World War I began two years later, in 1914, and formally ended in November of 1918. Baháʼís viewed it as a fulfillment of the prophecy. After the war and before his death in 1921, ʻAbdu'l-Bahá made references to the inability of the treaties of the Paris Peace Conference to maintain order, that the vanquished powers would continue to agitate, that the Balkans would continue to be a source of tension, that communism would rise in importance, and that a new fiercer war would break out. In 1920 he made further comments that would also be interpreted by later Baháʼís as references to World War II: