The two world wars; & the “Harvest of the earth”

The Mail on Sunday journalist Peter Hitchens, writing in an April 2008 newspaper article (and later blog thread entitled: Was World War Two just as pointless and self-defeating as Iraq . . .) wrote:

'The First and Second World Wars, as [Patrick] Buchanan says [in his book, Churchill, Hitler and the Unnecessary War], are really one [great] conflict.'

Centuries before, Vitringa remarked, concerning that great conflict that is styled in the Apocalypse as “Armageddon”; that it would consist of:

'two most signal slaughters, between which some space of time would intervene'.

– As cited in the Rev Joseph Towers' Illustrations of Prophecy, 1796. – The work from which I quoted from extensively in my previous post The best laid schemes of FROGS and men; and again do so below – this time from the next, and final chapter to that prophetic Volume:

CHAPTER XVIL

ON THE SYMBOLIC HARVEST AND VINTAGE.

'The sixth rule, which Dr. Lancaster lays down in his Abridgment of Daubuz's Preliminary Discourse, as an aid in the interpretation of prophecy, is thus expressed: “when the things to be prophesied of in the Revelation are to be considered in several views, there is a change of symbols.” The reason is, says Dr. Lancaster, that as the symbols of prophecy must bear a certain analogy to each other, and must preserve throughout a certain decorum, it is impossible, that the same strain of symbols should represent all that variety of circumstances, which it is sometimes expedient to introduce. “And therefore, when the matters require that they should be considered under another aspect, the strain of the symbols must change, and the scene of the visions alters; so that many symbols may be used to denote the same thing in different respects. Now there are placed such inward marks, which belong to every part of a vision; that we may thereby discover how the matters of that vision are related to the rest. Thus we find what is antecedent and consequent, or what is only collateral; and so it appears what visions and their parts synchronize, and what do not. By this method what as before treated of succinctly is enlarged upon, and more fully demonstrated. So that the Revelation is not wrote in the way of annalists, who, being content to reduce all matters to a chronological series, only relate briefly what happens every year, without enlarging upon the intrigues or causes of the events, and omitting for the most part the consequences; but in the way of the mort judicious historians, who endeavour to give a full account of every matter as they take it in hand, in order to make a complete system of the whole; interposing digressions, and then returning to the principal matters, by giving such hints and transitions, as suffice to let us understand to what they belong, and how, as to point of time, they come in or end with the rest. — And this is the method, not only of the most exact histories and discourses, but in a special manner that of all the inspired writers; in whom the conjunctive particles do rather import, that one passage comes to be related after another, than that it was realty transacted after it.”

'Thus the wars, in which the tyrants of the European world are to be subdued, with their widely scattered partisans, being of such mighty influence in deciding the condition of the human race, are foretold, in several parts of the apocalypse, and under different emblems. Such appears to be the import of THE HARVEST and THE VINTAGE, described in the xivth chapter.

'It is said in v.15 and 16, the harvest of the earth, or the antichristian part of mankind, is ripe. And he that sat on the cloud thrust in his sickle on the earth: and the earth was reaped. An “harvest in several places of scripture denotes,” says Dr. Lancaster, some “destroying judgment, by which people fall as corn by the scythe.” It “is sometimes metaphorically used,” observes Mr. Lowth, “to signify an entire destruction, because the harvest makes a clear riddance, and leaves the fields empty and bare.” And Vitringa, speaking of the word just cited from St. John, says, “the clearest arguments demonstrate, that the harvest is to be explained of some judgment of God of a general kind, by which he would take a severe vengeance on the enemies of the church and the adversaries of his people.”

'In v.17 an angel is represented as having a sharp sickle: and the command given unto him (v.18) is, thrust in thy sharp sickle, and gather the clusters of the vine of the earth; for her grapes are fully ripe. And the angel (v.19) thrust in his sickle into the earth, and gathered the vine of the earth, and cast it into the great wine-press of the wrath of God. Of the symbols of the prophets some were borrowed from the customs of Judæa. Thus say bp. [bishop] Hurd, “to tread a wine-press, from their custom of pressing grapes, signifies destruction attended with great slaughter.” “The wine-press is called great,” says Daubuz, “because this is not a partial but general punishment.” That this prediction of the vintage alludes to the war of Armageddon, is observed, among other commentators, by Mede, and More, by Durham, Cressener, and Peganius. Vitringa, indeed, declares it to be the opinion of all the best interpreters, that it is a prophecy of the great slaughter which is then to take place.

