<![CDATA[Frontline Fellowship

<![CDATA[Frontline Fellowship - History]]>Mon, 12 Oct 2026 15:10:46 +0200Weebly<![CDATA[Top Allied Fighter Ace of World War Two]]>Sat, 19 Sep 2026 08:11:02 GMThttps://www.frontlinemissionsa.org/history/top-allied-fighter-ace-of-world-war-two

Top Allied Fighter Ace of World War Two - Group Captain Adolph Gysbert Sailor Malan
By Dr. Peter Hammond

Group Captain Adolph Gysbert Sailor Malan, DSO & Bar, DFC & Bar (3 October 1910 – 17 September 1963) was the top South African Fighter pilot and flying Ace in the Royal Air Force (RAF) In the Second World War.

Sailor Malan led No. 74 Squadron RAF during the Battle of Britain. He Completed his fighter career in 1941 with twenty-seven enemy aircraft destroyed, seven shared destroyed and two unconfirmed, three probables and sixteen damaged. At the time he was the RAF's leading Fighter Ace, and one of the highest-scoring pilots to have served with British Commonwealth forces during the Second World War. In the 1969 film Battle of Britain, the character of the Squadron Leader nicknamed “Skipper” played by Robert Shaw was based on Sailor Malan, although the South Africa shoulder flash was noticeably absent from his uniform!

Malan was born on 3 October 1910 to an Afrikaner family of Huguenot descent in Wellington, Western Cape. He joined the South African Training Ship General Botha in 1925 as a naval cadet at the age of 14, and on 5 January 1928 engaged as an officer cadet aboard the Landsdown Castle of the Union-Castle Line which later earned him the nickname of "Sailor" amongst his pilot colleagues.

On 19 February 1932, he joined the Royal Naval Reserve as an acting sub-lieutenant, and was commissioned a sub-lieutenant on 18 June 1935.

In 1935 the Royal Air Force (RAF) started the rapid expansion of its pilot corps, for which Malan volunteered. Sailor Malan learned to fly in the de Havilland Tiger Moth at a flying school near Bristol, flying for the first time on 6 January 1936. He was commissioned as an acting pilot officer on 2 March, completed training by the end of the year, and was sent to join 74 Squadron on 20 December 1936. He was confirmed as a pilot officer on 6 January 1937 and promoted to acting flying officer on 20 May 1938 and promoted to substantive flying officer on 6 July. He received another promotion to acting flight lieutenant on 2 March 1939, six months before the outbreak of war.

Malan developed the Ten Rules for Air Fighting for fighter pilots.

After fierce fighting over Dunkirk during the evacuation of the British Army from Dunkirk on 28 May 1940, Malan was awarded the Distinguished Flying Cross (DFC) having achieved five "kills".
During the night of 19/20 June Malan flew a night sortie in bright moonlight and shot down two Heinkel He 111 bombers, a then-unique feat for which a bar was awarded to his DFC. On 6 July, he was promoted to flight lieutenant.

Malan and his senior pilots abandoned the Vic formation used by the RAF and turned to a looser formation (the finger-four) similar to the four aircraft Schwarm the Luftwaffe had developed during the Spanish Civil War.

It is believed that on 28 July he met German fighter Ace Werner Mölders in combat, damaged his plane and wounded him, but failed to bring him down.

On 8 August, Malan was given command of 74 Squadron and promoted to acting squadron leader at the height of the Battle of Britain.

On 11 August, action started at 7 am when the squadron was sent to intercept a raid near Dover, which was followed by three more raids, lasting all day. At the end of the day, 74 Squadron had claimed to have shot down 38 aircraft and was known from then on as "Sailor's August the Eleventh". Malan himself commented, "thus ended a very successful morning of combat". He received a bar to his DFC on 13 August.

On 24 December, Malan received the Distinguished Service Order, and on 22 July 1941, a bar to the DSO.

On 10 March 1941 he was appointed as one of the first wing leaders for the offensive operations that spring and summer, leading the Biggin Hill Wing until mid-August, when he was rested from operations.

He completed his active fighter career in 1941 with 27 enemy aircraft destroyed, 7 shared destroyed and 2 unconfirmed, 3 probables and 16 damaged, as one of the highest scoring pilots to have served with Fighter Command during World War II.

He was transferred to the Reserve as a squadron leader on 6 January 1942. After the conclusion of the war, Malan resigned his commission with the Royal Air Force in April 1946, retaining the rank of Group Captain, and returned home to South Africa, where he began a new career in sheep farming.

Malan maintained his ties to the RAF community however, acting as president of the Royal Air Forces Association’s South African Area and becoming a life-member of its Johannesburg Branch.

In the 1950s Malan became leader of the Torch Commando, a liberal anti-authoritarian organisation that opposed the introduction of apartheid.

After the National Party was voted into government in 1948, South Africa introduced apartheid, which Malan objected to. In the early 1950s in response Malan joined the Torch Commando, of which he was elected president. Through the early 1950s he involved himself in political opposition to what he perceived was increasing authoritarianism of the National Party in government. At one point the Torch Commando movement had 250,000 members, and staged well-attended protest rallies across South Africa, which Malan often spoke at.
Sailor Malan died at the age of 52 on 17 September 1963 from Parkinson's disease. His funeral service was at St Cyprian's Cathedral, Kimberley, and his body was buried at West End Cemetery in Kimberley, Cape Province.

Due to his prominent role in opposition to apartheid, the South African government sought to marginalise his death in order to erase any legacy of the Torch Commando. Malan was not permitted a military funeral and all South African military personnel who attended his funeral were instructed not to wear their uniforms. The South African Air Force was instructed not to give any tribute to his death.

]]><![CDATA[WHY SHOULD I CARE about DATES in HISTORY?]]>Thu, 10 Sep 2026 22:00:00 GMThttps://www.frontlinemissionsa.org/history/why-should-i-care-about-dates-in-history

"Why should I care about dates and dead people?"

Frequently we hear expressions of exasperation against the teaching of history.

"What possible relevance could all those events of long ago have for me today?"

Real History Has Great Relevance
Well, take 9/11. Did those responsible just choose an arbitrary date for the aircraft hijackings and terror attacks on 11 September 2001?

The Strategic Significance of September 11
Those who know the history of Islamic Jihad can point out that September 11 is a most significant date for Jihadists. It was on 11 September 1565 that the Ottoman Turkish siege of Malta was decisively defeated.

The Great Siege of Malta
Sultan Suleiman had mobilised the largest armada yet seen: 193 ships, 48,000 fighting men, including 6,000 Spahis (cavalry), and over 6,300 of the elite Janissaries, to wipe the Knights of St. John off the face of the earth and capture the strategic island of Malta for Islam.

Outnumbered
To oppose them on the Christian side, there were less than 700 Knights of St. John, 400 Spanish soldiers, 800 Italian soldiers, 200 Greek and Sicilian soldiers, and approximately 3,000 militia drawn from the Maltese population. Along with other civilians who were given weapons, a total force of less than 9,000 men.

The Knights of St. John
The Knights of St. John were respected as the toughest soldiers in Christendom. They were in the very frontline of the battle to keep Europe safe from Islamic Jihadists.

Four Months of Furious Fighting
In all, over 130,000 cannon balls were fired from Turkish guns against the Christian defenders of Malta. The siege lasted from 18 May to 11 September 1565. The Turks lost over 30,000 men in their futile attempt to overwhelm the tiny Christian garrison on Malta. The day the Muslims were chased off Malta was 11 September 1565.

The Siege of Vienna
The last great Turkish threat to the heart of Europe was defeated at the gates of Vienna, 11 September 1683. The siege of Vienna began 14 July 1683, and is recognised as the high water mark of the Ottoman Turkish Empire as it threatened the very heartland of Europe. The Ottoman Turkish army of 300,000 men, included 12,000 Janissaries.

The Battle of Vienna
A relief force of Bavarian, Saxon and Polish forces routed the Ottoman Turks, who lost over 60,000 men in the siege, of which 40,000 Turks died during the Battle of Vienna on 11 September 1683.

Defeat and Disgrace
For his disgrace in losing this vital battle, the Ottoman Commander Kara Mustafa Pasha was executed in Belgrade, 25 December 1683, by strangulation.

Croissant Celebration
To celebrate the defeat of the Turks at the Battle of Vienna, the bakers designed the croissant, a crescent shaped pastry, to commemorate the victory of the Christian forces over the Jihadists of Islam. As the bakers put it, they had the Turks for breakfast! It was the Vienna born, Queen Mary Antoinette, who introduced the croissant to France in 1770.

Bagel Commemoration
The bakers also presented the first bagel as a gift to King Jan Sobieski of Poland to commemorate the king's victorious cavalry charge which broke the Turkish lines. The bagel was fashioned in the form of a stirrup.

Cappuccino and Coffee Shops
Another anecdote is that, as the Viennese discovered many bags of coffee in the abandoned Ottoman encampment, the first Coffee House was opened in Vienna by Franciszek Kulczycki and a Capuchin Friar, Marco de-Aviano, invented Cappuccino.

Assassination in Sarajevo
28 June 1914 marked the shots that sparked the First World War. It was on that date that the heir to the throne of the Austria-Hungarian Empire, Archduke Frans Ferdinand, and his beloved wife, Sophie, were assassinated in Sarajevo, Bosnia.

The Battle of Kosovo
For hundreds of years Sarajevo had been under Ottoman Turkish Muslim rule. The Austrians had liberated Bosnia and Herzegovina from the Ottoman Turkish Empire in 1878. The date chosen for the state visit of Archduke Frans Ferdinand to Sarajevo was a date of painful historic significance for the Serbs. It was the anniversary of their disastrous defeat at the hands of the Ottoman Turks at the Battle of Kosovo, 28 June 1389.

Security Implications of Strategic Dates
Archduke Frans Ferdinand and his wife Sophie, were celebrating their 14th Wedding anniversary on that same day, 28 June 1914. However, the security services should have noted the danger of a state visit to such a volatile, cosmopolitan, half-oriental city as Kosovo, particularly on such a sensitive and highly symbolic date as the anniversary of the Battle of Kosovo – a major rallying point for Serb nationalists.

Everything Has Consequences
So, when people question whether dates and dead people in history are of any relevance to us today, they need to remember that history illustrates the consequences of ideas and actions. In history we can see examples and illustrations of man's depravity and rebellion against God, and God's mercy, grace and sovereignty in intervening in the course of human events.

History and Warnings
History provides us with the visions of those who impacted society for good and ill and examples of excellence to inspire us to courageously stand firm in spite of all opposition. We need to learn from the mistakes of others, to benefit from the painstaking developments and sacrifices of the past.

"To be ignorant of what happened before you were born is to remain a child forever." said Cicero.

Learn From History
We must learn from history, or we will repeat its mistakes. "If we do not know our own history, we will simply have to endure all the same mistakes, sacrifices and absurdities all over again." declared Aleksandr Solzhenitsyn.
"Those who cannot remember the past are condemned to repeat it." George Santayana.

Understand the Times
In the Scriptures we are commanded to understand the times, so that God's people might know what we ought to do (1 Chronicles 12:32).

Forewarned is Forearmed
The longer you look back, the further you can look forward. A tall building needs to lay deep foundations. A tall tree needs a deep root system. In order to understand who we are, we need to understand where we came from. We need to understand the events and issues of the past that correspond with our challenges today. In order to anticipate problems and threats in the future, we need to study the past. We need to liberate our thinking from current fashions and recognise potential potholes and traps. There are immeasurable insights and practical help to be gained from studying the people, events and issues that shaped the past and affect our present situation.

"Now these things became our examples, to the intent that we should not lust after evil things, as they also lusted… now all these things happened to them as examples and they were written for our admonition…"
1 Corinthians 10:6-11

Dr. Peter Hammond
Frontline Fellowship
P.O. Box 74 Newlands 7725
Cape Town South Africa
Tel: 021 689 4480
Email: mission@frontline.org.za
Website: www.FrontlineMissionSA.org
www.ReformationSA.org
www.hmsschoolofchristianjournalism.org

Dr. Peter Hammond is the author of Slavery, Terrorism and Islam – The Historical Roots and Contemporary Threat.
See also:
The Forces Behind Terrorism and How It Can Be Defeated
The Great Siege of Malta
Assassination in Sarajevo
Resisting the Islamic Invasion Trojan Horse
Reformation or Islamisation?
Slavery, Terrorism and Islam is available as an E-Book
Church History Manual is available as an E-Book

]]><![CDATA[The SPANISH ARMADA]]>Sat, 01 Aug 2026 07:19:13 GMThttps://www.frontlinemissionsa.org/history/the-spanish-armada

The SPANISH ARMADA
Beacons Lit across England
It was on 21 July that a report from Howard to Walsingham reported sighting over 120 sail vessels including galleys “and many ships of great burden” heading for England. Beacons were lit all across England to alert the population to the danger. Church bells rang. Special services were held to pray for God’s protection.

Phillip Launches the Armada
Phillip II of Spain called the Catholic world to a Crusade against Protestant England. It was English gold and support that bolstered the Protestant cause in Scotland and Netherlands. With Phillip having conquered Portugal and expanded Spain’s Atlantic power, he ordered his admirals to assemble an Armada which could crush the Protestants in England once and for all.

“The Invincible Armada”
By May 1588 Phillip had prepared a fleet consisting of 130 ships, 2,400 cannon and over 30,000 men. This was the greatest naval force the world had yet seen. It was called “The Invincible Armada.” The plan was for the Armada to sail up the English Channel, pick up more troops from the Spanish Netherlands under the Duke of Parma and escort his invasion barges across the Channel to conquer England. Queen Elizabeth ordered the entire nation to pray for God’s intervention and protection against the invading Spanish Armada.

What was at Stake
Had the Spanish Armada succeeded, today’s world would be unrecognizable. Spain was the Catholic superpower. England led the Protestant cause. All Europe feared Spain. It had overwhelmed all of its adversaries – even the Turk. Had the Armada succeeded the whole subsequent history of England and Scotland would have been dramatically changed. There would have been no Protestant North America and no Anglo-Saxon civilization. It would have made Spain the unrivalled world superpower and Spanish the world’s language.

Outnumbered
An English army of almost 20,000 men were assembled at Tilbury to oppose the anticipated 30,000 men in the Spanish Armada. In addition to this a further 15,000 Spanish troops under the brutal Duke of Parma were to be ferried across the Channel in barges from the Netherlands.

One of the Greatest Speeches Ever Made
Queen Elizabeth addressed her soldiers at Tilbury with these words: “I am come amongst you, as you see, resolved, in the midst and heat of the battle, to live or die amongst you all, to lay down for my God and for my Kingdom and for my people, my honour and my blood, even in the dust. I know I have the body of a weak and feeble woman, but I have the heart and stomach of a king and of a King of England too and think foul scorn that Parma or Spain or any prince of Europe should dare to invade the borders of my realm; to which, rather than any dishonour should grow by me, I myself will take up arms, I myself will be your general, judge and rewarder of every one of your virtues in the field.”

The English Navy
The Royal Navy had been under the control of Sir John Hawkins since 1573. He had rebuilt and reorganized the Navy that had survived from the days of Henry VIII. The castles which had towered above the galleon decks had been cut down. The keels were deepened. Designs concentrated on sea-worthiness and speed. Most significantly of all, Hawkins had installed heavier long-range guns. Knowing that he could not out-produce the Spanish in terms of the size and number of galleons, Hawkins was determined to batter the enemy from a distance with the superior range of his cannon. The Spanish Armada carried many cannon (2,400) but these were really only suitable for close-range salvos before grappling and boarding enemy vessels for hand-to-hand combat.

Against All Odds
To oppose the Armada’s 130 ships, Hawkins had 34 vessels, carrying 6,000 men. His commanders were Lord Howard and Sir Francis Drake. (It was Sir Francis Drake’s famous raid on the Spanish Armada in port at Cardiz in 1587 which had delayed the sailing of the Armada by destroying a large quantity of ships and stores. This was described as “the singeing of the King of Spain’s beard!”)

The Armada Sets Sail
The Armada finally left Tagus on 20 May. It was afflicted by severe storms. Two of their 1,000 ton ships lost their masts. They had to put in to refit at Carunna and could not sail again until 12 July.

Fires Over England
An Intelligence Report of 21 July from Howard to Walsingham reported sighting over 120 sail vessels including galleys “and many ships of great burden.” Beacons were lit all across England to alert the population to the danger. Church bells rang. Special services were held to pray for God’s protection.

Engaging the Enemy
The English engaged the Armada in a four-hour battle, pounding away with their long range guns, but staying out of range of the Armada’s cannon. There was a further engagement on 23 July and then off the Isle of Wight on 25 July. The guns of the English ships raked the decks of the galleons killing many of the crew and soldiers.

Fire Ships Cause Panic
On 28 July the Spanish Armada anchored in the English Channel near Calais. As the English Royal Navy lay upwind from the Spanish, they determined to set adrift 8 fire-ships, filled with explosives, to drift into the crowded Spanish fleet at anchor. As the Spanish crews awoke to see these flaming ships drifting towards their anchored Armada, they panicked. Spanish captains cut their cables – losing their anchors and made for the open sea. Many collisions followed. The surviving ships of the Armada headed eastwards to Gravelines expecting to link up with Parma’s troops and barges, ready to be escorted for the invasion of England. But the tides and winds were against them and they found no sign of Parma’s troops in Dunkirk harbour.

Decisive Engagement
At this point the Royal Navy caught up with the Spaniards and a long and desperate fight raged for eight hours. Howard’s men sank, or damaged, many of the Spanish ships and drove others onto the banks. The English reported that at this point they had completely exhausted their ammunition, otherwise scarcely a Spanish ship would have escaped.

The Devastated Armada
The remnants of the defeated Armada now fled northwards seeking to sail around the north of Scotland in order to reach Spain. They faced mountainous seas and racing tides. Westerly winds drove two of the galleons to wreck upon the coast of Norway. Ships that had been shattered by the English cannonades were now struck by storms. Another 17 ships were wrecked on the coast of Britain. Most of the once mighty Armada were lost before the battered survivors finally reached Spanish ports in October.

God Blew and They Were Scattered
Incredibly, the English had not lost a single ship and scarcely 100 men in the ferocious engagements against the Spanish Armada. Though limited in supplies and ships, the tactics of Hawkins and his admirals Howard and Drake, had been crowned with success. A medal struck to commemorate the victory bears the inscription: “Afflavit Deus et dissipantur” (God blew and they were scattered!)

Answers to Prayer
While churches throughout England were holding extraordinary prayer meetings, devastating storms had wrecked the Spanish plans. The Duke of Parma’s invasion barges from Holland were prevented from linking up with the Armada by Dutch action. The English tactic of setting fire ships amongst the huge Spanish galleons created confusion. Courageous action by the English seamen and continuing storms decimated and broke up the Spanish Armada. Most of what was left of Phillip’s fleet was devastated by more storms off the coast of Scotland and Ireland.

Decisive Defeat for Spain
Only a miserable remnant of the once proud Armada limped back into the Ports of Spain. 51 Spanish ships and 20,000 men had been lost. The greatest superpower at the time had suffered a crippling blow. The defeat of the Spanish Armada in 1588 marked a great watershed in history. It signalled the decline of Catholic Spain and Portugal and the rise of Protestant England and Holland.

A Victory for the Protestant Reformation
Before 1588 the world powers were Spain and Portugal. These Roman Catholic empires dominated the seas and the overseas possessions of Europe. Only after the English defeated the Spanish Armada did the possibility arise of Protestant missionaries crossing the seas. As the Dutch and British grew in military and naval strength, they were able to challenge the Catholic dominance of the seas and the new continents. Foreign missions now became a distinct possibility. Had the Spanish Armada not been defeated, Protestantism could have been extinguished in England and Holland. Then the whole future of North America would have been far different with Catholicism dominating instead of the Protestant Pilgrims.

A Watershed Event
By the grace of God, the destruction of the Spanish Armada in 1588 saved the Protestant Reformation in England from Spanish invasion, oppression and the Inquisition. The victory of Protestant England and Protestant Holland against Catholic Spain was absolutely essential for the founding of the United States of America and of the Republic of South Africa.

Bibliography:
A History of the English-Speaking People by Sir Winston Churchill, Cassel and Co., 1956.
The Great Christian Revolution by Otto Scott, 1995.
Elizabeth I by Jacob Abbott, 1876.
The Spanish Armadas by Winston Graham, Collins, 1972.

]]><![CDATA[The CHRISTIAN LIBERATION of WOMeN]]>Fri, 31 Jul 2026 22:00:00 GMThttps://www.frontlinemissionsa.org/history/the-christian-liberation-of-woman

Despite anti-Christian prejudices, it is to the teachings and example of Jesus Christ that women owe most of their freedoms. The advent of Christianity raised the dignity, freedom and rights of women to levels never before known in any other culture or religion. Indeed, as one historian put it: “The birth of Jesus was the turning point in the history of women.”

As a result of the teachings and example of Jesus Christ, women in much of the world today, especially in the West, enjoy far more privileges and rights than at any other time in history.

Women in the Middle East
By way of contrast, one only needs look at how women are treated in those countries where Christianity has had little influence, for example in the Muslim Middle East. Christian women have been publicly stripped and flogged in Sudan for failing to wear the Islamic Abaya (a black garment that covers the head, face and the entire body). Under the Taliban in Afghanistan women were forbidden to go to school, to work outside the home, or even to walk without their whole face and head being covered under the Abaya. Women have been arrested and jailed in Iran for wearing lipstick. In Saudi Arabia, it is illegal for women to drive a motor vehicle.

DOWNLOAD THE TRACT BELOW

download here

The Perversity of Polygamy
Polygamy is also widely practiced in non-Christian religions. Christianity has always rejected polygamy because it inhibits and in fact exterminates, exclusive, devoted love. Christians have always maintained that love between a man and a woman ought to be exclusive, otherwise, marriage is degraded in essence to mere physical lust. No woman who loves her husband and wishes to be fully loved in return can tolerate “another wife”. Monogamy gives recognition, status and value to a woman. (Yet Muhammad, for example, had at least 16 wives and 2 concubines. Muhammad’s successor, Caliph Umar married 7 women and had 2 slave concubines. The Caliph Uthman married 8 women. The Caliph Ali (Muhammad’s son-in-law) had 11 wives and 19 slave concubines. Muhammad’s grandson, Hassan, married 70 women and had at least 31 children. Muhammad also authorised “temporary marriages” (“for three nights or more”). Thereafter the man could desert the “wife” leaving her without any rights or obligations, even with regard to any offspring, who would have no claim to inheritance or support).

By approving of polygamy, mistresses, underaged “brides” and “temporary marriages”, for example, Islam denies the value of a genuine marriage, based on exclusive, lifelong, devoted love. Polygamy also erodes the concept of a Biblical family. Christianity has always maintained that monogamy alone gives the recognition, status and value that a woman needs and the environment for raising children in a stable and loving home.

