Page:Karel Čapek - The Absolute at Large (1927).djvu/245

 last battle will last nine-and-ninety hours, and will be so bloody that all the victors will be able to find room in the shade of one birch-tree."

A German popular prophecy dating from 1923 speaks of the battle on the Birkenfeld (Birch field).

More than two hundred similar prophetic documents of the period between 1845 and 1944 have been preserved. In forty-eight of these the number "thirteen" occurs; in seventy of them the "birch-tree" appears; in fifteen merely the "tree." It may therefore be concluded that the last battle took place in the neighbourhood of a birch-tree. Who took part in the struggle we do not know, but there were altogether only thirteen men left alive out of the various armies, and they presumably lay down after the battle in the shade of a birch-tree. That moment saw the end of the Greatest War.

It is, however, possible that the "birch" is brought in symbolically, instead of a place-name. There are one hundred and seven places in the country of the Czechs alone containing the Czech word for birch, such as Brezany, Brezovice, and Brezolupy. Then there is the German Birke and names like Birkenberg, Birkenfeld, Birkenhaid, Birkenhammer, Birkicht, Birkental, etc.; or the English Birkenhead, Birchington, Birchanger, and so on; or the French Boulainvilliers, Boulay, etc. Thus the number of towns, villages, and localities where the last battle