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Armistice - The End of World War I, 1918

Jim_S

Gone But Not Forgotten
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Armistice - The End of World War I, 1918

http://www.eyewitnesstohistory.com/pfarmistice.htm

The final Allied push towards the German border began on October 17, 1918. As the British, French and American armies advanced, the alliance between the Central Powers began to collapse. Turkey signed an armistice at the end of October, Austria-Hungary followed on November 3.
Germany began to crumble from within. Faced with the prospect of returning to sea, the sailors of the High Seas Fleet stationed at Kiel mutinied on October 29. Within a few days, the entire city was in their control and the revolution spread throughout the country. On November 9 the Kaiser abdicated; slipping across the border into the Netherlands and exile. A German Republic was declared and peace feelers extended to the Allies. At 5 AM on the morning of November 11 an armistice was signed in a railroad car parked in a French forest near the front lines.

The terms of the agreement called for the cessation of fighting along the entire Western Front to begin at precisely 11 AM that morning. After over four years of bloody conflict, the Great War was at an end.

"...at the front there was no celebration."

Colonel Thomas Gowenlock served as an intelligence officer in the American 1st Division. He was on the front line that November morning and wrote of his experience a few years later:

"On the morning of November 11 I sat in my dugout in Le Gros Faux, which was again our division headquarters, talking to our Chief of Staff, Colonel John Greely, and Lieutenant Colonel Paul Peabody, our G-1. A signal corps officer entered and handed us the following message:

Official Radio from Paris - 6:01 A.M., Nov. 11, 1918. Marshal Foch to the Commander-in-Chief.
1. Hostilities will be stopped on the entire front beginning at 11 o'clock, November 11th (French hour).
2. The Allied troops will not go beyond the line reached at that hour on that date until further orders.

[signed]
MARSHAL FOCH
5:45 A.M.

'Well - fini la guerre!' said Colonel Greely.

'It sure looks like it,' I agreed.

'Do you know what I want to do now?' he said. 'I'd like to get on one of those little horse-drawn canal boats in southern France and lie in the sun the rest of my life.'

My watch said nine o'clock. With only two hours to go, I drove over to the bank of the Meuse River to see the finish. The shelling was heavy and, as I walked down the road, it grew steadily worse. It seemed to me that every battery in the world was trying to burn up its guns. At last eleven o'clock came - but the firing continued. The men on both sides had decided to give each other all they had-their farewell to arms. It was a very natural impulse after their years of war, but unfortunately many fell after eleven o'clock that day.

All over the world on November 11, 1918, people were celebrating, dancing in the streets, drinking champagne, hailing the armistice that meant the end of the war. But at the front there was no celebration. Many soldiers believed the Armistice only a temporary measure and that the war would soon go on. As night came, the quietness, unearthly in its penetration, began to eat into their souls. The men sat around log fires, the first they had ever had at the front. They were trying to reassure themselves that there were no enemy batteries spying on them from the next hill and no German bombing planes approaching to blast them out of existence. They talked in low tones. They were nervous.

After the long months of intense strain, of keying themselves up to the daily mortal danger, of thinking always in terms of war and the enemy, the abrupt release from it all was physical and psychological agony. Some suffered a total nervous collapse. Some, of a steadier temperament, began to hope they would someday return to home and the embrace of loved ones. Some could think only of the crude little crosses that marked the graves of their comrades. Some fell into an exhausted sleep. All were bewildered by the sudden meaninglessness of their existence as soldiers - and through their teeming memories paraded that swiftly moving cavalcade of Cantigny, Soissons, St. Mihiel, the Meuse-Argonne and Sedan.

What was to come next? They did not know - and hardly cared. Their minds were numbed by the shock of peace. The past consumed their whole consciousness. The present did not exist-and the future was inconceivable."

References:
Colonel Gowenlock's account appears in Gowenlock, Thomas R., Soldiers of Darkness (1936), reprinted in Angle, Paul, M., The American Reader (1958); Simkins, Peter, War I, the Western Front (1991).

How To Cite This Article:
"Armistice - The End of World War I, 1918," EyeWitness to History, www.eyewitnesstohistory.com (2004)



America troops at the front celebrate
the end of the fighting, Nov 11, 1918
 

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Jim_S

Gone But Not Forgotten
GOLD Site Supporter
November 11
 

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Jim_S

Gone But Not Forgotten
GOLD Site Supporter
NO LAWYERS - ONLY GUNS AND MONEY

http://onlygunsandmoney.blogspot.com/2018/11/and-at-eleventh-hour-guns-fell-silent.html

SUNDAY, NOVEMBER 11, 2018

And At The Eleventh Hour The Guns Fell Silent


H. G. Wells called the Great War or World War I the "war to end all wars." We know that was a mythical false hope. Indeed, it can be rightly said that the Treaty of Versailles created the conditions that led, in no small part, to World War II.

