His name was Ferdinand. He was 97 years old when I met him in the war-battered underground fortress of Vaux in northeastern France. He was slowly and carefully signing books in the shop of a fortress museum that commemorated some of the great battles of the First World War fought on this site—battles in which he had participated. Ferdinand willingly spoke to the visitors who, like me, came to see the battle sites first hand.

It's hard to imagine the violence of the battle that took place on the fertile plains of Lorraine during what the French call the '14-'18 War. Here, around Verdun, one of the oldest cities in France, French and German troops clashed in a series of horrendously bloody battles running through the spring and summer of 1916. In successive seesaw attacks, hills, forts and strong points were taken, lost and retaken many times by both sides.

Many of the battles centered on the underground fortresses at Douaumont and Vaux. These giant reinforced-concrete bunkers had huge metal turrets that could rise above ground level to fire 155-mm. and 75-mm. cannons, then drop back underground for the protection of gun crews. Hundreds of men could be housed underground to service the huge cannons, armored machine-gun nests and observation bells that made the forts so formidable.

On a nearby hill stands the sobering Douaumont national war cemetery, in which 15,000 French soldiers are buried in neatly aligned rows. In all, 43 French military cemeteries lie in the region of Verdun alone, containing more than 80,000 graves. Nearly 55,000 German soldiers are buried in 29 German war cemeteries.

A Staggering Human Tragedy

The combined number of dead in the Verdun sector alone is estimated to be as high as one million. Of these, fewer than a quarter have been identified and buried in marked graves.

So many dead were lost and left unburied in the no man's land between the lines of battle that, after the war, huge piles of unidentifiable remains were gathered and interred in a large monument called the Ossuaire (from the French word os, "bone"). Through small portals at the base of the monument, visitors can look into the burial chambers and recognize heaps of human bones representing some 130,000 soldiers.

If the numbers of those killed in this small area defy imagination, it is because World War I marked the first time many modern weapons were used on a mass scale. The newly developed machine gun made frontal charges little less than suicidal. But, since neither side could find any more successful tactics, both continued sending waves of young men forward to the scythe to gain a few meters of ground.

Artillery shells containing poisonous gases brought blindness, respiratory failure and gruesome chemical burns to thousands. High-explosive artillery shells carried greater destructive power than ever before. Several villages in the area around Verdun—such as Fleury, Douaumont and Vaux—were destroyed so completely that not even the foundations of buildings could be found. Not one stone was left upon another. Even the grass and trees disappeared.

Monument to Futility

Near the Ossuaire another monument testifies to the murderous power of the big guns. It is called la tranchée des baïonnettes: the bayonet trench. In this trench on June 12, 1916, the 137th French infantry regiment was in place, bayonets fixed to the soldiers' rifles, ready to defend the line against the German advance. German observers called in an artillery barrage and gas attack against the French position. The shelling was so violent and powerful that those not killed outright were buried alive by the dirt thrown from the explosions.

After the battle all that was left to identify the site of the trench were the points of bayonets and gun barrels sticking up through the dirt. A monument now stands over the trench; visitors can still see the gun barrels and bayonets.

The fighting in and around the fortress of Vaux, where I met Ferdinand, was intense during the first week of June 1916. German troops had already occupied the covering fort of Douaumont, making it much more difficult to defend Vaux. Under commander Raynal a small garrison of 250 men defended the fort against heavy, repeated assaults.

On June 2 German forces occupied the superstructure installations and began attacking the interior of the fort room by room. Hand-to-hand fighting progressed slowly through smoke- and gas-filled corridors. The combatants used flame throwers, grenades and small arms until thirst finally rendered untenable the defenders' resistance. The heroic opposition ceased June 7, and the French garrison had to surrender.

During the rest of the war, the fortresses of Vaux and Douaumont were taken and retaken. Soldiers were sometimes cut off from supplies and could not go outside the masonry structure because of the artillery attacks. At times hundreds of dead soldiers could be buried only by being placed in the end sections of tunnels and walled in.

A Survivor Reminisces

Ferdinand Viviès was the youngest man in Comdr. Raynal's unit and the last survivor. I met him when I noticed him signing books there in the fortress museum. I asked him to sign one I had bought. I looked at him curiously, this survivor of another, apocalyptic, age.

