WHAT MEN FORESAW AND FORETOLD TWENTY-FIVE YEARS AGO—
THIS SPIRIT OF HATRED WILL INCREASE UNTIL THE
COMING OF THE PRINCE OF PEACE
By JEAN VUILLEUMIER
No effects are without corresponding causes. Nor is there such a thing as accidents in history. The present war—the most frightful one in all ages—could never have occurred except plans and preparations for it had been made, not by one, but by all combatants.
SEEKING TO JUSTIFY THE WAR
One of the saddest things in connection with this fierce conflict is the efforts made by belligerents and neutrals, laymen and ministers, to throw the blame on the other side, and thus justify the conflict itself by calling God's blessing on the so-called righteous side.
This can only be done by entirely forgetting the political history of Europe during the last forty years, and it speaks ill for the future political and religious prospects of this world. If the most savage outbreak of violence and murder can be thus justified and exalted under the names of righteousness and liberty—as it is, on both sides—what can we expect for the near future?
To prove the above assertions, it will be sufficient to quote two men, a Belgian and an Englishman—both now dead—who wrote twenty-five years ago, and who were as well qualified as any one in Europe to speak intelligently on the situation there, and on the political future of the continent. What they predicted has exactly come to pass. In fact, there was no prophecy about it. They simply wrote what their common sense told them would inevitably come to pass.
EXPECTED IT FOR THIRTY YEARS
The first witness will prove that the present war has been a matter of almost daily expectation in Europe for about thirty years, and that there has been plenty of time for people to exercise what influence or what righteous indignation they desired in order to avert the coming conflagration. The article from which I shall quote was printed in the Forum for October, 1889, and was written by a Belgian, professor of political economy at the Liege University, the well-known Emile de Laveleye, author of important books, such as "The Actual Causes of War in Europe," "The Balkan Peninsula," "Luxury," etc. He says:
"Happy Americans, whose powerful republic spreads over a whole continent, without fear of encroachment, and, so to speak, without army or fleet, justly confident in your incalculable latent strength, you must find it somewhat difficult to understand that the states of Europe are ever arming, and ever on the point of disputing over a few provinces not equivalent to the territories which are every year cleared and brought under cultivation by your increasing population. At such a distance, you can not imagine how truly terrible and tragic the actual situation of Europe is. Never was there anything similar in the preceding centuries.
HOW ACCURATELY HE FORECASTS IT
"Every one is convinced that at any moment so horrible a war may break out, that all other wars, even that of secession in America, will be but child's play in comparison. The adversaries that we foresee obliged to take up arms, Russia and France on the one side, Germany, Italy, and Austria on the other, will bring seven millions of men onto the battle-field, with a reserve of ten millions. By means of the rapid concentration rendered possible by the railways, we shall witness, even during the first few days, two collisions, one in the east, the other in the west, in which three millions of human beings will be seen struggling together; for both sides will be endeavoring to crush their enemy under the attack of innumerable masses.
FORETELLS THE SLAUGHTER
"No strategist, not even Moltke himself, can foresee what such a conflict will be like. All we can say is, that the number of killed and wounded will, in one day, exceed that of an entire war of former times. Human blood will never have soaked the earth in such streams. And what is most terrible, this struggle is considered by all as inevitable; and we see now all the states, even the small and neutral ones, preparing for it. Every year, the European nations, pacific England, Switzerland, and Belgium included, apply millions to the construction of forts and ironclads, to the perfecting of arms, and increasing the number of cannons and men.
"France, for example, has surrounded her frontiers and her capital with a continuous line of forts and entrenchments. Germany has made Metz, Strasburg, Mayence, and Cologne into gigantic fortresses, which are absolutely impregnable. Italy fortifies her Alpine passes, her seaports, and even the 'eternal city' itself. Belgium is just now spending forty millions of francs in the construction of redouts with cupolas of steel, to close the passage by the Maas Valley. The war budgets are everywhere increasing in enormous proportions.
"Every now and then, an incident occurs which causes us to think that the moment of the decisive struggle is at hand. Now it is a French subject unjustly arrested by the Germans on the frontier; now it is Russia that, after having forced the prince of Battenberg to leave Sophia, sends General Kaulbars there to threaten the Bulgarians with the arrival of the Cossacks; again it is the abdication of King Milan of Servia that makes us fear Austrian intervention at Belgrade.
THEY GOT USED TO IT
"And it is under this continual menace of the most frightful shock of armies that our planet will ever have looked upon, that we live. And the most extraordinary thing is that we get used to it. We go about our business, our pleasures; we rush in crowds from all parts to the Paris exhibition, while each one says, It may be for to-morrow.
