The Untold Story of Following Jesus During WWI Part 4a

This is a follow-up from January. If you remember, we talked about in January what happened to some of the Anabaptist-type people here in Pennsylvania during the American Revolution. I said I would want to talk a little bit about other wars, and this is the first war we're going to look at is World War I. The title, if you see, "The Untold Story of Following Jesus During World War I." And my reason I call it that is because it's going to be talking both about Anabaptists and other people who took Jesus' teachings literally about loving our enemies, overcoming evil with good, doing unto others as we'd have them do unto us. You cannot serve two masters.

This is all of Jesus' teachings. The weapons of a war are not carnal, but they're mighty in pulling on strongholds. And that's why I titled it that. We're going to break this message into two parts. Today we're going to look at what World War I was briefly, because that would be a huge topic to the whole thing, how the United States became involved in World War I, and what happened once the United States declared war on Germany and then later Austria-Hungary.

And then part two will be when we talk about what happened to those people who took Jesus' words literally. What happened to them through suffering, persecution, etc. I'm talking about this because I want us to know our history. It's very important to know our history. Where we came from, what happened to those who followed Jesus, and how they suffered. And why I say that is, as I was studying for this, they share testimonies that are very encouraging. Even though they suffered horrendously, some of them, they still encourage me that we can, through God's power, stand firm. And also, I think it's very important that we know what we believe from Scripture and why. That's one of the things, as I was studying for this message, many of the testimonies said why they knew why they believed this.

Oh, in the face of persecution, they stood firm. How did World War I begin? Go back to 1914. That was about 108 years ago. The world in Europe was on edge. The tension was very high. You had previous wars in Europe, such as the Franco-Prussia War, that left tension between France and Germany. You had the rise of nationalism, which we know what that is, where our nation is the best and we want to be better than everybody else. You still had imperialism. The European nations had colonies. They didn't have like America anymore, but they had colonies in Africa and Asia, such as German Togo, French Cameroon.

You also had the rise of militarism. And that is the rise of, let's make who can have the biggest army or the biggest navy. The biggest army in 1914 was Germany. The biggest navy was the United Kingdom of Great Britain.

And the last thing, because there's many reasons, but they had these mutual defensive alliances. We're familiar with NATO or Warsaw Pact. Those aren't anything new. They had those in 1914. You had the Triple Alliance, which was Germany, Austria-Hungary, and at that time period, Italy. Italy eventually left and became part of the other, the Allies, what we call them. You also had the Triple Entente, which was Russia, France, and Great Britain. So like I said, you have all these alliances, all this tension, large military. All it took was a spark, and you would have one of the greatest wars that ever existed in mankind's history. That spark happened on June 28th, 1914.

Archduke Ferdinand and his wife, Sophie, he was Archduke of Austria-Hungary, visited Sarajevo, which is the capital of Bosnia and Herzegovina. And as you see, it was an open car. I was realizing, thought this morning, why was it an open car? Well, they didn't have armored cars in 1914, armored things like that. So he went to Sarajevo to visit Austrian-Hungarian troops. One morning, he had an assassination attempt. Several hand grenades were thrown at him by a terrorist organization. They didn't explode in his car, but they hit another car, and several of his attendants, other people of his entourage were injured. They were taken to the hospital. In the afternoon, he said, "I want to go visit those guys."

I think he had a heart, but probably not a wise decision when you disescape one assassination attempt.

So he went to go drive to the hospital. Unfortunately, his driver got lost and made a wrong turn. As the driver was about to back up, one of that Serbian terrorist organizations ran up point blank, shot two times, point blank, killed his wife instantly, mortally wounded him. He died later.

Why that would start a war? It shouldn't have, but because they said there was all this tension, all these defensive alliances. Russia just today was allied with Serbia back then. So Austria-Hungary sent a list of ultimatums on July 23rd, 1914, about a month later, saying you need to do this, that, and the other thing.

Serbia agreed to virtually all of them, but a few. They had some reservations. Austria-Hungary was going to have none of it. On July 28th, a month later, they declared war on Serbia. Russia, as I said, is an ally of Serbia. On July 30th, Russia mobilized 100% mobilization and declared war on Austria-Hungary.

And like I said, you had all these alliances. Germany declared war on France.

