God and Great Britain

GOD AND GREAT BRITAIN

Copyright 2000 by Emerson Thomas McMullen

From a sermon given 27 August 2000

Liberty Presbyterian Church, Sylvania, Georgia

Scripture Reading: Proverbs 11:11; Hymns: All Hail the Power of Jesus' Name, O God Our Help in Ages Past, and God of Our Fathers

This year is the 60th anniversary of momentous events that occurred in Europe. The time period of this sermon is the 60th anniversary of the Battle of Britain. Pictured at the right is a Battle for Britain commemorative medal. Hitler had conquered continental Europe and could have conquered England if God had not decided against it. That is another title for this talk: God controls history. But before I tell you the story of those events in 1940, let me give some background.

I view history as God letting mankind mess up, but within limits (Ex 21:13). Of course the reason we fight, kill, and have wars is that we are fallen creatures. To limit our destructive natures, God is working in our lives and among the nations. He has done so in the past, and will do so in the future.

Let us go back to the 1500's, after Martin Luther, a German Monk, got the Reformation going. Most of Northern Europe had become Protestant, including England. To Catholic leaders, it looked like the sure way to bring these countries back into the fold was by force. For that reason, King Philip of Spain had a large army in the Spanish Netherlands, subduing the Protestants in what is modern-day Holland.

The Armada

After Philip had successfully invaded and conquered Portugal, he decided that England was next. In 1588, He launched an invasion fleet from Lisbon that he called an "Invincible Armada."

The Spanish thought they would succeed if they could transport their army, which was combat hardened from the fighting in the Netherlands, across the Channel to England. After landing near the Downs, they planned to march on London, supported by the Spanish fleet going up the Thames River.

Could the English stop 23,000 veteran troops under the Duke of Parma, a commander who knew how to win? There were many disturbing reasons why they would not. In general the defenders were poorly trained, were badly positioned, did not have clear orders, and were outnumbered.

How determined and committed were soldiers and citizens to fighting for an aging queen with no acknowledged successor? There had been recent plots against Elizabeth and Protestant England, and there was a morale problem. Desertions among the raw troops in Dover were increasing as the Armada approached. There was also a financial problem: many troops sent to the Netherlands showed more love for money than for England. An example was the English garrison of Aalst, which turned the town over to Parma for a bribe of 45,000 ducats in 1584. Renegade Englishmen could be found both in Parma's army and on board the Armada.

When one added up all the factors, it looked like the English would lose to Parma - this was also the assessment of Sir Walter Raleigh. Therefore, the best line of action for England was to stop the invasion attempt at sea. In the Channel, the English had more ships and longer-range cannons. They also had Francis Drake, a motivated fighter committed to the Protestant cause who, like Parma, knew how to win.

The Duel of the Fleets

A running battle developed in the Channel as the Armada pressed toward the Netherlands. The key events are pictured in the map at the right. The Spanish fleet formed a tight defensive formation that the English hounded, but did not penetrate and could not stop. Long-range gunnery was inflicting mental anguish among the Spanish, but was proving physically ineffective. The shot was too light for the thick oak timbers of the Spanish galleons. In a week the Armada achieved its first objective, the Netherlands coast, and anchored off Calais in order to take on Parma's army.

The English then decided to attack the anchored fleet with eight fairly large fire ships. They sent these ships, favored by a strong wind and a midnight tide, toward the Spanish fleet. Some Spanish captains kept cool, but others panicked because they thought the fire ships were loaded with gunpowder and would blow up in their midst. They cut lose their anchors and ran for it. The swift current and rising gale winds from the southwest scattered the bulk of the fleet into the North Sea.

This broke the Spanish formation. During the next day, the English fleet attacked whomever it could in the disorganized Armada and inflicted some damage. This was the Battle of Gravelines, which is identified on the map.

