A Artic Ar le fo or Salv S alva a tio onistt d 12pm due pm
Army s t e p p i n s
1878 1890 90
A onishing As teen Ast ir teen irt Thir Thi a s That Shaped Year Year Ye Yea hee Salvation Th Th A Army
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... shared by General John Larsson (Retired)
AN ARMY WITH MORE THAN ONE GENERAL? ALL divisional commanders were to be generals. So it seemed for a brief moment in the Army’s earliest days when, during the year 1878, The Christian Mission gradually transformed itself into The Salvation Army. In the first Orders and Regulations for The Salvation Army, published in October of that year – and, odd though it may seem, advertised in The Christian Mission Magazine – it was envisaged that corps in time would be grouped into
divisions headed by ‘generals of division’ appointed to visit, watch over and regulate several corps. Two years later, in an edict dated 18 September 1880, General William Booth announced that he was implementing the plan of dividing the Army into divisions headed by ‘district generals’. He also clarified that district generals would ordinarily take the rank of major and be known as ‘district officers’.
SENT TO DEVIL’S ISLAND ‘CO ‘COMMISSIONER Albin Peyron, territorial terr commander for France, spoke kindly but firmly to the sp young officer seated before yo him. hi ‘Péan,’ he said, ‘I am sending se you to Devil’s Island!’ For a moment everything sspun round for Captain Charles Péan as he grasped the P commissioner’s meaning. rles Péan ioner Cha s Devil’s Island! Every is m m o C about that living grave, Frenchman knew a the infamous penal settlement in French Guiana on the northeast coast of South America, where many were sent but few ever returned. Convicts were set free after they had served their sentence but were not allowed to return to France. The conditions for the ‘freed ones’, as they searched for work and food in the jungle lands, were worse than for those who remained in the prison camps, where they were at least fed. Commissioner Peyron was determined that the Armée du Salut should spearhead a plan for bringing them home to France and for the penal settlement to be closed. His chosen leader to make it happen was Captain Péan. He had proved himself in his appointments, and the commissioner remembered the tenacity he had shown when he wanted to become an officer, a quality he would need in abundance for the task ahead. Aged 18, Charles, who had no Army connections, had been converted at a camp meeting conducted by Commissioner Peyron in the south of France. Three days later he rang the bell at the training college in Paris and announced that he had come to be trained as an officer. The principal explained that cadets were not received in that unorthodox manner,
but had to become soldiers first and perhaps after some me months could become cadets. Charles would not be dissuaded. He told the principal that he was called by God, had cancelled his last year at an agricultural college and must be allowed to remain. The perplexed principal phoned Commissioner Peyron asking what she should do. ‘Let him stay for three months,’ replied the wise leader, ‘and see how he shapes.’ A uniform was found for him and he joined the cadets already in training, becoming a soldier three months later. When in 1928 Captain Péan sailed for Devil’s Island, it was the beginning of a campaign that would last for 25 years. He was horrified by the condition of the 9,000 men that he saw there, and on his return through his writing and speaking – he wrote three books and gave more than 600 lectures – he began a process of stirring the conscience of the nation to this moral stain on the honour of France. In 1933 Captain Péan was permitted to return with three officers to minister to the ‘freed ones’ – and for the next 20 years Salvation Army officers served in the colony, often under the most trying strains. So successful was Captain Péan in bringing about a turn of the tide in French popular and legislative opinion, that by 1936 the first of many ships bringing ‘freed ones’ to their homeland began to arrive, where they were welcomed, clothed and resettled by the Army. Two years later, by decree of the National Assembly of France, the penal colony was officially abolished. But then the Second World War intervened and it was not until 1953 that the remaining convicts returned home, accompanied by the last Army officers. ‘It was the happiest day of my life,’ declared Commissioner Charles Péan.
Salvationist Day 4 December Month 2020 2021
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