Hitler's Invasion of Poland: War Breaks Out

I original attempted to have the post below submitted on Peter Hitchens' blog on the following thread: http://hitchensblog.mailonsunday.co.uk/2013/04/and-i-respond-to-mr-jacubss-response.html (there's normally only a 500-word limit to any post submitted on the Hitchensblog but there are exceptions made sometimes - I asked for an exception to the 500-word limit to be made - but was unsuccessful: so I publish what I tried to submit here instead:

[MODERATORS: Please see the request below]

Though initially perturbed by some of Peter Hitchens’ questioning of the ‘standard narrative’ of the Second World War (though I’ve come to different conclusions - which more strongly reinforce the views I did have) I’m indeed grateful to him for his challenging views - as they’ve made me read a lot deeper into  the history of that conflict than I had previously.

If it is permissible with the Moderators could they please see if it is possible to allow the following submission (as it is impossible to - in any way adequately - respond in this matter without recourse to quoting from some historical works at length).

Peter Hitchens writes: ‘Germany did not seek war with us...  Germany, whose ambitions lay in the east, had little interest in us….  [T]he foolish diplomatic bluff of the Polish guarantee failed to convince anyone (except the Poles, who as a result failed to make a territorial compromise with Germany).’

In response to the above statement the following is taken from Gerhard L. Weinberg’s voluminous work on ‘Hitler’s Foreign Policy’:

‘It had originally not been part of Hitler’s plan to attack Poland in 1939. After Munich, he intended to destroy what remained of Czechoslovakia, but that was not expected to involve hostilities. His first war was to be in the west, destroying France and crushing England so that they could not interfere with his ambitions in Eastern Europe. Starting a war in the west, however, meant making sure of quite in the east – just as the earlier plan for an attack on Czechoslovakia had been accompanied by efforts to neutralize the West. The plan to make certain that all was quiet on the eastern front failed. The Hungarians fell into line, but the Poles simply would not do so. From October 1938 on, the German government tried to entice, coax, overawe, and bully the Poles into a position of subservience to Germany… As it became clear to Hitler that the Poles were not willing to give up their status as an independent country without a fight – and this rather than specific details of German-Polish relations was the key issue – he reversed his planned sequence of actions… He was now determined to fight Poland so that the total crushing of Germany’s eastern neighbour would make it safe for Germany to attack in the west. Here would be the lovely little war of which he had been cheated in 1938.’

(Gerhard L. Weinberg, ‘Hitler’s Foreign Policy 1933-1939: The Road to World War II’, (originally published in two volumes) Enigma Books (single volume edition), 2010, p. 801).

On p. 710-711 Weinberg quotes the Führer’s musings as given to his military commanders on 22 August 1939 (from the text in Nuremberg document 798-PS, TMWC, 26:338-39) as follows:

‘[I]t was clear to me that a conflict with Poland had to come sooner or later. I had already made this decision in the spring, but I thought I would first turn against the West in a few years, and only afterwards against the East. But the sequence could not be fixed…. I wanted to establish an acceptable relationship with Poland in order to fight first against the West. But this plan, which was agreeable to me, could not be executed since essential points had changed. It became clear to me that Poland would attack us in case of conflict with the West.’

Also, the following is from the blurb on the inside cover of Esmonde M. Robertson’s ‘Hitler’s Pre-War Policy and Military Plans 1933-39’ (as by ‘E. M Robertson’, Longmans, 1963):

‘[This book] has grown out of a monograph completed in the Cabinet Office Historical Section and which was based principally on official documents, the majority of which had not then been published….’

(During 1951-55 Mr Robertson was a Cabinet Office research worker and had access to German military and diplomatic archives and whilst there he also completed a monograph on Operation Barbarrossa – Hitler’s Invasion of Russia.) But to continue from the blurb:

‘Two general conclusions can be drawn from the book. First, that Mussolini had a much greater influence in stirring up the bellicose state of mind in Hitler than is commonly supposed. Secondly, that there can be little doubt that after November 1937 Hitler was planning a blow against Britain, not Russia.’

