A Supernatural War
By Owen Davies
OUP, 284pp, £20/$28
"There are no atheists in foxholes” – that’s the common perception of spirituality on the battlefields of the First World War. But it’s a lot more nuanced than that, according to social historian Owen Davies in his new book, subtitled Magic, Divination and Faith During the First World War, which examines a wide range of beliefs among soldiers across Europe, both at the front and those at home.
In the early months of the war Catholic and Orthodox countries claimed divine messages of victory via the Virgin Mary or the saints. A German postcard showed a “figure with angel wings looking over the shoulder of a rifleman ready to fire”, entitled “The Warrior’s Guardian Angel”. In Italy there were votive tablets depicting “the Madonna and Child appearing in a cloud over the battlefield, looking down upon and protecting Italian troops”. Russian troops too were said to have seen miraculous visions of the Virgin and Child.
