Hysteria that spawned headlines
men actually saw the crime committed. There is room for the supposition that the man was dead before he was pinned to the fence and that the enemy in his insensate rage and hate of the English wreaked his vengeance on the lifeless body of his foe.
“That is the most charitable com- plexion that can be put upon the deed, ghastly as it is. There is not a man in the ranks of the Canadians who fought at Ypres who is not firmly convinced that this vile thing has been done. They know, too, that the enemy bayoneted their wounded and helpless comrades in the trenches.” ACCOUNTS of the crucified soldier threw the public into a collective rage.
Two days after that story, Sir Robert Houston asked Harold Tennant, under-secretary of state for war, whether he had “any information regarding the crucifixion of three Canadian soldiers recently captured by the Germans who nailed them with bayonets to the side of a wooden structure?”
He was told that no reports of such an atrocity had reached the War Office.
Four days later, Sir Robert again ONE thing is sure – the fake news epidemic began in Tipton. Richard Pursehouse explained the hysteria that spawned the headlines. Although highly suspicious of the follow-up stories, he and Lee Dent do not totally rule out Sidney Stanton’s account.
“There was a voracious appetite in the opening months of the war for stories of Belgian refugees being shot and tortured by the ‘brutish Hun’ as the German Army advanced into Belgium,” he explains.
“The newspapers, having little real news to publish, made what they could of such stories, especially as Belgian refugees who had fled across the Channel began to be housed here in the West Midlands.
“There were regular reports in newspapers of ‘Tobacco Funds’ for troops, and the arrivals of Belgian refugees. The British Government had taken the country into the war on the pretext of defending Belgian neutrality, and any stories that could reinforce the resolve of the country – and boost recruitment – were cynically manipulated.
“The very fact that the British version is first-hand and pre-dates the Canadian one adds weight to Sidney Stanton’s account.
“At a meeting of the Wolverhampton Western Front Association, we asked for the help of fellow WFA member Andrew Johnson, who has a keen interest in Tipton’s Great War asked the burning question. This time, the response was more detailed. He was informed that French authorities were under strict instruction to send details of any atrocity involving British troops. There had been no reports of crucifixion.
And in Canada, the horrific account ensured soldiers gave no quarter on the Western Front. In fact, the myth resurfaced in World War Two following vicious fighting between Canadians and SS troops in the thick hedgerows of the Normandy “Bocage” countryside after the June 1944, D-Day landings. history. Andrew discovered further background information on Sidney Stanton as well as details of later promotions.”
Stanton was the fourth son of Councillor James Stanton. He was an “articled pupil” in the borough engineer’s office at West Bromwich, then joined the Special Reserve of the Royal Engineers.
At the end of 1915, he was promoted to second lieutenant.
He was the unwitting author of a story that ran and ran – and even made it onto the big screen. You’ll find no pictures of Sidney Stanton, but his account played a major part in the war effort. American propaganda film, The Prussian Cur, released in 1918, recreated the terrible scene. Robert Graves referred to the story in his autobiography, Goodbye To All That, but pointed out the account was unsubstantiated.
And in 1918, British artist Francis Derwent Wood ensured the urban myth would live forever by creating a 32-inch bronze sculpture entitled Canada’s Golgotha. When the artwork was unveiled at Burlington House, London, in January 1919, the German government formally demanded proof that the facts were correct. They wanted proof the horror happened. Tellingly, none was forthcoming and the sculpture was withdrawn from the exhibition. It was not put on show again until the 1990s.