Armageddon Not Mythical But A Real Battlefield.

New York Times 100 years ago today, August 11, 1912:
The Place Mentioned in Revelations, Quoted by Col. Roosevelt, Is Connected by Historians With a Plain in Palestine Where Many Struggles Took Place from Early Bible Days Till Napoleon Won a Victory There.
    WHEN Theodore Roosevelt added to his already bright reputation as a phrase-maker by his recent remark about "standing at Armageddon" it is safe to say that comparatively few people knew exactly what he meant. The great majority of us, of course, had a hazy notion about the meaning of the word; we knew that it was something Biblical and warlike.
    But our knowledge was, to put it mildly, not exact. And, as the word has been repeated again and again since Roosevelt first used it in Chicago, thousands of people have been asking themselves, or others, "What is Armageddon?" with more or less unsatisfactory results. Therefore, a brief elucidation of the word's meaning should be distinctly welcome in many quarters.

Battle Between Good and Evil.
    Armageddon is the place mentioned in the Book of Revelation as the scene of the great battle between the forces of Good and Evil that will precede the millennial reign of Christ on Earth. Driven to desperation by their sufferings, we are told, all the evil inhabitants of the earth will gather there for a last fight. Their leaders, the "dragon" (Satan), the "beast" and the "false prophet" will cast forth from their mouths three unclean spirits which, by working miracles, will deceive the Kings of the earth and make them gather with their subjects on the side of Evil.
    The result of this "War of Great God the Almighty" will be the complete triumph of Good. The beast and the false prophet, taken prisoners, will be cast into the lake of fire, and the dragon chained in the abyss for a thousand years.
    The Scriptural writer who chose Armageddon as the scene of this terrific final struggle was not drawing on his imagination, except as regards the battle itself. The spot where it is supposed to take place actually exists, if the researches of eminent scholars are to be believed.
    It is none other than the great plain of Esdraelon, the Greek form of the Hebrew word that is rendered as Jezreel in the English Bible, meaning "God has sown." The form "Armageddon" is supposed to be derived from the Greek for the Hebrew words meaning Hill of Megiddo. Megiddo is the name of a village on the plain that has been variously identified as Ledyun, called by the Romans, Legio, and El-Mujedda, a ruined site at the foot of the hills of Belsan.

Greatest Plain in Palestine.
    Esdraelon is the greatest plain in Palestine. It is traversed by the River Kishon, and separates the mountain ranges of Galilee and Samaria. It is a triangle, having for its base the hills forming the watershed between the Jordan and the Kishon, extending north and south from Nazareth to Jenin, a distance of fifteen miles. The hills of Galilee form the northern boundary, while on the southwest is the Carmel range, extending from a distance of about 20 miles, from the sea to Jenin.
    Lying as it does in an exceedingly strategic location, directly in the logical path that must be taken by armies and caravans on their marches, the plain has from time immemorial played an important part in the history of Palestine. On account of its level character, it has again and again been the scene of decisive battles, and the memories that cluster about it are exceedingly martial.
    From the earliest days of Scriptural history down almost to our own day there has been war on the plain of Armageddon, or Esdraelon. Besides the contests mentioned in the Bible, it has witnessed repeated fights between Assyrians and Egyptians, and, centuries later, the troops of the ubiquitous Napoleon Bonaparte fought on it when their chieftain was in the East. But the battles of Armageddon which are most famous are, of course, those recounted in the Bible.
    The first of these was the defeat of the Canaanites under Sisera by Barak, on which occasion Deborah, the prophetess, is supposed to have said that "the stars in their courses fought against Sisera." At that time the people of Israel were suffering cruel oppression at the hands of Jabin, King of Hazor. The hostility of the people in the latter's district dated back to the time of Joshua, against whom they had fought with extreme bitterness.
    At last the oppression of Jabin grew intolerable, and the Israelites revolted under the leadership of Barak.

Under Barak's Leadership.
    Led by him and inspired by Deborah, they marched to the plain of Armageddon and encamped on the broad summit of Mount Tabor, which rises above the plain to a height of 1,500 feet north of Endor, and at the edge of the Galilean hills. Jabin's army and the forces of his allies, all under the command of his general, Sisera, encamped on the plain, near Megiddo. Tradition says that the great host brought with it 900 iron war chariots, which probably were reckoned upon to bear the brunt of the fighting.
    But, on the great plain, there are a large number of springs which, rising in the eastern part, unite to form the Kishon. These, swollen to most unusual proportions by a heavy rainfall, poured their waters over the level ground on which Sisera was encamped, converting it into a quagmire on which the manoeuvring of chariots was out of the question. Seeing their advantage, the men of Barak swarmed down from Mount Tabor, made a furious onslaught on the hosts of the enemy, and drove them headlong from the field in utter rout. The rainstorm had filled every hollow of the plain with turbulent streams of water, and the Kishon had become a raging torrent, so that escape was well-nigh impossible for the troops of Sisera.
    Many of them, driven to the banks of the Kishon, plunged into the water and were swept away by the current. Some managed to escape to the northward. Sisera, however, fled in the opposite direction, reached the tent of Heber the Kenite, and was there done to death by Jael, Heber's wife, as is recorded in the Song of Deborah.