Concerning war with Poland and Britain’s figuring in Hitler’s thinking, Robertson writes:

‘After General Keitel had issued the directive of 11 April for Operation White, German planning proceeded on two lines: operations for a localized war against Poland; [and also] for a blockade against Britain. The relation between these two theatres was discussed at length by Hitler at a staff conference of 23 May.’

In these musings Hitler was certain that in the case of Poland: ‘A repetition of the Czech affair was not to be expected. Hitler said there “will be fighting”.’

[From footnote: ‘This passage has been misleadingly translated “There will be war.” According to a Naval Directive of 16 May the government was to do everything to restrict the war to Poland, ND [Nuremberg Documents]: 126-C.’]

To continue back to the thrust of Robertson’s main text:

‘This does not mean that [Hitler] believed there would be a general war, for he went on to say: “There must be no simultaneous conflict with the Western Powers. Germany must not ‘slither’ into war on account of Poland. Should such a conflict arise it would be better to attack in the West and treat the Polish campaign as a subsidiary issue.” Hitler spoke at length on operational conceptions, which had been maturing steadily since his conference of 5 November 1937, for War with Britain. He discussed the relative merits of an air attack on her fleet and a long distance blockade. He did not consider it necessary to land forces in Britain, and he spoke gleefully of the time when German expenditure need no longer be poured into the “bottomless pit” of the army but could go into naval and air expansion. His natural preference for the junior branches of the armed forces, which were capable of striking Britain, rather than for the pedestrian and conservative army, may also have been an additional inducement to plan for a war with Britain. At the end of the conference it was decided that the years 1943-1944 were to be the new target date for the completion of armaments. By that time the ship building programme would have been complete. Although Hitler expressed his preference for a short war, Germany would have to prepare for a long one of perhaps ten or fifteen years.’ (ibid. p. 172-173).

Also, the following information is supplied in the footnotes (p. 173):

‘There is abundant evidence on plans for war with Britain. In March 1938 Raeder addressed German ship builders on a new naval construction programme, ND: 23-C. In naval staff studies for April 1938, war with Britain was taken for granted, and Blitzkrieg tactics for an attack on the British fleet were discussed at an inter-service conference of 20 May 1938. While the Air Force were in favour the Navy were against an occupation of the Low Countries. The Naval High Command was, however, anxious to secure submarine bases off the west coast of France and Norway. See Note on Sources, p. 195. [Where he writes: ‘In accordance with official practice I am not permitted to give the reference numbers of any documents as yet unpublished, with the result that certain statements in my text are not provided with references to the authorities which I have used’]. See also ND: 123-C and ND: 375-PS and Räder, ‘Mein Leben’, Vol. II, Chap XI.’

Concerning the ‘timing’ of the war that did break out in September 1939: The following is taken from Richard Overy’s contribution entitled “Hitler’s War Plans and the German Economy” (to be found in ‘Paths to War: New Essays on the Origins of the Second World War’, edited by Robert Boyce and Esmonde M. Robertson, and published by Macmillan, 1989):

‘The first stage [in Hitler’s war plans] was to create a large, resource-rich area in central Europe, to be achieved without general war. This was to be followed ‘by 1943-45’ by major war with the great powers in order ‘to solve Germany’s problem of Lebenstraum’. Hitler’s strategic plan foresaw a conflict for continental hegemony, and war with Russia for a Eurasian empire. Beyond that lay imperial fantasies: world dominion, war with the United States and the British Empire….’ (p. 107).

‘The new rearmament programmes only made sense in terms of a major war with other great powers; in the east to establish Lebensraum, and in the west, against Britain and the United States, in order to realise Germany's claim to world power status. The naval programme and the strategic bomber plans, including the Amerikabomber on which Messerschmitt began work in 1939, in addition to the range of advanced technological projects on which German research was engaged, all indicate clearly the drift of Hitler's strategy. The important question was one of timing. As Hitler indicated in November 1937, the major programmes would be completed by 1943-5. The air force plans would not be completed until 1942 at the earliest. The Z-Plan covered the whole period from 1939-49. The army motorisation and its training schedules for officers and technicians would run on to 1943. More important, the raw material programmes in oil, rubber, aluminium and iron and steel, including the incorporation of the captured resources of central Europe, would not be finished until the same date. The plans to modernise and strengthen the railway system, begun seriously only in 1939, would carry on until 1944. Had Germany enjoyed a further four or five years of peace, the military forces and economic resources available would have made her, like the Soviet Union and the United States, one of the military super powers of the 1940s.