'Nothing, says this great commentator, is more certain than that this apocalyptic description of the harvest and the vintage is borrowed from the prophet Joel; and he afterwards says, “when I have, with more than usual diligence, compared this prophecy with that of Joel, in which both emblems refer to the same judgment, I have seen no reason for interpreting the emblems of St. John as belonging to separate judgments.” As the emblem of a harvest did not ascertain, whether the enemies of God should be cut off by famine, or pestilence, or war; he remarks, that another and kindred similitude, that of a vintage, was superadded, that it might more conspicuously be evident, that war would be the means employed. “This appears to be the simplest and most easy sense of the prophecy.” I am again quoting the words of Vitringa; “although, if a distinction be made between these emblems, we must say, that God will provide means by his providence, that the enemies of the church should receive two most signal slaughters, between which some space of time would intervene, which agreeably to analogy may be represented by the interval, which separates a harvest from a vintage.” The symbolic grapes are described as fully ripe “That is,” says Vitringa, “the period of the divine forbearance had expired, and villanies, no longer to be tolerated, had arisen to their utmost height. The measure of crimes was filled up. — Punishment therefore could no longer be deferred, but the destroyers of the earth were at length to be destroyed, and were in their turn to meet with their reward.” Vitringa here, in imitation of the prophet, employs the past tense, though speaking of the future. This, he observes, is the period, when our Lord's prophetic parable of the burning of the tares shall be accomplished*. . . .'

[*From footnote: 'Mat. xiii. 39-43. Brenius explains this passage in the same way, and more at large, in his treatise De Regno Ecclesiæ Glorioso.']

(pp. 296-300).

'Reference has been made to a passage of striking import in the iiid. ch. of Joel; which chapter, says. Mr. Lowth, “relates to the latter times of the world.” “Vast multitudes of the Antichristians,” says Dr. Wells, “shall be destroyed” at the period of its accomplishment. It is thought to be prophetic of the very same events which St. John has foretold shall take place in the course of the symbolic vintage and in the war of Armageddon. It begins with foretelling the mighty military preparations which shall be made, and the numerous forces which shall be assembled together by the friends of tyranny and antichristianism. Proclaim ye this among the Gentiles: prepare war, wake up the mighty men, let all the men of war draw near: let them come up. Beat your plowshares into swords, and your pruning-hooks into spears: let the weak say, I am strong. Assemble yourselves, and come, all ye heathen, and gather yourselves together round about: thither cause thy Mighty Ones to come down, O Lord. Let the heathen be weakened, and come up to the valley of Jehosaphat; for there will I sit to judge[1] all the heathen round about[2]. Put ye in the sickle, for the harvest is ripe: come get ye down, for the press is full, the fats overflow; for their wickedness is great. Multitudes, multitudes[3] in the valley of decision[4]: for the day of the Lord is near in the valley of decision.

[Footnotes: 1. 'To Judge all the heathen, i.e. says bishop Newcome, “to punish by a signal overthrow.” 2. Here the prophet clearly makes a transition, and addresses those, who are to defeat the antichristian party and all the Mighty Ones who are enlisted under its banners. 3. The repetition of this noun signifies, says Dr. Pococke, according to a well attested rule of the Hebrew grammarians, that those spoken of will be extraordinarily numerous. 4. Bp. Newcome renders it, the valley of excision.']

'This prophecy of Joel does, says Vitringa, refer to that time, when great commotions shall arise through all the countries of Europe, and the antichristian empire shall be destroyed; and he observes, that the place styled Armageddon by St. John is the same with the Valley of Jehoshaphat. “The place of this remarkable action,” says Mr. Lowth, “is here called the Valley of Jehoshaphat; as if the prophet had said, the Place where the Lord will execute judgment, for so the word jehoshaphat signifies in the original.”'

(pp. 301-302).

'In reading the predictions which I have recently cited, of future slaughter, humanity cannot but be wounded. But it is proper that the truth should be told. It is time, that those who believe in prophecy should learn, on what class of persons the full weight of the divine vengeance is finally to fall.

