This year marks the centenary anniversary of British forces landing in Russia to fight the Bolsheviks. Now, Russia is generally agreed to be interfering in liberal democracies around the globe. A Jesuit priest serving as a chaplain to the British forces helps illuminate this oft-neglected story, and reveals a bit of how the Church was adapting to those troubled times.
A child of the empire as well as the church, Bernard Page was the son of a colonial magistrate. Born in India, he mostly grew up in Australia, earning a reputation as a scholarly sportsman before heading to Europe to join the Jesuits.
By 1919 Page was also an experienced army chaplain. During the First World War he served on the Western Front. Writing in 1915 to the Archbishop of Hobart — a family friend — Page reported celebrating Mass 'in a battered chapel just near the lines', marching 'along a road which was being shelled by high explosives', and other such snippets of war.
Page's first war is a reminder that long before the theological and ecclesial developments of his century, the lived experience of liturgy and sacrament had — for millions of Christians — come out of the churches and sanctuaries and bent to the times. Page 'heard confessions of men sitting on horses, standing sentry, walking along muddy roads in the rain at night and in the day'.
He gave Communion to big crowds of soldiers without worrying about the technical rules concerning fasting. He lived the Church of the dressing station in ways both literal and figurative, foreshadowing the unofficial motto of Pope Francis, the first Jesuit Pope.
In all this Page typified the bravery and dedication of innumerable wartime chaplains. Even a gruff reply to his superior, written in the field in 1917, reveals pastoral realities trumping ecclesial niceties. 'Frankly,' he wrote, 'your note has greatly pained me. It appears to me hasty, unjust and unkind: hasty because you did not obtain full knowledge of the facts; unjust because you apparently condemn me unheard; unkind because you do not give me credit for doing my best.' The age of unqualified deference — if ever it really existed — was passing away.
Page's second war was different, and differently documented. Diarised correspondence records his voyage and arrival in far northern Europe. Reaching Archangel in May 1919 — a few weeks before the Treaty of Versailles was signed — his ship received a 'quite friendly and enthusiastic' welcome by the crowds. The British glided into port with the sort of fanfare that reminded the priest of their departure from Tyne a few weeks earlier.
"In hindsight, however well-intentioned it might have been, the British intervention in Russia seems like an ill-conceived attempt to thwart one of history's great flood tides."
He mostly penned atmospherics — mists and icebreakers, sea mines, and midnight sunlight — and described shipboard activities — eating, playing cards, 'deck sports', and Mass on Sundays. Once landed, he required a pistol and constant company to avoid assassination — officers being targets, doubly so clerics. Marched into town he witnessed a ceremonial meeting of empires in front of the local Cathedral. He was feted and fed a few more times. He explored the town. Then he was sent to the front and the letter ends.
Before this he made an interesting observation about all the marching he was forced to do: 'All these elaborate parades have an object. It is to let the Bolsheviks know that a big force of smart men has landed against them, and (to use a soldier's expression) to put the wind up them a bit!'
Of course, the parading proved ineffectual in the end. Page, like the British, left Russia before the end of the following year. In that first great test of arms, communism won. No wonder the 1919 intervention is so rarely commemorated.
In hindsight, however well-intentioned it might have been, the British intervention in Russia seems like an ill-conceived attempt to thwart one of history's great flood tides. A tightly constrained military operation, on foreign soil, against an ideologically-driven and local foe, in a time of general war-weariness — it was surely an uphill battle from the start.
But whether the first shots of the Cold War or the last hurrah of Britain's 'long 19th century' or something else entirely, the anniversary should not pass entirely unnoticed. How ironic that this centenary could be the year Britain leaves Europe.
As a way-marker for international politics — like Russian meddling in elections, and various liberal democratic interventions abroad — this episode seems worth recalling in the face of a certain misplaced fondness for empire. And for those who might seek to shut the Catholic Church's windows and return to some perceived pre-Conciliar arcadia, this chaplain's story is a reminder that the winds of change were blowing them open already.
Nick Brodie is a historian and author. His recent works include The Vandemonian War (2017) and 1787: The Lost Chapters of Australia's Beginnings (2016). He appears regularly on ABC24's Matter of Fact with Stan Grant.