He responded to my questions about his recollections of the war. But the longer we conversed the more it became clear that he was more interested in talking about his garden. Though he came to Vaux every year to commemorate the battles in which he had fought and the friends who had died in them, he always worried about whether the neighbors in his village in the south of France were taking proper care of his tomatoes, green beans and other garden plants.

They needed lots of water and care in the hot, dry climate of his region, he explained to me earnestly. Although he didn't want our collective memory to fade about what he and his comrades had gone through or how many had died so horribly, he was more interested in growing things. He didn't wish to discuss the horror and death of his youth. His thoughts turned to the life he could nourish and bring from the soil. He enjoyed providing the fruits of his garden to friends and neighbors.

I admit I was surprised by this turn in our conversation. I'm not sure what I expected, but for some reason it surprised me that this aged war hero should be so interested in something as simple and peaceful as gardening. This brought to my mind the life and experiences of the prophet Isaiah.

An Ancient Prophet Experiences the Horrors of War

Isaiah, although of noble birth according to Jewish tradition, was acquainted firsthand with the horrors of war. Living in the kingdom of Judah seven centuries before the time of Christ, he witnessed the great Assyrian army of King Sennacherib sweeping through the Holy Land.

Sennacherib had already conquered and assimilated Syria and Israel, Judah's neighbors to the north. Isaiah 36:1 says succinctly that "Sennacherib the king of Assyria came up against the walled cities of Judah and took them." Underlying these few words are long periods of agonizing and bloody siege warfare; weeks and months of fighting in places such as Lachish, the fall of which is graphically depicted in Assyrian carvings now on display in the British Museum in London. Sennacherib boasted of having taken 46 such walled cities and more than 200,000 captives. His armies killed and maimed countless thousands of others.

Ancient monuments, along with archaeological digs on the sites, allow us to reconstruct how ancient forces fought these battles. Armies surrounded fortified cities one after the other, closing them off from any external food or water supplies. Clouds of arrows swept over the walls as the besiegers built giant ramps up to the defensive fortifications.

A few years ago I had walked through the archeological site at Lachish, where excavations show that the defenders desperately tried to build their walls higher on the inside to prevent the enemy ramp from reaching the top of the wall and breaching their defenses. Ramp and makeshift defenses alike could be clearly recognized once excavated.

As soldiers and engineers on both sides of the walls raced to complete their constructions, the town's defenders shot arrows and hurled spears, rocks and anything else they could find to slow the attackers, but to no avail.

One by one the cities fell. No doubt many friends, acquaintances and perhaps relatives of Isaiah were killed or captured. The smoke from some of the nearby battered and burning cities, perhaps even Lachish, would have been visible to Isaiah in Jerusalem.

Though God ultimately delivered Jerusalem from the Assyrians by miraculous intervention, the thrill of deliverance must have been tempered by a great deal of mourning, sorrow and personal loss. Friends, acquaintances and family members had been killed or taken into captivity, never to be seen again.

Promises of Peace

Yet, through it all, Isaiah could be encouraged by the divine promises of world peace that God had inspired through him. Though the prophet did not see these astounding prophecies come to pass in his time, he knew they would someday come true.

Isaiah no doubt longed for the time when God would accomplish what He had inspired to be recorded for us in Isaiah 2:4: "He [God] shall judge between the nations, and rebuke many people; they shall beat their swords into plowshares, and their spears into pruning hooks; nation shall not lift up sword against nation, neither shall they learn war anymore."

Isaiah knew of the promised King to come, "the Prince of Peace," who would bring a final end to war: "Of the increase of His government and peace there will be no end, upon the throne of David and over His kingdom, to order it and establish it with judgment and justice from that time forward, even forever. The zeal of the Lord of hosts will perform this" (Isaiah 9:7).

Under the divine rule of Jesus Christ as King of the earth, peace will break out all over the world. "He shall judge between many peoples, and rebuke strong nations afar off; they shall beat their swords into plowshares, and their spears into pruning hooks; nation shall not lift up sword against nation, neither shall they learn war any more" (Micah 4:3, emphasis added throughout).