'That it is no light matter to pay a servile obedience to the unholy commands of the civil magistrates and the hierarchies, and to assist them in their unrighteous designs, the following alarming declaration will serve to evince. In ch. xiv. of the apocalypse, an angel is represented as saying with a loud voice, if any man worship the Beast and his Image, and receive his mark in his forehead, or in his hand, the same shall drink of the wine of the wrath of God, which is poured out without mixture into the cup of his indignation. He shall drink of the wine of the wrath of God; i. e. says Mr. Cradock, he “shall partake of severe judgments, the effect of God's wrath.” This passage, in the opinion of Daubuz refers to the accomplishment of the symbolic harvest and vintage, and to the infliction of those judgments which are denominated the Seven Vials [and culminate in the great hail of Rev. xvi 21]. “The threatening,” says this learned commentator, “being levelled against such as any way yield to the religion of the Beast, and submit to the taking only of the public mark of profession in the forehead, as well as giving actual assistance, which is the case of them that take it upon their hands, shews us, that God's plagues affect not only those that presumptuously act in the corruptions, but all those fearful persons, who did not actually resist, or avoid giving way to them.”'

(pp. 303-304).

'In the next verse the prophet adds, that the smoke of their torment ascendeth up for ever and ever: and they have no rest day nor night, who worship the Beast and his image, and whosoever receiveth the mark of his name. “The expression for ever and ever is,” says Daubuz, “to be understood during the continuation of the subject; that is, whilst the Beast and False Prophet have adherents, they shall have a perpetual torment.” These awful denunciations, in the opinion of Vitringa, have a double reference; and respect alike the punishments of a future state and the judgments to be inflicted in the present world.'

(p. 304).

The two posts that follow below:

“Hitler's Pope” and A(i)r-mageddon: the “great hail” of Revelation 16:21

are a solemn continuation, from the annuals of history,

of the weighty pronouncements above cited . . .

“Hitler's Pope”

From the Prologue to the above work:

'[Eugenio] Pacelli [later Pope Pius XII] was responsible for a treaty with Serbia which contributed to the tensions that led to the First World War. Twenty years later he struck an accord with Hitler which helped sweep the Führer to legal dictatorship while neutralizing the potential of Germany's 23 million Catholics (34 million after the Anschluss) to protest and resist. . . .

'In 1933 Pacelli found a successful negotiating partner for his Reich Concordat in the person of Adolf Hitler. Their treaty authorized the papacy to impose the new Church law on German Catholics and granted generous privileges to Catholic schools and the clergy. In exchange, the Catholic Church in Germany, its parliamentary political party, and its many hundreds of associations and newspapers “voluntarily” withdrew, following Pacelli's initiative, from social and political action. The abdication of German political Catholicism in 1933, negotiated and imposed from the Vatican by Pacelli with the agreement of Pope Pius XI, ensured that Nazism could rise unopposed by the most powerful Catholic community in the world – a reverse of the situation sixty years earlier, when German Catholics combated and defeated Bismarck's Kulturkampf persecutions from the grass roots. As Hitler himself boasted in a cabinet meeting on July 14, 1933, Pacelli's guarantee of nonintervention left the regime free to resolve the Jewish question. According to the cabinet minutes, “[Hitler] expressed the opinion that one should only consider it as a great achievement. The concordat gave Germany an opportunity and created an area of trust that was particularly significant in the developing struggle against international Jewry.”* [*From Notes: 'Quoted in S. Friedländer, Nazi Germany and the Jews, Vol. I: The Years of Persecution, 1933-39 (London, 1997), 49; Friedländer's German Source, Der Nationalsozialismus: Dokumente 1933-1945. (Frankfurt am Main, 1957), 130.'] The perception of papal endorsement of Nazism, in Germany and abroad, helped seal the fate of Europe.'

(Hitler's Pope: The Secret History of Pope Pius XII, by John Cornwell; American paperback edition; Penguin Books, 1999, 2000; pp. 4, 6-7).

