Battle of Armageddon

“ The fall of the Turkish power is the prelude to the gathering of the nations to the battle of Armageddon. And Armageddon is the prelude to the end of the world and Christ's glorious coming as King of kings and Lord of lords. The armies gathered to battle for supremacy find themselves suddenly arrayed against the armies of heaven. Another prophecy describes the scene when Christ is revealed:
"The kings of the earth, and the great men, and the rich men, and the chief captains, and the mighty men, and every bondman, and every free man, hid themselves in the dens and in the rocks of the mountains ”

“ And on that stony trench-torn plateau of the Carso, where men live in caverns under the earth and where the casualties are multiplied two- or three-fold by the fragments of explosive-shattered rock; even there, on this deadliest and most repulsive of all the battle-fronts of Armageddon, the lilting melodies of sunny southern Italy, punctuated, but never for long interrupted, by the shriek and detonation of Austrian shells, are heard on every hand. ”

“ When the blood of thy victims lies red on That stricken field, fiercest and last, In the sunset that gilds Armageddon With battle-drift still overcast— When the smoke of thy hot conflagrations O'ershadows the earth as with wings, Where nations have fought against nations, And kings have encounter'd with kings, When cometh the end of all things— Then those who have patiently waited, And borne, unresisting, the pain Of thy vengeance unglutted, unsated, Shall they be rewarded again? ”

“ Whatever ambitions or aims may be the impelling motives when the gathering to the great conflict comes, one thing is certain: Armageddon is to bring triumph and world dominion to no earthly power. As the nations gather, the Lord intervenes from heaven, and the history of the kingdoms of this world is closed at last. The prophet tells the sequel to Armageddon:
"He gathered them together into a place called in the Hebrew tongue Armageddon. And the seventh angel poured out his vial into the air; and there came a great voice out of the temple of heaven, from the throne, saying, It is done. ”

“ Don't forget the name, Willie—Armageddon. It's going to be the biggest fight the world ever saw—the only real fight in history, as we'll look back at it afterwards."
"But what has all this got to do with what I was reading from the paper?" insisted Private Green.
"Why, don't you see, if we're making the biggest and finest guns, and Armageddon comes on, it'll be just like robbing a baker's wagon for us to win Armageddon. On the other hand, if millennium runs in first, and we don't need the guns, then we win, too. ”

“ That Daniel's "King of the North," and what is predicted concerning that power, is now historical, and relates to the uprise and dominion of the Saracen amid the Turk. Whereas Ezekiel's prophecy is still unfulfilled, and is correctly applied to an invasion of the Holy Land by Russia (Gog) , at Armageddon.
It may also be worthy of suggestion, that Armageddon is not one event or one crisis, but a number of events and of world crises--not one war, but a series of wars. If one man may, in the Apocalypse, represent a multitude; and one year, many years; and a city, ten nations ”

“ Closely following on the words concerning the drying up of Euphrates comes the prophecy of Armageddon, that world war with which the Second Coming is to be so closely associated. Once begun, the world war can end only with the return of Christ, and His coming will be sudden and unexpected, like that of a thief in the night. ”

“ Without any tangible reason we see the nations preparing new armaments. They cannot arm any more men on land, so they have to seek new armaments upon the sea, piling up these enormous preparations as if for some great Armageddon—and that in a time of profoundest peace. We live in the midst of what I think was called by Petrarch tacens bellum—a silent warfare, in which not a drop of blood is shed in anger, but in which, however, the last drop is extracted from the living body by the lancets of the European statesmen. ”

“ The 7th, 8th, and 9th of Sept, we were constantly under shell and shrapnel fire, and suffered terrible losses. I was in a house which was hit several times. The fear of a death of agony which is in every man's heart, and naturally so, is a terrible feeling.
How often I thought of you, my darling, and what I suffered in that terrifying battle, which extended along a front of many miles near Montmirail, you cannot possibly imagine. Our heavy artillery was being used for the siege of Maubeuge; we wanted it badly, as the enemy had theirs in force, and kept up a furious bombardment. ”

