The Royal Army Chaplain’s Department 1796–1953: Clergy under Fire (review)

Whether because of a secularist outlook, a distaste for the juxtaposition of worship with combat, or a general sense that religion is irrelevant to the reality of warfare, historians have tended to tiptoe around the religious aspect of army life. This tendency is especially pronounced as regards the wars of the nineteenth and twentieth centuries. While a number of factors, including the predilections of individual officers and men, affect the importance of religion in any given army, an element that can so influence the mentality and morale of soldiers should be the subject of greater scrutiny than it has been for the most part.

In providing the basis for a broader perspective on religion in the military, there is no finer resource than Michael Snape. A senior lecturer in modern history at the University of Birmingham, Dr. Snape has done more to shed light on the history of the religious component in the British Army than any other scholar. Snape’s latest book, the one centrally under review here, is an institutional history of the Royal Army Chaplain’s Department. Snape chooses to deal with full-time clergy only, and not (except in passing) with the mass of personnel, including lay preachers -- often soldiers themselves -- and clergy who did service as needed. He does, however, refer to various civilian groups, such as the Society for the Promotion of Christian Knowledge, that deluged soldiers with religious tracts and sometimes with missionaries, often working cooperatively with the Chaplain’s Department.

The history that Snape presents mirrors larger trends in British society during the nineteenth and twentieth centuries. While the civilian world saw the emancipation of non-Anglican minorities and the general acceptance of pluralism, we find , during the latter half of the nineteenth century, the inclusion of chaplains who were Catholic, Presbyterian, Methodist, or Jewish. And even as other facets of British society were being placed on a wartime footing during World War I, so do we find that to be true of the chaplaincy, which expanded from 120 commissioned members in 1914 to almost 3500 by the close of the war. That war also saw the chaplains, who had previously been kept out of harm’s way, being allowed to attend troops in the front lines, a policy that enhanced their ability to serve but also cost the lives of a number of them.

The messages conveyed to the troops by their chaplains might be traditional, yet likewise be influenced by circumstances. Across the history of warfare military clergy encouraged soldiers to think that they fought in a good cause, but this tendency was given particular impetus in 1916, when Field Marshal Haig encouraged the chaplains to preach to the troops that the British war effort was just – this, to counter flagging morale. And while it was common for chaplains to preach against promiscuity, they were especially enjoined to do so early in World War II, in the face of an epidemic of venereal disease.

Clergy under Fire is organized on a linear scheme. This format occasions repetition, and the reader will sometimes encounter topics that had been dealt with in a previous chapter but are relevant also in later timeframes. Still, to have arranged the book thematically would have occasioned far greater problems. The book that in fact emerges is geared to quick reference, but it is also an amicable read. Commendably, Snape never allows his text to degenerate into a catalogue of names and dates. And throughout, the author demonstrates his mastery of the available sources, which are numerous and extensive. This is truly a first-rate piece of scholarship, one that will be the standard reference on the Chaplain’s Department for the foreseeable future.

According to Snape, Clergy under Fire is his last book on the theme of religion in the British Army. It is not, however, his first, for in 2005 he...