The next words of this Hebrew prophet bring to mind Ferdinand Viviès' love for his garden: "But everyone shall sit under his vine and under his fig tree, and no one shall make them afraid; For the mouth of the Lord of hosts has spoken" (verse 4).

These divine promises had not come to pass before the time Ferdinand Viviès and his comrades fought and bled at Verdun. They still haven't come to pass. During the time it takes you to read this article, men, women and children will die either directly in or indirectly as a result of wars and conflicts around the world. But God will keep His promises through Isaiah: "The zeal of the Lord of hosts will perform this."

The Bible assures us a time will come when "they shall not hurt nor destroy in all My holy mountain, for the earth shall be full of the knowledge of the Lord as the waters cover the sea" (Isaiah 11:9). This is a promise of peace, not only for the land of Israel, but for Europe, Asia, South America—the whole world.

This world will finally see peace, but not through human efforts and intentions. Divine intervention will bring an ultimate end to war: "Lord, you will establish peace for us," Isaiah said confidently (Isaiah 26:12).

Enemies United as Allies

Isaiah was even allowed to see how the traditional enemies Israel, Assyria and Egypt would become peaceful neighbors, all worshiping the one true God: "In that day there will be a highway from Egypt to Assyria, and the Assyrian will come into Egypt and the Egyptian into Assyria, and the Egyptians will serve with the Assyrians. In that day Israel will be one of three with Egypt and Assyria—a blessing in the midst of the land, whom the Lord of hosts shall bless, saying, 'Blessed is Egypt My people, and Assyria the work of My hands, and Israel My inheritance'" (Isaiah 19:23-25).

This prediction may have seemed hard to believe for Isaiah and those of his generation who had suffered so much at the hands of the Assyrians. Their memories bore the scars of the cruelty and suffering they had seen at the hands of these invaders. It may have seemed impossible that those hated enemies could one day be appreciated, friendly neighbors. But this was what God promised.

These are truly words of hope when we consider the seemingly insoluble political and ethnic conflicts or our 20th-century world. A solution will become apparent for the tensions between Serbs and Bosnians, between Hutus and Tutsis, between the warring political factions in Asia and South America and even for the complicated situation in the Middle East. One day the violence will end.

War's Victims to Live Again

Not only will war cease to exist, but the millions of people who have suffered and died in wars through the centuries will get another chance at life—not a life cut short by hate and bloodlust, but an existence marked by peace and fulfillment: "Your dead shall live; together with my dead body they shall arise. Awake and sing, you who dwell in dust; for your dew is like the dew of herbs, and the earth shall cast out the dead (Isaiah 26:19).

God said through the prophet Ezekiel of this momentous event: "'Then you shall know that I am the Lord, when I have opened your graves, O My people, and brought you up from your graves. I will put My Spirit in you, and you shall live, and I will place you in your own land. Then you shall know that I, the Lord, have spoken it and performed it,' says the Lord" (Ezekiel 37:13-14).

Hundreds of years after Isaiah lived, the apostle Paul spoke of this time of promised peace, showing it would be so not only for Israel and Judah, but for everybody: "For as in Adam all die, even so in Christ all shall be made alive ... The last enemy that will be destroyed is death" (1 Corinthians 15:22, 26).

Those who fought and died in the walled cities of ancient Judah, in the fortresses and trenches of Verdun during the 1914-1918 war and in the hills and cities of present-day Bosnia and Rwanda, and those who will yet die in future wars, will experience a better way. The promises God transmitted through Isaiah allow us to look beyond this violent world to the time of ultimate peace.

A Soldier at Rest

Ferdinand Viviès died a few years after I met him. But he, like all those of his brothers in arms who died at Verdun and all of his fellow human beings who have died violently down through the ages, will one day awake to a marvelous time of peace.

It is wonderfully comforting to know that someday all mankind will turn from war to positive, uplifting and constructive pursuits. Just as Ferdinand Viviès wanted to turn his thoughts from the sufferings of war to the peaceful cultivating and caring for his garden, so the promises God gave through Isaiah show that one day humanity will forever forsake the ways of war and live peacefully and in harmony.

The painful, bad news of today will be forever swallowed up by the good news of the world tomorrow. GN