1917

Here is the presentation I gave about the Great War in 1917 - part of a series of talks on the individual years of the war given at Wraysbury Village Hall on 11 November 2018 in commemoration of the 100th anniversary of the Armistice. I felt very proud to reference my grandfather Albert Taylor and the birth of the nation of Finland, my wife's home country.

1 9 1 7

101 years ago girl power broke out on the streets of St Petersburg, the Russian Imperial capital! It was International Women's Day – 8 March*. 90,000 female workers walked out of their factories and marched through the streets, shouting "Bread!", "Down with the autocracy!" and "Stop the War!" What on earth had lit such a fire in their hearts?

Three years of all out warfare is what. The men had all left the fields to go to the front so there was famine! Vast sums of money had gone into arms and equipment, so there was poverty! And husbands and fathers were being killed or horrifically injured, so there was rage! The war to end all wars was about to claim its biggest casualty, Imperial Russia itself.

Over the past few years Czar Nicholas II had tried to reform the country to meet the growing demand for change, but it was too little, too late. He had assumed control of the Russian war effort and now was held to blame for the carnage. Under the pressure of war the country was breaking up and spinning out of his control. On 15 March* the Czar abdicated.

The new Republic decided to continue the war. But blood was in the water and already the sharks were gathering. On 16 April* Vladimir Ilyich Lenin, having been allowed freedom of travel across Germany, entered Russia and campaigned for his revolutionary ideology. On 7 November* the Bolsheviks overthrew the government. Lenin began to impose that totalitarian control that would hold Russia in its iron grip for over 70 years.

While Russia was descending into mayhem a high-ranking officer of the Czar's Imperial Guard returned from a diplomatic tour of the Far East. Although his name – Mannerheim – was German and his first language was Swedish, he was a proud Finn. He had been deeply influenced by the Finnish nationalist revival inspired by Sibelius' Finlandia and publication of the ancient Finnish epic Kalevala. When he saw anarchy on the streets of Russia Mannerheim at once grasped that if the freedom of Finland was ever to be more than a daydream he must act now! He hurried home to Finland, which under his leadership boldly declared independence on 6 December 1917. Out of the fire of war a new nation was born. And I'm glad it was, because if it hadn't happened I would never have met my lovely wife Elisa who is from Finland.

So the Russian war effort faltered. Eventually peace was sought in negotiations that began on 22 December. A great hope arose for the Germans! No longer did they need to fight on two fronts. With Russia out of the way they transferred huge volumes of troops and resources from East to West, against Britain and France. Surely victory was in their  grasp?
*all dates follow western rather than Russian calendar – hence the October Revolution takes place in November.

Back on the Western front, stalemate in the trenches had gone on for three blood-soaked years. In 1917 many attempts were made to break out and get the war moving once again using new or improving technologies and tactics.
• Tanks – first introduced by the British in 1916 but important developments were to come in 1917 as we shall see…
• Aerial war: Orville and Wilbur Wright had made the first powered flight in 1903 and strategists were not slow to develop the military potential! Initially balloons and aeroplanes were used for battlefield observation. Pilots soon started carrying pistols to loose off at enemy aircraft. Then they were equipped with machine guns either for shooting down enemy flyers or for strafing troops on the ground. Bombs were dropped into trenches.
• The iconic aircraft of the First World War came on stream in 1917. There was the allied Sopwith Camel, the Red Baron's Fokker Triplane, the workmanlike Allied SE5 and the elegant German Fokker Albatross… It was murder up there with squadrons of fighters roving the skies seeking to machine gun you to pieces. The average life expectancy of a Royal Flying Corps pilot in the spring of 1917 was a mere 6 weeks.
• from 1915 German Zeppelins had been dropping bombs on the UK. For the first time in warfare civilians, not soldiers, were directly in the firing line. On 13 June 1917 came the first raid by gigantic Gotha bombers on London (two earlier attacks had been diverted to other targets). In a horrible foretaste of the Blitz, 162 people were killed in that single raid, including 18 children at a primary school in Poplar.

In spite of these new technologies, 1917 brought the battle that perhaps more than any other has come to symbolise the absolute futility, the sickening waste of young lives and the heedless destruction meted out for the sake of a few yards of mud that epitomises the First World War. I refer to the Battle of Passchendaele.

The other name for the Passchendaele campaign is the third battle of Ypres. Yes we have indeed been here before. In spite of two previous massive battles in the same area in which both sides slaughtered each other to a standstill, no lessons appear to have been learned.