5

PACELLI AND WEIMAR

'On June 30, 1920, Pacelli presented his credentials to the Reich, the first diplomat to do so under the Weimar government. Thus he became the senior diplomat in the capital, an honor that he was to grace with outstanding charm and distinction. Having warmly welcomed the nuncio, President Friedrich Ebert solemnly announced that his duty was to order, “with the proper authorities, the relations between Church and State in Germany [so] that they correspond to the new situation and to contemporary conditions.” Pacelli responded: “For my part, I will devote my entire strength to cultivating and strengthening the relations between the Holy See and Germany.” (Thirteen years later, Hitler used the self-same phrase, word for word, when he promised an immediate readjustment of relations between Berlin and the Holy See in exchange for the Center Party's acquiescence in the Enabling Act that awarded him dictatorial powers.)'* [*From Notes: 'See Scholder, The Churches and the Third Reich, Vol. I, 62 and 249.'] (ibid. p. 92).

7

HITLER AND GERMAN CATHOLICISM

'Hitler, in fact, had two views on the churches – public and private. In February of 1933 he was to declare in the Reichstag that the churches were to be an integral part of the German national life. Privately, the following month, he vowed to completely “eradicate” Christianity from Germany. “You are either a Christian or a German,” he said. “You cannot be both.”'* [*From Notes: 'Quoted in F. Zipfel, Kirchenkampf in Deutschland, 1933-45 (Berlin, 1965), 9, quoted in M. Housden, Resistance and Conformity in the Third Reich (London, 1997), 46.'] (ibid. pp. 105-106).

'In the spring of 1931, a Catholic Reichstag representative, Karl Trossmann, published a best-selling book entitled Hitler and Rome, in which he described the National Socialists as a “brutal party that would do away with all the rights of the people.” Hitler, he declared, was dragging Germany into a new war, a war that “would only end more disastrously than the last.” Not long after, the Catholic author Alfons Wild published a widely distributed essay entitled “Hitler and Catholicism,” in which he proclaimed that “Hitler's view of the world is not Christianity but the message of race, a message that does not proclaim peace and justice but rather violence and hate.”

'Meanwhile, two Catholic journalists, Fritz Gerlich and Ingbert Naab, excoriated National Socialism in the pages of the Munich-based periodical Der Gerade Weg [The Straight Path], characterizing the movement as a “plague.” In the issue dated July 21, 1932, the writers declared that “National Socialism means enmity with neighboring countries, despotism in internal affairs, civil war, international war. National Socialism means lies, hatred, fratricide and unbounded misery. Adolf Hitler preaches the law of lies. You who have fallen victim to the deceptions of one obsessed with despotism, wake up!”

'This vehement and united front of the Catholic Church in Germany, however, was not at one with the view from inside the Vatican – a view that was being increasingly shaped and promoted by Eugenio Pacelli.' (ibid. p. 110).

The Lateran Treaty and Its Aftermath

'Pius XI and Pacelli realized that no accommodation could be made with Communism, anywhere in the world. In the case of totalitarian movements and regimes of the Right, it was a different matter. In Italy the Holy See had signed a pact with Mussolini in February 1929, foreshadowing Pacelli's 1933 deal with Hitler. Negotiated and drafted by Pacelli's brother, Francesco, and his predecessor as Secretary of State, Pietro Gasparri, the accord, on the face of it and for the time being, ended the antagonisms that had existed between the Holy See and Italy since 1870.

'According to the terms of the Lateran Treaty, Roman Catholicism became the sole recognized religion in the country. . . . The Powerful democratic Catholic Popular Party (the Partito Popolare), in many respects similar to the Center Party in Germany, had been disbanded and its leader, Don Luigi Sturzo, exiled. Catholics had been instructed by the Vatican itself to withdraw from politics as Catholics, leaving a political vacuum in which the Fascists thrived. In the March elections following the Lateran Treaty, priests throughout Italy were encouraged by the Vatican to support the Fascists, and the Pope spoke of Mussolini as “a man sent by Providence.”' (ibid. p. 114).

'A few days after the signing of the Lateran Treaty, Hitler wrote an article for the Völkischer Beobachter [The Racial Observer, the official newspaper of the Nazi party], published on February 22, 1929, warmly welcoming the agreement. “The fact that the Curia is now making peace with Fascism,” he wrote, “shows that the Vatican trusts the new political realities far more than did the former liberal democracy with which it could not come to terms.” Turning to the German situation, he rebuked the Center Party leadership for its recalcitrant attachment to democratic politics. “By trying to preach that democracy is still in the best interests of German Catholics, the Center Party . . . is placing itself in stark contradiction to the spirit of the treaty signed today by the Holy See.”' (Ibid. p. 115).