‘Hitler's problem was to avoid a major conflict until these programmes were complete, and it is here that his strategic competence and political judgement proved seriously flawed. Until late in August 1939 he expected that Britain and France would not fight for Poland.’ (p. 113).

And goes on to say that: ‘From the point of view of German military and economic preparations, the war that broke out in the autumn of 1939 was the wrong war.’ (p. 121).

 

[Addenda:]

[Since writing the above I've since found the following additional items of interest in a couple of other works:

‘[Hitler] wanted to have the war at his supposedly most favorable moment, while at the same time he failed to adequately prepare for it. He regarded England as he once stressed, as “our enemy Number One,” while at the same time hoping to come to an arrangement with that enemy.

‘I do not think that in those early days of September [1939], Hitler was fully aware that he had irrevocably unleashed a world war. He had merely meant to move one step further [in his planned sequence]. To be sure, he was ready to accept the risk associated with that step, just as he had been a year before during the Czech crisis; but he had prepared himself only for the risk, not really for the great war. His naval rearmament was obviously planned for a later date; the battleships as well as the first large aircraft carriers were still under construction. He knew that they would not attain full military value until they could face the enemy on more or less even terms. Moreover, he had spoken so often of the neglect of the submarine arm in the First World War that he probably would not have knowingly begun the Second without preparing a strong fleet of U-boats.’

(Inside the Third Reich, by Albert Speer, Phœnix Paperback edition, 2000; p. 239-40).

Concerning Hitler’s statement that England was Germany’s “enemy Number One”; the following information is given by Speer in the Notes section:

‘On November 23, 1937, at the dedication of the Sonthofen Ordensberg [Order Castle], tremendous cheers erupted when Hitler – after a speech that had been received quietly – unexpectedly shouted to the assembled party leaders: “Our Enemy Number One is England!” At the time I was astonished by the spontaneity of this cheering. I was also surprised at Hitler's suddenly turning against England, for I had assumed all along that England still held a special place in his wishful thinking.’ (Ibid. P. 710).

And also the following which supports the above:

‘[T]he [German] navy's conception of preparing for a major struggle by the mid-1940s was completely upturned when the Polish crisis led to war between Germany and Great Britain in September 1939. In a remarkable memorandum of 3 September 1939, the very date that Britain and France declared war on Germany, the Commander-in-Chief of the navy, Grand Admiral Erich Raeder, coming close to criticizing Hitler for taking Germany into war prematurely, admitted that the navy, which according to the Z-Plan was arming for a war “on the ocean” at the turn of the year 1944-5 was still in autumn 1939 nowhere near sufficiently armed for the “great struggle with England”.

(From Ian Kershaw's, Fateful Choices: Ten Decisions that Changed the World 1940-1941, Penguin Books, 2008; p. 72).]

“Memphis Belle”

“Here it comes – the enemy coast. From up here it looks the same as any other: houses, roads, green fields, factories, waterways – but they are the houses and fields of those who invade and oppress; they are the factories and roads of the people, who twice in one generation, have flooded the world with suffering - suffering in such quantities that the history of the human race has never known.”

From the commentary of the WWII United States War Department movie The Memphis Belle: A Story of a Flying Fortress.

“The Kings of the East” . . . & Armageddon

(The title-page above is that of the second and enlarged edition of The Kings of the East published in 1849; the quotes below - from a post originaly submitted on the Mail on Sunday journalist Peter Hitchens' blog - are taken from the first edition of The Kings of the East, published 1842).

In a post on this [Peter Hitchens'] blog (15 April 2008 at 12:15 AM) on the thread, 'The Gathering Storm' (in the Archives for April 2008), I wrote that I thought that the British Empire was the power that was symbolically prefigured under the symbol of the 'kings of the east' (or, to give another translation: 'the kings from the rising of the sun'); as the 'sun' in the Revelation is used to indicate a power in the ascendancy – in this instance the 'sun' of the British Imperial interest rising over the long-held Turkish lands.