It all began spectacularly at the Messines Ridge. Around a million pounds of high explosive had been buried deep beneath the Ridge. At 10 past 3 on the morning of 7 June it was detonated in an explosion that was felt on this side of the English Channel. It was the largest man-made explosion before the coming of nuclear weapons. Major–General Charles Hartington commented, "Gentlemen, I do not know whether we shall change history tomorrow, but we shall certainly alter the geography." They certainly did! About 10,000 German troops were killed outright, buried or blown to scraps. There was a relatively easy victory as the Allied armies surged forward into this new moonscape.

But the impetus slowed down. The worst rains in 40 years, combined with the constant churning of shell fire, turned the soil to the consistency of soup. Both armies floundered hopelessly through attacks and counter attacks, losing casualties as much to drowning in mud as to the relentless pounding of shot and shell. Advances bogged down, supplies could not be delivered, morale plummeted. It was the same endless inconclusive wrestling for a few yards of swamp that had been going on since 1914.

British casualties were thought to be between quarter of a million and four hundred thousand, German about the same. True, the British broke through one of the German defensive lines – but two more remained beyond it. They never got to the strategic rail junction that was one of their prime objectives, nor did they break through to the Belgian coast, which was the other.

The German armies now began to be reinforced by troops withdrawn from the Russian front, while the Allies had to send troops away to Italy. The Italians (who were on our side at the time) had been decisively defeated at the battle of Caparetto on 24 October. In the Spring of 2018 German armies were to surge forward and the meagre Allied gains of Passchendaele were swept away like straws in a gale. In his memoirs Prime Minister Lloyd George wrote: "Passchendaele was indeed one of the greatest disasters of the war ... No soldier of any intelligence now defends this senseless campaign…"

Now for some glamour among the gloom of the Western Front: Lawrence of Arabia! By 1917 the Arab Revolt against the Ottoman Empire (which had sided with Germany) was in full swing. In a dashing campaign involving much sudden appearing out of the desert and rapid melting away again, Lawrence blew up bridges, roads and trains and conquered Aqaba. His daring campaign led ultimately to a complete re-drawing of the map of the Middle East, incidentally creating many of the tensions that still plague the area today… But there just isn't time. Watch the film! Back to Flanders and the Battle of Cambrai.

Cambrai displayed one of the first uses of tanks in a mass attack. On 20 November at 6.30am 437 tanks from the Tank Corps lumbered forward from the British lines. It must have been a terrifying sight! Yet maximum speed was 4mph and conditions were truly awful. Shells hitting their armour were deafening, field of view was extremely limited and there was no outlet for exhaust fumes, so the crews got groggier and groggier from carbon monoxide poisoning. On the first day 65 tanks were destroyed by artillery fire, 71 broke down and 43 were ditched. Nonetheless the attack broke through towards their objective, the Hindenberg line. Church bells were rung in England in celebration!

But there followed a massive German counter-attack in which virtually all British gains were lost. And now we come to the reason why I especially want to cover this battle. My grandfather Albert Taylor took part. He joined up at 16, lying as so many did about his age – but nobody cared enough to check. As German counter attacks broke through small bodies of British troops were hurled forward, sacrifice parties aimed at slowing down the enemy so others could escape. My grandad Albert, 16 years old, was in one of those sacrifice parties. Of the one hundred plus who were thrown forward in his group, only he and one other survived. He was taken prisoner and transported to Germany where he was given the number 181, or "ein hundred ein and ockshish" as he recalled it.

Conditions were terrible. The German population was starving owing to the British blockade. There wasn't much left over to feed PoWs. Fortunately for grandad Albert, they were desperate for farm workers, so he was sent out to the fields. Here his upbringing in rural Norfolk came to the rescue. His family were desperately poor farm labourers and he had learned how to scrounge and scavenge his way to survival – the odd turnip here and cabbage leaf there… Eventually he escaped. Hiding by day, moving by night, he made his way towards Holland, where he was interned for the rest of the war. Holland being neutral refused to repatriate combatants. His parents did not even know he was alive until 100 years ago today when the war ended.

On 1 March 1917 an extraordinary telegram was published in the American press. The telegram had been intercepted by the British and decoded in the greatest triumph of espionage in the entire war. It had been sent by a German Diplomat called Zimmerman. It addressed to their embassy in Mexico. It treacherously incited the Mexicans to join in with Germany and promised them the US states of Texas, Arizona and New Mexico if they did!

