Matthew 24:14

In commemoration of the Spanish defeat, Queen Elizabeth I — aware of the real source of the victory — ordered the striking of a silver commemorative medal, bearing the inscription: "God blew, and they were scattered." Also, in a song of thanksgiving composed shortly after the Armada's defeat, Elizabeth declared: "He made the winds and waters rise, To scatter all mine enemies. . ."

•      Napoleon's dramatic victory over the combined armies of Russia and Austria at Austerlitz on December 2, 1805, established his dominance over the European continent. But his victory cannot be attributed solely to his tactical brilliance.

December 2 began with thick fog and mist. The Russians and Austrians could have wished for nothing better. Under its cover, they hoped, the Austro-Russian armies would be able to complete their maneuvers without the French seeing what they were doing.

"But suddenly," as one historian describes it, "the sun with uncommon brightness came through the mist, the sun of Austerlitz. It was in this blazing sun that Napoleon at once sent a huge cavalry force under Marshal Soult into the gap left between the center and the left of the Austro-Russian battlefield." This was the break Napoleon needed. His victory was sealed.

Napoleon became the master of Europe, sweeping away the decadent and largely ceremonial medieval Holy Roman Empire and establishing in its place a "revived" version — a short-lived Roman-European civilization dominated by France.

•      The crucial battle of Hastings on October 14, 1066 — in which the English succumbed to the Norman French under William the Conqueror — has been described as "one of those battles which at rare intervals have decided the fate of nations."

In the late afternoon Harold — last of the Anglo-Saxon kings and commander of the English army — was killed in battle shortly after being struck in the right eye by a chance Norman arrow shot into the air at random. As evening neared, the news of his death spread throughout the English ranks. Leaderless and demoralized, the English were unable to rally and reform, and they fled the field of battle. The Norman conquest of England was assured, laying the foundation for the emergence of a united England as a major world power.

•      Napoleon's attempted comeback from exile was foiled at Waterloo in 1815 by a combined British-Prussian army under the Duke of Wellington and General Gebhard von Bliicher. Napoleon's defeat, however, was due in part to a timely pouring rain.

M. A. Arnault and C. L. F. Panckoucke, in their Life and Campaigns of Napoleon Bonaparte, observe: "The night of the 17th [of June 1815] was dreadful, and seemed to presage the calamities of the day. The violent and incessant rain did not allow a moment's rest to the [French] army. The bad state of the roads hindered the arrival of provisions, and most of the soldiers were without food."

At dawn on the 18th, the rain was still coming down. The weather cleared somewhat by 8 o'clock, but the mud forced Napoleon to postpone his attack lest his cavalry and artillery become bogged down. By the time Napoleon ordered the attack at 11:30, some drying had taken place, but the condition of the ground nevertheless favored the troops on the defensive, namely the British and Prussians.

French author Victor Hugo (1802-1885) observed that "the shadow of a mighty right hand is cast over Waterloo; it is the day of destiny, and the force which is above man produced that day." Further elaborating on the source of the French defeat, he asserted: "If it had not rained the night between the 17th and 18th of June, the future of Europe would have been changed. . . Providence required only a little rain, and a cloud crossing the sky at a season when rain was not expected. That was sufficient to overthrow an empire. . . ."

AUSTERLITZ — 1805

WATERLOO — 1805

•      During the spectacular evacuation of over 300,000 British troops from Dunkirk (May 26-June 3, 1940), the waters of the English Channel were unusually smooth, calm, and placid. This permitted even the tiniest boats to go back and forth between Britain and France in safety on their emergency rescue runs. Many seamen knowledgeable of the Channel remarked at the strangeness of the calm at that critical time. Furthermore, bad weather to the east grounded the German Luftwaffe during part of the evacuation, permitting the British to get away in total safety until the Germans were once again able to get their planes airborne. Little wonder the episode has commonly come to be called "the Miracle of Dunkirk."

•      The Allied landing on the beaches of Normandy on D-Day (June 6, 1944) is still another example. June 5 — the day originally chosen for Operation OVERLORD (the code name for the invasion) — was a weatherman's nightmare. General Eisenhower wrote that on the morning of that day his camp near Portsmouth in southern England was "shaking and shuddering under a wind of almost hurricane violence, and the rain traveled in horizontal streaks." Continued high winds and stormy seas were predicted — the best allies Hitler could have. For Eisenhower to have mounted his offensive under those conditions would have spelled disaster.

Then, suddenly, the weather experts predicted a lull in the storm — a short one, to be sure, but long enough to permit a Channel crossing. So General Eisenhower made his "final and irrevocable decision" to proceed with the invasion early the next morning — Tuesday, June 6.

Shielded by low clouds, the invasion fleet took the Germans by surprise. Furthermore, because of the storm, the German coastal guards had relaxed their vigilance. The weather, in all respects, had allied itself with the Allies!

Reminiscing about the critical period just prior to the D-Day invasion, General Eisenhower noted years later: "If there were nothing else in my life to prove the existence of an almighty and merciful God, the events of the next 24 hours did it. . . The greatest break in a terrible outlay of weather occurred the next day and allowed that great invasion to proceed, with losses far below those we had anticipated" (Time, June 16, 1952).

• The Battle of Tours, fought in central France in October, A.D. 732, was described by nineteenth-century German historian Leopold von Ranke as "one of the most important epochs in the history of the world." The great victory of Charles Martel and the Franks over the invading Saracens halted forever Moslem expansion into Europe.

The turning point in the fierce day-long battle came when a false rumor of unknown origin spread through the Moslem ranks just as the Moslem cavalry was finally beginning to break through the close-knit ranks of Frankish infantry.

The unfounded rumor was that some of the Franks were plundering the Moslem camp, where much spoil was stored in the tents. Fearful of losing their valuable booty, several squadrons of Moslem horsemen galloped off to protect it. Their fellow Moslems, however, thought the horsemen were fleeing from the Franks, and the whole Moslem host fell into confusion. As Abder-Rahman, the Saracen leader, strove to lead his men back into battle, the Franks succeeded in surrounding and spearing him to death. Leaderless, the Moslem host fled in defeat.

The fate of Europe hung on that day. Had an unknown Moslem warrior not been struck by a false and unfounded notion, the future of all Europe might have taken a radically different path.

Space does not permit the recounting of similarly unusual circumstances at many other critical junctures in history. But the hand of God is clearly in evidence in world affairs through the centuries.

DUNKIRK — 1940

NORMANDY — 1944