“ Armageddon, the world war which had broken out with such irresistible violence and so unexpectedly—at least unexpectedly to Americans—in the year 1914, had progressed through long weary months to this eventful year of 1917. Tales of tragedy had reached America; thousands of men had heard or read of atrocities committed by the Germans in Belgium, and had ground their teeth and become almost violent. Still more thousands of men had taken a firm grip of themselves and had looked at the situation as dispassionately as was possible. ”

“ Breathing nothing but smoke and ashes,—canopied by flame, and smoke, and cinders,—surrounded by walls of fire that rocked to and fro, and fell with a crash amid the blazing ruins, carrying down with them red hot roofs of iron,—he struggled against an enemy, that no boldness could awe, or courage overcome.
Those brave troops had heard the tramp of thousands of cavalry, sweeping battle without fear, but now they stood in still terror, before the march of the conflagration, under whose burning footsteps was heard the incessant crash of falling houses, and palaces, and churches. ”

“ Deluged by high explosives, shrapnel and gas shells, seeing their comrades mowed down by machine gun fire, bombed from the sky, alternately in pouring rain and burning sun, hungry half the time, their eyes burning from want of sleep, half suffocated from long intervals in gas masks, undergoing all the hardships of a bitter campaign against a determined, vigorous and unscrupulous enemy, yet their only thought was to push on—and on—and on. ”

“ The enemy fire was as intense as ever. The air was filled with the whine and scream of arriving shells and the heavy crashes of their explosion. From somewhere behind came the rattle of rifles and machine-guns and the dull thud of bombs. Grey-clad men in swarms were running across the open ground athwart his path. He heard them shouting, saw officers gesticulating, realised as in a dream that they were running from the battle. But their fear touched him not. He was enveloped in concern for his beloved battery. ”

“ This very darkness, in concealing the danger, and the loss, doubtless did its share in permitting the men to cross the lines of dead that marked the halting-place of previous troops. Still onward they advanced,—the thunder of artillery above them,—the groans of the wounded rising from below;—frightful gaps are made in their ranks by exploding shells, and many a brave boy staggers and falls to rise no more, in that storm of spitefully whizzing lead. ”

“ Then a period when religion seems to be in the decline. Then a revival, and a return to faith in the prophecies. All religions agree on those prophecies, Lenk. Revelations refer to the end of Armageddon, when the whole world will wipe itself out before the creation of a better world, in one planet-wide war. The old Norse legends spoke of a Fimbulvetr, when the giants and their gods would destroy the earth in war. And these green-skinned peoples had the same religious prophecies. They came true, too. Armageddon. Contagious Armageddon. ”

“ On the morning of the 26th they rose to learn that a great war had begun, a conflict the possible width and depth of which no man was yet able to foresee; and as day after day passed on, each day some new nation springing into the terrible arena until practically the whole of Europe was in arms and the Armageddon seemed at hand, the world stood amazed and astounded, wondering what hand had loosed so vast a catastrophe, what deep and secret causes lay below the ostensible causes of the war. ”

“ The sickle has been thrust in and the harvest of the earth reaped. Armageddon’s war has been fought. God has plead with all nations in the valley of decision. What now? To those that are left the command will go out from Zion, and the word of the Lord from Jerusalem, and it will be obeyed, in the nations "beating their swords into plowshares and their spears into scythes, and nation shall not lift up sword against nation, neither shall they learn war any more." ”

“ Blood flowed in torrents, and the wounded and the dead were strewn over the pavements. The battle was begun. Fiercely it raged. Barricades were instantly constructed, which arrested the progress of the troops. As by magic, fire-arms appeared in the hands of the populace. Notwithstanding the general tumult and consternation, order emerged from the chaos. Every house became a citadel for the insurgents, and two armies were found confronting each other.
The king and his council, in session at the Tuileries, were greatly alarmed. ”