* * *

'By late December [1931], the Pope [Pius XI] was repeating the suggestion to Baron von Ritter, the Bavarian envoy to the Holy See: that a cooperation between the Church in Germany and the National Socialists “perhaps only temporarily and for specific purposes” would “prevent a still greater evil.”'* [*From Notes: 'Report from Ritter to Munich, December 20, 1931, cited in Scholder, The Churches and the Third Reich, Vol. I, 154.'] (ibid. p. 125).

* * *

REAPPRAISALS:

On 26 July 1914, Baron von Ritter, the Chargé d' Affaires of Bavaria at the Holy See, had written to his Government:

“The Pope [Pius X] approves of Austria's harsh treatment of Serbia. He has no great opinion of the armies of Russia and France in the event of a war against Germany. The Cardinal Secretary of State does not see when Austria could make war if she does not decide to do so now.”

(Bayerische Dokumente zum Kriegsausbruch [Bavarian Documents on the Outbreak of War] III, p. 206; as cited in the Vatican Against Europe, by Edmond Paris; The Wickliffe Press [Protestant Truth Society] edition, 1993; p. 47).

* * *

During the first Balkan war the Oesterreichs Katholische Sonntags Blatt expressed the following sentiments:

“Our ideal is not to perpetuate European Turkey, but to bring the Balkan Peninsula into the possession of Catholic Austria and the Catholic Church. . . . Just as a violent storm refreshes and cleanses the oppressive atmosphere, so we hold when it once comes to real war the moral and economic gain to Europe will in the end be very great. The social democracy is not yet strong enough to prevent a war. As a result of the emotional pressure of a European war it will break to pieces with its millions of casual followers, and under the same pressure modern liberalism will also break down. It will not hurt Europe if its conditions are for once well shaken up.”

(As cited in, The Inside Story of Austro-German Intrigue, or, How the World War Was Brought About, by Joseph Goricar, Formerly of the Austro-Hungarian Foreign Service, and Lyman Beecher Stowe; published Garden City New York, Doubleday, Page & Company, 1920; pp. 94-95).

* * *

“One might wonder for what motive the Catholic Church evinces herself so bellicose at an epoch when she is governed by a chief [Pope Pius X] who is truly a saint, imbued with veritably apostolic ideas. The answer is very simple. The Pope and the Curia see in Serbia the ravaging malady that little by little penetrated the Monarchy to the marrow, and which, in time, would end by disintegrating it.

“Despite all the other experiments attempted by the Curia in the course of the last decade, Austria-Hungary is and remains the Catholic State par excellence, the strongest rampart of the Faith which stands in our day for the Church of Christ. The fall of this rampart would signify for the Church the loss of its solidest prop; in the conflicts with the Orthodox Church she would see her most powerful champion struck down.

“Hence, just as for Austria-Hungary there is an immediate necessity of self-preservation to expel from its organism, even by force if need be, the dissolving malady, there is also for the Catholic Church an indirect necessity of doing or approving everything that would serve to attain that end.

“In this light, a harmony between the apostolic sentiment and the war spirit can easily be confirmed.”

(Despatch of 29 July, 1914, from Count Palffy, Austrian Chargé d' Affaires at the Vatican, to Count Berchtold, Austrian Minister of Foreign Affairs; as cited in: Contemporary Italy: Its Intellectual and Moral Origins, by Count Carlo Sforza; Frederick Muller Ltd., London, 1946; p. 154).

* * *

“[T]he Papacy, distressed by the ebbing of its strength . . . will hate Orthodoxy worse than Scepticism, and will endeavour to persuade mankind that they cannot be Christians unless they are Papists, and thus will do the Dragon's work, and promote Infidelity.”

(From: Lectures on the Apocalypse; Critical, Expository, and Practical; Delivered Before the University of Cambridge by Chr. Wordsworth, D.D., Canon of Westminster; Formerly Fellow of Trinity College, Cambridge; Third Edition; London: Francis & John Rivington, St. Paul's Church Yard, and Waterloo Place, 1852; pp. 387-388).

