The Mons Star was The 1914 Star was authorized under Special Army Order no. 350 in November 1917 for award to officers and men of the British and Indian Expeditionary Forces who served in France or Belgium between 5 August, the day after Britain’s declaration of war against the Central Powers and midnight of 22–23 November 1914, the end of the First Battle of Ypres. An interesting article appeared in a British newspaper recently, interesting
The Mons Star medal: front image, back has the name and number of the soldier inscribed.
because it brings into current thought the Angel of Mons:
Appeal for missing Angel of Mons World War One medal
A Leek resident is appealing for anyone who may have come across a missing war medal.The woman, who wished not to be named, has contacted the Post & Times to appeal for anyone who may have found her father’s ‘Angel of Mons’ First World War medal.The gold medal is described as thick and round and has the picture of an angel on it. It also has the name Private Ernest Proffitt inscribed on it as well as a
A second image of a Mons Star medal
colourful ribbon attached.
What is interesting is that the Angel of Mons had nothing to do with the Mons Star. There is no image of an angel on it, as you can see. This mention of it shows that the idea of the Angel of Mons stays deeply in the thought of the British.
I have been on the verge of sobbing and tears four times four days in a row. Moved emotionally, not upset or hurt. We were in Mons, Belgium.
The relics of St. WaudruThe Doudou–the Battle between St. George and the Dragon
This was my third visit, the first in 2008 for research, then 2014 for commemorative events for the Battle of Mons, then 2015, and this time to give a presentation at the museum on my novel.
Our dear friend and guide, Christian Massy, took us to the new Doudou museum which celebrates two ceremonies held each year, one, sacred, in the morning, the other, more festive, but filled with symbolism, in the afternoon. There is a video of the relics of St. Waudru, patroness of the city and its founding, being lowered in their gold reliquary, to the place of repose. This came at the end of the church celebration of a mass attended by about one thousand. As I watched, I sobbed with emotion and tears streamed from my eyes. I was touched to the heart.
The next day we went to visit the grave of Captain Malcolm Leckie, RAMC (Royal Army Medical Corps) brother in-law of Sir Arthur Conan Doyle and a major character in my novel. This was the second time I visited it. This time a historian, expert in that part of the battle, which took place on August 24 at Frameries, Belgium, a village near Mons, accompanied us, a group of six, to explain what happened there that night. We also passed the site of the hospital where Leckie died four days later, a prisoner of war, wounded in the neck by shrapnel. Once again, I had to stifle sobs, but tears came, needing to be wiped away.
The next day Sarah and I took a quick trip by train from Lille, France to Arras, France to visit the Wellington Quarry. Here New Zealander and Australian miners worked for six months to connect very old underground limestone quarries—twelve miles worth, to house 24,000 British and Australian troops for eight days. On the ninth day they emerged from tunnels that had been dug to the surface thirty feet above to surprise the Germans in an attack. Like so many battles, this one was successful for a few hours then turned into a defeat. When we saw documentary footage of the battle, once again my body responded with sobs and tears. Fortunately, I was able to suppress this. In the midst of two dozen other museum visitors, it would have been unseemly to break down in crying.
Part of the 20 miles of quarry the British Commonwealth forces occupied for eight days before the Battle of Arras.Entrance to the Wellington Quarry
Finally, on July 13 Sarah and I were in London. We had planned to go to the Tate Art Museum, not the modern art, but the one with old art. The boat we took was the wrong one. We planned to walk the rest of the way there along the embankment. Along the way was Westminster Cathedral. Instead of going to the museum, we decided to visit the Cathedral. In addition to the splendor of the building itself inside and out, there are utterly remarkable remains and memorials to the multitude of heroes, leaders, nobles, kings, queens, princes, princesses, military leaders, and so on. In the vastness of the building we came upon the section devoted to the poets and writers. I could barely contain my feelings, being in the presence of William Blake, the remains of Chaucer, Caedmon, the first poet to write in English, Shelly, Keats—memorials, not graves for them, Wordsworth, Coleridge, a memorial to the many poets of World War I—even as I write this, tears want to come. The bones of Aphra Behn, George Eliot, T.S. Eliot, and many more.