Here's the first one. Sorry, I took a step forward. Sorry, we're hitting the slides second. Like I say, July 28th. I just saw the significance of that. Helen's birthday is on July 28th. I didn't catch that until this week when I was studying.

She was actually born 95, actually 99 years after World War I began.

There's a map of Europe. The pink is the Triple Alliance, which included eventually Turkey, which was the Ottoman Empire. The green was Russia, France, and the United Kingdom. Then you had the yellow is the neutral countries. Here's a list of everybody who declared war against each other August 1st to the end of August. If you look at that, that's all of Europe virtually.

Germany, Britain, Austria-Hungary, Montenegro, France, Britain again, Montenegro. Japan actually was on the Allied side, Austria-Hungary. Why Britain came in is Britain had one of the defensive alliances with Belgium. Germany invaded Belgium on August 3rd, 1914, and Britain declared war the next day. And then Germany declared war on German. I mean, Germany declared war on Britain. If you look at that list, you will notice one major thing.

The United States is not on that list.

President Wilson, President Woodrow Wilson, on August 4th and again on August 19th, declared that the United States is neutral. It's not getting involved. Here's a statement he said before the United States Senate. The United States must be neutral in fact as well as the name during these days that are the triumph in Seoul.

Like I said, he purposely said, "We are not going to get involved." Here was a popular song written about President Wilson at this time period. "We Stand for Peace While Others War." Popular song written in 1914. And that was one of the things that President Wilson did is try to keep the United States neutral. We're going to skip a little bit back to what happened in Europe. We're not going to do a very detailed thing in Europe. We're going to focus mostly on the United States, but I want to just keep you kind of posted with how this war is developing.

Back in 1905, Schlieffen, he was a German general, had developed a plan how Germany could conquer France. He said, "If we ever went to war, we don't want to be fighting two fronts. We don't want to fight France and Russia on France on the west and Russia on the east." So this plan was actually implemented in 1914, beginning in August.

Germany quickly sent the best of their ability, their armies to try to encircle and capture Paris and then trap the French armies down here towards the Swiss Alps. It almost worked.

But on September 5th through 12th, 1914, I just saw that my birthday's in there, September 12th. It's like, "Oh, my daughter's born on the start of World War I. I have a birthday in one of the major wars." The first battle of the Marne happened.

Germany came within 30 miles of Paris. And the French, like they were looping around trying to get it. And the British and the French pushed them back. They actually said they had taxicabs carrying troops from Paris up to the front lines. Hundreds of taxicabs carrying the troops. And they actually were able to halt the German offense approximately 30 miles from Paris. Well, this led to what we all, if we think of what you see pictures of World War I, those trenches, they started getting made in September 1914 from the English Channel all the way to the Swiss Alps.

However, the U.S. neutrality was severely challenged beginning in 1914. Britain, again, as I said, had the largest navy. They just decided, "We're going to put a blockade on Germany." And the blockade actually was very effective. But this blockade, if you know what a blockade is, they use their warships to prevent other ships from getting there. They made a huge list of contraband that was not allowed to go to Germany and Austria-Hungary. And that eventually included food. If you studied, they actually ended up starving the Germans to death. Well, the U.S. then couldn't trade, being neutral, couldn't trade with Austria-Hungary or Germany because their merchant ships would be pulled over by the British warships and said, "No, you can't come because you have food.

You have this, you have the other thing. Sorry, you can't go." So that was getting the United States pretty ticked off. At the same time, Germany had a smaller navy, so they couldn't make an effective blockade with warships. They used what you think of the submarine or the U-boat.

Originally, Germany would have their submarine surface by a freighter or some type of ship. They would search it, and if it was something carrying contraband, they would sink it and let the people escape. But Britain got wise of this and started disguising their warships as merchant ships, hiding the guns and all that. So Germany would surface, and Britain would have a warship and sink the submarine.

Germany said, "We can't do that anymore. This isn't working." So on February 4th, 1915, Germany declared a war zone around Britain, saying that every ship, warship, merchant ship, you name it, passenger liner is going to get sunk with no warning.

And so that's what they started to do. We've all heard of the Lusitania.