The Depravity of Rome
Few people appreciate how highly promiscuous and depraved cultures were before the advent of Christianity. British historian, Edward Gibbon, stated in his “History of the Decline and Fall of the Roman Empire” that marital faithfulness in the Roman Empire was virtually unknown. Not only were adultery and fornication common, but obscene sexual practices were prevalent. Even the most depraved and obscene sexual acts were shamelessly illustrated on household items such as lamps, bowls, cups and vases. The Romans and Greeks also exercised and bathed publicly in the nude.

The Roman writer, Ovid, noted that sexual relations had become sadistic and masochistic. Catullus, a Roman writer, referred to the prevalence of Romans practicing group sex orgies. Suetonius reported that the Emperor Tiberius had nude women wait on his tables while he dined. Tiberius also had male and female prostitutes openly engage in group sex as entertainment for his pleasure. The Emperor Caligula was given to incest with all of his sisters, engaged in sex while he ate and often had people tortured during his orgies. The Emperor Titus surrounded himself with all manner of perversities. The Emperor Domitian engaged in incestuous relations. Emperor Commodus had a harem of 300 concubines and 300 young boys to satisfy his trans-sexual appetites. Homosexuality and paedophilia were rampant in Rome and Greece. Tiberius, Nero, Galba, Hadrian, Commodus and many other emperors engaged in widespread homosexual perversions and what would today be classified as child molestation. Decadent plays, including live sex, mutilation and bestiality on the stage, became common during the reigns of Nero and Trajan.

Double Standards and Hypocrisy
The Roman Lex Julia de Adulteriis defined adultery only on the basis of the marital status of the woman. A married man could not be guilty of adultery if he had sex with a single woman. Adultery was perceived as a crime that only a woman could commit against the husband. In Roman law adultery was a property crime against the husband, not an ethical issue which applied to either single or married men.

A Revolution of Love
Into this decadent environment the Christian message and lifestyle came as radical, revolutionary and very offensive. “You shall not commit adultery” Exodus 20:14; “Marriage should be honoured by all and the marriage bed kept pure, for God will judge the adulterer and all the sexually immoral” Hebrews 13:4; “The husband should fulfil his marital duty towards his wife and likewise the wife to her husband” 1 Corinthians 7:3; “Submit to one another out of reverence for Christ” Ephesians 5:21; “Be considerate as you live with your wives and treat them with respect” 1 Peter 3:7.

Marital Faithfulness – A Christian Innovation
Not only did the Christians maintain that marriage should be between one man and one woman for life, but they insisted that sexual relations had to be confined to marriage. They also believed that the sex act made the couple “one flesh.” This very radical concept required married couples to remain totally faithful to one another. Extramarital sex was not only unfaithfulness to one’s marriage partner, but it was in violation of God’s express command and it did violence to the “one flesh” concept.

By rejecting polygamy, adultery, fornication, public nudity and the artistic portrayed of sexual acts, either openly on stage, or graphically portrayed on household items, the Christians instituted an entirely new sexual morality. As secular historian, Edward Gibbon declared: “The dignity of marriage was restored by the Christians.” (The Decline and Fall of the Roman Empire).

Reforming Marriage
Christianity greatly elevated the world’s sexual morality. By opposing adultery, fornication, homosexuality, child molestation, bestiality and other sexual decadence, Christianity made a contribution to civilisation that was unprecedented. It was as a result of the tireless work of Christians that by the 5th Century the wife was able to divorce an adulterous husband, something which had never before occurred in the Ancient world.

Christianity equalised the crime of adultery and brought dignity and beauty to the formal wedding ceremony. Prior to Christianity marriage ceremonies were anything but dignified. In keeping with the low regard of women and marriage as a whole, obscene songs, mockery and open displays of extreme decadence were part and parcel of Roman weddings. However, from the 4th Century, Christianity brought about a revolution in the state’s view of marriage, introducing a dignity, beauty and solemnity to weddings which had never before been seen. The belief that marriage is a Divine institution, a sacrament, stems from Christianity (The History of Marriage, by Edward Westermarck).

Protecting Children from Paedophilia
The abhorrence which Western society still generally holds for paedophilia (the sexual molestation of children) is a direct result of Christianity. Prior to Christianity, paedophilia and homosexuality were completely accepted by Roman and Greek society. Roman and Greek plays, novels, artwork and even the writings of their philosophers, reveal an acceptance and often an obsession, with pederasty. The Roman emperors Tiberius, Nero, Galba, Hadrian, Commodus, amongst many others, were renowned for their numerous homosexual liaisons with children. Bisexuality, perversion and sexual deviance was widespread throughout the pagan culture of the Greeks and Romans.

The Pagan Practise of Perversion
Walter Williams in his book “The Spirit and the Flesh” sympathetically focuses on the prevalent homosexuality amongst the American Indians: The Kwakiutl, Crows, Klamaths, Hopi, Sioux, Navajo, Zuni, Yokuts and other tribes in the Americas all practiced homosexuality before Christianity came to the Americas. Often homosexual acts were part of the religious ceremonies performed by the shamans.

Biblical Principles that Transformed Civilisation
It was the clear Biblical teaching against such immorality that revolutionised Western civilisation:
“Do not lie with a man as one lies with a woman; that is detestable.” Leviticus 18:22

“If a man lies with a male as he lies with a woman, both of them have committed an abomination. They shall surely be put to death. Their blood shall be upon them.” Leviticus 20:13

“Do not be deceived; neither the sexual immoral nor idolaters, nor adulterers, nor male prostitutes, nor homosexual offenders, nor thieves, nor the greedy, nor drunkards, nor slanderers, nor swindlers will inherited the Kingdom of God.” 1 Corinthians 6:9-10

“The wrath of God is being revealed from heaven against all the godlessness and wickedness of men who suppress the truth by their wickedness… shameful lusts. Even their women exchanged natural relations for unnatural ones. In the same way the men also abandoned natural relations with women and were inflamed with lust for one another. Men committed indecent acts with other men and received in themselves the due penalty for their perversion…they have become filled with every kind of wickedness, evil, greed and depravity. They are full of envy, murder, strife, deceit and malice. They are gossips, slanderers, God haters, insolent, arrogant and boastful. They invent ways of doing evil; they disobey their parents, they are senseless, faithless, heartless, ruthless. Although they know God’s righteous decree that those who do such things deserve death, they not only continue to do these very things but also approve of those who practice them.” Romans 1:18-32.

Elevating Ethics
It is a historical fact that the outlawing of adultery, homosexuality, paedophilia and other immorality, is the result of the influence of Christianity.

The Biblical doctrine that sexual intimacy was a holy gift of God, only to be enjoyed between a husband and wife within the context of marital privacy, was a revolutionary Christian concept. Historians note that the Christian concern for the privacy of marital sex essentially led to the institutionalisation of privacy. Privacy has strong Christian roots. (“Privacy in A Public Society”, by Richard Hixson). Hannah Arendt in “The Human Condition” maintains that “there is a marked relationship between the rise of Christianity and the rise of privacy.”

A Temple of the Holy Spirit
The Christian teaching that “the body is not meant for sexual immorality, but for the Lord and the Lord for the body” 1 Corinthians 6:13 and that the body is “a temple of the Holy Spirit” 1 Corinthians 6:19 led Christians to condemn and in time to outlaw, adultery, paedophilia, homosexuality, bestiality, pornography and other decadence which had once been prevalent and accepted in pre-Christian cultures.

Pagan Resentment
St. Augustine in “The City of God” observed that the Romans despised the Christians because of Christian opposition to their unrestrained sexual depravities. The church father Tertullian noted the Romans were so incensed by Christian opposition to their immoralities that they hated the very name “Christian.”

Professor Alvin Schmidt in his “How Christianity Changed the World” observes: “The hateful attitudes that were once directed against the early Christians seem to be returning and for similar reasons, despite the current attention given to toleration. Increasingly, Christians are hated by many who advocate ‘hate crime’ laws. In large measure, they are hated because they seek to honour God and His laws rather than ‘re-define god as our future selves’…as feverish efforts are underway to bring back the sexual debauchery of ancient paganism.”

To appreciate the revolutionary impact of Jesus Christ in the history of women and to understand how radical His teaching and conduct towards women was to the ancient world, we need to understand the historically low status of women before the time of Christ.

Women in Ancient Greece
Respectable Greek women were not permitted to leave their house unless accompanied by a male escort. When guests were present in the home, the wife was not permitted to eat at the same table or interact with the guests. The wife had to be unseen and confined to her quarters (gynaecium). The average Athenian woman had the social status of a slave. Whereas the husband could divorce the wife at any time, the wife could not divorce her husband. Girls did not go to school at all. Throughout a woman’s entire life, she was not permitted to speak in public.

As Sophocles wrote: “Silence is an adornment to women”; Euripides asserted: “Silence and discretion are most beautiful in women and remaining quiet within the house”. Aristotle declared: “Silence gives grace to women”. Homer wrote: “Speech shall be for men”. Euripides wrote: “Women, specious curse to man”. Aeschylus wrote: “Evil of mind are they and guileful of purpose, with impure hearts”. Aristophanes wrote: “For women are a shameless set, the vilest of creatures going”. Homer wrote: “One cannot trust women!”

Greek civilisation accorded an extremely low status to women, not allowing them to have any meaningful social life in public, or in the presence of men, even in private. Women had little or no social value. Female infanticide was commonplace. Baby girls were expendable. Female babies were seen as “an economic liability, a social burden” (How Christianity Changed the World).

Women in Ancient Rome
Similarly, in Roman society women had none of the rights and privileges that men enjoyed. Roman wives were not allowed to be present with a husband’s guest at a meal. A married woman was under the Roman law of Manus which placed her under the absolute control of her husband who could divorce her, or sell her into slavery, or kill her at will. A woman under Manus was legally prohibited from inheriting property. Under Patria Potestas women were prohibited from speaking in public. Women were not allowed to speak in court. Under the Roman law of Pater familias, a man had supreme, absolute power over his children. He could even execute his married daughter. He had full authority to chastise, even to beat to death, his wife, even his grown children, including grand-children.

Freedom in Christ
These laws were strongly criticised by the early church fathers, including St. Augustine, the bishop of Hippo. From the very beginning, the Christians opposed infanticide and rescued and adopted many of the abandoned babies. “There is neither Jew nor Greek, slave nor free, male nor female, for you are all one in Christ Jesus.” Galatians 3:28

Women in Hebrew Culture
This Christian teaching was not only radical in the Ancient Greek and Roman world, but also in the Hebrew culture prevalent at that time. The Rabbinic Oral Law (now recorded in the Talmud and Midrash) not only barred women from speaking in public and reading the Law (Torah), but women were also forbidden from testifying in court. As one Rabbinic teaching put it: “It is shameful” to hear a woman’s voice in public (Berakhoth 24A). Another Rabbinic teaching asserted: “Let the words of the Law (Torah) be burned rather than be committed to a woman… If a man teaches his daughter the Law, it is as though he taught her lechery” (Sotah 3.4)

For this reason, synagogue worship was meant to consist only of male participants. Women, if present, were to be passive listeners, separated from the men by a “michetza” (partition). These women were never to raise their voices. Only the men were to do the singing or chanting. It was only by the late 18th Century in Reformed synagogues that Jewish women were permitted to sing.

Mary and Martha
So, when Mary came and sat at Jesus’ feet (Luke 10:38-42), not only was she being a cultural deviant, but so too was the Lord Jesus, because he clashed with the Rabbinic teachings of His day. When her sister Martha complained about her not helping her, Jesus again violated Rabbinic teaching by siding with Mary and commending her for desiring teaching about God’s Law.

At the grave of Lazarus, Jesus taught Martha: “I am the Resurrection and the Life. He who believes in Me will live even though he dies; and whoever lives and believes in Me will never die. Do you believe this?” (John 11:25-26). Under Rabbinic law, to teach a woman was bad enough, but the Lord Jesus did more than that, He called for a public verbal response from Martha.

The Samaritan Woman
Similarly, the way in which the Lord Jesus interacted with the Samaritan woman at the well (John 4) may not appear so unusual to Westerners today. Yet, to the prevailing Greek, Roman and Hebrew cultures of that time, our Lord’s actions must have been quite shocking. Jesus not only ignored the Jewish anti-Samaritan prejudices, but He violated the customs that prohibited a man from speaking to a woman that was not a relative. The Samaritan woman herself was shocked: “You are a Jew and I am a Samaritan woman. How can you ask me for a drink? (for Jews do not associate with Samaritans)” John 4:9.

The Rabbinic law of the time was quite explicit: “He who talks with a woman in public brings evil upon himself” (Aboth 1.5) and “One is not so much as to greet a woman” (Berakhoth 43b).

One can imagine then why the Lord’s “disciples were surprised to find Him talking with a woman” John 4:27.

New Respect and Status
By the Lord Jesus granting women a previously unknown respect and status, He not only broke with the anti-female culture of His era, but He set a high standard for His followers to emulate.

The actions and teachings of Jesus raised the status of women to new heights, to the consternation and dismay of both His friends and enemies. By word and deed Christ went against the ancient accepted practices that stereotyped women as socially, intellectually and spiritually inferior. Truly our Lord came “that you may have life and have it in abundance” John 10:10 and “indeed there are those who are last who will be first and first who will be last.” Luke 13:30

New Testament Women
The Gospels record that many women followed Jesus (Mark 15:41; Luke 8:1-3). After His resurrection from the dead, our Lord first appeared to several women (including Mary Magdalene, Joanna and Mary the mother of James, Luke 24:10). “Then Jesus said to them: ‘Do not be afraid. Go and tell My brothers…” Matthew 28:10.

It is noteworthy that women were the last at the cross (Mark 15:47); the first at the tomb (John 20:1); the first to proclaim the Resurrection (Matthew 28:8) and the first to witness to the Jews (Luke 2:37-38). Women attended the very first prayer meeting (Acts 1:14); women were the first to welcome Christian missionaries to Europe (Acts 16:13) and the first European convert was a woman (Acts 16:14).

In the early Church, women were not only very prominent but were frequently honoured: Elizabeth (Luke 1:43); Mary (Luke 1:30-38); Mary of Bethany (Matthew 26:13; Luke 10:42); the Samaritan evangelist (John 4:29); Dorcas (Acts 9:36); Lydia, the business woman and the first European convert (Acts 16:14-15); “Apphia our sister” (Philemon 2); “Nympha and the church in her house” (Colossians 4:15); Phoebe “a servant of the Church in Cenchrea…she has been a great help to many people including me.” (Romans 16:1-2).

Women Co-workers of the Apostle Paul
In His epistles, the apostle Paul mentions numerous female co-workers including “Priscilla… and her fellow workers in Christ Jesus” Romans 16:3; “…Mary, who worked very hard for you.” Romans 16:6; “Tryphema and Tryphosa, those women who work hard in the Lord…Persis, another woman who has worked very hard in the Lord.” Romans 16:12; “…Euodia and… Syntyche… the women who have contended at my side in the cause of the Gospel along with Clement and the rest of my fellow workers…” Philippians 4:2-3

Freedom and Dignity
As Dr. Schmidt (Under the Influence) observes: “Jesus, Paul and the early Church broke the ancient bonds that kept women secluded and silent (as in Athenian society), subservient (as under the Roman law of Patria Potestas and Manus) and silent and segregated in public worship (as in the Jewish culture). The freedom and dignity that the early Christians gave to women is also evident by their having access equal with men to baptism and the Lord’s Supper… Christ’s message of repentance and salvation proclaimed by the Apostles had revolutionary effects on the lives of women. The early Christians not only included women in the life of the Church, but they also gave them a freedom and dignity unknown in the Greco-Roman and Judaic cultures.”

Far from Christianity being “anti-women” as many critics allege, women in the early Church soon outnumbered men to such a degree that there were simply not enough Christian men available for marriage. Celsus, a 2nd Century critic of Christianity ridiculed the believers by saying that Christianity was a religion that attracted women. To him, this was a sign of weakness. Numerous Roman authors saw Christianity providing dignity and freedom to women as a threat to the entire social order.

Christianity revolutionised marriage by seeing the wife as a partner, commanding husbands to love their wife as Christ loved the Church (Ephesians 5:25) and allowing Christian women the choice as to whom they married. Christianity also granted women the right to divorce unfaithful or abusive husbands. Women also received for the first-time guardianship over their children who previously were the sole possession of the man.

Removing the Veil
Christianity also pioneered other freedoms for women including the removal of the veil. Women at the time of Christ were veiled by the Assyrians, Babylonians, Chinese, Egyptians, Greeks, Hebrews, Romans and Samarians. There were cases of Romans divorcing their wives for leaving the house unveiled. Greek women were required to wear a veil after marriage. Even among the Hebrews, the Rabbis taught that it is a “godless man who sees his wife go out with her head uncovered. He is duty bound to divorce her” (Kethuboth 2). However, the lack of any specific reference in the Gospels, or anywhere in the New Testament, to women having to veil their face, led the Church to increasingly discontinue the practice. While Paul, in 1 Corinthians 11, urged the women in Corinth to cover their heads in church, he made no reference to veiling their faces. In 1 Timothy 2:8-9, where Paul tells the woman to dress modestly and not to elaborately braid their hair, he makes no mention of any veil. So, worldwide Christianity has led the trend to dispense with the veil.

Freedom from Foot Binding
Similarly, the Chinese practice of foot binding, where girls from an early age had to have their feet tightly bound, forcing the four smaller toes of each foot up and under against the fleshly part of the foot (frequently causing severe infection and even on occasion, gangrene), was only abolished under the influence of Christianity. This cruel custom, which crippled many Chinese women, was only outlawed by the Chinese government in 1912. It was Christian missionaries who led the crusade to abolish foot binding in China.

Barbaric Rituals Abolished
The widespread practice of clitoridectomy (often erroneously called female circumcision) is another cruel age old cultural practice, which has been outlawed in all countries where Christianity has become the majority religion. The only countries in the world where this barbaric ritual is still practiced are countries where Christianity has little, or no, influence.

Saving Widows from Suttee
Before the coming of Christ, widows were ostracised, despised and frequently buried, or burned, alive at their husband’s death. For countless centuries, India’s cultural custom of suttee (or sati), the burning alive of widows, was an integral part of Hindu culture. By God’s grace, as a result of the tireless efforts of Christian missionary William Carey, the British authorities in 1829 outlawed the practice of suttee. When this ban went into effect, many Indians “cried that the foundations of Hindu society would be shaken if widows were not burned alive.” (India – A Short Cultural History). Others argued that the British ban on suttee violated Article 25 of India’s constitution that gave people freedom of religion (Sati, Widow Burning in India).

This legal ban on suttee (known as Carey’s Edict) is still in effect today, although since the 1990’s there have been numerous attempts to revive the custom with open glorification of suttee widow burning and instances of teenage widows being cremated on their husband’s funeral pyres. Dr. Schmidt notes: “In light of the current, almost worldwide promotion of multi-culturalism, which argues that all cultures and religious are essentially equal, the desire and efforts to bring back India’s pagan custom of suttee may gain momentum in the future.” (How Christianity Changed the World).

History records, that before the coming of Christianity, widows were burned by American Indian tribes, by the Maori in New Zealand and by the Chinese.

Compassion for Widows
However, Jesus had particular compassion on the widows. Christ rebuked the Pharisees for taking financial advantage of widows (Mark 12:40). Christ praised the widow who, although poor, gave two coins in her offering: “I tell you the truth, He said, this poor widow has put in more than all the others.” Luke 21:3. Christ had compassion on the widow of Nain (Luke 7:11-15). In 1 Timothy 5:3-4, Paul urges Christians to honour and care for the widows. In James 1:27 we are taught that “religion that God our Father accepts as pure and faultless is this: to look after… widows in their distress.”

When one understands how atrociously women were once abused in pre-Christian cultures, then one can understand why historians have declared that “the birth of Jesus was the turning point in the history of women” and “the conversion of the Roman world to Christianity brought a great change in women’s status.” (How Christianity Changed the World).

“Charm is deceptive and beauty is fleeting; but a woman who fears the Lord is to be praised.”
Proverbs 31:30

A Legacy of Liberty
Because of the teachings and actions of our Lord Jesus Christ over the centuries, Christianity has progressively achieved greater respect, dignity, honour and protection for women. It is to Christianity that we owe marriage as a mutual partnership, the rejection of polygamy and the promotion of monogamy and marital faithfulness as the cultural ideal. In granting women respect, dignity and protection, Christianity broke with the prevalent anti-female prejudices of the Ancient world, of pagan cultures and Eastern religions. All the freedoms and advantages that women enjoy today are as a result of the teachings and example of Jesus Christ and the progressive work through the centuries of the Church.

However, if present anti-Christian trends continue one could see a return to the previous pagan abuses of women. Those advocating pornography, sexual permissiveness, homosexual “marriages,” legalised prostitution, lowered age of consent and the decriminalisation of adultery are not offering us progress, but only a return to pre-Christian paganism.

“…remember the Lord Who is great and awesome and fight for… your daughters, your wives and your homes…” Nehemiah 4:14

Dr. Peter Hammond
Africa Christian Action
PO Box 23632
Claremont 7735
Cape Town South Africa
Tel: 021-689 4480

Sources:
How Christianity Changed the World by Dr. Alvin Schmidt
What if Jesus Had Never Been Born? by Dr. James Kennedy and Jerry Newcombe

Fight the New Drug tract. Beveg Die Nuwe Dwelm tract.
Trade of Innocents DVD resource (obtain through CLB www.ChristianLibertyBooks.co.za)
Nefarious: Merchant of Souls on YouTube

SEND SUPPORT TO - GiveSendGo | Africa Christian Action Pro-life Movement

VIEW THE CHRISTIAN ACTION MAGAZINE 2022 EDITION 1 BELOW

]]><![CDATA[THE FRENCH REVOLUTION]]>Mon, 13 Jul 2026 22:00:00 GMThttps://www.frontlinemissionsa.org/history/the-french-revolution

14 July is celebrated in France as Bastille Day. It commemorates the storming of the Bastille and the launch of The French Revolution.

A Time of Turmoil
The French Revolution was one of the most influential events of modern history. The ten-year period from 1789 to 1799 when France went from a Monarchy to a Republic, to a Reign of Terror, to Dictatorship was one of the most tumultuous times in European history.

Myth and Reality
Much myth and romantic legend has been written on what some politicians would like the French Revolution to have been, but the reality was that the French Revolution was a monstrous horror. In the name of "liberty, equality, fraternity or death!" over 40,000 people lost their heads to the guillotine, 300,000 people were publicly executed by firing squads, drownings and other methods of mass murder and ultimately many millions died in the 25 years of war and upheavals that resulted.

The Prototype Revolution
The French Revolution has been the inspiration and model for all socialist and communist revolutions in modern history.

Deliberate Design
Lord Acton in his Lectures on the French Revolution observed: "The appalling thing in the French Revolution is not the tumult, but the design. Through all the fire and smoke we perceive the evidence of calculating organisation. The managers remain studiously concealed and masked; but there is no doubt about their presence from the first."