Four days, sobs and tears. How grateful I am. I learn something about myself. Maybe it has to do with gratitude and sadness, wonder and joy. Happily, Sarah is with me and shares these feelings. It is good to squeeze hands and share a tissue. These feelings remain with me and arise anew when I think about them.
Now that I am at work on another novel about World War I, I hope to draw on these feeling and put them to good use in the book about the Battle of Bellicourt Tunnel. The main cast of characters are from South Carolina. While most ceremonies attend to sacrifice and honor, I find myself touched by the loss. Young men who do not live to see harvest the fruits of life. Parents, brothers and sisters, wives, children, friends who are bereft of loved ones. Promise unfulfilled.
Sarah, Jerred, Mons friends Rosaline Debake and Christian Massy.
Today fulfilled a great wish. Since last August, when the new Mons Memorial Museum opened, I had hoped to present a program about my novel, The Angel of Mons: A World War I Legend. Realizing that many if not all of the people attending knew the legend, I took the approach of presenting the novelist’s problem of converting the legend into a novel. As it turned out, this was the ideal way to share something new with the audience.
This was my fourth visit to Mons. Now we have several friends who we enjoy seeing each time we come. Christian Massy is a professional guide who set aside all four days of our visit to take us to places not on the usual tourist agenda. Since I don’t want to turn this into a “here is what we did on our summer vacation” I will be happy to tell anyone who asks.
Me and Angel of Mons expert Marie Cappart, who came from Brussels to hear my presentation. We had a fine time sharing our insights.
We plan to return to Mons in November, 2018 to commemorate the end of World War I. Mons has the motto Mons: The first. . .the last.” The idea is that the first British soldier who was killed in World War I was killed in Mons. The last British soldier killed in World War I was shot in Mons. The two soldiers are buried at Saint-Symphorien Military Cemetery, their gravestones facing one another. Standing between them, I am reminded that between the first and the last, ten million soldiers died. Sobering and moving. The folly of man.
Maybe we will get some of you to join us for the ceremonies.
I have mentioned in the past that a good part of my novel, The Battle of Bellicourt Tunnel, (not the complete title) will take place underground.
Part of a quarry complex the Germans used as a hospital in France.
The extent to which caves, underground quarries, tunnels, and dugouts deep in the earth were used by the several armies that fought in World War I. They were fine places to hide soldiers from the enemy’s view, store ammunition, guns, and supplies. Several battles depended on them for the success (on the one side) and failure (on the other.) Two more images from an underground hospital add to an appreciation for the way the terrain and the earth itself served in the war.
Many of the buildings throughout the region, churches, palaces, and businesses, used the stone quarried underground from the Middle Ages on. Their presence was well known to local inhabitants.
One million horses and mules were sent to France and Belgium in the First
Horses in World War I
World War. Sixty thousand returned home. Such numbers amaze me. Then I think of the quantity of feed the horses needed, the leather for harness and saddles. Consider the amount of horse manure. All the armies had a multitude of veterinarians and blacksmiths. Many farmers, job masters, and companies had horses, wagons, and carts requisitioned during the war. By all sides. The British and French paid for what they took. The Germans gave certificates that said the Kaiser would pay them when Germany won the war. A good trick.
British soldier carrying a wounded comrade, the first day of the Battle of the Somme, July 1, 1916.
While I am not writing about the 1916 Battle of the Somme, one of the fiercest battles of the war, I can’t help bumping up against material about it, and, truly, about a good deal that does not have to do with The Battle of Bellicourt Tunnel which is the subject of the book. As you have seen already, the blogs travel into elements of the war and warfare that are not part of battles. HOWEVER, this is the one hundredth anniversary of the filming of the 1916 documentary, The Battle of the Somme. It is an amazing feat of filmmaking. This is considered the most important documentary of the war. At the Imperial War Museum in London the 75 minute film is shown almost constantly. It has its own screen and seating area. I watched it when I was there last year. This year I will buy a copy. There is another contemporary documentary about the documentary’s making. I will buy that one, too. Soon after we get home in August we will have a showing of the two at our house. They won’t be on the same evening. Look forward. I see that Amazon has a 47 minute version that can be downloaded. Those of you with Prime can see it for free.
