The Clergy in Khaki

Michael Snape is Reader in Religion, War and Society at the University of Birmingham. He has published extensively on this theme and his books include The Back Parts of War: The YMCA Memoirs and Letters of Barclay Baron, 1915-1919 (2009); The Royal Army Chaplains' Department 1796-1953: Clergy Under Fire (2008); God and the British Soldier: Religion and the British Army in the First and Second World Wars (2005) and The Redcoat and Religion: The Forgotten History of the British Soldier from the Age of Marlborough to the eve of the First World War (2005). Edward Madigan is Resident Historian at the Commonwealth War Graves Commission and a visiting fellow to the Changing Character of War Programme at the University of Oxford. His work combines religious, military and cultural history and he has published articles and book chapters on a range of themes relating to British identity and culture in wartime and the British and Irish experience of the Great War. His first book, Faith Under Fire: Anglican Army Chaplains and the Great War, was published by Palgrave Macmillan in 2011.

British army chaplains have not fared well in the mythology of the First World War. Like its commanders they have often been characterized as embodiments of ineptitude and hypocrisy. Yet, just as historians have reassessed the motives and performance of British generals, this collection offers fresh insights into the war record of British chaplains. As the most complete study of the subject to date, this collection marks a major advance in the historiography of the British army, of the British churches and of British society during the First World War.

Contents: Introduction: British army chaplaincy in context, Edward Madigan and Michael Snape; The nonconformist chaplain in the First World War: the importance of a new phenomenon, J.H. Thompson; Free Church revivalism in the British army during the First World War, Neil Allison; A Welsh perspective on army chaplaincy during the First World War: the letters of Abraham Rees Morgan MC, Ieuan Elfryn Jones; Garrisoning the nation's soul: Calvinism, Douglas Haig and Scottish Presbyterian chaplaincy on the Western Front, David Coulter; The theology of 'Woodbine Willie' in context, Stuart Bell; Chaplains in context: British army padres and the 'bureaucracy of paternalism' in the First World War, Gary Sheffield; Catholic army chaplaincy and episcopal tensions: the Vatican and the appointment of an Episcopus Castrensis, James Hagerty; The First World War and the chaplains of British India, Michael Snape; Visions from the Front: discourse on the post-war world among Anglican army chaplains in 1918, Peter Howson; 'Shell-shocked prophets': Anglican army chaplains and post-war reform in the Church of England, Linda Parker; The Royal Army Chaplains' Department and the legacy of the First World War, Alan Robinson; Index.