Proper 27B November 11, 2018
Today is the 100th
anniversary of the Armistice that ended World War One. Today I want to talk
about that event and about the gospel. WWI was called “the war to end all wars,”
by President Woodrow Wilson. Wilson was born December 1856 in Stauton, VA, to a
Presbyterian minister in a slaveholding family. Woodrow Wilson went to
Davidson, Princeton, University of VA law, and Johns Hopkins. In 1910 while President
of Princeton he was elected Governor of New Jersey. In 1912 Republicans split
between Taft and Teddy Roosevelt and Wilson was elected President. He was re-elected
in 1916 on a slogan, “he kept us out of war.” But German submarines sank neutral
American ships in late 1916, and in early April, 1917 Wilson asked Congress to join
Britain and France in the war. American troops fought in France from June,
1917.
The British naval blockade
led to severe food shortages in the German cities, and though the 1917 Russian
revolutions took Russia out of the war Germany began to lose. In mid-August
1917 Pope Benedict XV offered a peace proposal, basically to return to the
positions held before the war, but the proposal was rejected by Wilson and by the
French. In early November 1918 the German and Austrian imperial political
systems collapsed. The November 11 Armistice was a German surrender.
The terms of the Armistice
and of the 1919 Versailles treaty were harsh and punitive. The blockade and famine
continued for 10 months. Germany was assessed heavy reparations to France and
Belgium. One consequence of the armistice and treaty was German anger. That
anger and the great depression led to the rise of the Nazi party and Hitler. After the Second World War US aid under the
Marshall Plan 1948-52 helped European recovery and led eventually to a common
market.
We can draw a few lessons from
WW I. One lesson is that war is unpredictable, and the more people are involved
in the war the harder it is to end the war.
For much of the 19th century modern European powers had won
colonial wars against poorly armed locals. In Europe the 1815 Council of Vienna
balance of power was upset by the unsuccessful revolts of 1848, by the inconclusive
Crimean War of 1853-56 of France and Britain against Russia, by the 1863 border
conflict between Denmark and Prussia, by the 7 weeks Austro-Prussian war of
1866 and the 7 months Franco-Prussian war of 1870. The American Civil War showed the bloody
effects of a 4 year war that mobilized a whole people, but the European powers
concluded that with modern technology wars could be won in a short time. They
were wrong.
World War One came to involve
whole nations, and it was nasty, brutish, and long. Even on the morning of
November 11, with the armistice set for 11 a.m. conflict continued. Henry
Gunther, of 3811 Eastern Avenue, Baltimore, was the last American to die. Henry
was 23 years old, a Roman Catholic, a bank clerk. Drafted in September 1917 he
advanced to supply sergeant, then was busted to private when a censor read his letter
home complaining about miserable conditions at the front. The Baltimore Sun
newspaper reported that “Gunther brooded a great deal over his recent reduction
in rank, and became obsessed with a determination to make good before his
officers and fellow soldiers.” Just
before 11 a.m. on November 11 Gunther’s unit came on two German machine guns at
a road block. Against the orders of his
sergeant Gunther charged with his bayonet. The
German soldiers, already aware of the Armistice
that would take effect in one minute, tried to wave Gunther away. He kept going
and fired "a shot or two". When he got too close to the machine guns, he
was shot in a short burst of automatic fire and killed instantly. The army restored his rank and awarded him
the Distinguished Service Cross. A Veterans of Foreign Wars post in east
Baltimore was named for him. It has ceased to exist.
George Edwin Ellison, a
Leeds a coal miner, father of a 5 year old son, was the last British Army
soldier killed – at 9:30 a.m. George
Lawrence Price, of Moose Jaw, Saskatchewan was the last Canadian Army soldier
killed – at 10:58. Augustin Trebuchon had served in the French Army from the
beginning of the war. He was killed at 10:45 a.m. The name of the last German
soldier to die is not known.
It is hard to call back
the dogs of war. And as war, so with
anger. It is easy to yield to the
temptation to anger, and very hard to let that emotion go. In the
Franco-Prussian War of 1870, 48 years before, the French had lost Alsace-Lorraine.
Marshall Foch refused the German request for an immediate cease fire. So 11,000
men died on the morning of November 11.
A second lesson from this
day 100 years ago is that Jesus calls to forgive, to make peace quickly with
our adversaries. He taught us to pray, “Forgive us our trespasses as we forgive
those who trespass against us.” The
modern version translates as “sin.” “Forgive us our sins as we forgive those
who sin against us.”
I spoke of the harshness of the Armistice and
the Treaty. Jesus tells us in St. Matthew 5:43-45, and also in St. Luke 6, “I say to you, Love your enemies and pray for those who persecute
you, so that you may be children of your Father in heaven; for
he makes his sun rise on the evil and on the good, and sends rain on the
righteous and on the unrighteous.”
About 18 million
people died in World War I, 6 million Allied military, 4 million German and
Austrian military, 8 million civilians , about 6 million of them from famine
and disease including the 1918 flu epidemic. All WWI veterans are dead. The
last, at 110, was Frank Buckles of Los Angeles, on February 27, 2011. The
memory of all these who died lives on.
“Blessed are the dead who die in the Lord, for
they rest from their labors, and their deeds follow them. (Revelation 14:13)
