France Lasts Less than a Week
Mr. Churchill was dumbfounded to see the avalanche of the Nazi armour score a signal victory against the British, French and Belgian forces on May 14 — just a few days after he became Prime Minister. At half past seven he was awakened by a telephone call from the new French Premier, Paul Reynaud, who excitedly told him: "We have been defeated! We are beaten!"
Churchill refused to believe it! What! The great French army vanquished on the fifth day of the battle? Impossible!
Churchill later wrote, "I did not comprehend the violence of the revolution effected since the last war by the incursion of a mass of fast-moving armour."
The success of Hitler's blitzkrieg panzer divisions surprised even Hitler himself. His forces kept rolling through France, Belgium and Holland with such speed that the Belgians, the French troops and the British Expeditionary Force were in deadly peril of being trapped and utterly annihilated. The Allied armies in the north of France were, by the 24th May, compressed into a small triangle — with seemingly no hope of breaking out.
It was at this juncture that the German armour, now within sight of Dunkirk and poised for the final kill, received a strange and — to the soldiers in the field — inexplicable order to halt their advance.
Hitler had ordered General Von Rundstedt and General Guderian to halt their advance on Dunkirk. His orders: "Dunkirk is to be left to the Luftwaffe" — Germany's air force (Guderian, The Panzer Leader, p. 439).
In utter consternation, the German Chiefs of Staff stood idle.
Some in the German army wept. Here was complete victory within their grasp! They knew they had the power to annihilate every last Allied soldier. But still, the insane command of Der Fuehrer must be obeyed. Thus the powerful German army which had encircled Dunkirk was hand-tied — under strict orders from Hitler not to crush the Allied army as it departed from the beaches of Dunkirk for England.
Churchill's prayers had been answered!
The "Sitting Ducks" Escape
Thus over 335,000 allied soldiers — a third of a million — were permitted to escape while the might and fury of the Nazi army was miraculously restrained.
Mere "sitting ducks," sheep for the slaughter, totally incapable of saving themselves — GOD intervened to save them. God determined the outcome of World War II so that the true Gospel of the Kingdom of God could now be preached (Matt. 24:14) and published (Mark 13:10) in all the world — as a final witness. And then will come the close of this era of man's misgovernment in a nuclear holocaust.
Not only did God cause Hitler to listen to the foolish advice of his Air Chief, Goering — so the Allied army would be saved — but He also sent just exactly the right weather needed to get this army safely back from Dunkirk to Churchill's England.
At Dunkirk, "God withheld the wind." The English Channel became very calm. So calm in fact that even tiny little boats were able to make this journey safely. Then cloudy, foggy weather set in, a divine "smoke screen." Millions at the time, and since, have realized that there was something miraculous about the events at Dunkirk.
When Churchill became Prime Minister, Britain was at the lowest point of her fortunes in her long and proud history. She had come to the crossroads of her national existence — to her darkest hour.
"We Shall Never Surrender"
In June, 1940, shortly after Dunkirk, the lion-hearted Churchill again roared words of defiance before the House of Commons.
"We shall not flag or fail. We shall go on to the end. We shall fight in France, we shall fight on the seas and oceans, we shall fight with growing confidence and growing strength in the air. We shall defend our island, whatever the cost may be. We shall fight on the beaches, we shall fight on the landing grounds, we shall fight in the fields and in the streets, we shall fight in the hills. We shall never surrender."
Churchill was dumbfounded when France surrendered in June, 1940. On the day France capitulated, Churchill again spoke before the House of Commons. "If we can stand up to him (Hitler), all Europe may be free and the life of the world may move forward onto broad, sunlit uplands. But if we fail, then the whole world, INCLUDING THE UNITED STATES, including all that we have known and cared for, will sink into the abyss of a new Dark Age made more sinister, and perhaps more protracted, by the lights of perverted science. Let us therefore brace ourselves to our duties, and so bear ourselves that, if the British Empire and the Commonwealth last for a thousand years, men will say: 'This was their finest hour.' "
Churchill assured the French Government that Britain would fight on, no matter what they did. The French Generals told their Prime Minister with his divided cabinet, "In three weeks England will have her neck wrung like a chicken." Churchill proudly responded, "Some chicken! Some neck!"
For one year Britain stood alone, receiving the full brunt — the full fury — of Hitler's blitz.
Day after day, night after night, Britons saw their valiant airmen roar into the skies and intercept the German fighters and bombers — even though outnumbered and often manning inferior planes, It was in deep gratitude to these gallant British airmen that Sir Winston Churchill expressed the sentiments of the whole nation when he said: "Never in the field of human conflict was so much owed by so many to so few."
Nazi "Locusts" Attack Russia
Hitler launched his savage attack against Russia on June 22, 1941. In reference to this invasion Churchill, with prophetic insight, said: "I see the hideous onslaught of [the] Nazi war machine with its clanking, heel-clicking, dandified Prussian officers . . . I see also the dull, drilled, docile, brutish masses of the Hun soldiery plodding on like a swarm of crawling locusts . . ."
It is prophetic that Sir Winston Churchill compared the masses of the German soldiers to "a swarm of crawling locusts." And it is especially significant that Almighty God, in the Book of Revelation and in Nahum, speaks of a coming United States of Europe, dominated by Germany, in similar language!
Through four more years Churchill toiled as Britain's leader. Victory was at hand.
"Give . . . Thanks to Almighty God"
On May 8, 1945, Churchill announced in the House of Commons: "The cease-fire began yesterday to be sounded all along the front. The German war is at an end. The evildoers are now prostrate before us. We may allow ourselves a brief period for rejoicing, but Japan remains unsubdued. Advance, Britannia! Long live the cause of Freedom! God save the King!"
After reading the formal cease-fire announcement, Churchill offered sincere thanks to the Members of Parliament who had assisted him in the struggle against Nazism. With deep emotion he made the resolution that the very same words which had been uttered in the House at the close of World War I should again be uttered in thanksgiving to God: "That this House do now . . . give humble and reverent thanks to Almighty God for our deliverance from German domination." In their finest hour, Britain, under Sir Winston's guidance, gave God official thanks and the honor and glory for Allied victory.
Churchill KNEW that it was Almighty GOD, who had saved the Allies at Dunkirk, and who had prevented the Germans from developing and using the H-bomb in the closing months of the war. He knew that it was God who gave the Allies the victory. What he did not know was the real purpose of that victory — to provide these few years that the gospel of the Kingdom of God might go to all nations as a final warning via The WORLD TOMORROW broadcast.
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It was Churchill's courage, determination and moving speeches which bolstered up British morale and spurred America' to war. In his greatest fighting speech he challenged gutter-snipe Hitler:
"We shall not flag or fail. We shall go on to the end . . . we shall defend our island whatever the cost may be. We shall fight on the beaches, we shall fight on the landing grounds, we shall fight in the fields and in the streets, we shall fight in the hills.
"We shall never surrender.
"Even if, which I do not for a moment believe, this island or a large part of it were subjugated and starving, then our empire beyond the seas . . . would carry on the struggle . . . until, in God's good time, the New World, with all its power and might, steps forth to the rescue and liberation of the Old!"
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