Our long-time readers will be familiar with the Trumpet’s early and continuing exposure of the European Union’s strategy to expand south and east. Our early warning of this strategic move by the EU was predicated on an ancient prophecy for our times recorded in the book of Daniel which speaks of a northern power that will grow “exceedingly great toward the south, toward the east, and toward the Glorious Land [Jerusalem]” (Daniel 8:9; New King James Version). The relevance of that prophecy to the times of global disruption through which we are presently living is clearly explained in our booklet Daniel—Unsealed at Last!

The first obvious indication of the EU’s intentions to expand its power toward the south, toward the east and toward Jerusalem was the strategic move in 1991 by Germany, followed by the Vatican, to disrupt Yugoslav unity through bilateral recognition of Croatia and Slovenia as sovereign nation-states separate from the Republic of Yugoslavia. That is an initiative that is now well advanced toward the EU taking direct administrative control of the Balkan Peninsula.

Ever since that move, the EU has steadily expanded its reach south and east, inching ever closer toward the “Glorious Land.”

The latest initiative in this direction was that of France’s President Sarkozy, bringing together 43 representatives of Mediterranean nations in June to form a Mediterranean Union, in association with the ever-expanding European Union. In the process, the current president of the EU may be unwittingly aiding in achieving a long-held national goal of imperialist Germany.

Way back in the eighth century a.d., emissaries were sent to Jerusalem by Emperor Charlemagne to negotiate an agreement with the Muslim Caliph Haroun. The result was that Jerusalem became a protectorate of the Holy Roman Empire.

Historical records indicate that such a protectorate was limited to the oversight of the welfare of Christians, the care and protection of designated holy sites, and the properties of the Roman Catholic Church in Jerusalem. The fact that the caliph would be a beneficiary financially to this enterprise was a given. Muslim support of the Kaiser’s army in World War i, and again of the Nazi regime in World War ii, was the end result of a long historical nexus between the Muslims and the German nation.

From the time of the Charlemagne/Haroun pact to this day, elements within the German nation have historically viewed themselves as protectors of the Roman Catholic Church, though having been mostly denied the plum job of protector of Jerusalem.

The extent of Charlemagne’s largesse under his treaty with the caliphate of Haroun included the building of an abbey on the Mount of Olives, the church of Haceldama, the Latinity, an extensive hospice for pilgrims, the church of the Holy Mary, a library, and a market place. The whole district under the protection of Germany was autonomously administered, supported by taxes from the Holy Roman Empire.

In a.d. 1009, the Fatimite caliph of Egypt reversed Caliph Haroun’s policy of benevolence toward the Holy Roman Empire’s presence in Jerusalem and ordered the destruction of Christian establishments in Jerusalem. Persecution of traditional Christianity in the Middle East ensued.

With Pope Urban’s call to a crusade in an effort to wrest back control of Jerusalem into the hands of what became known as Christendom, a history of bloodletting in the name of religion was unleashed.

With the First Crusade of a.d. 1095-1099, the Franks were successful in seizing control of Jerusalem from the Ottoman Turks, establishing the Kingdom of Jerusalem. Frankish rule of Jerusalem was to last less than a century. By 1187, Saladin, sultan of Egypt, had wrested back control of Jerusalem. The city was to remain in Muslim hands till a German king initiated the Sixth Crusade to return Jerusalem as a Holy Roman imperial possession.

In 1228, Frederick ii, emperor of the Holy Roman Empire of the German Nation, paid a state visit to Jerusalem. There he gained by diplomatic means what previous crusades had been denied. Frederick made a treaty with the Ottomans via which they surrendered Jerusalem, Nazareth and Bethlehem to the Christians, with the Mosque of Omar remaining in the hands of the Muslims. He then crowned himself king of Jerusalem.

By 1244 the Muslims had laid siege to the city, retaking it as a Muslim possession. It was to remain in their hands until centuries later an interesting event, again involving a German emperor who paid a state visit to Jerusalem, changed the whole complex of the city.

In 1898, Kaiser Wilhelm visited Jerusalem. From then on, things never were the same for the City of Peace.

Having long languished as a backwater under Ottoman rule, the Kaiser’s triumphal entry on horseback into Jerusalem was greeted with enthusiasm by its majority Muslim population. They conferred upon him the freedom of the city.

The Kaiser and his wife visited the “holy” sites which the Empress Helena, Charlemagne’s mother, had “identified” over a millennium earlier and which since had become venerated as icons of the Catholic faith.