Since then I've come into possession of a most remarkable book written three-quarters of a century before the so-called, 'Balfour Declaration' of November 1917. From its title page I reproduce the following:

“THE KINGS OF THE EAST;”

AN

EXPOSITION OF THE PROPHECIES

DETERMINING,

FROM SCRIPTURE AND FROM HISTORY,

THE POWER

FOR WHOM THE MYSTICAL EUPHRATES

IS BEING “DRIED UP;”

WITH AN EXPLANATION

OF CERTAIN OTHER PROPHECIES CONCERNING

THE RESTORATION OF ISRAEL.

[By Edward Heycock, Esq., Bombay]

PUBLISHED BY R.B. SEELEY AND W. BURNSIDE

AND SOLD BY L. AND G. SEELEY,

FLEET STREET, LONDON.

MDCCCXLII

[1842]

After first determining from biblical prophecy that, 'the Mahommedans were to possess the East'; and from history that, 'India [was] the most eastern Mahammedan empire'; the Author of the work went on to exposit from Scripture that Britain was foreordained to rule over India – the eastern-most part of the 'Mahommedan empire'; and concerning the then status of Turkey, he writes: 'The way is [at the moment] only being prepared; the Turkish empire is not yet dried up.' But looking forwards in time towards Britain's future destiny as a latter-day Cyrus, as revealed in the ancient prophecies – he wrote: 'How, or when, the British will issue this proclamation for the restoration of Israel is uncertain.'

Before returning back again later to Edward Heycock's work, to see the pivotal role that he envisioned Britain would fulfil in the great conflict to arise, it seems necessary to remark, that – like the prophecies concerning the Messiah in His two roles: First as the suffering servant, 'The Lamb of God, which taketh away the sin of the world' (John 1:29); and Second in His Glory as, 'the Lion of the tribe of Juda' (Revelation 5:5) – that the differing Messianic prophecies have been compared to two peaks of the same great mountain separated by the gulf of time. And so in a sense 'Armageddon' (which some term, 'mountain of destruction'. Hebrew Har (Ar) = mountain) should not be seen as a single great conflict at the end of time.

Or as Peter Hitchens remarked on the thread, 'Was World War Two just as pointless and self-defeating as Iraq . . .' (Again, in the Archives for April 2008) :

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

The following is taken from a book that was written whilst the First World War was still raging – but prior to the October Revolution of 1917 – that would first shake Russia before sending its shock waves throughout the world:

'In Rev. xvi. 18, the seventh angel . . . [pours] out his vial [into the air], which is followed by “voices, and thunders, and lightnings, and there was a great earthquake such as was not since men were upon the earth.” That earthquake is here shown to be unprecedented. It refers to an unprecedented time of trouble. An earthquake in the book of Revelation always means some great political, or religious, upheaval. . . . 'Have we not an instance in the present war? It is the greatest in history. It has characteristics which cannot possibly have been experienced in the past. In the passions let loose, the spirit of hatred which is at work, we have repetitions of former wars, but the instruments used for slaughter, the millions employed in mortal combat, the present war is absolutely unprecedented, so that already we have a political earthquake such as was not since man was upon the earth. But we are only at the beginning, and we may expect that what is yet to be will be far greater than anything that has yet happened. “A time of trouble,” says Daniel, “such as never was.” “Great tribulation,” says our Lord, “such as was not since the beginning of the world to this time, no, nor ever shall be.” But the present is only the preliminary shock of that which is to come, The worst is yet future, and will eclipse in horror all the trouble of to-day. . . . [pp. 219-220]

'In the last lecture I referred to the interpretation given by some exponents that the “king of the north” refers to Russia and “the king of the south” to Egypt, or rather to the Power that controls Egypt, namely, England, and at the “time of the end,” or the closing epoch of this dispensation, these two powers – Russia and the British Empire – will be in conflict regarding the “glorious land,” or Palestine. If this interpretation proves to be correct, there must come a temporary peace in the present war in order to enable events so to adjust themselves to turn Russia, our present ally, into our chief foe . . . Some, however, hold that Germany is the NORTHERN POWER signified. If that be so, the present war may merge without interruption into the final great conflict . . .' [Emphasis added.]

