h2g2 The Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy: Earth Edition

David Clarke has suggested that there may have been a deliberate covert attempt by British Intelligence to spread this story as morale-boosting propaganda.

Gif

Apparently, the "Miracle of Mons" was actually the transposing of a fictional short story by a Welsh author called Arthur Machen into a real-life scenario. Despite what this entry claims, there seems to be no evidence that a doomed British force suddenly overwhelmed the German army with many of them "mysteriously" dying and horses suddenly being spooked. In fact, what seems to have happened is that the British successfully defended their position from a numerically-superior German force (who were shocked by the defence the British managed to put up) before the British were forced to retreat. Back home, the myth that the British had been helped by angels seems to have had its genesis in some of the exhausted and retreating British troops claiming to have seen visions of "phantom cavalrymen" which was probably due to hallucinations; these stories were mixed with Machen's fiction to become angels lead by St George who attacked the Germans (something the soldiers never claimed their visions did, despite what this article claims).

There seem to be variations on this story, as there often are with modern myths. The first version I heard of it involved a troop of soldiers (German, I assume) marching up a hill and being "abducted" by a mysterious cloud. This mystical cloud seems to be part of many of the version of the Mons myth (the version I read was deliberately trying to insinuate extraterrestrial involvement, as can probably be guessed)

Whether the British government actively encouraged this nonsense is debatable, it's more likely that popular feeling and a certain amount of hysteria spread the stories and prevented sceptics from challenging them and thus the myth of the "Miracle of Mons" reaches us.

Students of modern military tactics (ie: the advent of rapid firing weapons vs traditional - Napoleonic - columns and squares) can attest to the miraculous effects of crossfire. Once an enemy breaches a line, instead of the traditional panic normally raised in ranks of slow loading musket infantry, they will encounter continued fire from modern fast loading and rapid firing weapons coming from both sides of them.

Experiments with machine guns and fields of balloon targets demonstrate an almost miraculous ten fold increase in effective fire when guns are ranged to fire diagonally into advancing ranks rather than head on. I saw this demonstrated on a BBC program recently where two machine guns fired directly ahead into a field of balloons with surprisingly little result, about a ten to twenty percent hit rate. When placed to fire diagonally, across each others' line of fire, the kill rate was dramatic and had it continued would have been 100% effective in a few minutes.

Perhaps it was just bad luck that the Germans advanced between two groups of resolute and well equipped defenders. But I am not discounting the presence of St George because my grandfather was at Ypres and swears he saw quite a few Saints after getting hit over the head with a rifle butt and left for dead. Three days later he crawled out dragging his Captain, the only other survivor of the company who subsequently received the KIng's Cross from King George for saving my
forebear (who got a nice handshake and an honourable discharge but refused to take the latter, becoming instead a recruiting officer when his new found deafness made him unsuitable for combat. He always insisted they should have let him fight because being deaf he wouldn't have had to listen to the guns or the screams of the dying.


~jwf~

This is not unlike another unexplainable situation that occurred during the second day of the 1967 Six-Day War in Sinai. An Egyptian armoured force was positioned along one sector awaiting a possible Israeli advance. According to a source I read some twenty or so years ago, they were surprised by what appeared to be an overwhelming number of Israeli tanks and other vehicles moving rapidly toward them along a wide front that extended well beyond the Egyptian flanks. Fearing being outflanked and annihilated, the Egyptians quickly turned tail, though some of them were captured.

But what had appeared to be a gigantic force turned out to be a small to medium column that probably could have been engaged and repulsed without too much difficulty. Those Egyptians who failed to withdraw in time and surrendered,later explained to their captors just how terrified they had been. This may well be the stuff of legends or an U.A.R. attempt to save face in response to sheer cowardice; but there does seem to be significant support for the veracity of this account.

RC

Dare I suggest that the Israeli-Egyptian encounter might just be another example of this myth in a different form? Is there any reliable evidence that Egyptian troops actually claimed this happened to them?

" Reliable " evidence? Well, I'm not able to provide adequate corroboration. It may be another myth of the same genre, but perhaps the real McCoy. It's been more than 20 years since I read this account of the quivering and quaking Egyptians, and I don't have the article at hand.

RC

I'd be sceptical. There's a lot of nonsense propaganda thrown around regarding Israeli-Arab wars and the talk of "quivering" Egyptian soldiers and possible supernatural intervention on behalf of Israel sets off all sorts of alarm bells.

I would agree with you that skepticism is the best approach. As the Missouri people say " Show me. "

RC