Gideon's Battlefield.
    The plain of Esdraelon, or Armageddon figured again as a battlefield when Gideon met the "Midianites, Amalekites, and the children of the East" there and routed them. Having forced their way as far as the plain, they had spread over it "with their cattle and their tents, as grasshoppers for multitude, for both they and their camels were without number."
    Gideon, with men of the tribes of Manasseh, Zebulun, Naphtali, and Asher, whose districts were those that were suffering most from the irruption of the foe, pitched his camp on the hills surrounding the valley.
    "And the Lord said unto Gideon, the people that are with thee are too many for me to give the Midianites into their hand, lest Israel vaunt themselves against me, saying Mine own hand hath saved me. Now, therefore, go to, proclaim in the ears of the people, saying, whosoever is fearful and trembling, let him return and depart from Mount Gilead. And there returned of the people twenty and two thousand; and there remained ten thousand.
    "And the Lord said unto Gideon, The people are yet too many; bring them down unto the water, and I will try them for thee there. So he brought down the people unto the water, and the Lord said unto Gideon, Every one that lappeth of the water with his tongue, as a dog lappeth, him shalt thou set by himself; likewise every one that boweth down upon his knees to drink. And the number of them that lapped, putting their hand to their mouth, was three hundred men; but all the rest of the people bowed down upon their knees to drink water. And the Lord said unto Gideon, By the three hundred men that lapped will I save thee, and deliver the Midianites into thine hand."
    Thereupon Gideon dispatched the rest of his army to their homes, and, with the three hundred left to him, resolved to attack from three sides. He divided his little band into three companies of a hundred men each, and led them down toward the plain. It was in the night-time, and each man carried a torch, concealing the lighted end by hiding it within an earthen Jar.

Surprising the Midianites.
    The three companies separated and stole silently toward the enemy's camp from different directions. At a preconcerted signal, they broke the earthen jars, swung the torches upward, bathing the plain in brilliant light, and, with a great blast of trumpets and shouting the battle cry of Israel, fell upon the camp of their foes. The latter, roused suddenly from sleep, utterly bewildered by the glaring torches, the sound of the trumpets, and the unexpected attack of the three hundred, were soon totally fleeing in complete panic toward the fords of the Jordan, by which they hoped to regain their homes. Many of them, however, failed in this. Two of their chiefs, Oreb "the Raven," and Zeeb "the Wolf," were killed in the flight, and the two chief generals of the invaders, Zebah and Zahmunna, lost their lives shortly afterward in a second battle waged in the wilderness.
    When the plain of Esdraelon again became a battlefield it was destined to witness no third victory of the Israelites, but instead, the severe defeat of Josiah by Pharaoh Nocho, King of Egypt. The latter, desirous of wresting western Asia from the weakening grasp of the Assyrians, began to move his army westward and, in due course, approached the territories of Josiah by way of the seacoast plain. He had no hostile designs against the Israelites, but was merely advancing toward Lebanon and the Euphrates.

Josiah and Pharaoh.
    But Josiah, possibly coveting the Assyrian dominions himself, decided, against the advice of his counselors, to head off the Egyptian king. With this object in view, he set out at the head of an army and barred Pharaoh's way on the plain of Armageddon.
    The Egyptian monarch assured Josiah that he had no designs against him and urged him not to expose himself to defeat, but Josiah was obdurate and ordered his men to attack the Egyptians. After a short struggle, the Egyptians were overwhelmingly victorious. Josiah, mortally wounded by the arrows of Pharaoh's archers, was taken from his war chariot and hurried to Jerusalem, where lie died.
    This battle marked the beginning of the decline of Josiah's people. So deeply is the disaster of that day graven in the memory of the Jews that it is probable that the writer of Revelation had it in mind more than any other one of the various encounters that have taken place on this battlefield when he chose Armageddon as the scene of the great battle to be waged between Good and Evil.
    There was still another battle on the plain in Biblical times. It was there that Saul was defeated by the Philistines, as is recounted in the Book of Samuel:

Defeat of Saul.
    "Now the Philistines fought against Israel, and the men of Israel fled from before the Philistines and fell down slain in Mount Gilboa. And the Philistines followed hard upon Saul and upon his sons; and the Philistines slew Jonathan and Abinadab and Malchishua, the sons of Saul. And the battle went sore against Saul, and the archers overtook him, and he was greatly distressed by reason of the archers. Then said Saul to his armor-bearer, Draw thy sword and thrust me through therewith. * * * But his armor bearer would not, for he was sore afraid. Therefore Saul took his sword and fell upon it And when his armor-bearer saw that Saul was dead, he likewise fell upon his sword, and died with him. So Saul died, and his three sons, and his armor-bearer, and all his men, that same day, together. And when the men of Israel that were on the other side of the valley, and they that were beyond the Jordan, saw that the men of Israel fled, and that Saul and his sons were dead, they forsook the cities and fled; and the Philistines came and dwelt in them."
    Napoleon added himself In 1799 to the long list of generals who had fought on the historic plain of Esdraelon. While he was trying his best to capture the seaboard fortress of Acre from its defenders, the Turks and their allies, British seamen from some British ships lying before the stronghold, a vast Mussulman army was assembled in the mountains of Samaria, preparatory to marching to the relief of the besieged garrison. To guard against the threatened irruption of this new Turkish host, Napoleon sent against it two divisions commanded, respectively, by Junot and Kleber. Later he followed them up with another division commanded by himself.

Napoleon at Armageddon.
    After coming to the relief of Junot at Nazareth, and saving him from being overwhelmed by the superior numbers of the enemy, Napoleon turned his attention to Kleber, who was endangered in the vicinity of the plain of Esdraelon. Marching to Kleber's support, Napoleon engaged the Turks near Mount Tabor and the plain of Armageddon on April 15, 1799, and scattered them in all directions. He was thus enabled to return to the siege of Acre, which he pressed forward with greater zeal than ever.
    This, then, is Armageddon, a place where much hard fighting has taken place, where, it is prophesied, there will be fighting even harder. The use of the word in connection with the present political situation in the United States is certainly suggestive of lively scenes to take place between now and November.