Tools of Revolution
The tools of the French Revolution were: dis-information, propaganda, the subversion of language, malice, envy, hatred, jealousy, mass murder and foreign military adventurism as a diversion to distract the masses from the failure of government. These tools have been implemented by more modern revolutionaries: Vladimir Lenin, Trotsky, Joseph Stalin, Mao Tse Tung, Fidel Castro, Che Guevare, Patrice Lumumba, Nicolai Ceausescu, Pol Pot, Ho Chi Minh and Robert Mugabe.

Revolutionary Ideas
The power mad and disenchanted have continued to sing the praises of the French Revolution, and to attempted to replicate its ideals in revolutions as far afield as Russia, China, Cuba, North Korea, Vietnam, Laos, Cambodia, Ethiopia, Mozambique, Angola, the Congo and Zimbabwe. Demonic forces and the Enlightenment ideas of humanist philosophers such as Jean-Jacques Rousseau and Voltaire prepared the ground for revolution.

Disenchantment and Degeneration
Historian Otto Scott observed: "French intellectuals, middle and upper classes had grown ashamed of their country, history and institutions. Such a phenomenon had never before arisen in any nation or race throughout the long history of mankind. …a great loosening began; the country slowly came apart… for the first time since the decadent days of Rome, pornography emerged from its caves and circulated openly in a civilised nation. The Catholic Church in France was intellectually gutted; the priests lost their faith along with the congregations. Strange cults appeared; sex rituals, black magic, satanism. Perversion became not only acceptable, but fashionable. Homosexuals held public balls to which heterosexuals were invited and the police guarded their carriages… the air grew thick with plans to restructure and reconstruct all traditional French society and institutions." (Robespierre - Inside the French Revolution, the Reformer Library, New York, 1974.)

The Role of the News Media
"The heirs of the Enlightenment of the late 18th century… launched the first Revolution in all history against the ideas of Christianity, and Christianity's God. …the press… was spearhead, font, and fuel for these discussions… the journals were mixtures of politics and smut. They admired agitators extravagantly and never discussed the Church without mention of scandal, nor the government without criticism. They relied heavily on tales of sin in high places and high handed outrages of the court; no name, however highly placed and illustrious, escaped. …through its journals and pamphlets …it could distort, colour, plead, argue, lie, report, and mis-report the information upon which the balance of the realm depended." (Otto Scott, Robespierre)

The Debt Crisis
The French involvement in the American War of Independence against Great Britain created an enormous debt for France. This debt added to the financial crises which had started with France's involvement in the earlier ruinous Seven Years War against Great Britain and Prussia. The colossal debt added to the financial crises which propelled the French state into bankruptcy.

Side-lined from Recovery
King Louis XVI began his reign wisely. He dismissed the large number of corrupt and incompetent ministers inherited from the court of his father, Louis XV and he appointed an excellent economist, Anne Robert Jacques Turgot as Controller General. Turgot proposed drastic solutions to France's crises: the cancelation of tax privileges for the nobles, the abolition of industrial monopolies, removal of restrictions on free enterprise, and other bold, practical measures. However, the nobles pressured Louis XVI to dismiss Turgot.

Stop Gap Measures to Stave off Economic Collapse
The young banker Jacques Necker was then given the task of managing the unmanageable bankrupt economy. He bravely tried some short-term measures to stave off the inevitable economic collapse. But when he attempted to move towards adopting Turgot's free market strategies, the privileged nobles and wealthy middle-class forced the king to dismiss him too. This was in 1781. Louis entrusted one hapless man after another with the financial crises, but all to no avail. France's international credit rating was plummeting and the country was no longer able to secure loans.

Bankruptcy
By mid-1788, the government had become paralysed and no longer able to avoid admitting bankruptcy. The king was forced to re-instate Necker and call for a meeting of the Estates-General to be convened in May 1789.

The Estates General
The Estates General consisted of three houses, the first Estate was the Clergy, the second Estate was the Nobles and the third Estate were merchants and the common people. Although the third house had twice as many people as the other houses, each house was understood historically to have only one vote. Louis' government failed to specify how the three houses of the Estates-General were to function, nor did he provide them with any Agenda or Constitution.

The National Assembly
The commoners in the third house boldly organised themselves as a self-contained National Assembly. The nobles were outraged and convinced Louis XVI to send troops to blockade the hall where the Assembly planned to meet. The third Estate then met on a nearby tennis court and vowed to continue in session until they could complete a new Constitution for the nation. This was outright rebellion against the authority of the king. Yet, on 27 June 1789, Louis ordered the other two estates to join the commoners in a new combined Assembly.

The Liberals
The National Assembly spent most of its time debating the latest philosophical and political theories. The Marquis de Lafayette, who had achieved fame through his involvement in the American war of Independence, espoused the cause of freedom and rallied the liberal wing of nobles around him. The Count of Mirabeau dominated the Assembly through his eloquent campaign for a constitutional monarchy.

The Fanatics
The most fanatical extremists gravitated to Maximilien Robespierre who was a strong devotee of the writings of radical philosophers Jean-Jacques Rousseau and Voltaire. Rousseau wrote that: "It is necessary to have a cohesive force to organise and coordinate the movements of (societies), members." Rousseau advocated constant agitation for "equality" in order to maintain an atmosphere of fear where individual differences will not be tolerated. Inspired by the defiance of the Assembly and stirred up by revolutionary pamphlets and speeches, mobs began to roam the streets of Paris attacking and murdering royal officials.

Coordinated Chaos
France's financial house of cards collapsed. Capital fled the country and economic depression resulted. A series of events combined to create food shortages and hunger. Agitators panned out across the countryside to destroy the grain stores and terrorise the inhabitants. Hired mobs staged "spontaneous" riots in Paris. The powers of government then collapsed. Everything fell apart with astonishing co-ordination.

Reaction
In reaction, some of the nobles persuaded the king to seek to reassert royal authority. Soldiers were ordered into the streets of Paris as a show of strength. The appearance of the soldiers inspired mobs to seize whatever weapons they could find and to storm the old fortress of the Bastille.

Revolution
The French Revolution is officially dated from this point: 14 July 1789. The Bastille had become a symbol of hated tyranny and much legend has grown out of this event. As it so happens, there were no political prisoners at the Bastille at that time, and despite the fact that the Lieutenant Governor of the Bastille, M. De Launay, was guaranteed safe conduct and surrendered the fortress under a white flag of truce, the mob massacred his soldiers, and the governor, cutting off their heads and carrying them on spikes throughout the streets. As body parts of the defenders of the Bastille were paraded through the streets, a mere seven prisoners were found in the Bastille. When the news reached the palace of Versailles, King Louis was astonished: "This is revolt!" He said. The Duc de la Rochefoucauld-Liancourt responded: "No, Sire, it is a Revolution!"

Appeasement
The next day King Louis arrived, simply dressed and with no bodyguards or attendants, and spoke at the National Assembly. He had ordered the troops to leave Paris, so that the people would have no reason to fear their king. Louis assured them that he had confidence in the Assembly. The deputies rose to their feet cheering with great fervour. 88 of the deputies gathered at the Paris City Hall and took turns speaking to the enormous crowd from the balcony. The famous 32-year-old Lafayette was elected General of the National Guard.

Deterioration
While many seemed optimistic for the future, Marie Antoinette was filled with foreboding and burned her private papers. Nobles fled the court and the country, with many settling across the border. On the 17 July the king travelled to Paris to identify with the revolutionary mob. In October a mob marched to Versailles demanding that the king transfer his residence to Paris. On 6 October, the royal family were escorted by the rioters to Paris where they could be under the control of the revolutionaries.

Manipulation of the Masses
Otto Scott observed that: "Paris, like the nation, was divided into the politically active and the passive, between the many confused, disorganised and abstracted and the highly concentrated organised and intent few." (Robespierre).

Radicalisation
Two clubs came to dominate the Assembly at this time: The Cordeliers were led by Georges Jacques Danton and Jean Paul Marat. The Jacobins were skilfully manipulated by Robespierre.

The Origin of the Left Wing
It was in the French Revolution that the terms "left wing" and "right wing" were first coined. Those on the left were the Radicals, who proudly adopted the designation as a symbol of their Revolutionary defiance of Christian tradition which always represented those on the right hand of God as saved, and those on the left as damned. (James Billington, Fire in the Minds of Men: Origin of the Revolutionary Faith.)

The Hijacking of the Church
On 4 August 1789, the Nobles and Clergy renounced their privileges in the name of revolutionary equality. On 2 November 1789, the Assembly voted to confiscate church property and issue new paper money, called Assignats. This sparked off rampant inflation. In July 1790 the Assembly nationalised the Roman Catholic Church by enacting the Civil Constitution of the Clergy. The Assembly undertook to pay the salaries of the priests from the National Treasury and to create a French church under the control of the government. Pope Pius VI excommunicated all clergymen who took the new oath demanded by the Assembly. Most of the clergy refused to take the oath and were evicted from their pulpits and parishes. France was divided into 83 Departments (counties).

Declaration of the Rights of Man
The National Assembly produced the Declaration of the Rights of Man and of Citizens. Although this was patterned after the English Bill of Rights of 1689 and the American Bill of Rights which had been appended to the United States Constitution, the French Declaration embodied mostly humanistic ideas of the Enlightenment. While attempting to adopt many of the forms of the Biblically orientated Magna Carta and the English Bill of Rights, the French Declaration of the Rights of Man failed to recognise the Creator and ignored the Biblical foundations for true freedom. A new Constitution was completed in 1791, with a unicameral legislature elected by "active citizens". Before Mirabeau died, in April 1791, he predicted that all their well-deliberated efforts at Reform would collapse and be washed away in a bloodbath.

Abolishing the Monarchy
Louis XVI attempted to flee with his family from France on the night of 20 June 1791. When radicals discovered them, they blocked their path and escorted the royal family back to Paris. Danton and Robespierre seized upon this event as an opportunity to proclaim that France was a Republic. As the new Legislative Assembly met, 1 October 1791, the Girondists proposed replacing the just-adopted Constitution and creating a Republic.

War
Deeply concerned for the fate of the royal family, Austria, ruled by Leopold II, the brother of Mary Antoinette, prepared to invade France. The Assembly declared war on Austria in 1792. The French were soon defeated by the Austrians and the Prussians.

Massacre
The mob stormed the king's residence and massacred the royal Swiss guards. The Assembly voted to depose the king and write a new constitution. On 10 August 1792 the municipal government was overthrown and Danton became the self-appointed national dictator. The entire male population was drafted for military service and weapons production entered high gear. In September 1792, terrorist mobs swarmed through the prisons and massacred thousands of prisoners including many nobles who had been arrested for no other reason than that they were nobility.

Killing the King
A new National Convention was called on 21 September 1792 to write a new constitution. In December, the Convention summoned the deposed King, Louis Capet as he was now called. On 21 January 1793 King Louis XVI was beheaded on the guillotine.

Coalition Against Revolution
All of Europe was horrified and a coalition was formed against France. Austria, England, Holland, Prussia, Spain and Piedmont prepared to restore order to France and prevent the exporting of revolution to their own regions.

The Reign of Terror
The Jacobins mobilised the mob to invade the Convention and arrest the 31 leading Girondists. This launched the Reign of Terror, which officially began 2 June 1793. Robespierre established the Committee of Public Safety. A policy of mass public terror was unleashed with Revolutionary Tribunals, in which all "enemies of the Revolution" were summarily tried. Mere accusations were tantamount to verdicts of guilt. The trials were abrupt with no real opportunity granted to the accused to prepare or present any defence. The accused were quickly convicted and carted off to the guillotine.

Killing of the Queen
The Queen, 38-year-old Mary Antoinette, was dragged through the mockery of a trial and guillotined on 16 October. Her son, later recognised as Louis XVII, died as a result of inhuman treatment by his revolutionary jailers.

Heads Roll
Twenty-one Girondist leaders, including Madam Roland, were also beheaded shortly after the Queen. The Duke of Orleans who had joined the Jacobins and taken the name of citizen Egaliter, even voting for the death of his cousin the King, was also executed at this time.

Big Bang Social Science
Romantic occultism taught a big bang theory of social science. If one could blow up, or burn down, enough buildings, kill enough people and destroy enough things, you could produce Utopia!

Destruction
The Reign of Terror spread throughout France. When one city sought to resist, it was destroyed. The revolutionaries set up a pillar outside Lyons inscribed: "Lyons waged war with Liberty. Lyons is no more." Toulon was subjugated under the leadership of a young artillery officer from Corsica, Napoleon Bonaparte.

War Against God
The Committee of Public Safety launched a vicious atheistic war against Christianity. They invented a new religion which they called the Cult of Reason. At a festival at the Notre Dame Cathedral in Paris an actress was enthroned as the "goddess of the French people." France was renamed "The Republic of Virtue". Ancient Rome was lifted up as its model. The press and theatres were turned into instruments for state propaganda. Fashions changed to immoral loose Roman robes. Over 2,000 churches were renamed Temples of Reason and hijacked for the promotion of this cult.

A Secular Religion
Historian Arnold Toynbee wrote: "In the Revolution a sinister ancient religion suddenly re-erupted with elemental violence… the fanatical worship of collective human power. The Terror was only the first of the mass-crimes that have been committed… in this evil religions name." (John Wilson, The gods of Revolution.)

Meltdown
The revolutionaries began to turn on one another. Danton was executed 5 April 1794. On 7 May, Robespierre sought to impose a new religion on France, declaring a new calendar to replace the Christian calendar. 21 September 1792, the day the Monarchy had ended, was declared the First day of year one of their revolutionary calendar. Robespierre appointed himself as high priest of the Supreme Being in this new cult.

Reaping What They Had Sown
On 27 July 1794, Robespierre and 20 other of his henchmen were seized and executed by the survivors of the Convention. More than 40,000 victims had been murdered on the guillotine under the Reign of Terror. Over two-thirds of those victims had been peasants, artisans and workers. As Madam Roland was being ushered up to the platform to be guillotined she faced the statue of the goddess Liberty and cried out: "O Liberty, Liberty! What crimes are committed in thy name!"

Unleashing Forces of Destruction
The end of the reign of terror was not the end of the French Revolution. It would be followed by the Directory and by the Dictatorship eventually culminating in Napoleon's Empire which embroiled all of Europe in ruinous war. Even after the death of Robespierre, the Revolution continued to talk about liberty and equality, to fight against the Christian Faith, and to inspire more communes, voices of virtue, Vladimir Lenins, Joseph Stalins, Fidel Castros and Mao Tse Tungs.

Revolutionary Tyranny
The French Revolution was the prototype, which was followed by the Russian Revolution, the Chinese Revolution, the Cuban Revolution, the Cambodian Revolution, the Vietnamese Revolution, the Ethiopian Revolution, the Mozambiquan Revolution, the Angolan Revolution, the Zimbabwe Revolution and many others. In every case they proved that yesterday's revolutionaries become tomorrow's tyrants and dictators.

"While they promise them liberty, they themselves are slaves of corruption." 2 Peter 2:19

Dr. Peter Hammond
Reformation Society
P.O. Box 74 Newlands 7725
Cape Town South Africa
Tel: 021-689-4480
Email: mission@frontline.org.za
Website: www.ReformationSA.org

The audio CD of this message as presented to The Reformation Society is available from:
Christian Liberty Books:
Tel: 021-689-7478,
Fax: 086-551-7490,
Email: admin@christianlibertybooks.co.za,
Website: www.christianlibertybooks.co.za.

The best book on The French Revolution is Robespierre – Inside the French Revolution by Otto Scott, available from Christian Liberty Books.

See also: Marie Antoinette, also available as a PowerPoint.
The French Huguenots, also available as a PowerPoint and translated into Afrikaans.

]]><![CDATA[The BOMBING of CITIES in WORLD WAR II]]>Fri, 13 Feb 2026 22:00:00 GMThttps://www.frontlinemissionsa.org/history/the-bombing-of-cities-in-world-war-ii

The bombing of Dresden 14 February 1945

Frontline Fellowship · The Real Story Of The Allies 14 February St Valentines Day Bombing Of Dresden In 1945

The BOMBING of CITIES in WORLD WAR II
by Dr. Peter Hammond

Bombarded
On Mission outreaches in Sudan I experienced aerial, artillery and rocket bombardments. However, these experiences were insignificant compared to that of my parents in the Second World War. My Father served as a bombardier in the Royal Artillery in the British Army for the whole 6 years of the war. He told me of the Heinkel III’s coming over his military base and turning his barracks into matchsticks as he lay flat on the parade ground with debris blown high into the air pummelling him into the ground! My mother was only 6 years old when she experienced her first bombing. It was September 1940, she was at the circus in Berlin when the British bombed them. She was almost trampled in the stampede to flee the exploding bombs. Many times my mother heard the air raid sirens and had to rush to the air raid shelters. Frequently she saw the green and red parachute flares dropped by the lead bombers to guide the thousand bombers where to unleash their cargo of death and destruction. Her neighbourhood was turned into blazing rubble.

Uncivilised
Eminent British War historian, Captain Sir Basil Liddle Hart, described the strategic bombing campaign by RAF Bomber Command during the Second World War as: “The most uncivilised means of warfare that the world had known since the Mongol invasions.”

Contrary to International Law
British Prime Minister Neville Chamberlain declared that England’s policy of bombing cities in Germany: was “absolutely contrary to international law.” Just before being ousted in Winston Churchill’s coup, Prime Minister Chamberlain announced: “His Majesty’s government will never resort to the deliberate attack on women and children and other civilians, for the purpose of mere terrorism.”

Bombers for Victory
Shortly after replacing Chamberlain as Prime Minister, Winston Churchill declared: “Our supreme effort must be to gain overwhelming mastery in the air… the bombers alone can provide the means to victory.”

Bombing Alone
Marshal of the Royal Air Force, Lord Trenchard, as early as 1921, declared that: “The next war could be won by bombing alone, by destroying the enemy’s will to resist.” From this perspective, an entire strategic philosophy developed, which was to dominate British and later American military strategy.

Quick and Easy Victory
It was the Italian General Gilulo Douhet who predicted that in the next war, bombers would inflict millions of civilian casualties in a matter of days.

Targeting Civilians
Stanley Baldwin described this new military philosophy in the House of Commons: “The only defence is offence, which means that you have to kill more women and children, more quickly than the enemy, if you want to save yourselves.”

Irrational Predictions
Although aircraft was only invented in 1903 and first used militarily in the First World War (1914-1918), books and films had developed a public dread of aerial bombing out of all proportion to its actual threat. Inspired more by the science fiction novels of H.G. Wells and Alexander Korda’s Film, Things to Come, Royal Air Force experts declared, as an article of faith: that “the bomber will always get through.”

Counter Technology
Strangely, these men failed to anticipate that technical developments in one area of warfare are soon matched by counter measures in other areas. Aircraft had advanced rapidly in WWI. Just as gas warfare was soon countered by gas masks, anti-aircraft technology would soon catch up. Night bombers would soon be countered by night fighters.

Indirect Warfare
Yet many British politicians and military leaders leapt upon this philosophy of faint hearts. After the disastrous battles of WWI, with entire divisions decimated in the battle of the Somme, Passchendaele and Ypres, the British feared to face the German soldier on the battlefield and sought for an indirect way of winning a war. Instead of losing hundreds-of-thousands of soldiers facing the German army on the ground, they would drop millions of tonnes of bombs on German cities from a safe height of ten thousand feet or more.

Total Warfare
British military strategists concluded that what had actually won the First World War was the British Naval blockade, which had led to starvation conditions in Germany. It became an article of faith amongst the chiefs of staff that the bombing of German cities would achieve victory in the war without the need to commit their armies to the kind of ground war that had caused so many casualties on the Western front in 1914 to 1918. Underlying this philosophy was the assumption that German civilians would crack under the pressure of sustained bombing. Actually, despite enduring the most sustained aerial bombardment for over five years, they never did crack. In fact, war production steadily increased.

The Spanish Civil War
When, during the Spanish Civil War, in 1938, the nationalists bombed Barcelona, reportedly 1,300 inhabitants were killed. From this British aerial experts concluded that each tonne of bombs dropped would inflict 72 casualties. This figure was treated as definitive and on this basis, the Home Office predicted one million casualties in London in the first few days of the next war. But this alarmist nonsense had no basis in fact. In fact the casualty rates at Barcelona were barely 3 casualties to every tonne of bombs dropped. Of the half a million killed in the entire Spanish War, less than 3% were killed by air raids. However, as those facts did not support Bomber Commands’ philosophy, they were suppressed at the time.

The Absence of German Heavy Bombers
The fact that the German Luftwaffe had no four-engine bombers, nor any plans to produce any in the future, was also suppressed. The entire German Luftwaffe was plainly geared to ground support of the Wehrmacht. The Heinkel 111 and Stuka Ju-87s had very small bomb capacities and were only designed for ground support of Panzer divisions. Plainly Germany had no intention of strategic bombing of cities. Germany’s heaviest bomber did not even have the capacity to carry 10% the payload of bombs that a British Lancaster was designed for.

First Blood
The earliest British air raids on Germany were quite disappointing for Bomber Command. On 4th September 1939, the day after Britain declared war on Germany, an RAF attack on a German seaplane base resulted in 24 out of the 28 British bombers being shot down. The survivors managed to drop a few bombs, by mistake, on the Danish town of Esbjerg. This was 190 km from the target!

Failure
Air raids on German warships in Wilhelmshaven were also ineffective. The few bombs that hit their targets either did not explode, or bounced off the German armour causing no damage at all. The early casualties suffered by the British bombers were extreme. Two air raids on oil installations in the Ruhr, by over 300 British bombers achieved no hits and no damage to the plants.

Inaccurate and Ineffective
Photographic evidence on the RAF bombing raids on the industrial Ruhr in Germany revealed that less than 10% of British bombers got within five miles of their target and that the bombs dropped by these aircraft were dispersed in an area 75 square miles around the intended target. During the air raids of 1940 and 1941, more British aircrew died than German victims of the bombings.

More Failure
The German battle cruisers at Brest, Scharnhorst and Gneisenau, were attacked by 1,723 sorties. Almost 2,000 tonnes of bombs were dropped on these ships, yet the Scharnhorst and Gneisenau survived these air raids, mostly unscathed.

Disproportionate Resources
RAF Bomber Command received more funding, labour, strategic materials and equipment than all other branches of the British military combined. The labour of thousands of workers in factories all over Britain was being scattered across Germany to no good purpose. Raw materials that could have been better used to build tanks, ground support aircraft, fighters, dive bombers, machine guns, rifles, medical supplies, etc. we’re being squandered to fulfil an obsession with the bomber as the war-winning weapon to beat all weapons.