(Taken from: Light from the Book of Daniel: On History Past, Present, and Future. A Course of Twelve Lectures delivered in the Central Hall, Westminster, 1915-16. By Augusta Cook; London: Robert Banks & Son, Racquet Court, Fleet Street, E.C., 1916).

On the previously mentioned thread from 2008, Peter Hitchens wrote: 'It makes me feel like a traitor to write this ['Was World War Two just as pointless and self-defeating as Iraq . . .']. [For] the Second World War was my religion for most of my life. Brave, alone, bombed, defiant, we, the British, had won it on our own against the most evil and powerful enemy imaginable [those were my former thoughts].'

From the dark days of the 1940s back to the 1840s, and (as I previously mentioned) a return to Edward Heycock's aforementioned work – to see what he saw as Britain's destined role in that coming great conflict:

'Can any description be imagined more awfully sublime than this which the pen of inspiration has given this dreadful conflict? All nature, animate and inanimate, is represented as trembling . . . whilst every feathered fowl, and every beast of prey, is summoned to assemble at the ensanguined battlefield . . .

'This is the day for which Britain is strengthened, and prepared as an instrument to be employed by the hands of the Almighty. Not only is she being prepared with physical means, but also with moral courage to undertake, if needful, single-handed the defence . . . against this powerful coalition. Of the British it is said, “The isles shall WAIT UPON ME, AND ON MINE ARM SHALL THEY TRUST.” Isaiah li. 5. And it is promised that, “They THAT WAIT UPON THE LORD shall renew their strength; they shall mount up with wings as eagles; they shall run and not weary, and they shall walk and not faint.” Isaiah xl. 31.' (The Kings of the East, 1842 [pp. 294]).

General Sir William Dobbie, Governor of Malta during the dark days of that Island's great Second World War siege, would later write the following on that great conflict:

'The summer of 1940 was a time of crisis for the British Empire, and indeed for the whole world. Disaster had come to our expeditionary force in France, and although most of the personnel were saved, we lost nearly all our equipment, and our Army ceased to exist (for the time being) as an effective instrument of war. The French nation, our ally at that time, was brought to its knees, and forced out of the war. The British Empire then stood entirely alone, and faced the victorious might of Germany and her satellites. The heart of the Empire, Great Britain, was exposed to a full-scale attack by sea and air from the near-by bases in France and Belgium, recently acquired by the Germans, and the forces available for the defence of the country were ludicrously inadequate. It was at this time that Italy, the chief satellite of Germany, and till then theoretically neutral, or at any rate nonbelligerent, decided to throw in her lot unreservedly with Germany, and declared war against us. . . .

'The situation in Malta, moreover, was a replica, in miniature, of the general situation in Great Britain. The isolation, the formidable strength of the enemy's forces, the proximity of bases from which his attacks could be launched, the unbelievable paucity of our defensive resources, the great civilian population exposed to a ruthless enemy, the dependence on seaborne supplies and the expectation of attack in overwhelming strength – all these things and many others went to make up the defence problem of Malta, as they did the similar problem in Great Britain on a vaster scale. . . . [pp. 9-11]

'[It was] obvious to us that our human resources were woefully inadequate, and many of us were constrained to turn our eyes to “the hills, from whence cometh my help.” . . . God's Word was a great stand-by to me, and doubtless to many others, too, at this time. In it I read how God had helped His people in old times when they were faced with situations similar to that confronting us. And God reminded us that although outward circumstances have changed since those days in many ways, and although the problem might be enunciated in different words, yet God, the solver of problems, does not change. He is the same today as He has ever been, and “His hand is not shortened, that it cannot save.” The difficulty is likely to rest with us, either that we do not exercise the simple faith which lays hold on that power or that our iniquities separate between us and God, so that He cannot use it on our behalf. Many persons in Malta, both in responsible and other positions, did, I think, realize our need of His help, and were prepared to ask Him to give it us. By no other means could we be sure of holding this vital outpost of the Empire, and so we turned to Him who alone is the Giver of victory. . . .

'I humbly believe that God, in His mercy, answered the prayers offered to Him in this way, and in the two years and more of the siege which followed His help was very obvious and very real.