The American public went livid! On 6 April 1917 America declared war on Germany. By 26 June the first US troops landed on mainland Europe to take part in the war. From that day more and more soldiers, weapons and resources flowed in a steady tide across the Atlantic. German gains from the Eastern front and in Italy proved too little to counter this massive reinforcement. It was undoubtedly the vast industrial, financial and human resources of the USA that would bring ultimate victory on 11 November 1918. In an industrial-age war the side that had the most factories would win.

Bible Sunday

Yesterday (Sunday 28 October) was Bible Sunday. Many Christians have a dysfunctional relationship with the Bible so I thought it would be good to put the gist of yesterday's sermon online. I hope it helps!

How can we understand the Bible correctly?

There are all sorts of weird and wonderful interpretations of the Bible out there! Lots of weird beliefs have come about because people focus on a few difficult to understand sentences and then twisted the obvious bits round to fit the strange bits. Jehovah's Witnesses and blood transfusions are a good example. Other people tie themselves in knots when they treat the Bible as if it were a scientific textbook – but is that what God intended?

So how are we going to avoid falling into the same trap? We need a big picture so that the more peculiar bits can be fitted into place. Here are four key things to look for when reading the Bible.

1. God's instruction manual – or, as one preacher calls it, Basic Instructions Before Leaving Earth. Our Creator God loves us, knows what's best for us and tells us what works and what to avoid. Both Old and New Testaments contain lots of this material, like the 10 commandments in the OT and the Sermon on the Mount in the NT.

2. A handbook of salvation – the trouble with God's instructions is that the human race finds it so very difficult to keep them! We all let God, ourselves and each other down on a regular basis. The Bible calls our tendency to foul every-thing up "sin." This is a big problem for our relationship with a God, who unlike us is holy and loving all the way through. But because God loves us He still reaches out to us. The Bible tells the story of God's rescue mission, foreshadowed in various ways in the Old Testament but really coming into its own when Jesus arrives. Then it tells us what we have to do to receive Jesus for ourselves.

3. A portrait of Jesus – hang on a minute! I get that the Gospels are about Jesus but what about the Old Testament? But the Gospel writers keep quoting the OT and saying, "actually, this is about Jesus." Jesus Himself did this in today's Gospel Reading from John chapter 5. So think about Jesus being crucified at Passover time, then read the story of Passover from the Old Testament. Or read Isaiah's words about the sufferings of the Messiah in chapter 53 of his great prophecy and compare them with what happened to Jesus. Or look at Psalm 22 and compare it with the Cross…

4. A stimulus to faith – God doesn't want us to read the Bible, think "how interesting," and just walk away. He wants to provoke a reaction! He wants us to listen as He speaks to us personally through the Bible, to learn to trust Him in good times and bad through the stories of other people who have followed Him. He wants us to respond to what His Son did for us by acting on His words, coming to the cross and above all putting our faith in Jesus.

If you stick with these four principles you will get lots out of reading the Bible and you will avoid some of the wackier speculations that are floating around out there. Get yourself a clear easy to follow modern version!

Drastic Plastic

In Blue Planet II, David Attenborough recently showed us the horrific amount of plastic waste that is destroying our oceans...

Here's one very simple thing we can do to reduce the amount of plastic we produce: ban the sale of  those ridiculously elongated plastic containers. You know the ones - most of our gels, shampoos, household sprays and cleaning fluids come in them. Simple, chunky shapes have a much better surface area to volume ratio and therefore use a lot less plastic for the same quantity of fluid. And they don't fall over all the time!

It's all about marketing. Those distorted shapes look bigger on the shelves and try to kid us that we are getting more product for our money than we really are. One thing we can do as shoppers is refuse to buy the more obvious monstrosities. That alone would make a drastic difference to the amount of rubbish going into landfill and choking up our oceans.

Review of 2017
Colin's sermon 31 Dec 2017

 Donald Trump tweeted a lot in 2017 – but I won't go into that because we've all had quite enough of that already. I also won't go into North Korea's obsession with nuking other countries because its just too terrifying.

We've also had a bellyful of Brexit. I suspect that somewhere in the deepest pit of hell some fiend in the department of ironic punishments came up with an idea: "So they want Brexit do they? We'll give 'em Brexit – till it's coming out of their ears!"

Terrorism was the dominating news story early in the year:
• Bombing at a pop concert in Manchester arena. The artist giving the concert, Ariana Grande, has a huge following among young girls whom she encourages to be confident and strong. Sadly the result was that most of the victims were teenagers with all their lives before them.
• Hire cars were driven into crowds on Westminster Bridge and later London Bridge, followed by men running amok with knives, randomly killing innocent people.
• These wicked acts can only be described as utterly depraved. However the actions of the police and emergency services covered them with glory as they responded with great promptness and effectiveness.