It was probably the most famous in the United States World War in history. It was a British ocean liner sunk not too far off the coast of Ireland, hit by one torpedo, and it had a secondary explosion. They don't know what caused it, if it was coal or the boilers or whatever, but it sank in less than 18 minutes. Approximately 1,200 people died, including 128 U.S. citizens.

Unfortunately, what was not known is that the Lusitania at that time period was carrying approximately 173 tons of ammunition for the Allies. Rifle bullets, artillery shells. And so when Germany found that out, they said, "We were justified. We told you you can't ship stuff over here. You're going to have it." Shortly after, here's a picture, artist's rendition of the Lusitania sinking. Now, of course, it sank, and they had no cameras that exist, but they didn't take a picture of it sinking because it was, like I said. And this was just a headline of the New York Times. If you look at the very bottom, Washington believed that a grave crisis was at hand.

Then you had, like I said, other sinkings. You had the ocean liner SS Arabic, torpedoed by German U-boat, sinks within 10 minutes, killing 44, three of whom were Americans. President Wilson at this time period gave Germany a warning. He sent actually three warnings to them. And the very last, it says, "Is it such a deplorable situation should arise? The Imperial German government can readily appreciate that the government of the United States would be constrained to hold the government of Germany to a strict accountability to take and safeguard American lives and property." Like I said, the U.S. started to get, like, "You need to stop sinking these ships." And like I said, they shipped three warning letters to them.

Show you two more pictures of some songs in 1915. Remember, President Wilson in 1914 said, "U.S. is neutral." This is now 1915. Two very popular songs that actually emphasize this. This first one, "I Didn't Raise My Boy to Be a Soldier." See the mother crying down there in the bottom? This actually was a very popular song in 1915. It sold over 700,000 copies. That's pretty amazing that they actually were saying, "We don't want to go to war." Here's a similar one. "Don't Take My Darling Boy Away." This is 1915 in the United States. Like I said, two very popular songs that, yes, there was a very big message, "We don't want to be involved in your war."

Skipping to 1916, we're just going to talk about one of the battles, one major battle that most of this is not about the United States, but I think you just should see how horrible World War I was and how a war is.

February 21st, 1916, the Battle of Verdun began. It lasted approximately February to December, 10 months long. It was the longest battle of World War I. During the first couple of days, Germany launched 2 million artillery shells. That's 2 million. They said that between 40 and 60 million artillery shells were shot in those 10 months.

If you read there, they said there's still approximately 10 million shells that remain about Verdun. They said approximately 9 or 10 villages in France were permanently wiped off the map, and they never rebuilt. That would be like if you took out Schippenberg, it would never rebuild. Overstahl, never rebuild. Lürgen, never rebuild.

That is a lot of destruction. Here's a picture. I'm going to go with this picture. This is a picture of one of the aftermaths. See all those little hills? Those aren't natural. Those happened because of all those artillery shells exploding, throwing the dirt up. And as I said, there are millions of acres of land that have artillery shells that never exploded, still buried. They kept to clean up approximately 40 tons of shells. Here's what one of the French army lieutenants said during the war, "Humanity is mad. It must be mad to do what it is doing. What a massacre. What scenes of horror and carnage. I cannot find words to translate my impression. Hell cannot be so terrible.

Men are mad."

I think about that. Approximately 700,000 casualties, millions of artillery shells. He is correct. Men are mad and are not doing the following Jesus.

We're going to go back just a little bit, a couple of months. You remember when we were talking about the Lusitania and the Arabic? President Wilson sent those letters to Germany. And Germany agreed starting on September 1st, 1915, to slowly halt the unrestricted submarine warfare, which culminated in them signing a pledge called the Sussex Pledge, May 16th, 1916, that they're going to stop the indiscriminate sinking of non-military ships.

According to the pledge, merchant ships would be searched and sunk only if they were to be found to carry contraband materials. Furthermore, no ship would be sunk before safe passage had been provided for the ship's crew and its passengers.

Meantime, in the United States, what was happening in 1916? We had a presidential election, just like we had in 2016. It was President Woodrow Wilson running for re-election. His main campaign slogan is, "He kept us out of the war." The Republican candidate was named Charles Evan Hughes.

And he advocated for a larger military, greater preparedness, greater mobilization, where President Wilson on paper was campaigning for neutrality.