Squandered Resources
Yet, far from winning the war, Bomber Command, almost lost it by absorbing the resources that could have been used to equip Britain with genuine weapons of war. Instead of recognising that the Strategic Bombing Campaign was a failure, the chiefs of staff determined to concentrate on the bombing of cities. A policy of terrorising the German population became a fundamental component of the Strategic Bombing Campaign of the RAF.

Saturation Bombing of Cities
Recognising that navigational aids were deficient and that the bombsights used were highly inaccurate, Bomber Command determined to concentrate entire Air Wings into Thousand Bomber Raids on German cities. These night time saturation bombings wouldn’t be able to miss their targets, because they would concentrate on the centre of large cities. Killing Germans, any Germans, became the policy of Bomber Command. Between 1940 and 1945, 61 German cities were destroyed in bombing campaigns by RAF Bomber Command. At least two million Germans civilians were killed by the air raids of the RAF and USAAF.

Illegal Targeting of Civilians
Indiscriminate bombing was internationally outlawed. The Washington Treaty of 1922 expressly forbade the use of bombing against civilian populations. United States government propaganda films condemned the Japanese Empire for bombing of cities, such as Shanghai. Yet, upon America’s entry into the war, U.S. General, H.H. Arnold, advocated the policy of strategic bombing of cities, such as they had condemned in Shanghai, as “the only way” that Germany could be beaten.

Non-Combatants
Winston Churchill commented: “The air opened paths along which death and terror could be carried far behind the lines of the actual enemy; to women, children, the aged, the sick, who in earlier struggles would perforce have been left untouched.”

Provoking Counter Reaction
Air Ministry historian, Dennis Richards, in the official History of the Royal Air Force (1939-1945) wrote: “If the Royal Air Force raided the Ruhr, destroying oil plants with its most accurately placed bombs and urban property for those that went astray, the outcry for retaliation against Britain might prove too strong for the German Generals to resist. Indeed, Hitler himself would probably lead the clamour. The attack on the Ruhr was therefore an informal invitation to the Luftwaffe to bomb London.”

The Great Decision
The Principal Secretary to the Air Ministry in Britain reported: “We began to bomb objectives on the German mainland before the Germans began to bomb objectives on the British mainland… Because we were doubtful about the psychological effect of the truth, that it was we who started the strategic bombing offensive, we have shrunk from giving our great decision of 11 May 1940, the publicity it deserves.” (Bombing Vindicated by J. M. Spaight, Principal Secretary to the Air Ministry.)

Total Warfare
In an interview with the New York Times, 10 January 1946, Air Marshal Tedder declared that Germany had lost the war because she had not followed the principle of “Total Warfare.”

War Psychosis
Dennis Richards in The Royal Air Force, 1939-1945, The Fight at Odds observed: “Retaliation was certain if we carried the war into Germany… there was a reasonable possibility that our capital and industrial centres would not have been attacked if we had continued to refrain from attacking those of Germany… the primary purpose of these raids was to goad the Germans into undertaking reprisal raids of a similar character on Britain. Such raids would arouse intense indignation in Britain against Germany and so create a war psychosis without which it would be impossible to carry on a modern war.”

Emotional Engineering
British Jurist, F. J. P. Veale, in Advance to Barbarism, observed: “It is one of the greatest triumphs of modern emotional engineering that, in spite of the plain facts of the case, which could never be disguised, or even materially distorted, the British public, throughout the Blitz period (1940-1941), remained convinced that the entire responsibility for the sufferings it was undergoing, rested on the German leaders. Too high praise cannot, therefore, be lavished on the British emotional engineers for the infinite skill with which the public mind was conditioned prior to and during a period of unparalleled strain. The inhabitants of Coventry, for example, continued to imagine that their sufferings were due to the innate villainy of Adolf Hitler, without a suspicion that a decision, splendid or otherwise, of the British War Cabinet, was the decisive factor in this case.”

Terror Bombing
Sir Archibald Sinclair, Secretary for Air, declared: “I am in full agreement of terror bombing. I am all for the bombing of working class areas in German cities.” On 5 July 1941, the city of Münster in Germany was bombed by 63 British Wellington Bombers, just after midnight. The city was unprepared and without any anti-aircraft protection. By the end of the war more than 90% of the old city of Münster was destroyed.

Lubeck
On the night of 28 March 1942, 234 Wellington and Sterling Bombers dropped over 400 tonnes of bombs on Lübeck. 1,468 buildings were destroyed, 2,180 were seriously damaged and 9,103 were lightly damaged. 62% of all buildings in Lübeck were damaged or destroyed.

Cologne
On the night of 30 May 1942, Cologne was destroyed by RAF Bomber Command. 2,000 tonnes of high explosives were delivered by 1,046 bombers in 90 minutes. Luftwaffe Commander, Hermann Göring, refused to believe the reports: “It’s impossible! That many bombs cannot be dropped in a single night!”

Bremen
On 25 June 1942, the British launched 1,067 bombers against the German port city of Bremen. This air raid succeeded in killing 85 people, destroying 572 houses, for the loss of 53 aircraft.

Contrasts in Casualties
Because the Luftwaffe was not equipped with strategic bombers, the contrast between casualties caused by the Blitz in England and the saturation bombing of German cities is stark. Coventry lost 100 acres through bombing. Approximately 300 people in Coventry lost their lives due to air raids by the Luftwaffe. Yet the RAF bombing of Hamburg killed over 70,000 civilians.

Firebombing Hamburg
Between 24 July and 2 August 1943, RAF Bomber Command unleashed Operation Gomorrah against the coastal town of Hamburg in Germany. 8,000-pound blockbusters and 4,000 pound “cookie” bombs knocked out roofs and windows. Subsequent waves dropped 350,412 incendiary bombs to start fires. Crews of Halifax Bombers reported a mass of raging fires in Hamburg, rising to 19,000 feet. Lead Bombers dropped parachute flare markers to guide the following bombers as to where to release their bombs in the dark. As the waterworks were destroyed first, there was no running water with which the fire brigade could extinguish the sea of flames, which soon engulfed the entire city.

Night and Day
The next day, 25 July, U.S. Army Air Force B17 Flying Fortress Bombers, unleashed further destruction upon the stricken city of Hamburg. The British lost only 12 aircraft during the night raid. The Americans lost 15 aircraft during their day raid. For 10 days and nights, the RAF and USAAF kept up a relentless day and night bombardment of the doomed city. 16,000 residential buildings in Hamburg were destroyed.

Amidst the Ruins
Incredibly, by the end of 1943, the aircraft industry, chemical industry and submarine building factories were back to almost pre-bombing capacity. However, 70,000 civilians had died in the 10-day firebombing of Hamburg.

The Destruction of Dresden
Between 13 and 15 February 1945, the city of Dresden was destroyed by over 2,000 bombers of the RAF and the USAAF. Dresden had been chosen as a target by the Soviets. Joseph Stalin persuaded Churchill and Roosevelt at Yalta to target Dresden, which was a major receiving area for refugees. The city was swollen with civilians fleeing the Red Army’s rapid and destructive advance. On the evening of 13 February 1945, 796 Lancaster’s and 9 de Havilland Mosquitos dropped 1,478 tonnes of high explosive and 1,182 tonnes of incendiary bombs between 22:14 and 22:22. Three hours later another 1,800 tonnes of bombs were dropped by a second group of Lancasters.

Successful
The first official reports on the air raid on Dresden described it as one of the most successful of the Thousand Bomber Raids: “Our pilots report that as there was little flak they were able to make careful and straight runs over the targets without bothering much about their defences; a terrific concentration of fires was started in the centre of the city.” The British described the raid as one of the “powerful blows” promised by the Allied leaders to Joseph Stalin at Yalta.

Disgrace
Allied Bombers who were involved in the firebombing of Dresden later recalled the sense of shame they felt when no anti-aircraft fire, or night fighters, opposed their bombing of the city. Numerous historians and jurists have described the bombing of the cities of Germany as a war crime and a holocaust. Yet British Air Marshal “Bomber” Arthur Harris, the Bomber Command chief directly responsible for the saturation bombing of civilian centres, was knighted for his efforts! There was a time when knights were renowned for protecting women and children – not targeting them.

Scandal
News reports from neutral countries, such as Sweden and Switzerland, pointed out that Dresden was one large hospital city swollen with refugees fleeing the advancing Red Army. They also pointed out that the main railway station on the outskirts of town was unaffected by the bombing which targeted the residential section of town. 22 Hospitals had been destroyed in Dresden. One British commentator asked: “Who the devil is going to get anything out of it? We contribute the bombs and the machines and the crews who don’t return from these raids. The Dresdeners themselves don’t get anything out of it, naturally. The only ones who look like they’re getting anything are the Russians – they get Dresden at our expense. I don’t see any reason why we should go and kill people for the benefit of the Russians alone. Do you?”

Bombing Refugees
An Associated Press radio despatch put out from Paris was broadcast throughout the United States describing the: “Deliberate Terror Bombings of German population centres… carried out by heavy bombers of the Allied Air Forces on residential sections of Berlin, Dresden… with the unprecedented day and night assault on the refugee crowded capital, with civilians fleeing from the Red Tide in the East.”

Exceptional Cowardice
Americans had traditionally viewed with suspicion the RAF Bomber Command strategy of bombing cities. Now Americans learned that American Bombers were involved in the same terror raids on civilians. The report noted that, as all available German Air Forces were concentrated on the Eastern Front to combat the Red Army offensive which threatened to destroy Germany and all of Europe, the targeting of civilian centres in Germany seemed “exceptional cowardice.”

Military Objectives
As this AP News Report was widely broadcast by radio throughout the United States, General Eisenhower and General Henry Arnold cabled General Spaatz, to clarify that the USAAF was “only targeting military objectives” and not engaging in area bombing of cities. General Carl Spaatz gave an ambiguous and dishonest assurance that the USAAF only attacked “military objectives.” This of course was not true.

Barbaric Bombing
American Historian Professor Harry Elmer Barnes, wrote: “It was the indiscriminate bombing of civilians by the so-called strategic air forces during the Second World War which culminated in the destruction of Dresden (a wholly non-military objective) in February 1945, that completely pulverised the code of civilised warfare and returned the treatment of military opponents and civilians to the level of the primal warfare that had prevailed among the savages, the Assyrians and the Medieval Mongols. On the basis of the most authoritative British sources, Mr Veale demonstrates clearly that it was the British and not the Germans who introduced indiscriminate strategic bombing, despite the efforts of Hitler to avert this reversion to barbaric practices.”

Kassel
The German town of Kassel suffered over 300 air raids, some by Thousand Bomber Raids, the British by night and the Americans by day. When on 4 April 1945, the city surrendered barely 15,000 remained of an original population of 250,000.

Wiener Neustadt
Wiener Neustadt in Austria emerged from the air raids with only 18 houses intact and its population of 45,000 reduced to just 860.

The True Heroes
The London Times Review on the British official History of the Strategic Air Offensive, commented: “One closes these volumes feeling uneasy, that the true heroes of the story they tell are neither the contending Air Marshals, nor even the 58,888 officers and men of Bomber Command who were killed in action. The heroes were the inhabitants of the German cities under attack; the men, women and children who stoically endured and worked on among the flaming ruins of their homes and factories, up till the moment when the Allied Armies overran them.”

Going Too Far
In the course of watching a British propaganda film showing the bombing of German cities from the air, British Prime Minister Winston Churchill suddenly sat bolt upright and asked Lord Casey: “Are we beasts? Are we taking this too far?”

Propaganda War
Throughout the world there were shockwaves of revulsion against the bombing of Dresden. This compelled the propaganda ministries to seek to generate as much counter accusations of atrocities against the enemy to justify the targeting of whole cities for destruction. Soon, pictures of starving inmates of labour camps were being published widely. The fact that the starvation was caused by the Naval Blockade and Arial Bombardment of Germany was, of course, not pointed out.

Distortion
As virtually every harbour, railway junction and bridge in Germany had been bombed, all basic services had broken down in the final months of the war. Starvation was widespread and epidemics of typhus had erupted. Even pictures of German civilians laid out in the centre of bombed out towns were published with the caption that these were victims of German death camps. American soldiers in Dachau had German civilians drag victims of typhus into the showers, which the Americans then claimed had been gas chambers. Later all parties agreed that there never had been a gas chamber at Dachau and the Americans were ordered to dismantle the structure they had built after the war to show to tourists. By then virtually all the prison wardens at Dachau had been massacred by the American forces for the crime which they now admitted had not taken place there.

Admission of Guilt
The American judge at the Nuremberg Trials, Nicholas Biddle, later acknowledged that: “Germany waged a much cleaner war than we did.” Winston Churchill acknowledged that had Germany won the war he could have been tried as a war criminal for having authorised the bombing of cities. Marshall of the RAF, Lord Trenchard, once declared: “I can’t write what I mean, I can’t say what I mean, but I expect you to know what I mean.”

General Purpose Dud
The official historian of the Strategic Air Offensive, Sir Charles Webster, noted that half of the bomber sorties made over Germany were a complete waste of time. The weapon with which most British bombers were armed, the general-purpose bomb, was so unreliable and ineffective as to constitute a waste of strategic resources: “Between 1939 and 1945, Bomber Command dropped over half a million 500 pound general purpose bombs and nearly 150,000, 250 pound general purpose bombs. Not only were these bombs unsuited to the task for which they were used, because of their general characteristics, which consisted of an unhappy compromise between strength of casing and weight of explosive, but they were also relatively inefficient and all too often defective, weapons.”

Poor Workmanship
It is estimated that nearly 40% of all bombs dropped by the British in 1940, failed to detonate. Even the 4,000 pound bombs frequently broke up on impact, without exploding. It was observed that Bomber Command wasted thousands of aircrew who lost their lives carrying defective bombs to Germany. This was described as bad as “sending men into battle with their rifles loaded with blanks.”

Evaluating the Strategic Bombing Campaign
It is now clear that General Douhet and Trenchard were wrong. Bombers did not win the war. In fact, one can safely say that not only did the bombing of cities not shorten the duration of the war, but the Strategic Bombing Campaign actually prolonged the war and exponentially increased the death toll of that war.

Unethical and Counter Productive
Unwilling to face the German soldier on the battlefield, these strategists were prepared to drop bombs on his family from a safe height of over 10,000 feet. This indirect way of winning a war proved to be an illusion. Over two million people were killed and millions more injured and crippled as a result. The strategic bombing of cities proved to be not only unethical, but counterproductive.

“When you besiege a city for a long time, while making war against it to take it, you shall not destroy its trees…” Deuteronomy 20:19

]]><![CDATA[The Real Story Behind The ATTACK on PEARL HARBOUR]]>Fri, 05 Dec 2025 22:00:00 GMThttps://www.frontlinemissionsa.org/history/the-real-story-behind-the-attack-on-pearl-harbour

To view the video of this presentation, click here.
To view the sermon capture video, click here.
To view the Power Point presentation, click here.
To listen to the audio of this lecture, click here.

As my history teacher, Mr Rees-Davies, MP, in Rhodesia cautioned us: “Beware the victor’s version of history!” The story of what led up to the Japanese attack on the US Navy at Pearl Harbour is both fascinating and surprising.

Battle of Taranto
On the night of 11 to 12 November 1940, British Naval forces under Admiral Andrew Cunningham, including Aircraft Carrier HMS Illustrious, launched Fairey Swordfish biplane torpedo bombers in the Mediterranean Sea to attack the Regia Marina Battle Fleet at anchor in the harbour of Taranto. Despite the shallow depth of the water, the aerial torpedoes proved devastatingly effective, crippling the Italian Navy, which lost half of its capital ships in one night.

Naval Air Power
The Royal Navy raid on Taranto Bay marked the ascendency of air power over sea power. The Fleet Air Arm proved to be the Navy's most devastating weapon.

Trained by the Royal Navy
As the Imperial Japanese Navy had initially been trained by the Royal Navy and studied the Royal Navy's tactics and strategies most carefully, it should have been obvious that the Imperial Japanese Navy, the third most powerful Navy in the world in 1941, with 10 Fleet carriers, would begin practicing with torpedo bombers and carefully evaluate the possibility of them being used against the American Pacific Fleet based in Pearl Harbour. Japan had the largest and most modern carrier Fleet in the world in 1941. By comparison the USA had 7 aircraft carriers (only 3 of which operated in the Pacific) and Britain had 8 aircraft carriers (of which only one operated in the Indian and Pacific Oceans).

The Danger of Torpedo Attack
The claim that no one could have anticipated torpedo attacks in the shallow waters of a harbour before 7 December 1941, is false. The British had proved that torpedoes could be effective in their attack on the Italian Navy at Taranto, 11 November 1940. The Royal Navy used Swordfish Bi-planes to deliver the torpedoes. The US Navy had discussed this new threat in a June 1941 Memorandum. Torpedo nets were considered to be installed in Pearl Harbour as a precautionary measure.

Overruled by Politicians in Washington D.C.
Admiral Kimmel and his staff testified that the decision not to install torpedo nets and booms had been made by the Navy Department in Washington DC, not in Hawaii.

Classified Documents Denied to the Public
There are many documents relating to Pearl Harbour which are still classified by the United States government and have not yet been made public. Many of the documents were destroyed during the war. Some of the public records of the United Kingdom containing Churchill's "Most Secret" war time intelligence briefs, were marked as "closed for 75 years", including the sections dealing with events from November 1941 through March 1942.

Was the Japanese Raid on Pearl Harbour Unprecedented?

Mers-El-Kébir
Seventeen months before Pearl Harbour, the British Royal Navy attacked the French Fleet at anchor on the coast of French Algeria. The Battle of Mers-el-Kébir on 3 July 1940, resulted in the deaths of 1,297 French servicemen, the sinking of a French battleship and the damaging of 5 other ships. The combined air and sea attack was carried out against Britain's official ally - France.

Attacking an Ally
The attack remains controversial and created much hostility between France and Britain. Britain argued that "the times were desperate; invasion seemed imminent; and the British government simply could not afford to risk Germany seizing control of the French Fleet… the prominent British motive was thus dire necessity and self-preservation." However, the French insisted that, as their terms of surrender with Germany did not require them handing over their Fleet, which was still in French controlled territory, the British action was treacherous.

Swift and Surprising Action
French ships that were in Alexandria and believed that they were allies of Britain were shocked to be blockaded, boarded and seized by the Royal Navy at the same time. Also, on 3 July, French ships in Plymouth and Portsmouth, England, were boarded and captured. This included the French submarine, Surcouf (the largest submarine in the world at that time), four other submarines, the battleships Paris and Courbet, destroyers Triomphant and Leopard. Some officers and sailors were killed in the struggles. These attacks were justified by the British strategy of Copenhagening the Fleet.

Copenhagening the Fleet
Admiral Horatio Nelson's famous battle of Copenhagen on 2 April 1801 was a clear inspiration for the Japanese attack on Pearl Harbour, 1941. Although Denmark was officially neutral during the Napoleonic Wars, Britain feared that her Navy may be seized by the French, if Denmark fell to the French.

Targeting Neutrals
The Battle of Copenhagen was a result of multiple failures of diplomacy. With Britain enforcing a strict blockade of France and any country trading with France, even neutral nations, such as Denmark, Sweden and Prussia, were regarded as legitimate targets.

The Battle of Copenhagen
Admiral Sir Hyde Parker and Vice Admiral Horatio Nelson led the attack on the Danish capital, Copenhagen. The British attack, during which Admiral Nelson famously placed his telescope to his blind eye ignoring a command to withdraw, was, from the British perspective, spectacularly successful. 1,600 Danish soldiers and sailors were killed, or wounded and most of the Danish Navy either sunk, severely damaged, or captured.

The Second Battle of Copenhagen
Although ostensibly neutral, Denmark was again attacked by the Royal Navy 16 August - 5 September 1807, when the Royal Navy bombarded Copenhagen, seized the Danish Fleet "as a precaution" in case Denmark did choose to join the French. 3,000 soldiers and civilians, including 195 children, in Copenhagen died as a result of the bombardment. As the majority of the Danish Army was at the Southern border to protect against a possible attack from the French, this second assault on a neutral country was a scandal at the time.

Ignoring Historic Precedents
Knowing that the Imperial Japanese Navy was modelled on the Royal Navy, these famous battles, strategies and tactics of Copenhagening the Fleets of even neutral countries where a potential threat was perceived, including against Britain's French allies and most tellingly at the Battle of Taranto where aircraft launched from aircraft carriers using torpedoes had crippled a battle Fleet, should have been taken into consideration.

Deception by Entertainment
As modern American films such as Tora! Tora! Tora! and Pearl Harbour tend to ignore these historic precedents and pretend that the attack on Pearl Harbour was both "unprecedented" and "unexpected" and "the first surprise attack by aircraft on ships," generations have been deceived into thinking that Pearl Harbour was a treacherous, unexpected and unprecedented attack "A day that will live in infamy!"

"Now these things became our examples, to the intent that we should not lust after evil things as they also lusted… Now all these things happened to them as examples and they were written for our admonition…" 1 Corinthians 10:6-11

Desperately Seeking War
William Henry Chamberlin in America's Second Crusade (1950) wrote: "It is scarcely possible, in the light of this and many other known facts, to avoid the conclusion that the Roosevelt Administration sought the war which began at Pearl Harbour. The steps which made armed conflict inevitable would take months before the conflict broke out." (Freedom Betrayed: Herbert Hoovers Secret History of the Second World War and Its Aftermath).

Failing to Give US Servicemen a Fighting Chance
General Albert C. Wedemeyer is quoted by Herbert Hoover in Freedom Betrayed as stating: "When on, December 6, our intercepts told us that the Japanese were going to attack somewhere the very next day, whether in the Central Pacific, or to the South in the Philippines and Dutch East Indies, the president of the United States, as Commander in Chief of our Military Forces… could have gone on the radio and broadcast to the wide world that he had irrefutable evidence of an immediate Japanese intention to strike. This would have alerted everybody from Singapore to Pearl Harbour. Even though inadequate in some cases to defend effectively, nevertheless, our forces would have been able to take a toll, which would have blunted the Japanese attack. In Hawaii, the capital ships might have been moved out of the congested harbour to sea, where Admiral Kimmel at least had the foresight to keep the far more vital aircraft carriers. Furthermore, our Carrier taskforce in the mid-Pacific might have attacked the Japanese task force when its planes were aloft. There are many possibilities which could have given our men a fighting chance."

Blind Service to Stalin and the Soviet Union
"Roosevelt ignored the whole communist infiltration into his administration. Much of it was to be exposed before his death. But of more importance, he ignored the whole international purpose of communism and its morals in international relations. Its purposes and methods had been blatantly stated to the world ever since 1917 and its statements in books were widely distributed in the United States. Roosevelt was not a communist. His leanings towards Stalin and blindness to communistic activities arose partly from his own Leftist-leaning and partly from the usefulness of the communists in support of his administration politically throughout his 13 years in office."

Co-operating with Communism
"His leanings towards Stalin and the communist began with the recognition of the Soviet Union immediately upon taking his office in 1933... During 15 years prior to the recognition, Democratic and Republican administrations alike had barred any relations with a country which had returned huge numbers of mankind to slavery and was constantly conspiring against the welfare of other peoples. By recognition, Roosevelt gave the Soviet Union certain respectability in the family of nations, but also of importance. By that act, he had opened the door to communist penetration and conspiracies in the United States." “He who justifies the wicked and he who condemns the just, both of them alike are an abomination to the Lord.” Proverbs 17:15

A Madman's Desire to Get US into War
In Herbert Hoover's Freedom Betrayed, General Douglas McArthur's views are reported that: "the whole Japanese war was a madman's desire to get us into war." McArthur was convinced that the "Financial sanctions in July 1941 were not only provocative but that Japan was bound to fight even if it were suicide, unless they could be removed, as the sanctions carried every penalty of war except killing and destruction and no nation of dignity would take them for long."

An Unnecessary War
McArthur said that: "Roosevelt could have made peace with Konoye in September 1941 and could have obtained all of the American objectives in the Pacific and the freedom of China and probably Manchuria. Konoye was authorized by the Emperor to agree to complete withdrawal."

Callous Indifference to the American Army Beleaguered in the Philippines
McArthur was bitter about: "Roosevelt's starvation of supplies to him at a time when the whole fate of the South Pacific and their allies in Asia was at stake." "Roosevelt had shown his vindictiveness in many ways."

The Truth about Pearl Harbour
In September 1944, John Flynn, a member of the America First Committee, published The Truth about Pearl Harbour:

Provoking Japan to Get America into the War
Rear Admiral Frank Beatty, who at the time of the Pearl Harbour attack was an aide to the Secretary of the Navy, Frank Knox, testified: "Prior to 7 December, it was evident even to me… that we were pushing Japan into a corner. I believe that it was the desire of President Roosevelt and Prime Minister Churchill that we get into the war, as they felt their allies could not win without us and all our efforts to cause the Germans to declare war on us had failed. The conditions we imposed upon Japan were so severe that we knew the nation could not accept them. We were forcing her so severely that we could have known that she would react towards the United States. All her preparations in a military way - and we knew their overall import - pointed that way."

"Worth the Price"
Jonathan Daniels, Roosevelt's administrative assistant at that time of Pearl Harbour, presented an eye-witness viewpoint: "The blow was heavier than he had hoped it would necessarily be… But the risks paid off; even the loss was worth the price..." ("1941: Pearl Harbour Sunday: The End of an Era").

To Save the Soviet Union from Collapse in Europe
In Day of Deceit, by Robert Stinnett, a memorandum prepared by Commander McCollun stated that a memorandum issued in the immediate pre-war period declared that only a direct attack on US interests would sway the American public, or Congress, to favour direct involvement in the European war. Anderson and Secretary Knox, offered eight specific plans to aggrieve the Japanese Empire "If by these means Japan could be led to commit an overt active war, so much the better." The McCollun memo of 7 October 1940, remained classified until 1994.

Reckless and Irresponsible
Admiral James Richardson was fired by President Roosevelt for complaining about the president's order to station the Pacific Fleet in Pearl Harbour. Admiral Richardson blamed the president for the "initial defeats in the Pacific" as "direct, real and personal." Richardson believed that stationing the Pacific Fleet in Pearl Harbour made the ships "extremely vulnerable to attack" and provided "a poor and nonstrategic defence."

A Travesty of History
"No reasonably informed person can now believe that Japan made a villainous unexpected attack on the United States. An attack was not only fully expected, but was actually desired. It is beyond doubt that President Roosevelt wanted to get his country into the war, but for political reasons, was most anxious to ensure that the first act of hostility came from the other side; for which reason he caused increasing pressure to be put on the Japanese, to a point that no self-respecting nation could endure without resort to arms. Japan was meant, by the American President, to attack the United States. As Mr Oliver Lyttelton, then British Minister of Production, said in 1944: 'Japan was provoked into attacking America's Pearl Harbour. It is a travesty of history to say that America was forced into the war'." - British Historian Captain Russell Grenfell Main Fleet to Singapore as quoted by President Herbert Hoover in Freedom Betrayed.

Dereliction of Duty
Captain L.F. Safford, US Navy, in charge of the Communications Security Section of Naval Communications in Washington, testified before the Admiral Hart Board that: "On 4 December 1941, we received definite information from two independent sources that Japan would attack the United States and Britain… at 9pm Washington time, 6 December 1941, we received positive information that Japan would declare war against the United States at a time to be specified thereafter. This information was positive and unmistakable and was made available to Military Intelligence virtually at the moment of its decoding. Finally at 10:15am Washington time, 7 December 1941, we received positive information from Signal Intelligence Service, War Department, that the Japanese Declaration of War would be presented to the Secretary of State at 1 pm, Washington time that date; when it was 1pm in Washington, it would be day break in Hawaii and approximately midnight in the Philippines, which indicated a surprise air raid in Pearl Harbour in about three hours. President Roosevelt had ample time to broadcast a warning."

Criminal Negligence
An Army Enquiry conducted July to October 1944, condemned negligence by General Marshall and other senior officers for having prior knowledge of the attacks from the intercepts and for not having alerted the Military Commander at Pearl Harbour. Congress was not satisfied with the Military investigations and reports and from November 1945 to May 1946, the Congressional Pearl Harbour Investigation, a Minority Report by Senate Members of the Committee condemned the endeavour to "throw as soft a light as possible on Washington."

Attempted Cover-Ups
"The Roberts Commission Report was so hasty, inconclusive and incomplete. Some witnesses were examined under oath, others were not. Much testimony was not even recorded… several records were missing and most inadequate explanations were supplied… Army and Navy information indicated growing imminence of war was delivered to the highest authorities… including the President. The fatal error of Washington was to undertake a world campaign and world responsibilities without first making provision for the security of the United States, which was their prime constitutional obligation. High Washington authorities did not communicate to Admiral Kimmel and General Short adequate information of diplomatic negotiations and of intercepted diplomatic intelligence, which, if communicated with them, would have informed them of the imminent menace of a Japanese attack in time for them to fully alert and prepare the defence of Pearl Harbour… the failure to perform the responsibilities indispensably essential to the defence of Pearl Harbour rest upon Franklin D. Roosevelt, Henry L. Stimson, Frank Knox and George C. Marshall…" (Freedom Betrayed)

Dragging a Reluctant America into War
George Morgenstern in his book, Pearl Harbour: The Story of the Secret War, published in 1947, wrote: "With absolute knowledge of war, they refused to communicate that knowledge clearly, unequivocally and in time, to the people in the field, upon whom the blow would fall… Pearl Harbour provided the American War party with the means of escaping dependence on a hesitant Congress in taking a reluctant people into war… Pearl Harbour was the first action of the Acknowledged War and the last battle of a Secret War, upon which the administration had long since embarked.

The Secret War of Deception and Propaganda
"The Secret War was waged against nations which the leadership of this country had chosen as enemies’ months before they became formal enemies, by declaration of war. It was waged also by psychological means by propaganda and deception against the American people… the people were told that acts which were equivalent to war were intended to keep the nation out of war. Constitutional processes existed only to be circumvented. Until finally the war making power of Congress was reduced to the act of ratifying an accomplished fact."

Rejecting Every Overture for Peace
Herbert Hoover declares in his book Freedom Betrayed: "It can never be forgotten that three times during 1941, Japan made overtures for peace negotiation. America never made one unless a futile proposal to the Emperor the day before Pearl Harbour could be called peace. A peace could have been made in the Pacific that would have saved China from ravishment and would have protected the American Pacific flank. If Roosevelt was still determined to carry on his undeclared war with Germany, until it provoked reprisals, that Pacific protection was the only sane course. It would have limited our engagement in any case to the European theatre. As a result of this policy - an undeclared war upon Japan - we suffered the greatest military defeat in our history - with immeasurable consequences.

Fanning the Flames of Hate by a Mass of Lies
"Public opinion was overwhelmingly against our being involved in the war up to the day of Pearl Harbour… America came into World War One 33 months after its outbreak. She came into World War Two 27 months after it started. The processes and the months of lag were the same: the appeal to crusade for freedom, for independence of nations, for lasting peace; the same pictures of atrocities; the fanning of hate and above all, the mass of lies and stimulation of fear of invasion - they were identical. But in World War Two the people believed much less of it and they believed much more that they were being deliberately pushed into the war. They dimly recognised that they were being ground in the mills of power politics and the personal ambitions of men."

Stalin, Churchill and Roosevelt's War
"The First World War had been conducted in the Allied side in the name of 'the peoples'. This war was in the name of Stalin, Churchill and Roosevelt. At times the whole political and military scene seemed their personal property - as it was." (Herbert Hoover, Freedom Betrayed). “While they promise them liberty, they themselves are slaves of corruption …” 2 Peter 2:19

Many Recognised They Were Being Forced and Deceived into War
"In the first World War, our sons marched to war with flowers in their rifles. Bands and cheering people were on every platform. There were no bands, no flowers and no cheers on the railway platforms to World War Two. There was little singing of war ballades by soldiers or civilians, except at the urging of paid conductors of propaganda. The station platforms were stages for grieving and tears. The promises, the speeches, the propaganda filled the air as in World War One, but this time the people received it grimly and with little believing." - Herbert Hoover.

Double Standards
President Herbert Hoover in Freedom Betrayed documents: "Roosevelt's contemptuous refusal of Prime Minister Konoe's proposals for peace in the Pacific of September, 1941 was a lost opportunity. The acceptance of these proposals was prayerfully urged by both the American and British Ambassadors in Japan. The terms Konoye proposed would have accomplished every American purpose except possibly the return of Manchuria - and even this was thrown open to discussion. The cynic will recall that Roosevelt was willing to provoke a great war on his flank over this remote question and then gave Manchuria to Communist Russia."

The Threat of Communism
Herbert Hoover documents in Freedom Betrayed that American Military officials strongly urged FDR to accept the Three Months' Stand-Still Agreement offered by the Emperor of Japan in November 1941. Japan was alarmed at the threat of the Soviet Union and a 90-days delay could have kept war out of the Pacific. Secretary of War, Stimson, in his Diary, disclosed that Roosevelt and his officials were seeking for a method to stimulate an overt act of aggression from the Japanese.

Betraying Asia to Communism
"Then, Secretary of State, Hull, issued his foolish ultimatum and we were defeated at Pearl Harbour. By Roosevelt insisting that Chinese Premiere Chiang Kai-shek include Mao Tse-Tung's communists in a Coalition government and Roosevelt's Secret Agreement at Yalta to betray Mongolia and Manchuria to Russia, future generations were betrayed. All of China was sacrificed to the communists in the years of President Truman - at the insistence of his Left-wing advisors and General Marshall. The Second World War ended with 450 Million Asiatic peoples betrayed under communist dictatorship." (Freedom Betrayed). “It is an abomination for kings to commit wickedness, for a throne is established by righteousness.” Proverbs 16:12

The Only Beneficiary was Communism
Herbert Hoover in Freedom Betrayed declared: "I had warned the American people time and again against becoming involved. I stated repeatedly its only end would be to promote Communism over the earth; that we would impoverish the United States and the whole world. The situation of the world today is my vindication." “… Should help the wicked and love those who hate the Lord? Therefore the wrath of the Lord is upon you.”
2 Chronicles 19:2

Christian Resistance
"Despite these physical losses and these moral political disasters and these international follies… Despite the drift to collectivism, despite degeneration in government, despite the demagogic intellectuals, despite the corruption in our government and the moral corruptions of our people, we still hold to Christianity, we still have the old ingenuity in our scientific and industrial progress."

The Public-School Front
"We have 35 million children marching through our schools and 2.5 million in our institutions of higher learning…

Hope in the Homes
"The promise of a greater America abides in the millions of cottages throughout the land, where men and women are still resolute in freedom. In their hearts the spirit of America still lives. The boys and girls from those homes will someday throw off these disasters and frustrations and will re-create their America again." “Hate evil, love good; establish justice in the gates.” Amos 5:15

Forewarned is Forearmed
In order to anticipate problems and threats in the future we need to study the past.
“Those who cannot remember the past are condemned to repeat it.” George Santayana.
“If we do not know our own history, we will simply have to endure all the same mistakes, sacrifices and absurdities all over again.” Aleksandr Solzhenitsyn

Truth does not fear investigation
“You shall know the truth and the truth shall make you free.” John 8:32

Dr. Peter Hammond
Frontline Fellowship
P.O. Box 74, Newlands, 7725
Cape Town, South Africa
Tel: (021) 689-4480
Email: mission@frontline.org.za
www.ReformationSA.org
www.FrontlineMissionSA.org
www.HMSSchoolofChristianJournalism.org

To listen to a radio interview on this subject, click here.

See also:
Mitsuo Fuchida – From Pearl Harbour to Calvary
Were Atomic Bombs Necessary to End World War Two?
The Assassination of General George S. Patton

]]><![CDATA[DAVID LIVINGSTONE at VICTORIA FALLS]]>Sat, 15 Nov 2025 06:23:46 GMThttps://www.frontlinemissionsa.org/history/david-livingstone-at-victoria-falls

I could never forget my wife Lenora's birthday, 16 November, because it fell on the same day that Dr David Livingstone first sighted, measured, sketched and named Victoria Falls on the Zambezi river 16 November 1855. Back in 2013 we were camping on the banks of the Zambezi river, conducting the Livingstone 200 missions conference in the town of Livingstone, in Zambia.

ON THIS DAY in MISSIONARY HISTORY
DAVID LIVINGSTONE at VICTORIA FALLS
16 November 1855 – Scottish Missionary, Dr. David Livingstone, sighted, explored, measured and named Victoria Falls on the Zambezi River in Central Africa.
“The Smoke that Thunders”
Seeing enormous columns of spray and hearing a thunderous roar miles away, Missionary David Livingstone asked local people what was there? In response, he was told: “Mosi-oa-Tunya,” (“the smoke that thunders”). Some villagers described it as “Seongo” or “Chongwe,” which means, “the place of the rainbow.”
Fear and Superstition
When asked what caused the smoke and the thunder, he was told that this was the work of the spirits. Apparently, nobody had dared venture close enough to actually see what made the smoke thunder. Most were too afraid to go with Dr. Livingstone to explore it, so great was the hold of superstition and fear.
“A Scene so Lovely Angels Must have Gazed Upon It”
Borrowing a canoe, Dr. Livingstone travelled downstream and could clearly see: “the high columns of vapour which were called by the villagers, smoke. From a distance, it looked as though large tracts of grass were being burned.” As he drew closer, he could see “five distinct columns, bending in the direction of the wind. They seemed placed against a lower ridge covered with trees. The tops of the columns at this distance appeared to mingle with the clouds. They were white below and higher up became dark, so as to simulate smoke very closely. The whole scene was extremely beautiful; the banks and islands dotted over the river are adorned with sylvan vegetation of great variety of colour and thorn… no one can imagine the beauty of the view from anything witnessed in England. It had never been seen before by European eyes, but a scene so lovely must have been gazed upon by angels in their flight.”
Lush Rain Forest
“The Falls are bounded by three sides by ridges 300, or 400, feet in height, which are covered with forest, with the red soil appearing amongst the trees.”
The View from Livingstone Island
Dr. Livingstone beached his canoe on an island situated in the middle of the river, (today this is called Livingstone Island) and crawled to the edge to gaze at a most wondrous sight, as “on both sides, the water rolled off into deep gorges. In coming hither there was danger of being swept down by the streams which rushed along on each side of the river, but the river was now low… the vast body of water seemed to lose itself in the earth, the opposite lip of the fissure, into which it disappeared, was only 80 feet distant. Creeping with awe to the verge, I peered down into a large rent, which had been made from bank to bank of the broad Zambezi River and saw a stream of over 1,000 yards broad leap down hundreds of feet and then became suddenly compressed in a space of 15, or 20, yards wide.”

“The Most Wonderful Sight in Africa”
“The entire Falls are simply a crack made in hard basaltic rock from the right to the left bank of the Zambezi and then prolonged from the left bank by way through 30, or 40, miles of hills. If one imagines the Thames filled with low, tree-covered hills, immediately beyond the tunnel, extending as far as Graves End, the bed of black basaltic rock instead of London mud and a fissure made therein from one end of the tunnel, to the other, down through the keystones of the arch and prolonged from the left end of the tunnel through 30 miles of hills, the pathway being over 100 feet down from the bed of the river, instead of what it is, with the lips of the fissure from 80 to 100 feet apart, then fancy the Thames leaping bodily in the gulf and forced there to change its direction and flow from the right to the left bank and then rush boiling and roaring through the hills, you may have some idea of what takes place at this, the most wonderful sight I had witnessed in Africa.”
The Rainbow in the Cloud
“In looking down into the fissure, on the right of the island, one sees nothing but a dense white cloud, with two bright rainbows in it. From this cloud rushed up a great jet of vapour, exactly like steam and it mounted 200, or 300, feet high; there condensing it changed its hue to that of dark smoke and came back in a constant shower,” which saturated Livingstone to the skin.
Shimmering Sights of Steam, Steel and Snow
On the left of the island, he saw: “water at the bottom, a white rolling mass, moving away to the prolongation of the fissure, which branches off near the left bank of the river…. The walls of this giant crack are perpendicular and composed of one homogenous mass of rock. The edge of that side over which the waterfalls is worn off 2, or 3, feet and pieces have fallen away, so as to give it somewhat of a serrated appearance. That over which the water does not fall is quite straight, except at the left corner, where a rent appears and a piece seems inclined to fall off upon the whole; it is nearly in the state in which it was left at the period of its formation… on the left side of the island we had a good view of the massive water which causes one of the columns of vapour to ascend and it leaps quite clear of the rock and forms a thick unbroken fleece all the way to the bottom. Its whiteness gave the idea of snow, a sight I had not seen for many a day. As it broke into pieces of water, all rushing on in the same direction, each gave off several rays of foam, exactly like bits of steel being burned in oxygen gas gives off rays of sparks. A snow white sheet which seemed like myriads of small comets rushing on in one direction, each of which left behind its nucleus rays of foam.”
Measuring Victoria Falls
Ever the Scientist and Geographer, Livingstone now began to measure the Falls and to draw sketches of it. He let down a weighted string and measured the distance from the lip of Livingstone Island down to the bottom of the gorge at 310 feet deep. He then calculated that the width of Victoria Falls was 1,860 yards. He paced the distance between the first and the second gorge at 400 paces on the left side at 150 paces on the right. The accuracy of these initial measurements have been confirmed by later scientific measurements.
The Largest Waterfall in the World
Victoria Falls is classified as the largest waterfall in the world, with a combined width of 1,708 metres (5,604 feet) and a height of 108 meters (354 feet) on average. It results in the world’s largest sheet of falling water. Victoria Falls is roughly twice the height of North America’s Niagara Falls and over twice the width of Horse Shoe Falls. It is bigger than Argentina and Brazil’s Iguazu Falls. Victoria Falls has recorded up to 12,800 tonnes of water per second passing over the edge. Victoria Falls has been identified as one of the seven natural wonders of the world.
A Major Tourist Destination
Dr. Livingstone named it after Queen Victoria and it has been a major tourist destination ever since. By the end of the 1990s, almost 400,000 people were visiting Victoria Falls each year. Most of the tourists go to the Zambian side, because of the political instability in Zimbabwe. There are two national Game Reserves at Victoria Falls, Mosi-oa-Tunya National Park in Zambia and Victoria Falls National Park in Zimbabwe.
On his Zambezi expedition, Dr. Livingstone was accompanied by Victorian artist, Thomas Baines, whose colour paintings of Victoria Falls are famous. They also documented the tremendous concentration of wildlife in the area around Victoria Falls. Evidently, it was, for generations, a major wildlife sanctuary, as none of the local people dared venture near a place which the superstitious viewed with fear.
Victoria Falls Will Always Be Associated with David Livingstone
Some may question if David Livingstone was the first to see Victoria Falls. However, there is absolutely no question that he was the first to name it, measure it, sketch it and make it known to the world. There are major monuments to Dr. David Livingstone on both the Zambezi and Zimbabwean sides of Victoria Falls. On the Zambian side is situated the city of Livingstone, which has the Livingstone Museum and the David Livingstone Teacher Training College.
“Deep calls unto deep at the noise of Your waterfalls; all Your waves and billows have gone over me. The Lord will command His lovingkindness in the daytime and in the night His song shall be with me - A prayer to the God of my life.” Psalm 42:7

]]><![CDATA[Versailles - The Poisonous Spirit of Vengeance]]>Fri, 27 Jun 2025 22:00:00 GMThttps://www.frontlinemissionsa.org/history/versailles-the-poisonous-spirit-of-vengeanceVersailles - The Poisonous Spirit of Vengeance

By Dr. Peter Hammond

“Injustice, arrogance, displayed in the hour of triumph will never be forgotten or forgiven.”
– Lloyd George, 1919

“Those three all-powerful, all-ignorant men… sitting there carving continents with only a child to lead them.” – Arthur Balfour

German Victories on the Eastern and Southern Fronts
After defeating the Italians at Caporetto and the defeat of Romania and Russia, in early 1918, a million German soldiers had been released to join their comrades on the Western Front for the last great German offensive of the war.

Western Offensive
By April 1918, Ludendorff’s armies were back on the Marne River and Field Marshal Sir Douglas Haig was issuing his order: “With our backs to the wall… each of us must fight on to the end… Every position must be held to the last man: there must be no retirement.”

America Upsets the Balance of Power in Europe
In the end, the Americans proved decisive. By spring 1918,300,000 American soldiers were in France; by summer, 1,000,000. With fresh American soldiers moving into the front lines at 250,000 a month, German morale sank.

Peace Overtures
On October 5, 1918, Prince Max of Baden sounded out President Wilson on a peace based on the Fourteen Points he had laid out in January. Three days later, Wilson asked Prince Max if Germany would accept the points. On October 12, Prince Max gave assurances that his object in “entering into discussions would be only to agree upon practical details for the application” of the Fourteen Points to a treaty of peace.

Roadblocks to Peace
Wilson now began to add conditions: Safeguards must be provided to guarantee Allied “military supremacy” and a democratic and representative government must be established. The Kaiser had to go. Prince Max agreed. On 23 October, Wilson took the German offer to the Allies. The British and French, after four years of bloodletting that had cost them together two million dead and six million wounded, balked at Wilson’s mild terms. Under a threat from Colonel House of a separate peace, Prime Minister Lloyd George went along, with one reservation. Britain could not agree to the second of Wilson’s points: freedom of the seas. The Royal Navy must be free to do whatever they thought necessary to protect the empire.

Escalating Demands
France succeeded in inserting a claim to full compensation “for all damage done to the civilian population of the Allies and their property by Germany by land, by sea and from the air.”

The Crime of 11 November
Matthias Erzberger, the leader of the Catholic Centre Party who had urged fellow Germans to agree to an armistice, was given the thankless task of meeting Marshal Ferdinand Foch, the Allied Supreme Commander and signing the Armistice in a railway carriage in Compiègne Forest on November 11, 1918. Erzberger would be assassinated in the Black Forest, in 1921, for the “crime of November 11.”

