ABSTRACT
This chapter compares three nations – the German Empire, France and Great Britain – and three different churches: the German Protestant churches, the French Catholic Church and the Church of England. It focuses on the central leadership of the churches and prominent and leading churchmen and not on local priests, pastors and parishes unless it is essential for the understanding of the attitude of the church or discussions that were held on a national level. For the military chaplain is a fascinating figure – as a mediatory figure on the crossroads of church, army and civil society, and as a human being, struggling with his own demons on and behind the battlefield. Being part of that civil society, military chaplains were confronted with domestic problems like class-prejudice, bigotry against the church and the clergy, alternative forms of religiosity and spirituality, and the sometimes too restricting and sometimes too volatile relations between church and state.