A(i)r-mageddon: the “great hail” of Revelation 16:21

THE AFTERMATH: COLOGNE 1945

“The 'fall of hail' is to be viewed as accompanying, not following, the fall of cities . . . As hail-stones are symbolical of divine judgments, and as there may be allusions here to another of the plagues of Egypt, (Exod. ix. 18:) so more especially may the facts of history supply the figurative language with which the judgments of the vials terminate. If any escaped the destroying sword in the battle of Armageddon, they are overtaken by these ponderous hail-stones out of heaven . . .”

(From: Notes on the Apocalypse; With An Appendix, containing dissertations on some of the Apocalyptical symbols, together with animadversions on the interpretation of several among the most learned and approved expositors of Britain and America, by David Steele, Sr., Pastor of the Reformed Presbyterian Congregation, Philadelphia; Philadelphia: Young & Ferguson, No. 14 South Seventh St., 1870; p. 246).

Moving on from a work detailing some of the prophetic interpretations of some of “the most learned and approved expositors of Britain and America”; to the actual “facts of history”, and the aviators of Britain and America:

“A(i)r- mageddon in West”

“FROM dawn onwards yesterday the thunder of massed aircraft filled the sky over the north German plain as the greatest tactical air blitz in history gained momentum.

“Bomber Command, the Eighth & Ninth U.S.A.A.F. And the entire strength of R.A.F. Second T.A.F. were flying into yesterday's onslaught, in which well over 6,000 sorties were flown.”

(From a newspaper clipping reproduced in John S. Fox's Today, Tomorrow and the Great Beyond – newspaper and date of publication not stated.)

The British historian Andrew Roberts, in a chapter (entitled, “The Cruel Reality”) concentrating on the Anglo-American air offensive against Germany (to be found in his latest history of the Second World War), remarked that the “division of labour between [the USAAF's] daylight and [the RAF's] night-time bombing automatically solved a number of possible operational problems [that would have otherwise existed between the two allied forces].” And went on to state that: “On 6 March 1944 the Americans began daylight raids on Berlin, which was now being pounded almost round the clock.”

“they have no rest day nor night . . .” (Rev. 15:11).

Andrew Roberts concluded the aforementioned chapter, on the following note:

“The fact that more than ten times the number of Germans died – some 600,000 in all – in the retaliation against the Blitz than Britons who actually died in the Blitz itself echoes the biblical phrase about David multiplying the numbers killed by Saul. . . . Whereas the Luftwaffe flattened 400 acres of London, the RAF and USAAF turned 6,247 acres of Berlin into little more than rubble. Total War did not allow for what is today called 'a proportionate response'. No fewer than sixty major German industrial cities suffered colossal material damage during the Second World War. Yet Germany is today such a model democracy, and so pacific in her foreign policy, partly because of the terrible retribution that that war visited upon her. If the Second World War had not seen civilian casualties on German soil, just as the Great War had not, a new spirit of revanchism might have been rekindled there. As it was, the Germans looked into the face of Armageddon, and it has instilled an aversion for foreign military intervention that might occasionally frustrate NATO policy-makers today, but is overall a very welcome development for the world.”

(The Storm of War: A New History of the Second World War, 2009; pp. 459-460).

Williamson Murray, writing in War in the Air 1914-45 (Cassell History of Warfare series, 1999, 2002), first remarks that:

“[T]he most controversial aspect of Anglo-American air power [during the Second World War] had to do with the Combined Bomber Offensive, the strategic bombing effort against Germany. This author at least would rate its contribution as one of the four essential elements in Allied victory over Nazi Germany, the others being the Eastern Front, the battle of the Atlantic and American productive superiority.”

He then goes on to state:

“It is hard to measure the impact of bombing because, in contradiction to many of the tenets of air power, so much of its effect was indirect. . . . The responses that the Nazi government made to the night-bomber offensive suggest the profound indirect impact of the Combined Bomber Offensive. The growth of the Flak (anti-aircraft fire) forces defending the Reich at a time when on any number of fronts German ground forces were confronting increasingly numerous and effective opponents suggests the impact the bombing made on the minds of the Nazi leadership and their worries that the home front might again collapse as in 1918. The number of Flak batteries rose from 791 guarding the Reich in 1940, to 967 in 1941, 1,148 in 1942 and 2,132 in 1943. By the end of 1943 the Germans had nearly 10,000 high-velocity anti-aircraft guns and 500,000 men firing huge numbers of shells into the skies over the Reich and hitting little. The impact of such weapons and manpower on other fronts in 1943 or 1944 hardly needs emphasis.

