Introduction
The reader will find Arthur Machen unusually bellicose in the following article. The most intriguing aspect to Machen’s tirade is his equivalency of Shakespeare territory with “holy ground.” It is not likely that he employed this comparison as mere rhetorical hyperbole, but that he truly believed in its aptness. One only needs to read his story, “The Light That Can Never Be Put Out” and this becomes evident. For Machen, the isle of Great Britain was indeed holy ground and this transcendent reality is reflected throughout his fiction from the holy wells of Wales to the literary sanctity of Stratford-on-Avon. Understandably, the mayor responded with a letter to the editor of the Evening News. This statement and Machen’s unapologetic reply are included below.
Huns in Holy Places
by
Arthur Machen
April 23, 1918
There is a certain small town in the Midlands, in the county of Warwick, if one must be exact, of no particular commercial importance. It is 103 miles from Paddington, or, if you take the Great Central route from Marylebone, the distance is only 93 miles. The population is 3,637. The town has a brewery of some size, but, so far as I am aware, no other considerable industries. The inhabitants of the surrounding country are employed in agricultural pursuits. The town is governed by a Mayor and Council. There is a large parish church dating from the fifteenth century, and an ancient grammar school.
Clearly, then, this little town is a place of no consequence; there are hundreds of others, of much the same size and of like character scattered up and down all over England. It does not matter, then, what happens to a wretched little country hole such as this.
Evidently, it does not matter. For I read in The Daily Mail a letter from a resident of this pitiful and obscure township:
“If one walks through the town in the afternoon one meets Hun prisoners allowed to saunter along the High-street, and to go to the shops for tobacco, boots, and other things.”
And another resident of the same place says:
“My niece tells me that the prisoners come into the shops, and there is nobody with them. They tell their guards in a ‘swanking’ manner that they will soon be masters of the land they are tilling.”
Now, the little out-of-the-way town which has to submit to the unspeakable outrage of the insolent presence of these enemies of the human race is Stratford-on-Avon; and thus it is that we are celebrating to-day the birthday of him who was born in that town, William Shakespeare. We are allowing people of the hideous German nation, these workers of every abomination, these assassins, liars, arch-masters of rape, to pollute with their foul tread this most sacred soil of Stratford-on-Avon.
It is not a matter that can be argued. It is a question of decency, of respect for holy things, for a religious place, that in a sense, is to be named with Canterbury and Glastonbury, to be reckoned amongst the noble founts and wells whence the stream that is England has flowed forth. Stratford-on-Avon stands for things that make England glorious and precious.
You cannot argue as to a point of decency with people who have no sense of the distinction between what is decent and what is indecent. There must be many persons who are unable to understand why dogs are not commonly allowed to enter graveyards. So, I have no doubt, there will be many persons who will wonder why on earth German prisoners should not be allowed to saunter and “swank” up and down the High-street of Stratford-on-Avon.
For my part I confess that the paragraphs in the newspaper were as a blow in the face. I have no claim, I am sorry to say, to pose as a Shakespearean devotee; the mystery is too great for me. But I hope I have the sense to revere that visible image of Shakespeare and Shakespeare’s England, the old dreaming town by the Avon, with its ancient streets bowered in gardens, its timbered taverns where the echoes of old English mirth and laughter as of the immortals still seem to linger, its great quire in the trees by the shining river, its fields and woods where the nightingales are now beginning to sing.
It is a horror and a shame that the bestial people have been allowed to set foot on such holy ground as this. It is a shame that the Mayor of Stratford-on-Avon and his Council and the townsfolk should blot from their record with all convenient speed.
_______
‘Huns In Holy Places’
A Tender “Educational” Process
April 30, 1918
From the Mayor of Stratford-on-Avon:
To the Editor of “The Evening News,”
Sir,—My attention has been called to an article which appeared in your issue of April 23.
The writer asserts that German prisoners are allowed to saunter and “swank” about Stratford-on-Avon without escort. His information is incorrect on this matter.
The movements of prisoners are controlled by the War Office, not by local authorities, but it is unfair to the commandant of the camp that this statement should be allowed to pass without contradiction.
The prisoners at the camp at Drayton are all non-commissioned officers who, according to our standard, are not obliged to work. They have volunteered to do so, and are working and behaving well. Some of them come into Stratford-on-Avon to see the dentist, etc., but it is untrue that they are allowed to saunter and “swank” about without escort.
My view is that it should be made a rule that every prisoner should be taken to see England as she really is, to see our people, prosperous, well fed and clothed, hardworking, brave and contented.
The time will come when these men will go back to Germany where, from their own experience, they will be able to tell their deluded fellow-countrymen how they have been lied to when their newspapers have told them that we in England were starving, terrified, and on the verge of revolution. Are we not doing too little to bring the truth home to these prisoners?
If this were done thousands of them would, on repatriation, probably become powerful advocates for the form of government which gives freedom and happiness.
Archibald Flower,
Mayor of Stratford-on-Avon.
_______
Mr. Machen’s Reply:
Mr. Machen writes:—In the first place I did not assert that German prisoners are allowed to saunter about Stratford-on-Avon without escort. I quoted assertions of two residents of the town.
For the rest, as I said in my article, there is no arguing on a point of decency with people who have no sense of the distinction between what is decent and what is indecent.
I am amused by the Mayor’s plan for reforming the Huns by allowing them to walk about Stratford-on-Avon, and I would suggest an addition to the present industries of the town.
It would seem, in the Mayor’s opinion, to be an ideal spot for starting a manufactory where silk purses might be made out of sows’ ears.
The Weekly Machen
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This is very interesting – thank you for it!
I wonder how – or, how easily – one could find out more about ‘how that worked’?
I enjoyed (thanks to David Wales and LibriVox) Pat O’Brien’s Outwitting the Hun: My Escape from a German Prison Camp (published – at least in the U.S. – the month before this article!).
He was an American in the Royal Flying Corps, and eventually escaped to the Netherlands. He writes of meeting “many other soldiers and sailors” there – all British – who, “as they had arrived […] in uniform and under arms the laws of neutrality compelled their internment, and they had been there ever since.” And further, someone “interned in a neutral country […] gets one month a year to visit his home” – including any travel-time involved! He adds, “The possibility of escape from internment is always there, but the British authorities have an agreement with the Dutch government to send refugees back immediately. In this respect, therefore, the position of a man who is interned is worse than that of a prisoner who, if he does succeed in making his escape, is naturally received with open arms in his native land.” However, as an American, and as America was still neutral itself at the time of his escape, he was simply able to return home. En route he was invited to meet King George V, who, he reports, said, “I’ve heard that the Germans had threatened to shoot Americans serving in the British army if they captured them, classing them as murderers because America was a neutral country and Americans had no right to mix in the war. Did you find that to be the case?” His reply was “that I had heard similar reports, but that I did not notice any appreciable difference in my treatment from that accorded Britishers.”
Now, I wonder what sort of ‘parole’ the German ‘non-coms’ gave, such that while “not obliged to work”, they could volunteer to do so – and could thereby, somehow, go about town, however well – or, apparently ill, or not at all in practice – escorted?
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