The first Remembrance Day was declared by King George V on
November 7, 1919. It recalled the Armistice signed the previous year by Allied
commander-in-chief Marshal Ferdinand Foch and Germany's Matthias Erzberger in a
secret railway carriage hidden in the Compiegne forest. On November 11, 1918,
at 11:00 am — the eleventh hour of the eleventh day of the eleventh month — the
First World War was officially over. Twenty million were dead, 21 million
wounded. They called it the War To End All Wars.
November 11 is also the feast day of St. Martin of Tours.
Martin is the patron saint of soldiers, cavalry and quartermasters. The US Army
Quartermasters Corps established the Order of St. Martin in 1997 to recognize
the distinguished service of quartermasters. The website reads: “Saint
Martin — the patron saint of the Quartermaster Regiment—was the most popular
saint in France during antiquity and the early Middle Ages. It is said that French
kings carried his cloak into battle as a spur to victory. Usually pictured on
horseback dividing his cloak with the beggar, the image of Saint Martin as a
Soldier-Provider offers a fitting symbol for Logistics Warriors charged with
SUPPORTING VICTORY now and for all time.” Their website also tells us that
Martin's name comes from the Latin Marten Tenens (one who sustains Mars,
Mars being the Roman god of war). And that is precisely what quartermasters
do — sustain armies by making sure they have everything they need to do their
job: gasoline, rations, bullets, boots.
Martin was born in 316 or 317 in the Roman province of
Pannonia (now modern-day Hungary). As the son of a senior officer in the
Imperial Horse Guard, Martin was forced by law to join the army at the age of
fifteen. While on duty at the age of eighteen, he encountered a ragged beggar
at the gates of Amiens. Moved with compassion, he cut his cloak with his sword
and gave half of it to the beggar. That night he had a dream in which Jesus
appeared in the half-cloak he had given away. “Here is Martin,” Jesus said,
“the Roman soldier who is not baptized; he has clad me.” Shortly thereafter
Martin was baptized.
When Martin was twenty, Julian II ordered him into battle
against the Gauls. He refused. “I am a soldier of Christ. I cannot fight,” he
told the emperor. (The early Church prohibited the baptized from bearing arms
or serving the military under pain of excommunication.) When Julian accused him
of being a coward, Martin volunteered to go onto the battlefield unarmed at the
head of the column. Julian accepted his offer and threw him into prison. The
next day the Gauls sued for peace and the battle never happened. Martin was
discharged from the army.
Martin travelled to Poitiers to become a disciple of St.
Hilary, the local bishop, and then later joined the monastery at Solesmes. In
371, he was acclaimed Bishop of Tours against his will by the citizens of
Tours. As bishop, Martin worked tirelessly for prisoners. A general named
Avitianus once arrived in Tours with a cohort he intended to torture and
execute the next day. Upon hearing this, Martin went immediately to the house
where Avitianus was staying. Arriving in the middle of the night, he threw
himself on the threshold and began crying out in a loud voice. An angel is said
to have awakened Avitianus, telling him Martin was outside. “Don't even say a
word,” he said upon seeing Martin. “I know what your request is. Every prisoner
shall be spared.”
In addition, Martin was a staunch opponent of the death
penalty. Priscillian of Avila was the leader of a growing heresy that advocated
amongst other things, abstinence in marriage. Condemned by the First Council of
Saragossa and excommunicated in 380, Priscillian fled to Trier in southwestern
Germany. A group of Spanish bishops led by Ithacius wanted Emperor Magnus
Maximus to execute him. Although greatly opposed to Priscillian, Martin
petitioned the imperial court in Trier to have him removed from the secular
jurisdiction of the emperor, arguing this was a church matter over which the
secular authority had not power to intervene and excommunication was punishment
enough. When Maximus agreed and Martin departed the city, Ithacius persuaded
the emperor to follow through with the execution. Priscillian and his followers,
beheaded in 385, were the first Christians executed for heresy.
Martin hurried back to Trier as soon as he heard the news
in the hope of saving the remaining Priscillianists. Once there, he refused to
concelebrate with the bishops who had ordered the executions. Fearing a public
scandal, the emperor promised to release the remaining prisoners if Martin
shared Communion with Ithacius. Martin reluctantly agreed but then was so
overcome with guilt for agreeing to this compromise that he resolved never to attend
another bishops' assembly.
It is believed Martin died in 397 at the age of
eighty-one. He was buried, at his request, in the Cemetery of the Poor in Tours
on November 11.
Irony and paradox. A young man who disobeys a direct order
to kill becomes the patron saint of soldiers; a pacifist conscientious objector
who leaves the army in disgrace is turned into a warrior icon charged with
supporting-victory-now-and-for-all-time. The quartermasters have taken the
cloak of St. Martin away from the beggar and wrapped it around the institution
of war.