President Wilson barely won re-election. If you see, 277 to 254 electoral college vote, and he had approximately a little over 49% of the popular vote. But President Wilson was re-elected. Here's a popular song in 1916. If you remember the first ones, 1914, neutrality, 1916, "I Don't Want My Boy to Go," look at this popular one in 1916. See, how it's already starting to change. She's going to raise her boy to be a soldier.

There was a subtle shift that popular songs are starting to change from neutrality that we're going to have to send our boys over to be soldiers.

Okay. We're going to look at two pictures for a second. This is as we're talking about this, two different pictures of two of the world leaders. And here's a picture of Kaiser Wilhelm II of Germany. That's the supreme leader of Germany, who had the final ultimate authority. And here's a picture of Woodrow Wilson, who had some of the final authority in the United States.

When I think about World War I, if you think about how it was different than previous wars. And when I was studying this, they all called it a total war. The idea that everything the nation has is going to be put into that war effort. If you think about, like the American Revolution, everything wasn't put in that war effort. If you think about even the Americans of the war, everything wasn't put in that war effort. But a total war is different that everything the nation has is put into that war. The economic policies, the government telling factories what they can and can't make, the government imposing a draft, the government doing propaganda, the government doing rationing.

Yes, because it was just overall, the government is telling you that wanting the whole populace to be involved. Second, that a total war had, when I was studying that, if you really think about it, a total war includes there is no such thing as a sacred target. In the previous wars, like the American Revolution and the American Civil War, very few civilians were targeted. If you look at this total war, they went after everything.

Entire villages wiped off the map. Germany, unrestricted submarine warfare, sinking some true passenger ships that didn't have armament or munitions. Like I said, everybody was a fair game. And that's completely different than before. Which then brings us to the last thing, what made World War I more worse, I'd say, than the previous wars, it had these new and more improved weapons. Just looking at a few of them. We had the invention of the tank in 1916.

Pictures of barbed wire. They said in Flanders, part of France alone, there was approximately a million miles of barbed wire. That is a lot of barbed wire. It can go around the earth approximately 40 times. And that's in the Flanders part of France. It's not all of France.

There's a picture of artillery. They said the statistics show approximately 60 to 70% of the casualties in World War I were based on artillery shells. Either exploding and killing you instantaneously or exploding and explodes and the little pieces of metal go everywhere, so you get metal into you, like a shotgun shell.

The machine gun. Before World War I, there was no such thing as a machine gun. It was getting developed at that time period. You had rifles. They had a couple of cartridges. You had a six-shooter, a couple of cartridges. But you had a machine gun that could shoot thousands as long as it had ammunition.

You had use of poisonous gas in World War I. It was not used very much afterwards, thankfully. Thankfully, people did do something right, but it was used in World War I. Here's a picture of a trench. They said there was approximately 470 miles of these trenches from the English Channel to the Swiss Alps. There were some obviously breaks in it. Airplanes were used in World War I. This is the picture of the Red Barons airplane. He was a real person. Airplanes were used for bombing raids, spying, dropping supplies, things like that.

Here's a picture of a submarine or U-boat, like they were used extensively by Germany. Here's a Zeppelin. We would call it a blimp, but it's a German Zeppelin. They were used again as warships, dropping bombs and things like that, supplies, reconnaissance. And this is actually a picture of the USS Texas, which I thought was only in World War II, but it was actually made in World War I. It's the last remaining World War I battleship that was then converted into World War II.

So we're going to skip back to the beginning of 1917 here. That's kind of a brief overview of World War I. Like I said, very short, but I want to really focus on how the U.S. got involved and then what happened.

The first major thing that happened that brought the United States back involved was this. January 9th, the Kaiser, the picture I showed you, approved unrestricted submarine warfare again. On January 31st, the Bethmann-Holwich went before the German government and made his announcement that unrestricted submarine warfare would resume on February 1st. So they had kept their "promise" for it was May. This is now February, but that is seven months. So they started their unrestricted warfare again.