A Call to Reject Vengeance and Greed
In Great Britain, a “khaki election” was called by the government to exploit the triumph of war’s end.
Lloyd George began his campaign November 12, one day after the Armistice, with a statesmanlike call for a magnanimous peace. “We must not allow any sense of revenge, any spirit of greed, any grasping desire to over-rule the fundamental principles of righteousness. Vigorous demands will be made to hector and bully the government in the endeavour to make them depart from the strict principles of right and to satisfy some base, sordid, squalid idea of vengeance and avarice. We must relentlessly set our faces against that.” "He has shown you, O man, what is good; and what does the Lord require of you but to do justly, to love mercy and to walk humbly with your God?" Micah 6:8

No Mercy
Arriving in Paris with a mandate for no mercy, Lloyd George found his resolve to impose a harsh peace more than matched by Georges Clemenceau, whose ravaged nation had lost 1.3 million of its sons. He had one great love - France; and one great hate - Germany. Clemenceau was determined to impose on “le Boche” a treaty that would cripple Germany. His fear and hatred were caught in a remark attributed to him: “There are twenty million Germans too many!” "Undiscerning, untrustworthy, unloving, unforgiving, unmerciful; who knowing the righteous judgement of God, that those who practise such things are deserving of death, not only do the same but also approve of those who practise them." Romans 1:31-32

A Terrible Treaty
“Democracy is more vindictive than cabinets,” Churchill had told the Parliament in 1901. “The wars of peoples will be more terrible than those of kings.” The peace the peoples demanded and got in 1919 would prove more savage, for, wrote one historian, “It was easier for despotic monarchs to forget their hatreds than for democratic statesmen or peoples.”

The Contrast of Vienna
At the Congress of Vienna in 1815, Napoleon’s foreign minister Talleyrand had sat with Castlereagh of England, Metternich of Austria, Alexander I of Russia and Frederick William III of Prussia, the coalition that had destroyed Napoleon’s empire, to create a new structure of peace.

The Contrast of Brest-Litovsk
At Brest-Litovsk in 1918, Germans and Russians had negotiated the terms, which gave self-determination and freedom to Finland, Latvia, Lithuania, Estonia, Georgia, Belarus and Ukraine. But, though Germany’s fate was to be decided at Versailles, no German had been invited, for the Allies had come to Paris to punish them as the "guilty nation" responsible for destroying the peace!

Reneging Upon Promises and Principles
“We have no quarrel with the German people. We have no feeling towards them but one of sympathy and friendship. It was not upon their impulse that their government acted in entering upon this war,” Wilson had said on April 2, 1917, as America entered the war.

A Savage Peace
When German representatives were summoned to Paris to receive the terms of the Allies, they were stunned at the amputations to be forced upon them. Eupen and Malmédy were to be taken from Germany and given to Belgium. Alsace and Lorraine were to be annexed by France. The Saar was placed under the League of Nations – de facto French control - and its coalmines given to France. The 650,000 Germans of the Saar were granted the right, in fifteen years, to vote on whether they wished to return to Germany. Should they so decide, Germany must then buy her mines back! In Schleswig, a plebiscite was to be held to divide the land with Denmark. The East Prussian port of Memel was seized by Lithuania. Only on the insistence of Lloyd George, who reportedly said he would no more transfer Upper Silesia to the Poles “than he would give a clock to a monkey,” was a plebiscite held in those lands that had been under German sovereignty for centuries. In the plebiscite, 60 percent of the people voted to stay with Germany, but five-sixths of the industrial area and almost all the mines were still ceded to Warsaw.

A Tragic Farce
A disgusted British observer, Sir Robert Donald, called the plebiscite a “tragic farce” and the stripping of Upper Silesia from Germany “robbery under arms.”

The Polish Corridor
The port city of Danzig, German for centuries, was declared a Free City and placed under League of Nations administration and Polish control. East Prussia was separated from Germany by a “Polish Corridor” that put a million Germans under Warsaw’s rule.

Robbery Under Arms
Versailles stripped from Germany one-tenth of her people and one-eighth of her territory. "Do not remove the ancient landmark, nor enter the fields of the fatherless." Proverbs 23:10

Wholesale Theft
Germany’s overseas empire, the third largest on Earth, was wholly confiscated. All private property of German citizens in German colonies was declared forfeit. Japan was awarded the German concession in Shantung and all German islands north of the Equator. The German islands south of the Equator went to New Zealand and Australia. Germany’s African colonies were divided among South Africa, Britain and France.

Double Standards
Germany’s rivers were internationalized, and she was forced to open her home markets to Allied imports but denied equal access to Allied markets.

Dismembered and Disarmed
Territories cut away, colonies gone, Germany was to have her limbs broken so she could never fight again. Germany was forbidden ever again to build armoured cars, tanks, heavy artillery, submarines, or an air force.

Defenceless
The High Seas Fleet was seized as war booty, as was the German merchant fleet. Her navy was to consist of six small battleships, six light cruisers, twelve destroyers and twelve torpedo boats. The General Staff was abolished, and the army restricted to one hundred thousand men. Germany was to remain forever vulnerable to her enemies.

Sickening Extortion
Goaded on by Lord Northcliffe’s newspapers, Lloyd George made good on his pledge that Germany be made to bear the full cost of the war – to include the pensions of Allied soldiers. But, Wilson’s public pledge of "no indemnities" had first to be circumvented. Someone else would have to persuade Wilson, for the president had come to detest Lloyd George. “Mr. Prime Minister, you make me sick!” the president blurted, after listening to another shift of position by the “Welsh witch”. "While they promise them liberty, they themselves are slaves of corruption." 2 Peter 2:19

A Vindictive Peace Which Guaranteed War
John Maynard Keynes, who was with the British delegation, would return home to write The Economic Consequences of the Peace, the book charging the Allied leaders with having crafted a savage and vindictive peace that must, by crushing Germany with debt, set the stage for a new war.

Reparation Scam
The British were behind this scheme to include pensions. For as the damage done to the British Isles by air or naval attack was minimal and the confiscation of Germany’s merchant ships had replaced British losses at sea, Britain was entitled to perhaps only 1 percent or 2 percent of reparations. If Germany could be made to pay the pensions of millions of British soldiers, however, Britain’s share of reparations could soar to more than 20 percent. Including pensions, however, would also triple the Reparations Bill for Germany.

Fraudulent Idealism
Lloyd George enlisted South Africa’s Jan Smuts, a lawyer one historian calls “the great operator of fraudulent idealism,” to persuade Wilson that forcing Germany to fund the pensions of Allied soldiers would not violate his pledge to limit reparations to civilian damage done in the war!

Illogical
An outraged U.S. delegation implored Wilson to veto the reparations bill, arguing that it did not follow logically from any of his Fourteen Points. “Logic, logic, I don’t give a damn about logic,” Wilson snarled. “I am going to include pensions.”

We Are Doing Hell's Dirtiest Work
Henry White, one of five members of the official U.S. delegation, reflected the dejection and disillusionment idealistic Americans felt: “We had such high hopes of this adventure; we believed God called us and now we are doing hell’s dirtiest work.”

Colossal Extortion of a Nation
In 1920, the Allies would set the final bill for reparations at thirty-two billion gold marks, an impossible sum. "For I, the Lord, love justice; I hate robbery and iniquity." Isaiah 61:8

The Myth of War Guilt
Under Article 231 of the treaty, the “war guilt clause,” Germany was forced to confess to and accept full responsibility for, causing the war and all the damage done! Under Article 227, the Kaiser was declared a war criminal to be arrested and prosecuted. Forcing the Germans to confess to an historic crime and agree to a lie – that they alone were to blame for the war – was as foolish as it was unjust.

Kaiser Wilhelm was Not a Warmonger
The Kaiser by 1914 had been in power twenty-five years yet he had never fought a war. In the two Moroccan crises, it was he who had backed down. Though he had given the Austrians support to act against Serbia, when the Austrian archduke was murdered by Serb terrorists on June 28, 1914, by the last days of July, no monarch in Europe was trying more desperately to arrest Europe’s plunge to war. "He who justifies the wicked and he who condemns the just, both of them alike are an abomination to the Lord." Proverbs 17:15

A Poisonous Effect
The effect on the German psyche of forcing the nation to confess to a crime Germans did not believe they had committed was poisonous: There is no better way to generate hatred than by forcing a person to sign a confession of guilt which he is sacredly convinced is untrue. The wanton humiliation, unprecedented up to that time in the annals of Christendom, created a thirst for justice.

Treacherous Treaty
“The forced admission of German war guilt in the Treaty of Versailles would have been a colossal political blunder even if it had been true: and it was not true,” adds British historian Russell Grenfell. Today, men do not appreciate what Versailles meant to the Germans, who, triumphant in the East, believed they had laid down their arms and accepted an Armistice and peace in the West based on Wilson’s Fourteen Points.

A Colossal Political Blunder
British Labour leader Sir Roy Denman offers this analogy: These terms are difficult to bring home to British readers. But, supposing that Britain had lost the U-boat war in 1917 and Germany had imposed an equivalent peace; it could have meant British recognition that its policy of encirclement (of Germany) had caused the war; confiscation of all British colonies and the British merchant fleet; Dover and Portsmouth occupied; the Royal Navy reduced to half a dozen destroyers; south-east England demilitarised; Liverpool a free port, with a corridor under German rule to Harwich; and crippling reparations. No post-war British government would have accepted this indefinitely.

The Starvation Blockade
Why did the Germans sign? Germany faced invasion and death by starvation if she refused. With her merchant ships and even Baltic fishing boats sequestered and the blockade still in force, Germany could not feed her people. When Berlin asked permission to buy 2.5 million tons of food, the request was denied.

A Violation of International Law
From November 11 through the peace conference, the blockade was maintained. Before going to war, America had denounced the British blockade as a violation of international law and human decency. It had kept the vital necessities of life out of neutral ports "if there were any chance the goods could be trans-shipped to Germany."

As Great Criminals As You Are
When America declared war, a U.S. admiral told Lord Balfour, “You will find that it will take us only two months to become as great criminals as you are.” U.S. war ships now supported the blockade. “Once lead this people into war,” Wilson had said in 1917, “and they’ll forget there ever was such a thing as tolerance.”

War Against Civilians
America had forgotten. The blockade was responsible for the deaths of tens of thousands of men, women and children after the Germans laid down their weapons and surrendered their warships. Its architect and chief advocate had been the First Lord of the Admiralty. His aim, said Churchill, was to “starve the whole population – men, women and children, old and young, wounded and sound – into submission.”

War in Peace
On March 3, 1919, four months after Germany accepted an Armistice and laid down her arms, Churchill rose exultant in the Commons to declare, “We are enforcing the Blockade with rigour and Germany is very near starvation!”

Worse than War
Five days later, the Daily News wrote, “The birth-rate in the great towns (of Germany) has changed places with the death rate. It is tolerably certain that more people have died among the civil population from the blockade than died on the battlefield.”

Callous Indifference
Even the entreaties of “brave little Belgium”, for whom the British had said they had gone to war, fell on deaf ears. Herbert Hoover, who would be credited with saving a starving Belgium, “spent as much time arguing with the British about getting food to the Belgians,” writes U.S. historian Thomas Fleming. The “poor little Belgium” of British propaganda meant little to the British admirals and bureaucrats. Churchill, who favoured letting the Belgians starve and blaming the Germans, called Hoover “a son of a bitch” for trying to deliver food to starving civilians.

Starving Women and Children
Americans “have been brought up not to kick a man in the stomach after we have licked him,” said Hoover. “We have not been fighting women and children and we are not beginning now.” Put in charge of all relief efforts, Hoover wanted to feed the starving Germans. Congress refused. In February 1919, Congress appropriated $100 million for food, but Germany was not to get a loaf of bread, nor a bowl of soup. "For I was hungry and you gave Me no food, I was thirsty and you gave Me no drink." Matthew 25:42

Death on the Rhine
So severe was the suffering that, on March 10, 1919, the British Commander on the Rhine publicly urged that food be sent to the population as the spectre of starving children was damaging the morale of his troops. General Sir Herbert Plumer’s letter was read to the Big Three in Paris: "Please inform the Prime Minister that, in my opinion, food must be sent into this area by the Allies without delay… The mortality amongst women, children and sick is most grave and sickness due to hunger is spreading. The attitude of the population is becoming one of despair and the people feel that an end by bullets is preferable to death by starvation."

Criminal Targeting of Children
His troops, said General Plumer, could no longer stand the sight of “hordes of skinny and bloated children pawing over the offal from British cantonments.” Pope Benedict XV’s plea for an end to the blockade was ignored. One visitor to Germany who witnessed it all wrote: "The starvation is done quietly and decently at home. And when death comes, it comes in the form of influenza, tuberculosis, heart failure, or one of the new and mysterious diseases caused by the war and carries off its exhausted victims. In Frankfurt, even as late as March 1920, the funerals never ceased all day."

A Bitter Legacy
In 1938, a British diplomat in Germany was asked repeatedly, “Why did England go on starving our women and children long after the Armistice?” “Freedom and Bread” would become a powerful slogan in the ascent to power of the new National Socialist Workers Party.

A Dark Chapter in History
Decades later, Hoover, a former president and senior statesman, was still decrying the post-Armistice Food Blockade of Germany as “a wicked thrust of Allied militarism and punishment” that constituted “a black chapter in human history.” “Nations can take philosophically the hardships of war. But, when they lay down their arms and surrender on assurances that they may have food for their women and children and then find that this worst instrument of attack on them is maintained - then hate never dies.”

Beasts They Are
On May 7, 1919, at Trianon Palace Hotel, Versailles, Clemenceau, Wilson beside him, handed the German representation the terms of peace: “The hour has struck for the weighty settlement of your account,” said Clemenceau. “You have asked for peace. We are ready to give you peace.”

Cold Blooded Starving of Non-Combatants After the Armistice
As the German Foreign Minister, Ulrich von Brockdorff-Rantzau, read his reply to Clemenceau, he refused to stand: "We can feel all the power of hate we must encounter in this assembly… It is demanded of us that we admit ourselves to be the only ones guilty of this war. Such a confession in my mouth would be a lie. We are far from declining any responsibility for this great world war… but we deny that Germany and its people were alone guilty. The hundreds of thousands of non-combatants who have perished since 11 November by reason of the Blockade were killed with cold blood after our adversaries had conquered and victory had been assured to them. Think of that when you speak of guilt and punishment."

Refusal to Listen to Reason
When he heard this bristling German defiance, “Clemenceau’s face turned magenta.” Lloyd George snapped the ivory paper knife he was holding and said, “It is hard to have to listen to that!” Wilson exploded. “What abominable manners… the Germans are really a stupid people!” “Isn’t it just like them?” he whispered to Lloyd George. Said Balfour, “Beasts they were and beasts they are.”

Amidst Communist Revolutions and Riots
Still, the Germans refused to sign. “What hand would not wither that binds itself and us in these fetters?” said Chancellor Philip Scheidemann. He resigned his office. But, with families starving, Bolshevik uprisings in Munich, Cologne, Berlin and Budapest, Trotsky’s Red Army driving into Europe, Czechs and Poles ready to strike from the east and Foch preparing to march on Berlin at the head of an American-British-French army, the German government capitulated.

Death Sentence of a Nation
Five years to the day after Gavrilo Princip shot the archduke and his wife in Sarajevo, German delegates signed what Wilson had promised his countrymen would be “peace without victory and without vanquished.” “A huge crowd and two German delegates led like felons into the room to sign their doom” was how an American observer in the Hall of Mirrors that day described it. “It was like the execution of a sentence.”

A Deafening Silence
The New York Times’s Charles Selden wrote, “The stillest three minutes ever lived through were those in which the German delegates signed the Peace Treaty today.”

Celebrating an Assassination
The same day, June 28, the government of the new “Czechoslovak Democracy” sent a wire to the leaders of Yugoslavia congratulating them on the anniversary of the Sarajevo murder of the archduke and his wife and expressing their hopes of “similar heroic deeds in the future.”

Disarmed, Divided and Disgraced
By forcing German democrats to sign the Treaty of Versailles, which disarmed, divided and disassembled the nation Bismarck had built, the Allies had discredited German republican democracy at its birth.

Protest at Scapa Flow
At Scapa Flow, naval base of the British Grand Fleet in the Orkneys, northeast of Scotland, where the German High Seas Fleet had been interned, Adm. Ludwig von Reuter, rather than surrender his warships, ordered them scuttled. With a signal from the flagship at noon on 19 June 1919, German sailors pulled the seacocks, sending ten battleships, nine armoured cruisers, eight heavy cruisers, fifty torpedo boats and one hundred submarines to the bottom.

Murder at Sea
As the unarmed German sailors fled in lifeboats, they were fired on by enraged British sailors.

Brutality
Not until July 12, 1919, a full 8 months after the Armistice, did the Allies fully lift the starvation Blockade.

Bold Resistance
When Admiral von Reuter returned to Wilhelmshaven in 1920, thousands of Germans thronged the docks to hail him as “the last hero” of the High Seas Fleet.

Not Beaten - Betrayed
The Germans felt utterly betrayed – and blamed America. “President Wilson is a hypocrite, and the Versailles Treaty is the vilest crime in history,” said the social democrat Scheidemann, who had brought down his government rather than sign. “If these are the peace terms, then America can go to hell,” said General Ludendorff.

Invalid
Men who believe in the rule of law believe in the sanctity of a contract. But, a contract in which one party is not allowed to be heard and is forced to sign at the point of a gun is invalid. Germany signed the Treaty of Versailles only when threatened that, should she refuse, the country would be invaded and her people further starved.

Destroying Europe
Though Napoleon’s foreign minister Talleyrand had been invited to Vienna to negotiate the peace of Europe, in 1915, no German had been invited to Paris to discuss the Versailles Treaty in 1919. Francesco Nitti, the prime minister of Italy when Versailles was signed, in his book The Wreck of Europe, expressed his disgust at the injustice.

Unjust
In the old canon law of the Church it was laid down that everyone must have a hearing, even the devil: Etiam diabolus audiatur (Even the devil has the right to be heard). But, the new democracy, which proposed to install the society of the nations, did not even obey the precepts which the dark Middle Ages held sacred on behalf of the accused.

A Scrap of Paper
From the hour of signature, the Germans never felt bound. Said Vorwarts, the unofficial voice of Berlin, “We must never forget it is only a scrap of paper. Treaties based on violence can keep their validity only so long as force exists. Do not lose hope. The resurrection day comes.”

British Gains
Lloyd George had wanted a peace that would enlarge the British Empire, satisfy the press, have the Jingoes cheering him in the House and eliminate Germany as a commercial rival and world power. He got it all: the High Seas Fleet, the Kaiser’s colonies, the German merchant marine and the promise of full reparations.

French Ambitions
France had lost 1,375,000 soldiers and millions more were wounded, maimed, or crippled. She demanded crippling compensations and terms of peace that would guarantee that Germans would never again be able to resist France. Clemenceau wanted to detach all German lands west of the Rhine and create a “Rhenish Rhineland,” a buffer state - and to occupy the east bank of the river with Allied troops for thirty years. Poincaré, a Lorrainer, wanted to annex all 10,000 square miles of the Rhineland, as did Foch. Annexing the Rhineland would have put five million Germans and much of Germany’s industrial might, under permanent French control. Wilson recoiled at so flagrant a violation of his principle of self-determination.

The Destruction of the Austrian Empire
After Germany mounted the scaffold came the turn of the Austro-Hungarian Empire. Under the treaties of St. Germaine and Trianon, that ancient empire was butchered, cut into pieces to be distributed to the nations that had supported the Allies. Northern provinces went to the new Poland. Czecho-Slovakia, which had emerged as a new nation in 1918 under Thomás Masaryk, was ceded rule over three and a half million Germans, three million Slovaks, one million Hungarians, 500,000 Ruthenes and 150,000 Poles. All resented in varying degrees being forced to live in a nation dominated by seven million Czechs.

A Dangerous Injustice
To coerce three million Germans to come under a Czech rule most of them despised was fiercely argued at Paris. On March 10, the chief of the field mission for the U.S. delegation, Archibald C. Coolidge, called it a grave mistake and “filed a memorandum in which he proposed a frontier almost the same as that established in 1938 after ‘Munich.’” Coolidge’s reasoning was as follows: "To grant to the Czechoslovaks all the territory they demand would not only be an injustice to millions of people unwilling to come under Czech rule, but would also be dangerous and perhaps fatal to the future of the new state. In Bohemia, the relations between the Czechs and the Germans have been growing steadily worse during the last three months. The hostility between them is now intense… The blood shed on March 3rd when Czech soldiers in several towns fired on German crowds… was shed in a manner that is not easily forgiven."

A Disastrous Decision
South Africa’s Jan Smuts also warned that the Czech lust for land, Hungarian as well as German, might bring disastrous results: “With some millions of Germans already included in Bohemia in the north, the further inclusion of some 400,000 or 500,000 Magyars in the south would be a very serious matter for the young state, besides the grave violation of the principles of nationality involved.” "To rob the needy of justice and to take what is right from the poor of My people, that widows may be their prey and that they may rob the fatherless." Isaiah 10:2

Benes Deceived the Allies at Paris
The Big Four did not heed Smuts and Coolidge. They listened instead to Eduard Benes, the Czech foreign minister. On the eve of Munich, 1938, Lloyd George would charge Bene’s with having deceived the Allies at Paris. "A false witness will not go unpunished and he who speaks lies will not escape." Proverbs 19:5

The Czech Coup
Why did the Czechs succeed at Paris at the expense of their neighbours? First, they had chosen the winning side. Second, their new territories would come at the expense of Germany, Austria and Hungary, who were to be punished and weakened. “No pity must be shown to Hungary,” said André Tardieu, the “Father of Trianon”, who chaired the committee dealing with the Austro-Hungarian Empire. The Czechs knew what they wanted and were resolute and ruthless in taking it. As Hungary and Austria were reeling in defeat in 1918, Czech troops moved into Slovakia. They then seized the Polish enclave of Teschen, “whose coal heated the foyers and powered the industry of Central Europe from Krakow to Vienna,” and occupied German Bohemia, which would come to be known as the Sudetenland. Clemenceau supported the Czech seizures. By the time Masaryk, Benes and the Allies were finished, they had created in the new Czechoslovakia the tenth most industrialized nation on earth, having stripped Austria and Hungary of 70 to 80 percent of their industry, from china and glass factories to sugar processors… to the breweries of Pilzen and the Skoda works producing world-class armaments, locomotives, autos and machinery. "You shall not covet your neighbour's house… or anything that belongs to your neighbour." Exodus 20:17

A Powderkeg that Would Incite New Wars
The new nation – one-half Czech, one-fourth German, with Slovaks and Hungarians constituting a fifth of its population – was bordered by four nations (Austria, Germany, Hungary and Poland) all of which bore deep grievances against her. “The Peace Conference”, writes David Andelman in A Shattered Peace, “had turned Czechoslovakia into a polyglot highway from Germany to the Balkans… with a fifth column in its midst.” "Getting treasures by a lying tongue is the fleeting fantasy of those who seek death." Proverbs 21:6

Austrians Betrayed
South Tyrol, to the bitterness of its two hundred thousand Austrian inhabitants, was turned over to Italy as war booty for switching sides and joining the Allies in 1915. Vienna, seat of one of the greatest empires of Christendom, became the capital of a tiny landlocked country of fewer than seven million.

