The Treaty of Versailles was one of the peace treaties at the end of World War I. It ended the state of war between Germany and the Allied Powers. It was signed on 28 June 1919 exactly five years after the assassination of Archduke Franz Ferdinand a critical event that led to the start of the war. The other Central Powers on the German side of World War I were dealt with in separate treaties. Although the armistice signed on 11 November 1918 ended the actual fighting, it took six months of negotiations at the Paris Peace Conference to conclude the peace treaty. These days of negotiation were “the most momentous days in the history of the world.”(1)

In 1913 ‘Abdu’l-Bahá returned to Palestine from His western teaching trip, a journey which Shoghi Effendi referred to in 1944 as “a service of such heroic proportions that no parallel to it is to be found in the annals of the first Bahá'í century.”(2) In the following year the Great War broke out in Europe. Between March 26 and April 22, 1916, ‘Abdu’l-Baha revealed the first eight of His Tablets of the Divine Plan. The remaining six were revealed between February 2 and March 8, 1917 just before the entry of the United States into the war. One hundred years ago even in peacetime it took time to get a message from Palestine to the United States. The war, of course, introduced additional delays. The first five of the Tablets were published in America in the September 8, 1916 issue of Star of the West a major Bahá'í publication of the time. The remainder would not be sent until after the war ended. They were unveiled at a special Bahá'í convention in New York City held from April 26 to 30, 1919.

'Abdu'l-Bahá makes reference in the longest tablet of the entire collection, to an army, a heavenly army arrayed for spiritual rather than physical battle. Filled with the love of God, this army marches into metaphorical battle with their chief weapons being their character, conduct and words. Reminding us of the Apostles of Christ, He calls upon the Bahá'ís of the United States and Canada to become Apostles of Bahá'u'lláh and to go forth into the world and teach. And the way to end all wars was as follows:

In brief.......O ye believers of God!
The text of the divine Book is this:
If two souls quarrel and contend
about a question of those divine
questions, differing and disputing,
both are wrong......The wisdom of
this incontrovertible law of God is
this: That between two souls from
amongst the believers of God, no
contention and dispute may arise;
that they may speak to each other
with infinite amity and love...and
should there appear the least trace
of controversy...they must remain
silent.....and both parties continue
their discussions no longer but ask
the reality of the question from the
Interpreter. This is the irrefutable..
command for the Very Great War.(3)

(1) “As It Happened: Paris 1918, Part 2,” National Film Board of Canada and France, 2008, SBS, 8:30 –9:30, 23 October 2009,
(2) Shoghi Effendi, God Passes By, Wilmette, 1957, p.279.
(3) 'Abdu'l-Baha, Tablets of the Divine Plan, p. 53.

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