And the second thing that changed was this. January 17th, the German Foreign Office sent a secret telegram to Mexico offering a military alliance with Germany and Mexico. This telegram was intercepted by British spies and decoded and given to the U.S. government, who realized that it was true. This agreement said that if we get together and we win, we'll help you get Texas, Arizona, and New Mexico back. The United States had stolen it from you, and we will help you get it back. That is pretty effective. I'm not saying right or wrong, but in the world's eye, that's pretty offensive. If you send a telegram to a neighboring country and said, "Hey, if you go to war and come on our side and we win, we'll help you get your lost territory."

Like I said, the U.S. government finally realized this is a true telegram. It was actually done. So on March 1st, a telegram was published in the United States. And of course, that brought a furor that Germany wants to propose an alliance with Mexico. And part of that alliance is if Germany wins, they're going to take territory of the United States back.

But still, they weren't sure. And on March 3rd, the writer of the telegram, Arthur Zimmer, in part of the German Foreign Office, did affirm that it is a real telegram. This isn't a forgery. He did really send this.

Well, Germany, as I said, started their unrestricted submarine warfare, and they started sinking U.S. ships again. They sank, as I said, three March 16th with heavy use of loth. Wilson more or less had enough of it, and so he asked the United States to declare war on Germany, which the U.S. did on April 6th, 1917. He cited the Germans' unrestricted warfare and the Zimmerman telegram. This is what he said in his speech asking for declaration of war. "The world must be safe for democracy. Its peace must be planted upon the tested foundation of political liberty. We have no selfish ends to serve. We desire no conquest, no dominion. We see no indemnities for ourselves. No material compensation for the sacrifice we shall surely make."

Again, in the world's eye, that sounds all noble. But what about in the Christian, the follower of Jesus takes Jesus' words literally? Here are two popular songs that were written at this time period. Just look how they changed from 1914 to '15 to 1917. This is a very popular song. "America, here's my boy." There's a mother with her son in the U.S. Army military uniform with a rifle and a bayonet. And this other song is extremely popular. "Over there," it had several covers, encouraging the American young men to enlist to fight the Germans.

Okay, we're going to now switch gears a little bit and talk about what happened here. This is how the U.S. guys had got involved, if you think about that. The unrestricted submarine warfare, this public opinion slowly turning, and then Wilson and the "political people" declaring war. But that's not where the U.S. stopped. The U.S. did things further. We're going to look at those, what happened in the United States when the United States declared war on Germany and Austria-Hungary, which they did shortly after.

The first thing, look at the date. Let me go back here. So remember this date here, August 6th. I mean, sorry, not August 6th, April 6th. And look how fast things happen.

It says April 13th. President Wilson establishes the Committee on Public Safety, not safety, Public Information called the CPI Committee through his executive order. This was the first government propaganda agency that the U.S. had. Propaganda in the previous war, like the American Revolution, were done by the revolutionaries. This is an official government agency doing propaganda.

Within two or three days afterwards, oh, I won't do that. I'll do this next thing and I'll come back. Sorry. This is what President Wilson said when he signed the draft law, which was about a month later. But this comment, I thought, portrays what the U.S. did completely throughout the whole war. Just read his statement of his. This is when he signed the draft law. "It's not an army that we must shape and train for war. It is a nation. To this end, our people must draw close in one compact front against a common foe.

But this cannot be if each man pursues a private purpose. All must pursue one purpose. The nation needs all men, but it needs each man, not in the field that will most pleasure him, but the endeavor that will best serve the common good."

That sounds all "fine and dandy." But reality, it's not fine and dandy. It's more or less saying everybody has to be involved. If you're not involved, if you're like a person who's trying to follow Jesus seriously, you're not going to want to be involved. But President Wilson's statement has no room for you.

If you really take that, he has no room for someone having a different opinion. He wants everybody to be on the same page. I found this on Friday and I was like, "That's what I've been looking for." Just to help galvanize what everything is trying to do.

This was the head of that CPI Committee, George Creel. Elizabeth said he looks kind of creepy. I thought the same too. If you look at some of these pictures, these guys do look a little bit on the creepy side.

One of the first things that the committee did, a young businessman named Donald Rierson, who lived in Chicago, came on April 17th. Four days later, this man owned movie theaters. He told George Creel, "I have a four-minute intervention why they changed the movie theater reels.

Once you get volunteers, you have four minutes to come into my movie theater and they can give a presentation on why we went to war, why you should enlist, why the Germans are bad." Eventually, they added, "Why you should buy liberty bonds." So that's what they did. They would send men to these movie theaters throughout the United States. And when they had intermission, while they were changing the thing, they would get up and give a four-minute presentation why you need to support the war.

