THINGS THAT REALLY MATTER

Bay of Plenty Beacon, Volume 1, Issue 82, 1 November 1939, Page 7

THINGS THAT REALLY MATTER

(By Rev. Frank Sampson)

One of. tin.' things that mattci

very much just now is the .settlement of the Jewish question. It cannot be too often urged that this question is definitely religious. It has to do with lines laid down by the Almighty and revealed in Scripture and His plan must be taken into account if there is to lie success. if not there \yill be failure. That is exactly why the people of Israel are being held up to the world as a spectacle of suflering. Many oi them are people oi great cultuie, though many of them are ignorant and desperately poor; but all of them are human like ourselves, with bodies to bear pain and minds to ponder and plan and hearts to grieve and sorrow and love. And yet we can read that a shipload of them has been cast hither and thither at the mercy of wind and wave and storm, seeking in vain for solid ground on which to set their feet and lay their weary bodies. The law of humanitarian feeling seems to be suspended in favour of laws of plunder, refugee baiting and murder. And these people to be cast out as the scum of the earth, which 'ncy certainly are not? The milis of God grind slowly, but they grind exceeding small. In due time Hitler and his millions and other Gentile folk, do-mon-<posscsscd, will be brought to just account for the way they have treated "My people Israel." I will now take the liberation of Jerusalem to show something of *he Almighty's interest in the Jewish question. I quote from "Men and Deeds" by John Kuchan (now Lord Tweedsmuir, Governor-General of Canada). "On Thursday, March 18, Admiral John de Robeck launched his assault on the Narrows. He silenccd most of the forts, and the attack seemed to be proceeding well, until suddenly he began to lose ships from :nines: first the Bouvet, then the Irresistible, then the Ocean.

"But Avhen he broke o[T the action he intended to resume it later, and lie and the Government in London were still confident that it would be carried presently to a success fill issue. Then something happened to change his view. In the second volume of his book, "The Wcvrl.d Crisis," Mr Winston Churchill lias told dramatically tlie tale oi' that see-saw of hopes and fears. On the 23rd, Admiral de Robeck. after a talk with Sir lan Hamilton, telegraphed to London that he could not continue the naval attack till the army was ready to co-opera! e. and that would not be before April 14. Lord Fisher promptly swung round to his side, his argument being that we need not lose any more ships when Britain was bound to win in any case, seeing that the British were the lost ten tribes of Israel. (The lost ten tribe theory had nothing to do with the case except to cause this naval blunder) . The naval attack was dropped, and we waited for a month to land an

army, with results which are only too well remembered. Turkey was at her last gasp, anil to her amaze-* ment was given a breathing space, of which she made brilliant use. What made Admiral de Robeck change his mind, for it is clear that ii was his change of mind which was the determining factor? It may have been his talk with Sir lan Hamilton which opened to him a prospect of combined operations against the Gallipoli Peninsula, a prospect which he had not realised before:, and which relieved him of a share of his heavy responsibilities. But we can narrow down the cause to .something still smaller. 'What made his responsibilities seem so heavv?

It was the presence of unsuspect-

Ed mines in the Narrows on March 18 that caused our losses and thereby shook the nerve of the naval staff. How did the mines get there? Ten days earlier, a little Turkish steamer called the Nousret had dodged the British night patrol of destroyers and laid a new line of twenty mines in Erenkui Bay. On March 10 three of these mines were destroyed by our sweepers, but we did not realise

that they were part of a line of mines, and so we did not logik for more. Tf we had made a differ'...; 1 deduction there would have b-:-n no casualties on the 18tb, and do Kobeek on the 19th and 20tli must have taken his ileet into the Sea of Marmora . . . It. altered the whole course of the War, for at that moment Turkey was in the most literal truth at her last gasp. We have the evidence of Enver; w t c have the evi-

(Continued next column)

dcnce of half a dozen Germans on the spot. She was almost out of munitions, and her resistance in the Xarvows that day was the last effort of which she was capable in defence. Her Government had its papers packed, and was about to leave for the uplands of Asia Minor. I have talked to a distinguished German diplomatist who was then in Constantinpole, and he described to me the complete despair of the Turkish Government and their German julvisers. They believed that it mathematically certain that Ln a day or two Constantinople would be in British hands. When they heard that the British ileet had given up t',ho attacks they could not believe their ears; it seemed to them the most insane renunciation of a certain victory. The occupation of Constantinople would haw; meant that Turkey fell out of the war."