Within a year, Napoleon III suffered a resounding defeat, at the hands of Kaiser William I, at the Battle of Sedan in 1870. He went in exile to England, where he died three years later. (217:1)

119. O people of Constantinople!
The word here translated as "Constantinople" is, in the original, "Ar-Rum" or "Rome". This term has generally been used in the Middle East to designate Constantinople and the Eastern Roman Empire, then the city of Byzantium and its empire, and later the Ottoman Empire. (217:2)

120. O Spot that art situate on the shores of the two seas!
This is a reference to Constantinople, now called Istanbul. Located on the Bosphorus, a strait about 31 kilometres long which links the Black Sea and the Sea of Marmara, it is the largest city and seaport of Turkey. (217:3)

Constantinople was the capital of the Ottoman Empire from 1453 until 1922. During Baha'u'llah's sojourn in this city, the tyrannical Sultan Abdu'l-'Aziz occupied the throne. The Ottoman Sultans were also the Caliphs, the leaders of Sunni Islam. Baha'u'llah anticipated the fall of the Caliphate, which was abolished in 1924. (217:4)

121. O banks of the Rhine!
In one of His Tablets written before the First World War (1914-1918), Abdu'l-Baha explained that Baha'u'llah's reference to having seen the banks of the Rhine "covered with gore" related to the Franco-Prussian War (1870-1871), and that there was more suffering to come. (217:5)

In God Passes By Shoghi Effendi states that the "oppressively severe treaty" that was imposed on Germany following its defeat in the First World War "provoked 'the lamentations'" of Berlin "which half a century before, had been ominously prophesied". (217:6)

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