One of the great pleasures of writing historical novels about World War I is
Chinese laborers in training to work in France and Belgium
meeting people who have an answer at the tip of the tongue to innocent questions that occur to me. A second great pleasure is in the answers to the questions. While thinking about the extent of the trenches all sides in the war in Europe, I wondered who did the work of building them. Digging, excavating, building inside the hundreds of miles of trenches took more than the work of the soldiers at war. I asked military archaeologist Jim Legg who did the work for the British. His answer surprised me, and then made sense.
In 1916 the British began recruiting Chinese because so many British had died in the war that there was a shortage of men to do the work. Ninety-five thousand Chinese farm laborers volunteered. They left remote villages to work for Britain in the First World War! Ninety-five thousand! Who would have thought? They made up the Chinese Labor Corps.
Two graves of Chinese workers were pointed out to me in the American cemetery in Bony, France, where rest the remains of Americans who fought in the Battle of Bellicourt Tunnel.
Truly, their work in the war is unacknowledged and forgotten. They are not recognized in any of the British war memorials. They were not permitted to settle in Britain after the war.
They did dirty, dangerous, vital work behind the lines on the western front. How they reached France and Belgium is itself fascinating. They went by ship across the Pacific to Canada. They crossed the country in sealed trains—six days travel. Then they went by ship from Liverpool, train to Folkestone, and ship to France and Belgium. Not surprisingly, many died in making the journey.
In addition to digging trenches, they unloaded ships and trains, lay railroad tracks and built roads, and repaired vehicles and tanks.
They worked 10-hour days, seven days a week, and had three holidays a year including Chinese New Year. They stayed until 1920, clearing live ordnance and exhuming bodies from battlefield burials and moving them to the new war cemeteries.
Naturally, everything connected with World War I had to be done on a massive
Graves being prepared to receive the bodies of soldiers
scale. Everything we could think of used in the war came in huge quantities and numbers.
Today, not many Americans visit many of the cemeteries that populate the landscape where battles were fought in the war. Thus, it is likely that the work that went into creating those final resting places for the soldiers of many nations is barely known. While burial had its gruesome parts, it also expressed the nobility of those who keep the cemeteries to honor the sacrifices the man who lay in them made.
Naturally, having visited many World War I military cemeteries, and, since I am writing about the war again, I will have my Gravedigger out of Hamlet guide us through the tragedy of the burial fields.
The military museum in Peronne, France, where much fighting took place, it being part of the Somme battlefield, shows a motion picture, maybe eight minutes long, of a burial squad working just outside of the battlefield. I was touched by both the “everydayness” of the work, and the solemn way it was carried out.
In my latest blog of three weeks ago I wrote about the varied and specialized uses
A pigeon with camera. The Germans used the photographs to see French and British deployments and dispositions.
of lorries and buses in World War I. The picture I included was of a lorry equipped as a pigeon cote. Homing pigeons played an important role in communications for all sides in the war.
As a novelist (and just my own preoccupations) I am interested in the little thought of aspect of whatever I write about. Thus, small matters, ephemera, details make up what become major subjects in my writing. So, this note is to pay homage to the lowly pigeon. I am intrigued by the pigeon photographer that the Germans put to use.
Pigeons have a unique ability to navigate their way from wherever they are released to their home cote. The fly high and swiftly. They are difficult targets to hit.
A canister containing a message would be attached to a carrier pigeon’s leg.
Follow this link to learn more. Befriend a pigeon and thank it for its species’ service.
Last week I posted a blog about a memorial built to commemorate the work of people producing rubber boots for soldiers who spent much time in the trenches of France and Belgium. This week I am giving a glimpse into the work life of women who manufactured ammunition.
Factory workers — all women in this illustration–manufacturing artillery shells for the British Army–The Great War
The picture gives an idea of the extent of the factory in which the women labored. Once the Great War got under way, the scale of everything dedicated to the conduct of the war grew by many magnitudes. The pressure of all these efforts had a monumental effect on the way of life of the countries engaged. These changes were permanent.