THE TWO MENACING QUESTIONS
"What are the questions which thus endanger the peace of Europe? There are two principal ones, well known to all,—that of Alsace-Lorraine, and the Eastern question."742Who can, in the face of these irrefutable facts, claim that the European war was "made in Germany," or in any other nation exclusive of the others, I care not which? Is it not ignorance or hypocrisy to make such a claim, when it is remembered there has been no adequate effort, on the part of any of these nations, or any church, to condemn, discourage, or counteract the mad war preparations made everywhere? These preparations called for a vigorous, incessant, and growing crusade on the part of the churches and of individuals; and as it was not done, all are equally responsible, and it matters very little now who pressed the button or lighted the match. Pacifist societies did some good work in this direction; but unfortunately, they did not deal with the root of the matter. They left out of their work the Christian principle which alone can eradicate war. They thought that diplomacy alone could cope with this climax of human selfishness.
BRITISH TERRITORIAL TROOPS BRINGING A LIGHT FIELD GUN INTO POSITION
THE CATACLYSM WAS BOUND TO COME
These conclusions will become still stronger from an article which appeared in the September number of Harper’s Monthly for 1891, written by Mr. de Blowitz, for many years the distinguished Parisian correspondent of the London Times. He wrote as follows:
“I propose to sum up the observations which force themselves on my professional position, and to forecast and trace the future politics of Europe until the new cataclysm which is bound to happen, and which will again change its face. . . .
“To-day, as yesterday, or to-morrow, and for a long time to come, the situation of France and Germany forms the great subject of anxiety which is imposed upon the meditation of all European statesmen. . . . When the time comes, the battle-field, the fate of arms, can alone decide afresh the antagonism of centuries which separates the Gaulish from the Germanic race. . . .
NOT IN THE ATMOSPHERE OF PEACE
“Never will this question be settled in the pure and Christian atmosphere of peace. . . . No, peace is not concluded between the two nations. No, the era of combat between them is not over, and the sword is what must again and again decide, until the unknown time when a new morality shall govern the world, and when the God of peace shall be universally acknowledged. . . .
“On account of the jealous antipathy and anarchical division of the different political parties in France, making it impossible for the nation to be summoned or marshaled as one man around either the one of the other party, . . . it is not the republic which at this moment can declare war. . . .
MILLIONS AT THE FIRST SIGNAL
“At this moment, nobody would be taken by surprise. Neither power would have weapons of the existence of which the adversary was ignorant. Millions of men are ready to attack at the first signal. The weapons are furbished, the arsenals are full. It is nation rushing against nation. It is the supreme contest to decide whether Teuton or Frank shall henceforth govern Europe. And until one of the two has placed his knee on the breast of the other, the combat will not stop.
“Internal affairs will be settled afterwards. Here, the victorious general will be proclaimed emperor; there, colossal statues will be raised to the living emperor. Either, vanquished here, the general will disappear in the ruins of the republic, or, vanquished there, the Rhine will at last become a conquered frontier, the empire will crumble into hostile fragments, and the emperor of yesterday will sink into nothingness in the dry, sandy subsoil of Brandenburg.
“This is the second part of the bloody drama. The first is the combat itself, immense, terrifying, and so formidable that, as France, thirsty for revenge, does not embark in it, why should the young emperor do so? . . .
“Judging by the papers, Europe would appear to be enjoying the prospect of an indefinite period of peace, and the enormous armaments in which it is indulging would therefore seem to be acts of prodigality and madness. This is a mistake. Despite all that I have said, there is an inevitable event, which may happen to-day, to-morrow, in ten years, or even later — nobody knows — and which at once, imperiously, without there being any possibility of staving off or preventing it, will let loose war over the entire surface of Europe, and place the sword in the hand of all the great continental powers.
“I have frequently for two years endeavored to ascertain whether European diplomacy thinks of this event, whether it is weighing the imperative consequences, whether it is preparing for it. I have been amazed at seeing that among those who ought to scan the future, not one has fixed a steady eye on the mysterious horizon that conceals the thunderclap which must one day awake and startle Europe; and when, seeing them absorbed in their present task, I have pointed out to some of them the eventualities which will then arise, I have seen them shudder and draw back, as if terrified, from the problem which forced itself on their meditation, and which seems to me to have no other issue than war — war from one end of Europe to the other.”
This is what impartial observers saw twenty-five years ago. This is what we see with our own eyes to-day. Causes have their inevitable consequences. Selfishness begets hatred; and hatred, when nation-wide, begets war. Of recent years, causes for war in Europe have become more and more complex and pressing; first of all economic, then political and racial.
But each and every one of these causes could have been eradicated only by the power of the gospel of Jesus Christ working its principles of love, meekness, and unselfishness into the individual hearts. And only when a majority in one nation had thus become humble disciples of the Crucified, could that nation hope to escape the dire necessity of war.
But this has perhaps never occurred in the history of any nation. And the Bible nowhere promises that this will ever occur until the King of peace comes to reign. On the contrary, “evil men” are to “grow worse and worse,” until the end. The political panorama, according to prophecy, ends with Armageddon. And by present indications, we will be rushing toward it with greater momentum when this war ends, if it does end before we reach the last great war, the “war of the great day of God Almighty.”
SUDANESE SOLDIERS THAT ARE TO FIGHT THE TURKS IN EGYPT