“The second indirect effect of 'area' bombing also occurred in the minds of the Nazi leadership. Worried by the bombing's impact on German morale, Hitler and his advisers hit on a strategy of retaliation. . . As a result, the Germans poured enormous resources into the so-called revenge weapons, the V-1 and V-2. The former did not require a huge investment, but the latter made no sense at all. The V-2 demanded complex technological support; it was inordinately expensive; it used scarce resources; and its production overloaded the instrument and electrical-component industries. . . . After the war the US Strategic Bombing Survey estimated that the industrial effort and resources devoted to these weapons was roughly equivalent to that of the production of 24,000 fighter aircraft. A more recent analysis has calculated that the V-2 programme was roughly equivalent in proportional terms to the cost of the Manhattan project (the atomic bomb) in the United States – all in order to produce a one-way weapon that carried a ton of explosives and needed a target the size of the entire metropolitan area of London.” (pp. 180-182).

AFTERMATH

After the “great hail” of the aerial bombardment that laid waste so many of the cities of Europe during the Second World War, the post-war record adequately testifies to the abandonment of the belief of organising society on Godly principles. The Council of Europe, in a poster from circa 1990, thought it fit to symbolise the construction of the new Europe, by showing the image of the Tower of Babel being rebuilt. Based on the famous painting by the Flemish artist Breughel it ominously showed 11 of the 12 stars of the EU flag inverted. (The twelfth star's position was obscured by the structure of the 'Tower'). Christopher Story in The European Union Collective – Enemy of its Member States, writes: “The upside-down pentagram, often superimposed on a goat's head, is a commonly used symbol in occult and satanic rituals. The distorted circle of upside-down stars in the poster conveyed the subliminal message that the European Union is bound to and by a Force that is defiantly opposed to the Truth.” The wording of the poster was also in open defiance of God's judgement at Babel – it read: “Europe: Many tongues, one voice.”

Whilst doing some research on Duncan Sandys and flying saucers (see my first posting on this blog, Churchill, Sandys and flying saucers, from 31/08/2009) I happened to chance upon an interesting document, dating from just a few years after the close of the Second World War, that indicates that an anti-Christian zeitgeist was noted to be at work – by some of those at the very heart of the project to unite Europe – and was present within the movement from the laying of its initial foundations.

First a brief quote to give the historical setting:

“In summer 1948, Duncan Sandys, British Conservative MP and President of the International Committee for European Unity, gives an initial assessment of the Congress of Europe in The Hague and identifies the areas which are not entirely satisfactory.”

Now to quote the relevant part of Sandys' assessment:

“(c) the failure to recognise that our civilisation has broken down because our standards and values have been too low, and an unwillingness to recognise that we must draw fresh inspiration from those spiritual resources which we, each in our own way, consider adequate and valid.

Two disquieting consequences followed from this.

(i) the belief that all that is needed is to apply the same ideals, seek the same goal, and work the same machinery on a bigger scale, and all will be well.

(ii) an indifference and insensibility to Christian values and convictions. Here I speak with restrained but deep concern. The strain put upon some of us was heavy and at times almost unbearable. The to us almost blasphemous use of the 'Annunciation' and 'the Nativity' in the Report of the Political Commission was almost intolerable. In private I was informed that it was not the report of the Commission but a personal statement of M. Ramadier, but it was never publicly stated to be such. And this did not stand alone. In the Cultural Commission there was a definite resistance to the inclusion of the very word Christian, and the dialectics of the Chairman as to its use added to the tension under which some of us laboured.”

(Source: Archives historiques de l'Union européenne, Florence, Villa Il Poggiolo. Dépôts, DEP. Mouvement européen. ME 1183.)

Sandys was not alone in expressing these sentiments: the same year The Hague also witnessed the final debate on the United Nations Organisation's “Declaration of Human Rights”, at which the representative from the Netherlands gave the following speech – in which he addressed, what he thought was the document's major flaw and deficiency:

“I only want to stress one particular aspect which, to our great regret, has not obtained due recognition in this document. I am referring to the origin of these rights. The fact that man's rights and freedoms are based on his divine origin and immortal destiny. The fact that there is a Supreme Being who is the fount of these rights, increases their value and importance. To ignore this relation would mean the same thing as breaking a plant from its roots, or building a house and forgetting its foundations.” (Our rights as human beings – A discussion guide on the Universal Declaration of Human Rights, 3rd revision, United Nations Dept. of Public Information, New York., 1953).