Trianon Dismembers Hungary
Hungary was another “victim of every sort of prejudice, desire and ultimate diplomatic and political error of the powers gathered in Paris. It had no real advocate there…” By the Treaty of Trianon, signed June 4, 1920, Hungary was mutilated, the kingdom reduced from an imperial domain of 125,000 square miles to a landlocked nation of 36,000m². Transylvania and the two million Hungarians residing there went to Romania as a reward for joining the Allies. Slovakia was handed over to the Czechs. Other Hungarian lands went to the Kingdom of Serbs, Croats and Slovenes. “Hungary, which might have played a key role in Clemenceau’s cordon sanitaire,” writes Andelman, “instead became a victim on every side.”

Treachery at Trianon
The U.S. Congress refused to approve the Treaty of Trianon and in August 1920 signed a separate peace. Hungarians regarded the imposed peace of Trianon as a national crucifixion, the greatest national disaster since the Battle of Mohacs in 1526, which led to a century and a half of Ottoman Turkish occupation.

Empty Promises
On 1 February, 1918, Wilson had told the world: "There shall be no annexations, no contributions, no punitive damages. People are not to be handed about, from one sovereignty to another, by an international conference… Self-determination is not a mere phrase… Every territorial settlement involved in this war must be made in the interest and for the benefit, of the population concerned and not as part of any mere adjustment, or compromise of claims, amongst rival states."

Betrayal of Trust
What Wilson had promised the world and the nations that laid down their arms, would not happen, did happen, with his collusion. József Cardinal Mindszenty, primate of Hungary, looked back in his Memoirs upon the injustice done his nation and people at Paris. Benes and Masaryk showed fraudulent maps and false statistics to the other delegates at the conference… President Wilson had proclaimed the right of self-determination; but this principle was completely ignored when the Allies lopped off two thirds of Hungary. No one bothered to consult the people about their wishes. Of the eighteen million under Hungarian rule in 1910, ten million were taken away. Of the lost ten million, Cardinal Mindszenty estimated that more than three million were ethnically Hungarian. Hungarian bitterness at the Wilsonian peace was as deep as it was in Germany.

Denied their Right of Self Determination
At Paris, Germans, Austrians and Hungarians had no right of self-determination not subject to Allied veto. Germans were handed over to Denmark, Belgium, France, Italy, Czechoslovakia, Poland and Lithuania, without their consent. Plebiscites were granted to peoples who wished to break free of German rule. But, in Alsace, Lorraine, Danzig, the Polish Corridor, Memel, Bohemia and South Tyrol, Germans were denied any plebiscite, or voice, in choosing the nation to which they wished to belong. Three million Hungarians had been force-marched into new nations. By 1920, 885,000 were under Czech rule, 1.7 million under Romanian rule and 420,000 under Serb rule.

Artificial Countries that Could Not Last
The Little Entente of Romania, Czechoslovakia and Yugoslavia was created partly out of fear of a Hungary whose lands and peoples each had torn away. Though it was promoted by and allied with France, serious statesmen, like George Kennan, regarded it with scorn: "The Little Entente, on which the Czechs, with French encouragement, had tried to base their security, was an artificial, unwise arrangement founded in the quicksand’s of the vengeful, emotional and unrealistic spirit that dominated French policy in the years just after World War I."

Czechoslovakia
As for the newborn nations baptised at Paris, they were almost as multi-ethnic as the Habsburg Empire, but lacked her history, lineage and moral authority. Czechoslovakia was only half-Czech. Germans, Slovaks, Hungarians, Poles and Ukrainians had been handed over to Prague.

Yugoslavia
The Kingdom of Serbs, Croats and Slovenes contained Bosnian Muslims, Montenegrins, Hungarians and Bulgarians, the last forcibly transferred to the new kingdom by the Treaty of Neuilly.

The Polish Powder Keg
Poland was a polyglot nation. In a 1931 linguistic census, Poles formed only 68.9 per cent of the total population. Ukrainians with 13.9 per cent, Yiddish-speaking Jews with 8.7 per cent, Byelorussians with 3.1 per cent and Germans with 2.3 per cent made up nearly one-third of the whole. In specific areas, they constituted a dominant majority. "Woe to him who builds his house by unrighteousness and his chambers by injustice…" Jeremiah 22:13

Romania's Deal with the Allies
Like the Czechs, the Romanians would emerge as one of the great winners at Paris. Wedged between the Allies, Serbia and Czarist Russia and the Austro-Hungarian Empire, Romania began the war as a neutral. In August 1916, however, after receiving a secret offer of Transylvania and the Banat, to be taken from Hungary, Bucharest joined the Allies. Prime Minister Ian Bratianu, who had negotiated the secret treaty, had also been assured of Russian military aid, which never came. By year’s end, 1916, Austro-Hungarian and German armies occupied Bucharest. King Ferdinand, Queen Marie and the government had fled to the protection of the Russians in Bessarabia. Not until the final weeks of war did Romania re-join the struggle. Yet Bratianu and Queen Marie, a granddaughter of Victoria and first cousin of George V, arrived in Paris to demand full payment for having fought on the side of the Allies, though Bucharest had violated Article V of the 1916 treaty by concluding a separate peace.

Expanding at the Expense of its Neighbours
Between them, Bratianu and Queen Marie succeeded in doubling the size of Romania. They received Transylvania and the eastern Banat from Hungary, Bessarabia from Russia, northern Dobruja from Bulgaria and Bukovina from the dismantled Habsburg Empire. Western Banat went to the Kingdom of Serbs, Croats and Slovenes – a polyglot nation, 43% Serb, 23% Croat, 8.5% Slovene, 6% Bosnian Muslim, 5% Macedonian, 3.6% Albanian and the rest a mixture of Germans, Hungarians, Vlachs, Jews and Gypsies.

Planting the Seeds of a Second European War
It was that the men of Paris redrew the maps of Europe and planted the seeds of a second European war. The winners at Paris were the Czechs, Romanians, Poles and Serbs. The losers were the Austrians, Germans, Hungarians, Bulgarians and Russians. The Italians felt cheated of what they had been promised in the Treaty of London. The Poles felt they had been denied Teschen because of favouritism toward the Czechs. Thus was Europe divided between satiated powers and discontent powers determined to retrieve the lands and peoples that had been taken from them.

The Most Disastrous Treaties in History
With the treaties of Versailles, St. Germaine, Trianon and Neuilly, the Allies at Paris had made a chaotic mess of Europe. For America, they had stripped the Great War of any morality. When Wilson came home with a peace that denied the defeated their right of self-determination, made a mockery of his Fourteen Points, honoured the secret treaties he had denounced and enlarged the British, French, Italian and Japanese empires by a million square miles and tens of millions of subjects, Americans concluded that their 116,000 sons died for nothing.

Why Did America Interfere in Europe's War?
In The World Crisis, Churchill would express puzzlement as to why the Americans ever went to war. American historians will perhaps be somewhat lengthy in explaining to posterity why the United States entered the Great War on April 6, 1917. “There were plenty of reasons of high policy for (America) staying out in 1917 after waiting so long,” Churchill concluded. History has proven him right on that point. "You shall not follow a crowd to do evil; nor shall you testify in a dispute so as to turn aside after many to pervert justice." Exodus 23:2

Injustice and Arrogance of Versailles Guaranteed Another War
Lloyd George sensed the tragedy the Allies were setting in train, he retired to Fontainebleau on the last weekend of March and wrote one of the more prophetic documents of the century: "You may strip Germany of her colonies, reduce her armaments to a mere police force and her navy to that of a fifth rate power; all the same, in the end if she feels that she has been unjustly treated in the peace of 1919 she will find means of exacting retribution from her conquerors… Injustice, arrogance, displayed in the hour of triumph will never be forgotten or forgiven… I am, therefore strongly averse to transferring more Germans from German rule to the rule of some other nation than can possibly be helped. I cannot conceive any greater cause of future war than that the German people, who have certainly proved themselves one of the most vigorous and powerful races in the world, should be surrounded by a number of small states, many of them consisting of people who have never previously set up a stable government for themselves, but each of them containing large masses of Germans clamouring for reunion with their native land."

Ensuring War Not Peace
About the creation of a Polish Corridor, severing Germany in two, Lloyd George warned: "The proposal of the Polish commission that we should place 2,100,000 million Germans under the control of a people which is of a different religion and which has never proved its capacity for stable self-government throughout its history, must, in my judgment, lead sooner or later to a new war in the East of Europe."

Unifying the Germans in Opposition to Injustice
Rather than loosen the bonds Bismarck had forged among Germans, the peace of Versailles reinforced a spirit of nationhood. The treaty had defeated its own purpose, writes John Laughland, for it made the Germans victims of a great injustice. The debt itself, which obviously fell uniformly on the entire nation, also made the Germans feel solidarity with one another. They became united in their common protest. It made Bavarians and Saxons feel for the territorial losses of Prussia, whereas fifty years previously, such losses would have concerned only Prussians.

Betrayal
The reparations which the Germans had to pay to the French thus united them in common resentment. This was a fatal combination. At Paris the Allies had scourged Germany and dispossessed her of territory, industry, people, colonies, money – and honour by forcing her to sign the “War Guilt" Lie. But they had not killed her. She was alive, united, more populous and potentially powerful than France and her people were now possessed of a burning sense of betrayal.

Ganging Up on Germany
Novelist Anatole France had written, as he saw victory with America’s entry into the war, “Even if beaten, Germany will pride itself on having resisted the entire world; no other people will be so inebriated by their defeat.”

Versailles Lit the Fuse for World War Two
The treaty writers of Versailles wrote the last act of the Great War and the first act of the resurrection of Germany and the war of retribution. Even in this hour some men saw what was coming: Lloyd George in his Fontainebleau Memorandum; Keynes as he scribbled notes for his Economic Consequences of the Peace; Foch (“This is not peace, it is an armistice for twenty years”); and Smuts (“This Treaty breathes a poisonous spirit of revenge, which may yet scorch the fair face—not of a corner of France, but of Europe"). "Acquitting the guilty and condemning the innocent – the Lord detests them both." Proverbs 17:15

Versailles Threatened Civilisation
Secretary of State Lansing said of the peace he and President Wilson brought home: “The Versailles Treaty menaces the existence of civilization.” In Italy, the wounded war veteran and Fascist leader Benito Mussolini warned: “The dilemma is this: treaty revision or a new war.” Hans von Seeckt of the German General Staff agreed: “We must regain our power and as soon as we do, we will naturally take back everything we lost.”

Unjust and Unsustainable
Versailles had created not only an unjust, but an unsustainable, peace. Wedged between a brooding Bolshevik Russia and a humiliated Germany were six new nations: Finland, Estonia, Latvia, Lithuania, Poland and Czechoslovakia. The last two held five million Germans captive. Against each of the six, Russia or Germany held a grievance. Yet none could defend its independence against a resurrected Germany, or a revived Russia. Should Russia and Germany unite, no force on Earth could save the six states.

British Gains as the Expense of Germany
The British Empire came out of Paris the great beneficiary of the Great War. The Hohenzollern, Romanov, Habsburg and Ottoman empires had been crushed into ruins. The challenge of a Wilhelmine Germany that had surpassed British industrial production by 1914 was history. Germany was no longer a great power. The High Seas Fleet, the greatest threat to the Royal Navy since Trafalgar, had committed suicide at Scapa Flow. Britain had taken over Germany’s Atlantic cables and most of her merchant fleet to compensate for the loss of 40 percent of her own to U-boats. Germany’s islands in the South Pacific had been mandated to Australia and New Zealand. German South-West Africa had gone to South Africa. German East Africa (Tanganyika) had become a British mandate. The Cameroons and Togoland were divided between Britain and France. Mesopotamia and Palestine, taken from the Turks, had gone to Great Britain. Out of the war fought "to make the world safe for democracy", the British Empire had added 950,000 square miles and millions of subjects. Said Lord Curzon, “The British flag never flew over more powerful, or united, an empire than now; Britons never had better cause to look the world in the face; never did our voice count for more in the councils of the nations, or in determining the future destinies of mankind.” "A little that a righteous man has is better than the riches of many wicked." Psalm 37:16

The British Empire at its Zenith
After the treaties of Versailles and Sèvres had been imposed on the defeated Germans and Turks, a man could walk from Kuwait to Cairo, turn south and walk the length of Africa to Cape Town without leaving a British Dominion, colony, or protectorate. The dream of Cecil Rhodes, the Cape-to-Cairo railroad, could now be built without asking for transit rights from any power other than a fellow member of the British Imperial Conference. In 1921, Jan Smuts, now prime minister of South Africa, told his fellow prime ministers that the British Empire “emerged from the War quite the greatest power in the world and it is only un-wisdom or unsound policy that could rob her of that great position.” "He who passes by and meddles in a quarrel not his own, is like one who takes a dog by the ears." Proverbs 26:17

The Cost of the War
British gains, however, had not come without costs. The war had proven the disaster Norman Angell had predicted in his 1909 The Great Illusion. The total number of fatalities for the British Empire as a whole was 921,000: the originator of the Imperial War Graves Commission, Sir Fabian Ware, calculated that if the dead were to march abreast down Whitehall the parade past the Cenotaph would last three and a half days.

Irrecoverable Damage
The highest casualty rate had been among young British officers, striking home with all the leaders of Britain’s great parties. The Liberals’ Asquith, Labour’s Arthur Henderson and the Irish Nationalists’ John Redmond had each lost a son. The Unionists’ Bonar Law had lost two. British debt was fourteen times what it had been in 1914. While it appeared to the world that the British Empire had made out wonderfully well, Britain had sustained losses, tangible and intangible, from which she would never recover.

Shattered Honour
Charles Mee, whose grandfather lost all ten brothers in the war, wrote in his book on Versailles that not only had there been a collapse of the political order in Europe, but the war had discredited much of the rhetoric of national pride, honour and sacrifice, as well as faith in the notions of reason, progress, humanism. Nor did even the notions of God, representational art, or Newtonian physics appear to be in such good repair. The “modern” Western civilization that had grown up since the Reformation was under siege from outside and from within and offered scant support to the disintegrating political order.

The Greatest Catastrophe in the History of Civilisation
“A generation had been decimated on the battlefields of Europe”, Mee continued. “No one had seen the likes of such slaughter before: the deaths of soldiers per day of battle were 10 times greater than in the American Civil War,” heretofore the bloodiest conflict in the history of Christendom.

Erosion of Moral Authority
Then there was her loss of moral authority. How could British and Europeans, who had just concluded four years of butchering one another with abandon, assert a moral superiority that gave them the right to rule other people?

Respect for the West Devastated
With the Turks’ defeat of the British at Gallipoli, word had gone out to Asia and the Arab world that Europeans were not invincible. Awe of Western military prowess and power had been irreparably damaged in the eyes of subject peoples. The respect for Western invincibility had been destroyed. "Do not strive with a man without cause, if he has done you no harm." Proverbs 3:30

Seeds of Revolution
Also, Wilson’s sermons on “self-determination” and Lloyd George’s hymns to the “rights of small nations” had been heard beyond the German, Austro-Hungarian and Ottoman empires. The genie of nationalism was out of the bottle and Balfour had promised the Jews a homeland in Palestine. To defeat the Turks, T. E. Lawrence had stirred up the smouldering embers of Arab nationalism. Not one day passed that some popular leader did not arrive in the lobby of Wilson’s hotel to plead for independence for a province, or colony, he had never heard of. At Paris, British diplomat Harold Nicolson spoke of “that sense of a riot in a parrot house!”

Ignorance and Idealism Leads to Chaos
A “chastened Wilson” returned to tell Congress: “When I gave utterance to those words (that “all nations had a right to self-determination”) I said them without the knowledge that nationalities existed, which are coming to us day after day.” The right of all peoples to self-determination, to which the Allies paid homage at Paris, was an axe that would strike the roots of every Western empire. By the time Lloyd George returned to London, Ireland was in revolt and rebellions had broken out in Egypt, Iraq and India.

The Rise of America as a Superpower
While Germany had been diminished, a more formidable rival had arisen. World financial leadership had passed to a United States that had greatly profited from selling to the Allies while avoiding heavy combat until the summer of 1918. America had shown herself to be a mighty military power. From three hundred thousand men in arms in 1917, she had raised an army of four million and transported two million soldiers to France, where they had been decisive in the final results.

America Eclipses Britain as a Naval Power
Britain had ceased building warships in 1918. America had just begun. By 1921, the United States had become the first nation in a century to achieve naval parity with Great Britain. An epidemic of Anglophobia had broken out in America over the belief that the British Empire had gorged itself in a war where 116,000 Americans had made the supreme sacrifice to make the world safe for democracy

Disgust and Disillusionment
Disillusionment with the treaty Wilson brought home would deepen in the 1920s and 1930s, as all the Allied powers, save Finland, defaulted on their war debts and America fell deep into economic Depression. Perhaps the greatest loss Britain suffered was in her standing and credibility with the American people. After Versailles enlarged the British Empire by 950,000 square miles and as the Allies walked away from their war debts mocking Uncle Sam as “Uncle Shylock,” Americans came to believe they had been hoodwinked and swindled. They came to concur with British historian H.A.L. Fisher: Versailles had “draped the crudity of conquest… in the veil of morality.” "But,if you have bitter envy and self-seeking hearts, do not boast and lie against the truth." James 3:14

Inviting War
France and Britain got the peace they wanted. Twenty years later, they would get the war they had invited. The next time Britain rang for help, America would take her time answering the call. The Yanks would not be “coming over” until after France had been overrun and British troops fled the continent at Dunkirk. Americans’ bitterness over the belief they had been played for fools was something the British never understood: The British had cut the cables, the Lusitania had been carrying military contraband, the tales of German atrocities in Belgium had been lies, the British had sent “Black and Tans” to shoot down Irish patriots, we had been deceived by “lying British propaganda” into sending our boys into a war to pull Britain’s chestnuts out of the fire.”

The Frankenstein Monster of Bolshevism
Something new and ominous had come out of the war. The Russia of the Romanovs was gone. Atop the largest nation on earth sat a grisly gang of Bolshevik terrorists committed to world revolution and the destruction of all Western empires and nations. In March 1920, after a trip to Europe, Churchill, who had been almost alone in urging Allied intervention in Russia, wrote Lloyd George what one historian calls “one of the great prophetic documents of European history.”: “Peace with the German people, war on the Bolshevik tyranny” was Churchill’s message. “We may,” he wrote, “be within measurable distance of a universal collapse and anarchy across Europe and Asia. You ought to tell France that we will make a defensive alliance with her against Germany, if and only if, she entirely alters her treatment of Germany… Next you should send a great man to Berlin to help consolidate the anti-Spartacist anti-Ludendorff elements into a strong left-centre block. For this task you must have two levers: first, food and credit, which must be generously accorded in spite of our own difficulties (which otherwise will worsen); secondly, early revision of the Peace Treaty by a Conference to which New Germany shall be invited as an equal partner in the rebuilding of Europe."

Red Revolutions Fill the Vacuums in Central Europe
What alarmed Churchill was the prospect of civil war in Germany, leading to a dictatorship of Right or Left. Communist coups had briefly succeeded in Budapest and Bavaria and an attempt had been made by the Reds to seize power in Berlin. All had been suppressed by German Freikorps. There was fear that a man of the right like Gen. Erich Ludendorff might sweep aside the democratic regime that had arisen on the Kaiser’s abdication but been discredited in many German eyes by having submitted to the Allied diktat at Versailles.

Communist Threat to Europe
In March 1920, the Kapp putsch, to seize power in Berlin was blocked only by a general strike. Germany was now so prostrate she could no longer fulfil her ancient duty – to keep the Russians out of Europe. Yet Churchill recognized the danger of the regime of Lenin and Trotsky and, repeatedly urged Allied intervention to kill the viper in its crib. So far sighted was Churchill that his subsequent craven behaviour toward Stalin seems inexplicable and inexcusable.

A Ghastly Tragedy
“A Carthaginian Peace?” – This was “no reason why the world must be thrust into ruin.” It was Churchill who first branded Versailles a “Carthaginian peace,” laying responsibility for the vindictive treaty at the feet of Woodrow Wilson: "Making the world safe for Democracy! I wonder whether in this reactionary peace – the most reactionary since Scipio Africanus dealt with Carthage - Wilson still hears the mute appeal of the people to be saved from the coming war… What a ghastly tragedy this is." Carthage, torched and pillaged, its soldiers put to the sword, its women violated, its children sold into slavery, vanished from history. Was this the fate of Europe? "There is a way that seems right to a man, but its end is the way of death." Proverbs 14:12

Germany as the Liberators of Eastern Europe
To understand the German outrage, one must view Versailles through German eyes. As of 11 November, 1918, Germans did not see themselves as defeated. No Allied soldiers stood on German soil. “At the moment of the November 1918 ceasefire in the West,” writes German historian Andreas Hillgruber, Germany was victorious. In the east, maps of the military situation showed German troops in Finland… down through the area south of Kursk, to the Don east of Rostov. Germany had thus secured the Ukraine… In addition, German troops held the Crimea and were stationed in Transcaucasia. Germany had simply applied to that “prison house of nations,” the Russian Empire, the Wilsonian principle of self-determination, permitting its captive peoples to go free.

An Armistice on Conditions
Also, Germany had accepted an armistice on the basis of Wilson’s Fourteen Points, enunciated in his address to Congress January 8, 1918. The fourteen were amended to twenty-four by addresses to Congress, February 11, at Mount Vernon on July 4 and in New York City on September 27. These Twenty-four Points were to serve as the basis of the peace. So Wilson had pledged to the Germans. Under Points Seven and Eight, Germany was to depart Belgium and restore French rights in Alsace-Lorraine lost in 1871.

Secret Treaties
But, where Point 1 called for “open covenants, openly arrived at,” South Tyrol, Austrian for six hundred years, was given to Italy under a secret treaty with Britain in 1915 and all German islands in the North Pacific were given to Japan to comply with a secret treaty with Britain in 1917.

Freedom of the Seas Abandoned
Point 2, “absolute freedom of navigation upon the seas… in peace and war,” except for “international action” to enforce “international covenants,” was dropped by Wilson at the insistence of the British.

Double Standards
Point 3 called for “removal of all economic barriers and establishment of an equality of trade conditions among all nations.” But, Germany was denied the right to enter a customs union with Austria and forced to grant unrestricted Allied access to her markets, while being denied equal access to Allied markets.