They said they called themselves the four-minute men, just like the revolutionaries, the minute men, who could be ready like that. They gave a four-minute presentation and they, like I said, said all that things. They said during the U.S. involvement in the war, which was about a year and a half, they had 75,000 speakers give approximately seven and a half million of these little four-minute presentations in movie theaters, at the market, on the public square, you name it. And they were very effective. I thought about that. Hmm, four minutes. They changed one of the things that helped change the United States. Here's one of the things, one of the things the CPI Committee did. Just look at how they portray the Kaiser.

You remember what he looked like? He looked like an ordinary person. This is one of the posters, the propaganda. Just look at him. Did he look like that? A horrible with a green face? Read what it says. "Defeat the Kaiser and his U-boats. Victory depends on which fails first, food or frightfulness. Eat less wheat." Again, a total war, telling us we need a ration.

But if you think about that, they are purposely making the Germans look like demons, that they're not really humans. It's fine. It's fine to go take somebody out. They're not humans. But that's not correct. They were humans, just like we are.

Let's skip to the next thing that happened. April 16th. They declared war on April 6th. Ten days later, Congress authorizes HR2762, the Treasury, to meet expenditures authorized for national security or the war, to borrow $5 billion. That's 1917 $5 billion. That's not 2022 $5 billion. That is a lot of money.

So they had four of these liberty bond issues. And I'll just define a liberty bond because people have heard of government savings bonds. A liberty bond was specifically designed to finance a war. They had them in World War I and they had them in World War II.

And they said by the end of the war, approximately 20 million Americans had purchased more than $21 billion of liberty bonds, which financed approximately two-thirds of World War I. The other third was done by tax revenue. So they had four of these bond issues. April 16th, October 1st, April 5th, September 28th. They were going to have a fifth, but it ended up becoming the victory bonds because it was issued after the war ended, which let me just show you two of the posters, the propaganda posters that they made. There were many of them. Most of them aren't very nice.

What they did, like I said, dehumanizing the Germans. Here's just two of them. Look at that one. Making him look like less than human. With bloodthirsty, blood on his hands, blood on his bayonet. It says, "Beak back the Hun." That's what they called the Germans, the Hun, with liberty bonds.

Just like you say, dehumanizing these people. Like I said, they had millions of these posters out there throughout the United States. Like I said, there are some that are much worse than this one. Here's another one. "If you can enlist, invest, buy a liberty bond. Defend your country with your dollars." Look at what he has. He has a shield and a sword. Both have American flags and he's fighting the demons of war and starvation. And of course, the demons of war and starvation are the Germans, not the Americans.

We're now going to skip to the draft law. We've already read that little statement from President Wilson. We're going to skip there next because that's one of the next things that happens. The war was declared April 6th. We're going now to May 18th, 1917.

The draft law was enacted and signed by President Wilson May 18th. This individual, when we do our next message, we will talk more about him, but he was the Secretary of War, Baker Newton. He helped implement the draft law. He was the head of the Army and the Navy, things like that.

Here's one of the things the draft law said. We're just going to look at some of the draft law. And thankfully, I actually was able to find primary source documents for the draft law, the liberty bonds, these last things. I did a lot of studying to find these, but I was very pleased I could find some primary source, the actual law, not copying somebody's quote. Here's one of the things it said.

World War I Selective Service Act, that all male persons between the ages of 21 and 30, both inclusive, shall be subject to registration in accordance with regulations prescribed by the president. This was actually amended about a year later to include up to age 45. That's a pretty big draft. That's what they did World War II. So that means that most of us here would be drafted up to 45. There would be a few of us who were older than 45, but that's a pretty 21 to 45 is a pretty inclusive thing.

This next part of the draft law was something that was not done in previous draft laws. The draft laws that some of the states did in the American Revolution, even the draft laws that were done in the American Civil War.

"No person liable to military service shall hereafter be permitted or allowed to furnish a substitute for such service." Or shall any substitute be received, enlisted, or enrolled in the military service of the United States? Like I said, the American Revolution, Pennsylvania, if you didn't show up, you had to pay a fine. They could use that fine to hire substitutes. In the American Civil War, the Union had that provision, and even the Confederacy for a little bit had that provision that you could hire a substitute.

