"Today all Europe is divided into two armed camps, waiting breathlessly for the morrow with its Armageddon."—Everybody's Magazine, November, 1909.
Thus, everywhere, observers saw that the rivalry of interests among the nations was leading to a conflict so overwhelmingly vast that only the Scriptural word "Armageddon," with its appeal to the imagination, seemed adequately suggestive of its proportions.
Every passing year added to the intensity of feeling and the antagonism of interests. In 1911 the London Nineteenth Century and After said:
UNITED STATES BATTLESHIP "NEVADA"
Photograph taken from the Manhattan Bridge. New York.
COPYRIGHT BY UNDERWOOD & UNDERWOOD. N.Y.
"Never was national and racial feeling stronger upon earth than it is now. Never was preparation for war so tremendous and so sustained. Never was striking power so swift and so terribly formidable.... The shadow of conflict and of displacement greater than any which mankind has known since Attila and his Huns were stayed at Châlons, is visibly impending over the world. Almost can the ear of imagination hear the gathering of the legions for the fiery trial of peoples, a sound vast as the trumpet of the Lord of hosts."—Quoted in the Literary Digest, May 6, 1911.
COMRADES AFTER THE BATTLE
Soldiers bringing in two wounded captives. PHOTO BY CENTRAL PHOTO SERVICE. N.Y.
What the ancient prophecy foretold—the preparing of war in the last days, the waking up and arming of the nations—we have seen fulfilling before our eyes in this generation.