Yet the Spanish Admiral, Medina Sidonia, was able to rally the remnants of his fleet and organize the defensive formation again. From then on, the winds carried the Spanish ships north with the English following. Sidonia sailed around Scotland to get home, while the English ships returned by way of the North Sea. On the long trip home, unseasonable weather and the rocks and reefs of Ireland destroyed more of the Armada than the English fleet ever did.

And the Winner is

The English claimed that God had given them the victory. This victory was not the result of chance, but by divine intervention. Of course the English fleet contributed to the victory, but Drake set the pattern by saying that "the winds of God blew." That sentiment is reflected in the motto "He blew and they were scattered" and in the legends struck on the Queen's Armada medallions: one is "God breathed and they were scattered." The one shown at the right depicts Spanish ships sinking, and reads in part "You God are great and do great things." Still another motto is "God blew with His winds and they were scattered." Captured Spanish banners were displayed in St. Paul's churchyard at Sermon time. The people filled the churches daily to hear sermons that "remembered the great goodness of God towards England."

Hitler

Let us now come up to the 1900's. Adolph Hitler had come to power principally because of the Great Depression. Germany had suffered economically more than any other industrial nation and looked to Hitler for its answers. Another factor was that many Germans had bought into the idea of evolution and believed they were the master race. Hitler believed this too, and made the Jewish people scapegoats for Germany's troubles.

But Hitler had plans for Christians also. The Nazis were going to create a National Reich Church. Among other things, they planned to replace the Bible with Mein Kampf, and the Cross with a Swastika, which they thought was "the only unconquerable symbol.>The German people were now a long way from their Reformation heritage. This is one example that the scripture reading applies to - how a minority can bring ruin to a society. It is a warning of what could happen to us. In Germany people preferred a good economy over good character. The same thing is happening to America today. We seem to think that a robust economy is more important than leaders with character.

Going back to Britain, it too was led by a Prime Minister with little character, Neville Chamberlain. He had been following a policy of appeasement toward Hitler's aggression. Winston Churchill denounced this, saying "They had a choice between war and dishonor. They chose dishonor. They shall have war!" In September of 1939, Germany and the Soviet Union invaded and then divided up Poland. Britain and its allies declared war on Germany.

In April of 1940, German armed forces invaded Denmark and Norway, and then turned south. On the 10th of May, Germany invaded France, Belgium, Luxembourg, and the Netherlands. On that day, Chamberlain resigned, and Churchill became Prime Minister.

On the 15th of May, Holland surrendered as the allies could not stand against the German Blitzkrieg.

Rosier

Up to this point, I have been telling you about the macrocosm, giving you the big picture. To show you a microcosm, a little picture of what was going on, I am going to include the story of Fred Rosier, whose picture is on the right. He was a Royal Air Force pilot, trained in night patrolling. On the 16th of May, the day after Holland fell, his squadron was ordered to France to fight in the daytime. It sounds like a blunder, or desperation, but even if they had been trained to fight during the day, the daytime tactics of the RAF were antiquated.

When Rosier's squadron arrived in France, he found there was no place for them to stay and that the commander seemed to be incapable. They had no intelligence, no idea what was going on, and were poorly organized. The next day, he flew six patrols. When they did encounter German fighters, they were outnumbered. He was shot up and forced to land at a French airfield. There he found that the French morale was down - they had a defeatist attitude. The French pilots were not flying even though they had brand new American airplanes. By comparison, Rosier was flyingan older Hurricane that did not have armor protection or self-sealing fuel tanks. Nevertheless, he did make it back to his home field.

May 18th was another big air battle in which the Germans outnumbered the Brits. Rosier was closing in on an Me 109, when another one got on his tail and shot him down. The plane caught fire and he could not get his canopy open. At this point I think God saved Rosier from going down in a burning plane. The next thing that Rosier remembered was falling free from the Hurricane and pulling his ripcord. After that, the next thing he remembered was being on the ground, badly burned with some of his flesh pealing away. He was evacuated him to England where he was hospitalized for many months.