The draft law of 1917 said you can't hire a substitute. You can't get out of it.

Another major difference is this. I'm just going to read this. This is talking about people who would have qualms against going to war, conscious objectors. Just listen and read what I say, how this is different. "Nothing in this act contained shall be construed to require or compel any person to serve in any of the forces herein, provided for who is found to be a member of any well-recognized religious sect or organization at present organized and existing," that it has to, it can't just be started out of scratch.

"And whose existing and creed or principles forbid its members to participate in war in any form and whose religious convictions are against war or participation therein in accordance with the creed or principles of said religious organization." That sounds all great. They're recognizing that people might be against war. But then read the last statement. Who defines what that is? "No person so exempted shall be exempted from service in any capacity that the president shall declare to be non-combatant."

Why is the president given that authority to declare what's non-combatant? So actually, that's not saying very much at all. It sounds all grand. Oh, we recognize that you have a qualm against going to war that you think is wrong. But we don't give you full exemption. The president will declare what non-combatant means. Remember, this was done May 18th, 1917.

The president, March 20th, 1918, almost a year later, finally declares what it means to be non-combatant. That's 10 months later before he even declares what it is. And read what it says. "I hereby declare the following military service." It doesn't give an option for civilian service.

And I would say that was a big bad mistake. I know me personally, if I was a conscious objector, I wouldn't want to be in the military service, okay? Maybe helping on a farm or in a forestry like they did in World War II. But it's saying you're under the military still. You're not exempt. Your non-combatant is under the military. Here's what he says. "Service in the medical corps.

Service in the quartermaster corps, and engineering service," which we think of the Army Corps of Engineers. Those aren't necessarily wrong, but if you read it, it's still under the military's oversight. It's not a civilian capacity. And I would agree with the people who said, "We can't do that. We are not going to be under the military." And that's what the people who followed Jesus said at that time period.

Last thing is that they had three registrations. As we know, the law still says a male over 18 has to register. That started in 1917. They had three registrations. The first one was June 5th, 1917, for men between 21 and 30. The next one was approximately a year later for those who became 21 after the first registration. And the last one, September 12th, 1918, for all men ages 18 through 45. Like I said, this was a registration. This doesn't mean you were drafted. That was a different thing. This means you're registering like they still require people to do today.

They said approximately 24 million registered during World War I. And the U.S. Army and Navy had approximately 4.8 million Americans in it. Out of that 4.8 million, about 2 million voluntarily enlisted, and the other 2.8 were drafted. So that means that, yeah, so 2.8 million drafted out of 24 is not very high, but still, that means you do have a very good chance of getting drafted with your registration.

Okay, the next one we're going to go to, these laws were passed in June 1917 and an amendment in 1918. Oh, I thought I'd moved that. Well, didn't I? I should have moved it, but I will skip over these next three. We'll go to this next laws.

Sorry about that. I should have moved it. I thought I had moved it, but I didn't. We'll go to this and we'll come back to that one. They were called the Espionage and Sedition Acts of 1917 through 1918 because the original act was June 15th, and then they had the amendment added in May 16th. Espionage, I think we all know what that is, the idea of spying, trying to find out military government secrets, like where arms depots are, where factories that make munitions. And that makes sense, okay? They would say that's against the law. Sedition, that's a little bit not as common. And that means just the idea that you have maybe a conspiracy to incite rebellion or revolution or violence.

So they had these laws against espionage and sedition. That sounds all maybe fine and great. Oh, of course they'd have to do that. This is war. But read what these laws say and listen to some of my comments.

This one was one of the original provisions of the 1917 and repeated 1918. "Whoever, when the United States is at war, shall willfully make or convey false reports or false statements with the intent to interfere with the operation or success of the military or naval force of the United States." Makes sense? Let's go to the next one. "Whoever shall obstruct the sale of the United States' bonds and securities," that's considered sedition.

And if you remember my previous slide, the United States was authorizing the sale of liberty bonds. So that means if you speak out against buying a liberty bond, you have violated the Sedition Act and you can be arrested for sedition. That's a pretty major thing.

