Part 3—The First World War—Was It the Prelude to Man’s Final Era?
In our previous issue, Part II discussed how the war escalated into a world conflict. After a long war of attrition, the Allied armies forced the Central Powers into surrender. Had a new era of peace dawned?
“AT ABOUT eleven o’clock A.M., a little sooner or later, we did not know, it did not matter,” recalled World War I veteran Daniel Morgan, “the guns stopped firing. Everything seemed as if it had stopped, even the earth on its axis. What a sorrowful, dead silence! A maddening silence. It did not seem right. The silence was worse than the noise of battle.”
Throughout Europe, mighty war machines ground to a halt on November 11, 1918. For many a soldier, however, there was little joy in the newfound peace. Long months and years would pass before the awful images of death, mutilated bodies and strangled cries would stop tormenting them.
But in places like London and Paris the tolling of the 11th hour brought about an explosion of gaiety. Strangers embraced. Couples danced in the streets. Years of deprivation and hardship now seemed to vanish in the euphoria of peace.
Even the defeated Germans found a cause for rejoicing: the abdication of the Kaiser. ‘At last we are free of our warmongering leaders!’ they thought. Few, however, imagined how bitter the fruits of defeat would prove to be.
War’s Aftermath
The changes wrought by the war were sweeping. Germany was stripped not only of its foreign colonies but even of some of its European territories. Its Kaiser fled into exile. Austria-Hungary—once a sprawling giant—was sliced into segments. Its Hapsburg monarchy ceased to exist. Its ally, the Ottoman Empire (Turkey), was rendered impotent. Revolution in Russia gave birth to the Union of Soviet Socialist Republics—a force with which the world would later have to reckon.
Throughout Europe, endless rows of white crosses marking the graves of the 9 million soldiers who were slaughtered and the over 12 million civilians who died would mar the lovely landscape. And as if war’s devastation were not enough, a deadly plague—the Spanish flu—soon rolled through Europe, claiming millions more victims.
Bible students would marvel at Revelation’s prophecy that war would be followed by “deadly plague.” (Revelation 6:4, 8) Others, though, would instead marvel at the prospect of a war-free world. A Political and Cultural History of Modern Europe, however, says regarding the armistice: “Formal peace was made, but it ushered in no millennium . . . As we now look back on the first two decades of the twentieth century, we perceive that the World War—its antecedents, its course, its immediate consequences—marked the end of one historic era and the beginning of another. It ushered in a different Europe, and a different world, politically, economically and intellectually.”
But what would that “different world” be like?
Attempts at Peace
On January 8, 1918, months before the war’s end, U.S. President Woodrow Wilson published his famous “Fourteen Points,” outlining his proposals for world peace. Wilson hoped to end the age of imperialism and guarantee the independence and inviolability of all nations by a League of Nations. His document proved to be the cornerstone of the Versailles Peace Conference that convened on January 18, 1919. The victorious nations, however, had a few ideas of their own about peace.
They were set on exacting as much punishment for Germany as possible. The conquerors therefore burdened Germany with towering reparation payments and severe restrictions—an abortive attempt to destroy Germany’s influence on the world scene once and for all. The people of Germany were outraged by these peace terms. They would bide their time for a chance to make Europe choke on these demands.
Wilson’s idea of a League of Nations, however, was eventually accepted. Neither the United States nor Germany came to be among its original 42 members, though. According to historian Gerhard Schulz, the League of Nations “took on an appearance different from what was planned, and left behind a seemingly insurmountable gulf between the nations that had been engaged with one another in world war. From it emerged no immediate peace, but a new enmity that carried on the War’s antagonisms.”
Proof of the inefficacy of this peace organ came all too soon. In October 1935 Italy attacked Ethiopia and completed the conquest by May 1936. The League was incapable of preventing the aggression. Nor could it call a halt to the Spanish civil war that followed. In 1939 World War II broke out. Out of the ashes of this war came a revival of the “peace” organization. Its name was a mockery of the true state of world affairs: the United Nations. It, too, has proved woefully inadequate.
Why Peace Eludes Man
Man has learned precious little from the first global conflict. Today’s rivals for world domination have the same driving ambitions that set the world aflame in 1914. Like their predecessors, today’s leaders pour their nations’ resources into military hardware, meticulously plot nuclear war strategies and even contemplate the gruesome advantages of striking first. They are not restrained by the fact that though a month of negotiations failed to stop the outbreak of World War I, the fateful decisions of nuclear war might have to be made within minutes!
Cries for disarmament, or even for a nuclear freeze, have thus far not borne fruit. The inheritors of the nuclear age can merely grasp the slim hope that world leaders will suddenly conduct themselves responsibly—a hope that is far from encouraged by the record of history. Professor Gerhard Schulz, for example, says: “Genuine peace presupposes that there be complete agreement about war’s causes; it demands that these be removed completely; old political and economical structures must be replaced by new ones unfettered by the manifest causes of war. We know, however, that this supports the principle of utopia, for it expresses a truth that at present is nowhere reality.”
The unlikeliness of man-made peace is further underscored by what the Bible says at James 4:1, 2: “From what source are there wars and from what source are there fights among you? Are they not from this source, namely, from your cravings for sensual pleasure that carry on a conflict in your members? You desire, and yet you do not have. You go on murdering and coveting, and yet you are not able to obtain. You go on fighting and waging war.” As long as man is driven by these selfish cravings, peace will remain elusive.
Man’s Final Era?
Is man therefore headed for thermonuclear disaster? Even starry-eyed optimists find themselves wondering about this. Nevertheless, students of the Bible can confidently say that man has not reached his final era. These students were not surprised by the events that escalated into World War I. They knew of Bible prophecies that specifically predicted a time of world conflict.—See Matthew 24:6-8; Revelation 6:1-4.
They further knew that it was never God’s intention that man rule himself. No God of love could sanction the terrible consequences man-rule has brought. The prophet Jeremiah thus declared: “I well know, O Jehovah, that to earthling man his way does not belong. It does not belong to man who is walking even to direct his step.”—Jeremiah 10:23.
Nevertheless, God has allowed man a period of self-rule to demonstrate the need for a heavenly government. Those who have open-mindedly studied man’s past failings and the current state of world affairs have little doubt as to just how desperately God’s rule is needed. Soon God’s government will “crush and put an end” to all earthly governments and their supporters. (Daniel 2:44) A “great crowd” of survivors will enjoy life under this government in a Paradise earth free from war’s strife. (Revelation 7:14-17; Isaiah 2:4) Jehovah’s Witnesses are preparing now for life under this government.
But what will you do? By studying the Bible you can come to understand God’s promises more clearly and learn how to take a stand for God’s rulership. Or, hoping man will somehow figure out an escape from his present dilemma, you can stake your life—and your future—on human rule and thus ignore the lessons of history.
[Pictures on page 13]
Neither the League of Nations nor the United Nations has prevented wars and endless rows of graves
LEAGUE OF NATIONS
UNITED NATIONS