy death toll, was ready to believe that a ghostly miracle had occurred in France. Rumors were followed