And I would purposely think, say, I'm not going to judge somebody if they bought a liberty bond, but it was a war bond supporting the war. They were voluntary. You didn't have to buy them.

This one. This is original and repeated. "Whoever when the United States is at war shall willfully cause or attempt to cause or attempt to incite insubordination, disloyalty, mutiny, or refusal of duty in the military." Makes sense. What if you're a conscious objector?

What if you say it's wrong for a Christian to go to war? That's against the law.

Saying it's wrong for a Christian to go to war is against the law according to the Sedition Act.

"Whoever shall willfully obstruct or attempt to obstruct the recruiting and enlistment service of the United States" should say United States Army and stuff. Again, what if you're a conscious objector? What if you say it's wrong for a Christian to go to war? You can't do that. This law is saying that is against the law.

And this is the last one. "Whoever shall willfully utter, print, write, or publish any language intended to incite, provoke, or encourage resistance to the United States." Sounds good. That means you can't write a tract saying it's wrong to go to war because they will say that is writing an incentive against the United States. And that's what happened.

You can't speak against the war. You can't publish tracts against going to war because they'd say that's sedition. You're encouraging resistance to the United States. And like I said, it didn't happen on a grand scale, but it did happen.

Now I'm going to go back to those slides I skipped. Sorry, I had them in the wrong order. What happens when you get there we go. Sorry about that. This is going to skip back to April 9th, 1917.

Billy Sunday, if you've ever heard him, was a prominent evangelical pastor. He was one of the ones who pushed for prohibition that when the United States actually followed and "forbade the sale of alcohol for approximately 12 years." However, he was a very large pro-war monger, very negative on Germany. Here's what it said.

New York Times headline, "40,000 cheer for war and religion mixed by Sunday," being Billy Sunday. "Sermons brought up to date to sink the Kaiser with the devil as an enemy alien." Equating the Kaiser with the devil. This was a prominent evangelist pastor. Here's a picture of what he looks like. I tell you, it's Bill against Woodrow, Germany against America, hell against heaven.

Pretty strong words. And these days, one either is a patriot or a traitor in the cause of Jesus Christ and the cause of his country, implying that the cause of Jesus and the cause of his country are one and the same. Read this last quote. "We have no use for the shirker. No use for the man between 21 and 31 who did not register.

As the fellows who knock registration or conscription, which is draft, or buying war bonds, if I had my way, I would line them up against the wall and shoot them like any other traitor." That's pretty strong language. Saying that conscious objectors like us would be shocked because we're traitors, that we don't think it's right to go to war.

But like I said, he was a prominent evangelical pastor, and I'm pretty sure the other evangelical churches were doing the same thing because promoting war is right.

So as we finish up today's lesson, go back to one of those popular songs. I'm sorry I got that order. Oops, I missed one slide. This is the punishment for the Espionage and Sedition Act. You should be punished by a fine of not more than $10,000. $10,000 today is still a lot of money. This is 1918. That's worth approximately $196,000 fine.

That's a pretty big fine or 20 years in jail.

Here's a popular song that was in 1918. Look at it. It says, "You're your mama's little daddy now." Shows a picture of the mother with her son. And Jason, help me figure out how to zoom in. Look at the picture showing those army troops who probably died going to heaven, which was a popular teaching in both the United States and other "Christian countries" that if you go to war on behalf of your country, you're doing a good thing, and if you die, you're going to go to heaven.

Thankfully, the war concluded on November 11th, 1918, an armistice that was signed. It stopped November being the 11th month at 11 a.m. in the morning, which is 11 a.m. Paris time.

The war claimed, as I was studying, approximately 40 million casualties. There were 20 million deaths approximately and 21 million wounded. Of the deaths, they said it was approximately 20 million. You had about 9.5 to 10 million military and 9.5 to 10 million civilian.

That is a lot of people, 20 million people dying for a war. I hope I've accomplished what I set out to do this morning, giving you a brief overview of the war in Europe, how the United States became involved in the war, and what happened in the United States once war was declared on Germany and later Austria-Hungary. In my next message, which will be sometime this fall, I hope to explore more in detail of what happened to those people who took Jesus' words literally. Read some of their testimony, some of the things that happened to them, some of the things that we can learn and be challenged and encouraged by.