'At about the same time, I was greatly encouraged by a telegram I received from the chief of the Imperial General Staff, General Sir Edmund Ironside (later, Field-Marshal Lord Ironside). It showed me that others in high places at home were thinking along the same lines as we were in Malta. The telegram, which was addressed to me personally, contained the reference “Deuteronomy, chapter 3, verse 22.” I looked up the reference in my Bible, and I read: “Ye shall not fear them: for the Lord your God he shall fight for you”. This was a very welcome and timely reminder of a great and well-proved truth, and, coming as it did from a person in his position, and being addressed to one in mine, in view of the special circumstances of the time, it meant much to us.

'I have said that the help which God gave was very obvious and real. The same help was noticed at the time of the withdrawal from Dunkirk, and during the “Battle of Britain.” It certainly was so in the “Battle of Malta.” During the two years which followed the declaration of war by Italy, God's protecting hand was so much in evidence that people were noticing it and remarking about it. On a number of occasions officers have come to me and said quite spontaneously: “Do you know, sir, I think that Someone up there (pointing upwards) has been helping us today.” I no doubt replied, “Yes, I think so, too,” and I may have added, “You may remember we asked Him to help us, and today we have been watching Him doing it.” Such a conversation took place not once nor twice, but a number of times.' [pp. 107-109]

(From: A Very Present Help: A Testimony to the Faithfulness of God, By Lt-General Sir William Dobbie, GCMG, KCB, DSO; Third Edition, Zondervan Publishing House, Grand Rapids, Michigan; circa 1946).

Nigel Jones in a review of the historian Andrew Roberts' latest book, The Storm of War: A New History of the Second World War, (Sunday Telegraph, 'Seven' magazine, 26/07/09) writes:

'But in the end, as even the super patriotic Roberts recognises, it was not British sang-froid, or evacuations like Dunkirk – no matter how miraculous – that turned the tables of Hitler's war, but the vast manpower, limitless resources and dogged determination of Soviet Russia.'

The quote I give below is taken from the Daily Telegraph, February 25th, 1942:

'By all military logic, the stripped B.E.F. should have been destroyed on the Dunkirk beaches. Then a Britain without defences should, in July 1940, have been occupied by overwhelming German numbers from land and sea if Hitler had not been mysteriously blind to his unparalleled opportunity of ending the war. . . .[Again], we could never have hoped (as we now realize) to cope with the German Juggernaut if it had not been gratuitously thrown into the melting-pot of Russia. . . . The Power behind events . . . has “covered us in the day of battle.”'

'But I will remove far off from you the NORTHERN ARMY, and will drive him into a land barren and desolate, with his face toward the east sea, and his hinder part toward the utmost sea, and his stink shall come up, and his ill savour shall come up, because he hath done great things.' (Joel 2:20).

______________________

ADDENDUM:

From The Kings of the East, 1842

'Britain has been raised up to her present powerful state for the purpose of executing God's righteous judgments upon his enemies, we cannot escape from the conviction “that the hour of His judgment is come,” and that our nation will speedily be involved in wars, which shall terminate to the glory of God, and the overthrow of his enemies.' (pp. 72)

'As Britain is expressly prepared for . . . [this] work, and receives her commission from the Almighty to march under the banner of the Most High, whilst executing together with Him his righteous judgments, we of this highly-favoured land may rejoice in our privileges, and contemplate the coming contest, the gathering storm and mighty conflict, not only without fear, but with full assurance of victory. Let us only wait upon God, and trust on his arm, as it is promised: “The isles shall wait upon me, and on mine arm shall they trust.” Isaiah li. 5. Then shall it be seen in the hour of trial that “they that have waited upon the Lord, shall have renewed their strength; they shall mount up with wings as eagles; they shall run, and not be weary; they shall walk, and not faint.” Isa. xl. 31.' (pp. 339-340)

________

ENVOI

'How consolatory this view of the prophecies, supported as it is by the word of God. The British Christian may hear of wars and rumours of wars, rejoicing when he beholds the rising storm, for the Saviour is with him in the ship and will speedily rebuke the winds, and there shall be a great calm.' (ibid. pp. 340)

- DUNKIRK 1940 -

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?”

* * *

“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).

* * *

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).

* * *

Amen