But more people were killed through neglect, incompetence, penny pinching and indifference in the next disaster – the Grenfell flats fire. Seventy one people died very horribly. Unbelievably there was no ladder tall enough in the Greater London area for the fire service to get to the source of the fire, people fleeing the disaster by the tower's only staircase were ordered back into the building, there were no sprinklers, and the cladding (which should have been fireproofed if it hadn't cost a little more) actually caught fire and spread the blaze rapidly to the inaccessible upper floors. Grenfell was a death-trap and so are hundreds of other similar towers up and down the country. It is widely thought that Kensington Council weren’t bothered because it was social housing for people who in their view perhaps didn't matter very much.
• But they mattered to God! Church workers were very quickly on the scene offering comfort and support. Churches threw open their doors to provide emergency accommodation for those who were so traumatically made homeless.

I promised not to mention Brexit, didn't I? But this was the year when Teresa May asked the country to increase her majority. She wanted a stronger hand in dealing with those crafty Eurocrats! Pride comes before a fall, as the Good Book says. We all know how that election went. "Not another one!" Large numbers of seats were lost to the Labour party even though Jeremy Corbyn had been relentlessly portrayed as unelectable. Interestingly the young turned out in force to vote for him because they saw the election as an opportunity to tell the older generation that they don't like the kind of future we are forging for them… mountainous debts… short term low paid jobs… crippling housing costs…

More politics – Tim Farron was hounded and hounded on one particular issue until he was forced to resign as leader of the liberal democrats. He commented that it was no longer possible in today's Britain for a Christian to lead a political party. That is an indictment of a so called liberal society where everyone is tolerated – except the people we don't want to tolerate. Sadly those unwanted people are more and more – guess who - the Christians.

More bad news for the Church came when 2017 polls on UK social attitudes showed that fewer and fewer people identify as Christians while more and more identify as "no religion." I wonder where this loss of the shared values which have formed the roots of our culture for hundreds of years is going to take us. I have a very bad feeling about this.

But I think the biggest story of 2017 is the one that began with Harvey Weinstein. More and more revelations came out from women he had harassed and exploited. As this powerful man fled for cover there seemed to come a once in a generation change. All over the world women rose up and said they had had enough. The Me Too campaign showed that the number of women who have faced sexual ordeals at the hands of evil minded men is outrageously high. The wave of anger reached our own Parliament and toppled men who had assumed that power gave them an entitlement to women's compliance. Christians can only welcome this. Christian prohibitions on adultery and lust were always about protecting people from exploitation and when we threw off those restrictions in the 1960s and 70s we took a dangerous gamble – and lost.

I'm going to finish this survey with 3 items of Good News:-
• Prince Harry got engaged to Megan: Megan is to be baptised and confirmed in the Christian faith before the wedding and is taking it very seriously
• Raqqa has fallen and with it the IS goal of creating a caliphate in the area they believed God had indicated to them. They will of course resurface elsewhere but their primary objective is lost and God did not help them as their wicked and depraved leaders had promised them. The world should rejoice over this setback for the enemies of humanity.
• In spite of all the Brexit doom and gloom the British stock market ended the year on an all time high! How did that happen?

But finally, as Christians, how do we respond to all this? What kind of disciples do we have to be to cope with this confusing and sometimes frightening world? Here are four options:
• Be Courageous! Have faith! There are good news stories in there as well as bad. God is still in charge. Stand up for what you believe in. It's not enough to sit in the pew and keep quiet, Christianity will vanish from our land if we do that. Our society needs to hear from us because it is falling to pieces without us!
• Don't respond with anger to a hate-filled world, or you will become like them. As the Bible says, "render no-one evil for evil, but overcome evil with good."
• Model Unity. The picture of 2017 is of a deeply divided society: women against men, old against young, haves against have nots, Muslims being made out to be terrorists, Christians being made out to be bigots, in the frenzy poured out on social media. We can show the world something different: Men and women, old and young, rich and poor, black and white, we are one in Christ. Let's love one another!
• Put compassion into action. The actions of those Christians who came out and cared for people who'd lost everything in the Grenfell disaster spoke more loudly than words. We can do that, not only when there's an emergency but by being there for people in the slow disasters of loneliness, bereavement, illness and poverty.

Yes folks, it's Bishop Steven's challenges to us all over again. Are we prepared to me more Contemplative? Compassionate? Courageous? More Christ-like? Are you up for the challenge in 2018?