Selective Application
Point 4 declared that “national armaments will be reduced to the lowest point consistent with domestic safety.” Germany was forced to disarm, but the Allies, while demobilizing their huge armies and reducing the size of their fleets, maintained enormous militaries. Hitler would use the Allied refusal to match German disarmament to justify German rearmament in 1935.

Wholesale Theft of Territories
Point 5 called for the “free, open-minded and absolutely impartial adjustment of all colonial claims.” This was trampled underfoot as the Allies scrambled to seize and confiscate every German colony as well as the private property of German citizens who lived there. "Better is a little with righteousness, than vast revenues without justice." Proverbs 16:8

Violation of Self Determination
Point 9 read, “A readjustment of the frontiers of Italy should be effected along clearly recognizable lines of nationality.” Yet, ceding South Tyrol all the way to the Brenner to Italy, to honour a secret treaty, made Wilson and the Americans appear to the Tyrolese and their Austrian kinsmen as liars and hypocrites.

Betraying Millions
Point 13 declared an “independent Polish state… should include the territories inhabited by indisputably Polish populations.” But, the Poland created at Paris held captive millions of Germans, Ukrainians and White Russians, ensuring conflict with Russia and Germany when those nations got back on their feet. "Destruction comes; they will seek peace, but there shall be none." Ezekiel 7:25

Failure and Fraud
Point 17, enunciated on February 11, 1918, amended on July 4, was the self-determination clause: “The settlement of every question, whether of territory, of sovereignty… (or) of political relationship, upon the basis of the free acceptance of that settlement by the people immediately concerned.” On February 11, a Joint Session of Congress had roared its approval as Wilson had declared the principle forever associated with his name: "National aspirations must be respected; peoples may now be dominated and governed only by their own consent. Self-determination is not a mere phrase. It is an imperative principle of action, which statesmen will henceforth ignore at their peril." Thus were sown the seeds of the greatest war in the history of mankind. "Let no one deceive you with empty words, for because of these things the wrath of God comes upon the sons of disobedience. Therefore do not be partakers with them." Ephesians 5:6-7

Criminal Violation of Every Point of the Armistice
Point 18 declared that “all well-defined national aspirations shall be accorded the utmost satisfaction… without introducing new… elements of discord and antagonism that would be likely in time to break the peace of Europe and consequently of the world.” Point 18 is a parody of what was done at Paris. There was scarcely a promise Wilson made to the Germans at the time of the Armistice that was not broken, or a principle of his that he did not violate. "The way of peace they have not known and there is no justice in their ways; they have made themselves crooked paths. Whoever takes that way shall not know peace." Isaiah 59:8

Dishonourable and Disastrous
The Senate never did a better day’s work than when it rejected the Treaty of Versailles and refused to enter a League of Nations where Americans soldiers would be required to give their lives enforcing the terms of so dishonourable and disastrous a peace.

The Burden of Versailles Doomed Europe
Lloyd George, who had realized all of Britain’s ambitions saw what was coming. He returned home triumphant, but grim, he said, “We shall have to do the whole thing over again in twenty five years… at three times the cost.”

Irreconcilable
The dilemma at Paris was that Allied goals were irreconcilable. No peace could meet Wilson’s ideals and Foch’s demands. Clemenceau had wanted a truncated, disarmed Germany, weighted down with reparations so heavy she could never rise again to challenge France. Wilson had wanted a peace of no victors, no vanquished. As U.S. historian Thomas Bailey wrote, “The victor can have vengeance, or he may have peace, but he cannot have both” from the same treaty. "A wrathful man stirs up strife…" Proverbs 15:18

Hitler Was Born at Versailles
At a London dinner party soon after Adolf Hitler had taken power in Berlin, one of the guests asked aloud, “By the way, where was Hitler born?” “At Versailles” was the instant reply of Lady Astor. Rising from obscurity to build a mass movement in a demoralized Germany, Hitler first drew public notice, then attracted ever-larger crowds, by delivering again and again a powerful speech he titled simply “The Treaty of Versailles.”

The Failure of Justice at Versailles and the Price of Vengeance
On April 8, 1945, Churchill, in a memo to the Foreign Office traced the origins of the unnecessary war back to Versailles – and Woodrow Wilson: "This war should never have come unless, under American and modernising pressure, we had driven the Habsburgs out of Austria and the Hohenzollerns out of Germany. By making these vacuums we gave the opening for the Hitlerite monster to crawl onto the vacant thrones. No doubt these views are very unfashionable. The men of Versailles had brought home the peace of vengeance the people wanted. Their children would pay the price for their having failed to bring home a peace of justice. That price would be 50 million dead in the war that would come out of the Hall of Mirrors in the Palace of Versailles."

"Do not be deceived, God's not mocked; for whatever a man sows, that he will also reap." Galatians 6:7

Sources
Churchill, Hitler and The Unnecessary War – How Britain Lost Its Empire and the West Lost the World, by Patrick J. Buchanan, Three Rivers Press, New York, 2008.
A History of the Modern World – From 1917 to the 1980s, by Paul Johnston, Weidenfeld & Nicolson, London, 1984.
Diplomacy, by Henry Kissinger – The Seminal Work on Foreign Policy and the Art of Diplomacy, Simon and Schuster Incorporated, New York, 1994.
Hall of Mirrors – One Moment of Time that Changed the Face of the Twentieth Century, by David Sinclair, Arrow Books, London, 2002.
Indictment – First Edition, by Dorothy Stuart-Russell, Omni Publications, USA, 1990
Lord Riddell's Intimate Diary of the Peace Conference and After – 1918-1923, by Lord Riddell, Victor Gollancz Ltd., London, 1933.
Peacemaking 1919, by Harold Nicolson, Methuen & Co. Ltd., 1964.
Some Memories of the Peace Conference, by Colonel R. H. Beadon, Lincoln Williams, London, 1933.
The End of Order – Versailles 1919, by Charles L. Mee, Jr., Elsevier-Dutton Publishing, New York, 1980.
The First Casualty – From the Crimea to Vietnam: The War Correspondent as Hero, Propagandist and Myth Maker, by Phillip Knightley, E. P. Dutton and Co., New York, 1976.
The Fourteen Points and The Treaty of Versailles – Oxford Pamphlets on World Affairs, by G. M. Gathorne-Hardy, Oxford University Press, London,
The Journal of Modern History – Volume 51, Number 1, The University of Chicago Press, 1979.
The Origins of the World War – Volume II, by Sidney B. Fay, The Free Press, USA, 1966.
The Peace Conference, by Dr. E. J. Dillon, Hutchinson, Surrey.
The Public Years – My Own Story, by Bernard M. Baruch, Holt, Rinehart and Winston, Canada, 1960.

]]><![CDATA[The Battle of waterloo]]>Tue, 17 Jun 2025 22:00:00 GMThttps://www.frontlinemissionsa.org/history/the-battle-of-waterloo

18 June will mark the anniversary of the decisive Battle of Waterloo. The British and German victory over the French at the Battle of Waterloo decisively ended the French Revolutionary and Napoleonic wars which had convulsed Europe for almost 25 years.

THE BATTLE OF WATERLOO
by Dr. Peter Hammond

Watershed
18 June will mark the anniversary of the decisive Battle of Waterloo. The British and German victory over the French at the Battle of Waterloo decisively ended the French
Revolutionary and Napoleonic wars which had convulsed Europe for almost 25 years. It ended the political and military career of Napoleon Bonaparte and ushered in almost a century of general peace throughout most of Europe. Waterloo was a victory of Christianity against Humanism. It was a great victory for God's Covenant Nations. It was a victory for Protestant Britain and Germany against Catholic France. It marked the beginning of the Greatest Century of Missions.

Decisive
Waterloo was the crowning triumph of the career of Arthur Wellesley, the First Duke of Wellington. The Duke of Wellington remarked that the battle had been "a damned serious business" and "the nearest run thing you ever saw in your life." On 18 July 1815, the Duke of Wellington, leading an Anglo-Dutch-German force fought to a standstill a confident and enthusiastic army led by Napoleon whose military performance had dazzled Europe. Napoleon Bonaparte was renowned as the greatest soldier of his age. Yet, he was decisively stopped and outmanoeuvred by the Iron Duke and his ally Field Marshall Gebhard Blücher, whose timely arrival at the close of the day sealed the victory and sent Napoleon and his forces fleeing for Paris.

Revolutionary Threat
The Battle of Waterloo was an epoch closing event, and one of the great watersheds of history. The disastrous Russian campaign of 1812, had signalled the decline of Napoleon and his Revolutionary French forces. Marshall Blücher's victory over Napoleon at the Battle of Leipzig, 1813, led to Napoleon Bonaparte's abdication and exile to the Island of Elba. However, he escaped back to France, February 1815, and with whirlwind energy reassembled his army. Paris workshops produced 1,200 uniforms and 12,000 cartridges a day. By June, 124,000 French soldiers were concentrated near the border of Netherlands, which at that time included Belgium.

Outnumbered
Few Allied armies could be mobilised in time to resist Napoleon's inevitable offensive. The Duke of Wellington arrived in Brussels, 4 April, to discover that his Anglo-Dutch forces consisted of a scant 33,000 men. Wellington exclaimed: "I have an infamous army, very weak and ill-equipped and a very inexperienced staff." Most of Wellington's experienced officers and men had been shipped across the Atlantic to fight the Americans in the War of 1812. German volunteers from Hanover and Brunswick and 6,000 men of the King's German Legion swelled Wellington's heterogeneous force to 68,000. Insufficient to be able to defeat the French forces, Wellington was dependent on the support of the Prussian (German) forces of Marshall Blücher.

Invasion
On 14 June, Napoleon's Order of the Day came to invade the Netherlands. "The moment has come to conquer or to perish," he declared. In brilliant sunshine, the Emperor's forces seized the frontier town of Charleroi, where he was supported by many French speaking Belgians, who were revolutionary sympathisers and quick to switch sides. Napoleon's plan was to march on to Brussels, severing the communication lines between Wellington's Anglo-Dutch-German forces and Blücher's Prussian army, defeating them separately.

Retreat
Napoleon's surprise offensive enjoyed early success, as he forced Wellington's forces at Quatre Bras, 32km South of Brussels, to withdraw before the overwhelming French attack. Eight 1 kilometres away the Prussian army at Ligny was also forced to retreat under furious artillery fire and an overwhelming concentration of French forces.

Making a Stand
On the afternoon of 17 June, the Duke of Wellington halted on a ridge that crossed the road to Brussels. Flanked by forests on both sides, it was a choke point through which Napoleon's forces would be funnelled. Napoleon had carefully selected the ground as an ideal defensive position in August the previous year. (At the time he had recommended the construction of a number of fortresses, which had not yet been built.) Wellington had chosen his battlefield well. His men occupied and fortified the Chateau of Hougoumont and the farm house of La Haie Sainte. The East-West ridge which became the central point of Wellington's defensive position, provided cover for his cavalry and troops on its Northern reverse slope.

Downpour
Providentially, intensive rain had saturated the soil, which forced Napoleon to delay his offensive on Sunday, 18 June, until noon, to enable the soil to dry out sufficiently. As it was, the mud dissipated much of the effect of his artillery and slowed down the French forces as their boots and hooves churned up the clay soil into a morass.

Teamwork
While Wellington had made the best use of his chosen ground, he knew that his forces were insufficient to resist an all-out attack by all the French forces available to Napoleon. It was on the basis of an assurance from Marshall Blücher that he would march to their relief, that Wellington made his courageous stand just South of Mont Saint Jean, close to the village of Waterloo.

Volunteer Veterans
At the Battle of Waterloo, the French had 69,000 including 48,000 infantry, 14,000 cavalry, 7,000 artillery with 260 guns. Most of Napoleon's men were veterans of at least one campaign and were almost all volunteers.

Inexperienced Conscripts
Wellington had 50,000 infantry, 11,000 cavalry, and 150 guns. Of these 25,000 were British, 6,000 from the King's German Legion, 17,000 Dutch and Belgian troops, 11,000 from Hanover, 6,000 from Brunswick and 3,000 from Nassau. Many of the troops of the Coalition Forces were inexperienced. (Most of the experienced troops who had served with Wellington before had been sent to North America.) 48,000 Prussians under Marshall Blücher arrived at the climax of the battle.

Hougoumont
Hours later than Napoleon had intended, the battle began at 11:30am on Sunday, 18 June. Most of Wellington's forces were sheltered from the artillery fire by being stationed on the reverse slope of the ridge. The initial attack by Napoleon was against the farm house of Hougoumont, guarding Wellington's right flank. Resolutely defended by the British Foot Guards and Hanovarian and Nassau soldiers, Hougoumont resisted all assaults by Napoleon's three main infantry corps who assailed it mercilessly throughout the day.

Mass Assault Repulsed
Having failed to divert any of Wellington's reserves into this diversionary flank attack, Napoleon sent in D'Erlon's infantry corps, supported by cavalry and the concentrated fire of over 260 cannon of the French artillery against Wellington's left centre. Two brigades of British heavy cavalry scattered the massed columns and sent them fleeing back down the slope.

Scotland Forever
One of the most heroic actions of a day filled with heroism was the charge of the Scots Greys as part of the Heavy Brigade. As they thundered down the slope on their magnificent grey chargers, yelling "Scotland Forever!" and slashing at their enemy left and right, they seized the Eagle banner of the French 45th Regiment, the so-called Invincibles, and scattered the massed French centre column attack. However, in their euphoria, the Scots Greys advanced too far and many were lost to the French counterattack with the Lancers.

Squares Defeat Cavalry
As Wellington ordered his infantry in the centre right to move to the reverse slope of the Northern ridge at 16h00, Marshall Ney ordered a cavalry assault in hope of chasing this apparent retreat into a rout. From the French perspective this was a disastrous move. Wellington had ordered a controlled and limited withdrawal and his infantry were able to form squares in good time to fight off every cavalry charge.

La Haie Sainte
Marshall Ney finally succeeded in capturing the farm house of La Haie Sainte only because the King's German Legion garrison had run out of ammunition. It was at this critical moment that the Prussian cavalry charged at Plancenoit and forced the redeployment of most of the Imperial Guard to confront the Prussian threat to their right flank.

Grouchy Fails to Defeat the Prussians
The 33,000 men Napoleon had detached under Marshall Grouchy to pursue the Prussians to ensure that they did not link up with Wellington's forces, failed in their mission. Despite Marshall Blücher having been injured by his horse falling on him during a cavalry charge at Ligny, the 73year old veteran had succeeded in reorganising his defeated and scattered men into a cohesive fighting force that out-marched Grouchy's pursuing French forces.

Triumph
In an extraordinary feat, Blücher led his army on a torturous forced march, along muddy roads, arriving at the Battle of Waterloo in time to save the day and crown Wellington's forces steadfast resistance with a most decisive victory. Together they crushed the French and relentlessly pursued them all the way to Paris. The Prussians nearly captured Napoleon himself.

The Ridge
At 19:30 Napoleon launched the final attack against Wellington's line on the ridge in what was to be the climactic point of the battle. Wellington had bolstered his centre by bringing in the Dutch and Belgian divisions. Nine battalions of the Imperial Guard attacked Wellington's centre, who were dangerously short of ammunition. The British Foot Guards of Maitland's Brigade faced the Imperial Guard and Wellington's voice rang out: "Now, Maitland! Now is your time!" The order rang out: "Up Guards! Make ready! Fire!" The Foot Guards gave a withering fire to the French formations who were unable to deploy into line.

They Will Not Stand
Wellington galloped to Sir John Colborne of the 52nd: "Go on, Colborne! Go on! They won't stand. Don't give them a chance to rally!" Wellington had gauged the mood of the French army precisely. At this point Colonel Colborne, commanding the 52 Light Infantry Battalion took his men out of the line in an audacious move wheeling them to their right, so they ended up parallel to the left flank of the French formation and delivered a final devastating blow, forcing the French to crumble and retreat. As the 52nd charged with bayonets, Napoleon's last army disintegrated in flight.

Counter Attack
As the Prussian forces emerged from the woods, to roll up the French right flank, Wellington ordered his men off the ridge into a general advance, which cleared the battlefield of all French units. The battle had been hanging in the balance before the arrival of Blücher's Prussian army. The German assault was decisive in crushing Napoleon's reserves and relentlessly pursuing the scattered French forces all the way to Paris, which they entered on 7 July.

Retreat
The French retreat turned into rout as coalition cavalry pursued them until 23:00. Napoleon's elite Young Guard failed to stem the Prussian advance and were annihilated. Napoleon's abandoned carriage was captured, still containing diamonds left behind in the rush to escape. These diamonds became part of King Frederick Wilhelm of Prussia's crown jewels. Over 2,000 French prisoners, including several generals and 78 artillery pieces were captured by the Germans before the end of that day, 18 June 1815. French casualties for the Battle of Waterloo totalled 41,000. Allied casualties, 24,000. The defeat of Waterloo ended Napoleon's rule as Emperor of the French and marked the end of his 100 days return from exile.

Victory
Around 22:00, the Duke of Wellington and Marshall Blücher met at La Belle Alliance, the farm house that had formed Napoleon's headquarters during the battle. Marshall Blücher and the Duke of Wellington saluted each other and warmly shook hands, congratulating one another on their stunning victory.

Abdication and Capture
Napoleon's political support withered away after the defeat at Waterloo and, on 24 June 1815, Napoleon announced his second abdication. Paris surrendered on 4 July 1815. Napoleon's attempt to escape to North America was thwarted by the Royal Navy blockade and he was forced to surrender to Captain Frederick Maitland of HMS Bellerophon on 15 July. The Treaty of Paris was signed 20 November 1815 and Louis XVIII was restored to the throne of France.

Surrender
Napoleon in his letter of surrender to the Prince Regent of England, wrote: "Royal Highness – exposed to the factions which divide my country, and to the enmity to the great powers of Europe, I have terminated my political career; and come like Themistocles to throw myself upon the hospitality of the British people. I claim from your Royal Highness the protection of the laws and throw myself upon the most powerful, the most constant, and the most generous, of my enemies."

Lions Mound
Today one can visit the Battlefield of Waterloo. 18km South of Brussels, it is dominated by the large monument, the Lion's Mound. The Lion's mound is a large conical artificial hill built as a symbol of the Allied victory over the French. The Mound is 43 metres high with a circumference of 520 metres and a volume of 390,000 m³. Victor Hugo mentions in his novel, Les Miserables, that on visiting that site two years after the completion of the Mound, the Duke of Wellington is said to have remarked: "They have altered my field of battle!" As much of the soil used to construct the artificial hill was taken from other parts of the battlefield, the topography has been seriously altered. However the Mound does offer a splendid view of the battlefield to those who ascend the 226 steps leading to the Lion statue and observation area. The Lion statue weighs 28 tonnes and is 4.5 metres in length. The Lion is the heraldic focus of the coat of arms of the Monarch of the Netherlands. The Mound was completed in 1826.

Grenadier Guards
Maitland's First Foot Guards, having defeated the Grenadiers, were awarded the title of Grenadier Guards and adopted bearskins in the style of the French Grenadiers that they had defeated.

Household Cavalry
Britain's Household Cavalry likewise adopted the Cuirass armour of the French cavalry that they had defeated at Waterloo.

Lancers
The effectiveness of the French Lancers led to the widespread adoption of their weapon
throughout Europe. The British converted their first light cavalry regiment to lances in 1816.

A Sepulchre for France
Victor Hugo in Les Miserables, wrote that: "At the battlefield of Waterloo there is no French tomb. The whole of that plain is a sepulchre for France."

A Legacy of Destruction
Although Napoleon is highly respected as a military commander, at least 6 million Europeans died in the 17 years of war that Napoleon had waged against the rest of Europe. When he went into exile, France was bankrupt and her overseas colonies were lost. The Napoleonic Wars set back Europe's economic life for at least a generation.

Duke of Wellington
Field Marshall Arthur Wellesley, the First Duke of Wellington (1769-1852), was a Protestant from Ireland who served as an Aide-De-Camp to two successive Lord Lieutenants of Ireland. He was also elected as a Member of Parliament in the Irish House of Commons. A Colonel by 1796, Wellesley saw action in the Netherlands and in India, served as Governor of Seringapatam and Mysore in 1799. As a Major General, he won a decisive victory at the Battle of Assaye in 1803. Wellesley rose to prominence as a General during the Peninsula campaign in Spain and Portugal during the Napoleonic Wars and was promoted to Field Marshall after his victory over the French at the Battle of Vitoria in 1813. Following Napoleon's exile in 1814, Wellesley served as British Ambassador to France and was granted a Dukedom. During the 100 Days War in 1815, he crowned his military career with the decisive defeat of Napoleon and the French forces at the Battle of Waterloo. The Duke of Wellington participated in 60 battles during his military career.

Courageous and Decisive
The Duke of Wellington's constant appearance at points of crisis did much for the morale of the troops. He hazarded himself as much as the most frontline soldier. The heavy casualties amongst his staff bear solemn testimony to the risks he ran on that day, and at other battles he fought. Wellington showed the rare ability to always be at the right place at the right time. It was his personal intervention which shored up the damaged and threatened centre after the fall of La Haie Sainte. It was his precise timing and order which initiated the destruction of the Imperial Guard at the climactic point of the battle.

Honoured Leader
Wellington adapted defensive styles of warfare where he minimised his own losses while
succeeding in defeating numerically superior forces. Many of his tactics and battle plans are still studied in military academies around the world. He was twice elected Prime Minister of Great Britain. He continued as one of the leading figures in the House of the Lords and remained Commander in Chief of the British Army until his death.

Compassionate Leader
Wellington was known to always rise early. He scorned creature comforts, and even after returning to civilian life, slept in a camp bed. He was described as a practical man who spoke concisely. It was rare that he expressed emotion. His physician reported that he broke down in tears the night after the Battle of Waterloo, unwilling to be congratulated for his victory, because of the high cost of the battle in terms of the loss of lives of his own forces. Wellington wept when he read the casualty returns: "I do not know what it is to lose a battle, but certainly nothing can be more painful than to gain one with the loss of so many of one's friends."

Truth and Valour
Wellington received a state funeral, 18 November 1852 and buried in St. Pauls Cathedral next to Lord Nelson. The bronze memorial sculptured for Wellington's memorial features Truth tearing the tongue out of falsehood and Valour trampling cowardice underfoot.

Dramatic Reversal of Fortunes
The Battle of Waterloo is one of the most famous battles in history. Waterloo has entered the dictionary as "a decisive or crushing defeat." The name itself conjures the most dramatic and decisive reversal of fortune possible. It would not be too much of an exaggeration to say that had this crucial battle been lost, today we could be speaking French.

"Now these things became our examples, to the intent that we should not lust after evil things as they also lusted. And do not become idolaters as were some of them… Now all these things happened to them as examples, and they were written for our admonition…"
1 Corinthians 10:6-7,11

]]>