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British Catholicism and the British Army in the First World War

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  16 September 2015

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The history of British Catholic involvement in the First World War is a curiously neglected subject, particularly in view of the massive and ongoing popular and academic interest in the First World War, an interest which has led to the publication of several studies of the impact of the war on Britain’s Protestant churches and has even seen a recent work on religion in contemporary France appear in an English translation. Moreover, and bearing in mind the partisan nature of much denominational history, the subject has been ignored by Catholic historians despite the fact that the war has often been regarded by non-Catholics as a ‘good’ war for British Catholicism, an outcome reflected in a widening diffusion of Catholic influences on British religious life and also in a significant number of conversions to the Catholic Church. However, if some standard histories of Catholicism in England are to be believed, the popular Catholic experience of these years amount to no more than an irrelevance next to the redrawing of diocesan boundaries and the codification of canon law.

Type
Research Article
Copyright
Copyright © Catholic Record Society 2003

References

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56 While being formed in 1915, three battalions of the 16th (Irish) Division were fleshed out with volunteers from the Channel Islands Militias (Middlebrook, Your Country Needs You, pp. 52–53). In terms of replacements, after suffering heavy losses around Ypres in August 1917 the 7th Leinster Regiment received over 100 replacements from the King’s Shropshire Light Infantry, the progressive dilution of the battalion’s Irish character being reflected in the fact that only 57 per cent of its fatal casualties for 1917 were Irish-born ( Denman, T., ‘An Irish battalion at war: from the letters of Captain Staniforth, J. H. M.’, Irish Sword, 17, 1987–1990, p. 172)Google Scholar. The use of English conscripts as replacements for Irish regiments was controversial given Ireland’s successful opposition to conscription and the practice was protested with some success by English M.P.s in the House of Commons (Middlebrook, Your Country Needs You, p. 146).

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71 Ibidem, 24 October 1914, p. 583.

72 In November 1914 Bishop J. S. Vaughan wrote to the Manchester Guardian that ‘a small man . . . presents a smaller target to the enemy’s guns . . . and is as a rule more combative and mettlesome than his weightier brethren . . . From Caesar to Napoleon and from Napoleon to our “Bobs”, some of the greatest soldiers have been some of the smallest men.’ Tablet, 5 December 1914, p. 765.

73 Catholic Federationist, January 1915, p. 1.

74 Ibidem.

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89 Ibidem, 3 October 1914, p. 475.

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109 Ibidem, pp. 70–72.

110 Ibidem, pp. 32–8.

111 Tablet, 3 July 1915, p. 17. See also accounts of Sergeant Michael O’Leary’s reception at Dublin (Tablet, 10 July 1915, p. 49) and at Archbishop’s House, Westminster (Tablet, 24 July 1915, p. 129).

112 Ibidem, 24 July 1915, p. 129.

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114 Month, 127, January 1916, p. 181.

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153 Tablet, 12 December 1914, p. 796.

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167 Anon., C.W.L. Soldiers ’ Recreation Huts, undated, n.p.

168 Plater, ‘Letter to a Catholic Soldier’, p. 2.

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170 Tablet, 20 February 1915, p. 233.

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173 Tablet, 27 February 1915, p. 274.

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175 Becker, War and Faith, pp. 47–59. Becker’s work, however, is hampered by the fact that she considers it ‘impossible to undertake a statistical study’ of these men.

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223 Williamson, ‘Happy Days’ in France and Flanders, pp. 18–20.

224 Devas, From Cloister to Camp, p. 24.

225 Drinkwater, War Diaries, 2 September 1917.

226 First Army Pilgrimage to Lourdes (London, 1918)Google Scholar; Catholic Federationist, July 1918, p. 1.

227 Hagerty and Johnstone, Cross on the Sword, pp. 151–154.

228 Harvest, 31, December 1918, pp. 196–7.

229 Gibbs, P., Realities of War (London, 1920), p. 440 Google Scholar.

230 Drinkwater, War Diaries, 10 September 1915.

231 O’Rahilly, Father William Doyle, pp. 463; 502.

232 Ibidem, p. 404.

233 Bourke, J., Dismembering the Male: Men’s Bodies, Britain and the Great War (London, 1996), pp. 159–60Google Scholar.

234 Martindale, Charles Dominic Plater, pp. 345–46.

235 Plater, C. (ed.). Catholic Soldiers by Sixty Chaplains and Many Others (London, 1919), p. 9 Google Scholar.

236 Ibidem, p. 11.

237 Ibidem, pp. 13–14.

238 Ibidem, p. 10.

239 Ibidem, p. 13.

240 Ibidem, p. 18.

241 Ibidem, p. 29.

242 Ibidem, p. 26.

243 Ibidem, p. 33.

244 Ibidem, p. 34.

245 Ibidem, p. 38.

246 Parsons, ‘Victorian Roman Catholicism’, pp. 166–67.

247 Ibidem, pp. 36; 149.

248 Ibidem, p. 41.

249 Ibidem, p. 53.

250 Ibidem, p. 42.

251 Ibidem.

252 Ibidem.

253 Ibidem, p. 50.

254 Ibidem, p. 48.

255 Ibidem.

256 Ibidem, p. 55.

257 Ibidem.

258 Ibidem, p. 88.

259 Ibidem, p. 78.

260 Ibidem, pp. 96–106.

261 Ibidem, p. 89.

262 Ibidem, pp. 90; 93.

263 Ibidem, p. 107.

264 Ibidem.

265 Ibidem, p. 113.

266 Ibidem, p. 126.

267 Ibidem, p. 128.

268 Ibidem, p. 131.

269 Ibidem, p. 130.

270 Ibidem, p. 135.

271 Ibidem.

272 Ibidem, p. 136.

273 Ibidem, p. 120.

274 Ibidem, p. 135.

275 Ibidem, p. 139.

276 Ibidem, p. 140.

277 Ibidem, p. 149.

278 Tablet, 14 February 1920, p. 210.

279 Martindale, Charles Dominic Plater, p. 238.

280 Ibidem, p. 239.

281 Tablet, 7 August, 1915, p. 184.

282 Catholic Federationist, August 1917, p. 1.

283 Maurice, F. and Arthur, G., The Life of Lord Wolseley (London, 1924), p. 266 Google Scholar.

284 Catholic Federationist, May 1917, p. 1.

285 Cairns (ed.), The Army and Religion, p. 189.