“ At 5 o'clock the bombardment began, slowly at first and then growing in volume until the whole air quivered with the rush of the larger shells and the earth shook with the concussion of guns. In a few minutes the whole distant landscape disappeared in smoke and dust, which hung for a while in the still air and then drifted slowly across the line of battle. ”

“ Day and night, bombs thrown by the German air fleet exploded in all parts of the city, doing great damage to property and killing and wounding hundreds of innocent noncombatants. Day and night could be heard the roar of the artillery fire, and nightfall brought the additional terror of the fiery reflection from bursting shrapnel. The peasants from the villages to the west and south streamed into the city in vast numbers. Thousands of wounded coming from all directions added still more to the horror and excitement. ”

“ To our hero and to the hundreds of onlookers the bombardment formed a grand but awful spectacle. Fascinated by the sight, they watched the salvoes of artillery directed at the bastions, every shot striking home, sending up clouds of dust, and followed often enough by a fall of masonry. The rebel shots whistled and rattled in the air, guns flashed and shells exploded both over their own men and over the doomed city. From the highest to the lowest, from the general in command to the youngest drummer-boy, all knew that this was the crowning work of anxious months of toil. ”

“ On the earth, torn up by a recent explosion, were lying, here and there, broken beams, crushed bodies of Russians and French, heavy cast-iron cannon overturned into the ditch by a terrible force, half buried in the ground and forever dumb, bomb-shells, balls, splinters of beams, ditches, bomb-proofs, and more corpses, in blue or in gray overcoats, which seemed to have been shaken by supreme convulsions, and which were lighted up now every instant by the red fire of the explosions which resounded in the air. ”

“ So to-day began another titanic conflict which the world will hold its breath to watch because of all that hangs upon it. I have seen the fury of this beginning, and all the sky on fire with it, the most tragic and frightful sight that men have ever seen, with an infernal splendour beyond words to tell. The bombardment which went before the infantry assault lasted for several days, and reached a great height yesterday, when, coming from the south, I saw it for the first time. ”

“ For on a sudden the conflagration blazes out, loaded with its spoils; masses of burning matter advance; mutilated lumps of falling rock roll forth and whirl dark shoals of sand. They present vague shapes in human likeness--some of the stones suggest the defeated warrior, some a gallant host armed for a standing fight, unassailed by the flames; on one side pants the enemy unwearied and deploys his forces, on another the breath of fury wanes, even as when an army, vanquished in the victor's joyous triumph, lies prostrate on the field right to the gates of the camp. ”

“ I seem to see them marching, with brave, bright faces and eager feet, to meet the foe. I hear the distant boom of cannon, growing fainter as they press the retreating enemy. And then, alas! many come back to me mutilated, bleeding, dying, yet with ardor unquenched, repressing moans of anguish that they may listen for the shout of victory: wrestling fiercely with the King of Terrors, not that they fear to die, but because his chill grasp palsies the arm that would fain strike another blow for the right. ”

“ The vast glare of light caused by the different explosions, and the fire of cannon and musketry, gave to the breaches the appearance of a volcano vomiting forth fire in the midst of the army: the ground shook—meteors shone forth in every direction—and when for a moment the roar of battle ceased, it was succeeded by cries of agony, or the furious exultation of the imperial soldiers. To stand before such a storm of fire, much less endeavour to overcome a barrier so impregnable, required men whose minds, as well as frames, 203were cast in a mould not human ”

“ That is all the concern they have about what is going on in the rear, or about the havoc and death the bombardment is launching at this moment on the cantonment where their comrades live. That is the egotistical indifference which long experience with danger gives, and the constant contemplation of death. The column marches along more carefully and wider awake, concealing themselves from the view of the enemy’s aerial observers which are to be seen high on the horizon in spite of the late hour and the twilight which has already begun to grow dark. ”