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of the English-speaking Anglo-American World Power, the seventh of Bible history. This and other facts regarding the international peace and security organization fit, in an amazing way, what the Bible book of Revelation had said about a short-lived "eighth king" that would both rise and fall in our day. What were some of these interesting parallels?--Revelation 17:11.
The prophecy in Revelation revealed that a "beast" having "two horns like a lamb" would tell "those who dwell on the earth to make an image" to the wild beast, which has been headed by the seven great world powers of Biblical history.
This is exactly what the Anglo-American World Power did. It urged "those who dwell on the earth" to make a League that looked and acted the way great governments do. But really it was only "an image to the wild beast." It had no power of its own, only what was given it by its member nations. It is not described as coming into power through some great military conquest, as world powers had done. Instead, it springs or comes from the seven world powers. It owes its existence not only to the seventh of them but also to other member nations that include remnants of the preceding six. Would this political image reach the high goals that its founders had hoped for?--Revelation 13:11, 14; 17:11.
Failure of the League
The League of Nations accomplished a great deal in social fields. However, its real goal, as expressed in its official "Covenant of the League of Nations," was "to promote international cooperation and to achieve international peace and security." In this it failed.
The League did not succeed in keeping Japan from moving into Manchuria in 1931. It did not keep Bolivia and Paraguay from going to war in 1933. It failed to prevent Mussolini's 1936 conquest of Ethiopia. However, the League's deathblow came on September 1, 1939, with the outbreak of World War II--a convulsion of the kind of mass destruction and misery that the League had been established to prevent. That war's toll? The lives of 16 million soldiers and 39 million civilians, a total of 55 million dead, or almost four times the death toll of World War I!
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