At the church known as the Holy Sepulcher, the Kaiser and his wife were welcomed with much Romish pageantry as they entered the sepulcher to pray.

The parting gift granted the Kaiser for his high-profile visit to Jerusalem was permission by the ruling Ottoman caliphate to a repeat building of a Catholic icon atop Mount Zion, the Dormition Abbey.

Unfortunate for the builders, they initiated a world war in 1914, which led to a mighty mounted charge by Australian and New Zealand infantry liberating Beersheba from the Turks and opening the way for General Allenby’s famous march into the city of Jerusalem at the head of a contingent of troops of the British Empire. A mandate was then issued to the British to become protectors of Jerusalem.

Once again Germany had failed to deliver the goods to Rome.

Israel was subsequently established as a sovereign state, to become home to Jewish refugees from two great world wars and from the tyranny of the Soviet Union, among many others who already were established there or who chose to make the Levant their home, migrating from all over the world.

As a sign of Germany’s continuing interest in Jerusalem, in 1982, the Kaiser’s grandson visited the city that had so captured the imagination of Wilhelm and his wife.

Then in 1996 came an unprecedented event.

For the first time in history, the head of the Roman Catholic Church visited Jerusalem. John Paul ii, who did more during his papacy than any other to heal the deep wounds and offenses of centuries ingrained between Rome and international Jewry, paid homage to the Jews in the City of Peace.

Twelve years later, a greatly expanded European Union, dominated by a newly strident Germany, just beginning to feel its oats as a revived world power, looks south and east for lebensraum.

Enter Nicolas Sarkozy.

Just a few weeks ago, on Sunday, July 13, Sarkozy addressed an unprecedented assemblage of delegates, mostly comprising presidents or prime ministers from an array of nations, many hailing from “the south, the east, and the Glorious Land.” “‘The European and the Mediterranean dreams are inseparable,’ Sarkozy told leaders from more than 40 nations in Europe, the Middle East and North Africa. ‘We will succeed together; we will fail together.’ The union Sarkozy championed as a pillar of his presidency brought together around one table for the first time dignitaries from such rival nations as Israel and Syria, Algeria and Morocco, Turkey and Greece” (Associated Press, July 13; emphasis mine throughout).

Holding up the EU’s accomplishments as an example toward which the Mediterranean countries should aspire, Sarkozy stated, “We will build peace in the Mediterranean together, like yesterday we built peace in Europe” (ibid.).

“Peace … peace.” The double employment of the word in this context brings to mind the Apostle Paul’s prophecy, “For when they shall say peace and safety; then sudden destruction cometh upon them” (1 Thessalonians 5:3). Compare that prophecy with the fact that “A draft declaration obtained by the Associated Press shows that summit participants will announce ‘objectives of achieving peace, stability and security’ in the region” (ibid.). Given the context, the participants and the timing, that statement ought to electrify any student of international relations who is even partway familiar with Bible prophecy for these days!

The draft declaration issued by the conveners of the Mediterranean Union states that the union will be jointly run by all of its members, having a dual presidency. This presidency will be shared jointly, in rotating terms, by one EU member nation and one Mediterranean nation. That’s shorthand for declaring that the EU, by far the most powerful bloc of the two, will hold the whip hand.

This has been assured by Germany’s Chancellor Angela Merkel insisting that 27 EU nations be represented in the Mediterranean Union. The chancellor, foreshadowing one of the prime reasons for the creation of the Mediterranean Union, called the union’s first meeting “‘a very good start’ and said it could help the Middle East conflict” (ibid.).

The Mediterranean Union replaces a trial at EU Mediterranean union launched in 1995 termed the Barcelona Process. For the EU, that process has not moved quickly enough to bring Southern Mediterranean nations to heel, hence the new Franco/German initiative, which is designed to be fully up and running by year’s end.

Note that the United States is excluded from this process. The reason is simple. The EU seeks to use the new Mediterranean Union to muscle in on the Middle East, in particular so as to influence the peace process between the Palestinians and Israel, which the EU sees as going nowhere under U.S. jurisdiction.

With eyes ultimately on Middle Eastern oil, the EU is cranking up its diplomacy in the Mediterranean and Middle East, sidelining the U.S. in the process. In the meantime, certain elements within Germany see the Mediterranean Union as a process that moves their nation one step closer toward the ripest plum of all, the greatly coveted city of Jerusalem.

Will the resurrecting Holy Roman Empire, in the guise of the European Union, succeed in seizing for Rome that which Kaiser Wilhelm failed to deliver? Read our booklet Jerusalem in Prophecy for the answer!