A few years previous to his attendance at The Hague, whilst Parliamentary Secretary for the Ministry of Supply, Sandys had been tasked with eliminating the V-1 and V-2 menaces – against which the full onslaught of Bomber Command was swiftly turned. A year after final victory had been achieved - in what was the twentieth century's second great global conflict, the British Daily Sketch ran a leading article in its 5th June 1946 edition, entitled, “To Whom is the Victory?”, and asked, “Are we a nation of infidels or 'an acceptable people in the sight of God'? Have we no gratitude in our hearts? No faith?” In answer to these pivotal questions, the following discourse was provided:

“It would seem as if uncertain answers would have to be given to each of these important questions.

“On Saturday next, June 8, 1946, this nation will celebrate, in the streets of London, its glorious victory over two great enemies. That dual triumph, whatever unbelievers may hold to the contrary, we believe to be due solely to the mercy of Almighty God. We believe that but for His Divine Intervention we should be fed with the bread of tears, biting the dust in humiliation and degradation. Defeat and all the sorrows that wait on the vanquished would have been our lot.

“Pick up your official programme. Search its twenty pages from end to end. You will find a single reference to God on its front page in the motto of the Kings of England – Dieu et mon droit.

“In the days of our trial, in the dark and terrifying years through which we had to pass, we felt it necessary to organize, throughout the land, twenty-six days and two whole weeks of urgent prayer. We filled our churches with congregations kneeling in genuine devotion and faith to the great Mediator and Advocate, imploring His forgiveness for their sins, pleading for help in our tribulation and the danger of others than ourselves. He answered our cry. Now that victory has come, we adorn our houses and streets with decorations, make the night brilliant with illuminations. . . . Could we not have spared two minutes for prayer to God?”

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“And the cities of the nations fell . . . And there fell upon men a great hail out of heaven... and men blasphemed God because of the plague of the hail; for the plague thereof was exceeding great.”

(Revelation 16:19, 21).

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Envoi

From Canon Wordworth's, Lectures on the Apocalypse (3rd edition; 1852) :

“What shall we think, when we see that some Nations of Christendom no longer promote the Religion of Christ? CHRIST Himself has declared, All Kings shall bow down before Me, all Nations shall do Me service; but many now venture to proclaim Religious Indifference as one of their principles of national Law. The political Equality of all Religions — this is their Shibboleth. All Creeds are to be treated as equally true — and therefore all Creeds may be regarded as equally false. They denounce all opposition to this impious principle as bigotry and intolerance! They vaunt and glory in this principle as if it were a noble privilege! And so they appear to be ready, and almost eager, to erase the cross of Christ from the forehead of Christendom, and to make it into a Pantheon!

“What, again, are the words of men, blending the holiest names with unholiest acts, making Christianity a watchword of Socialism and Communism, and using the Gospel itself as a lever to shake the World, and even, if it were possible, to subvert the throne of God?

“Are there not here some sounds of a gathering together of armies, some blasts of the trumpets of war, some unfurlings of hostile banners, some noise of chariots and trampling of horses rushing to the battle?

“In a word, is not the World at this hour on the eve of an Armageddon?

“Observe now what follows.

“The plague of the Frogs was the last effort of the magicians of Egypt. The going forth of the unclean spirits, like frogs, from the Dragon, the Beast, and the False Prophet, to gather their forces together against Christ, will, it is probable, be the final struggle of their united powers. Their confederacy will be routed in the mystical conflict of Armageddon.

“Then, says St. John, The Beast will be taken, and his False Prophet, that wrought miracles before him; . . . and these both will be cast alive into the lake of fire. But then the Dragon, or Satan, will remain; and he will no longer use any specious arts [the 1st edition of 1849 reads “any specious names”]; he will return to the form he wore in the first Seal, and will wage an open war with Heaven.

“His doom is also revealed. The Devil will be cast into the lake of fire, where the Beast and False Prophet are. Christ's victory will then be complete. The Kingdom of this World will become the KINGDOM of the LORD and of HIS CHRIST.” (pp. 413-414).

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Amen