Defeatism

Let us return to the big picture. The morale of the leaders of the free world was like that of the French pilots Rosier encountered. They had a defeatist attitude. The Anglo-French army was being pushed toward the coastal town of Dunkirk. It looked like the loss of the British army in France would leave England helpless against an invasion. Foreign Secretary Lord Halifax and others started talking about attempting to bribe Hitler or cut a deal with him. David Lloyd George, a former Prime Minister and a member of Parliament, thought England had no chance of winning the war. He admired Hitler and called him the greatest living German. An informal poll of British housewives showed that the younger ones would welcome Hitler. They thought that it could not be any worse, and at least they would have their husbands back.

Franklin Roosevelt fretted that the British leaders would give up their big fleet in return for concessions. But he was so intimidated by what was going on that he turned back a shipload of Jewish refugees. His Ambassador to England, Joseph Kennedy, was anti-Semitic, hated Churchill, and said Britain had no chance against Germany.

A National Day of Prayer

Fortunately, Britain was not as far removed from its Reformation heritage as was Germany. A national day of prayer had been suggested earlier by churches in England, but the Archbishop of Canterbury, the head of the Church of England, opposed it, saying he did not want it mis-interpreted, whatever that meant. On May the 23th, with half a million allied soldiers trapped at Dunkirk and expecting capture or death, newspaper editors, political leaders and King George V called for a Day of prayer on the 26th. You can see how demoralized the troops at Dunkirk were from the picture. But all that changed. Hitler ordered his armies to stop. There are many theories as to why he did this, but I say God was behind it.

On the 26th of May Britain prayed. Church attendance soared. Westminster Abby had a large attendance. But Neville Chamberlain wrote in his diary that the National Day of prayer was the blackest day of all. That evening an order was issued to save as many men at Dunkirk as possible. You know the story - naval ships, tug boats, luxury yachts, oyster smacks, life boats, paddle steamers, barges, dredges, ferries, and even the Thames fire boat made the trip repeatedly until more than 336,000 were evacuated. You can see on the Armada map where Dunkirk is. All the while Hitler held back his armies for nine critical days.

It was a miracle. God rescued these men, like He did Rosier, not because they were so Holy and Righteous, or that they were all sterling Christians, but so they could live again and fight another day. The army would fight again in North Africa, and then in Europe, finally invading Germany in a stunning reversal of roles.

For Rosier, who was told he would never fly again, the day that did fight again was during last part of the Battle of Britain, where God used the Royal Air Force and Hitler's mistakes to insure that England would not be invaded. God is in the details too. There were many little things, one example is high-octane aviation gasoline from America, which the Europeans had not yet developed. With it, the Spitfires could perform better, especially at high altitude, an important factor in the Battle of Britain.

The result was just as in the days of the Armada, in which God used the Royal Navy and the weather to stop an invasion. At the right is a picture of a book about the Battle of Britain. I saw this for sale on the Internet. They wanted more than $2,000.00 for it. It is autographed by 42 Battle of Britain pilots, including Rosier. Rosier is a very private man, but about five or six years ago he agreed to do a taped interview for the Imperial War Museum. His daughter heard the tapes after his death. As she listened to them, God showed her that, if He had not saved his life, she would not have been born. She is now a Christian, as is her husband, and her three sons.

Concerning the Battle of Britain, Churchill said never had so many owed so much to so few. But it was God Who rescued the men at Dunkirk and Who gave them victory in battle and eventually the war. That is the bottom line for us. God is in charge. He often lets us make mistakes, but He never lets things get out of hand. He handles each individual's situation, as we saw with Rosier's example, and He controls a nation's destiny, as we saw with England's example. That should be a tremendous comfort to each of us.

It certainly is for me.

Acknowledgments

The picture of the Hurricane is courtesy of Stan Stokes, Rosier's picture is courtesy of Elizabeth Rosier Carver, and the Armada map and medallion are from B. Walker, The Armada (Alexandria, VA: Time-Life Books, 1981).