The Armistice that ended the fighting on the Western Front went into effect at 11 am Paris Time on November 11, 2018. At that time, fighting was to cease. However, as I noted in a post a few years ago, fighting continued and men still died right up to until that time. Private Henry Gunther of Baltimore continued fighting to the end and was killed at 10:59 am as he charged a German machine gun nest. He was officially the last Allied soldier to die in combat.

Thus, this recording released by the Imperial War Museum in London is all the more eloquent as it begins with artillery fire and ends with the sound of birds singing. It comes from a recording made in the American sector near the River Moselle just before and after the eleventh hour.

https://metro.co.uk/video/imperial-war-museum-approximate-end-wwi-1798600/?ito=vjs-link

So on this Veterans Day, the 100th anniversary of the Armistice ending fighting in World War I, let us remember all those living and dead who served in our country's armed services.

POSTED BY JOHN RICHARDSON AT 8:26 AM
 

Jim_S

Gone But Not Forgotten
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First World War Centenary: Excerpts from Letters Written on Armistice Day, 1918

https://www.breitbart.com/europe/20...-excerpts-letters-written-armistice-day-1918/

PARIS (AP) – A hundred years later, their words can still pierce hearts. Fighters writing home from opposing front lines of World War I, a Chinese labourer marvelling at the war’s end, a woman dreaming of reuniting with her soldier love.
At a Paris ceremony Sunday marking the centennial of the armistice ending the first global war, eight teenagers born in the 21st century were to read from letters and notes written on the day the bloodshed stopped, Nov. 11, 1918.

Here are excerpts from the readings:

___

“My darling parents,

Today has been perfectly wonderful. We got news of the armistice at 9:30 this morning. I got 10 minutes to sort out a detachment for a grand parade in the square of Mons, so I got everybody I could lay hand to scrub the mud off. The streets were packed with wildly cheering civilians chucking flowers at us and carrying on like only a foreigner can. All the street and the square was a blaze of colour, mostly, of course the Belgian colours red, yellow and black. Union Jacks, French flags, American flags, in fact every conceivable flag of the allies.”

British officer Charles Neville, Royal Horse Artillery

___

“The war is over and in an hour we will leave. We will never have to come back here.

A light fog curls over the ground and we can clearly see the line of pits and trenches. . These elements of a frightening world and an unforgiving life.

In an hour’s time, everything will have disappeared and disappeared to the point that one might believe it never existed. How can we comprehend this?

And we who are here, who should laugh and cry out for joy, feel a heaviness in our stomachs.”

German foot soldier and writer Erich Maria Remarque, Regiment of the XV Infantry Reserve, from the book ‘After’

___

“The sirens of the factories seemed to be sounding and cries and joyful songs ring out. The end of the war was announced.

… At 11 a.m., arms and work stopped everywhere. I wanted to see for myself how the French celebrated the armistice. In the city, there was already a sea of people: men and women, young and old, soldiers and civilians, people of all skin colors marched together, hand in hand, singing or cheering.”

Chinese labourer Gu Xinggqing, working in a depot in the Normandy city of Rouen; tens of thousands of Chinese labourers were brought to support the war effort

___

“In the parade were hundreds of thousands of soldiers from the U.S., England, Canada, France, Australia, Italy and the colonies. Each soldier had his arms full of French girls, some crying, others laughing; each girl had to kiss every soldier before she would let him pass. There is nowhere on earth I would rather be today than just where I am. …

I only hope the soldiers who died for this cause are looking down upon the world today. The whole world owes this moment of real joy to the heroes who are not here to help enjoy it.”

American soldier Capt. Charles S. Normington, 127th Infantry, 32nd Division

___

“My Pierre, my darling…

As I write to you, in your distant Alsatian forest you are learning the incredible news! Here, the bells ring out wildly.

I am sick with happiness. I cannot write. I’m sobbing desperately with joy.

Never, I can never, express to you the feeling and delirious joy of this first day of armistice. The upheaval to the very depths of my being, and this incredible thought that not one more man will fall, that the immense length of the front is silent. Nothing but silence. Great tears fall, as I think that it is all over.”

Frenchwoman Denise Bruller, in a letter addressed to her fiance Pierre Fort

___

“Am I dreaming? I wonder if I am. … As soon as I realize how happy I am, I think of my brother and sister, both victims of the war, and my eyes mist over.”

“More than ever I am convinced that the war is over. The weapons have been put down: they will not be picked up again. I still have much to write, but finally the whir of the shells and the whistling of the bullets are over.”

French soldier Sergeant Major Alfred Roumiguieres, 343rd infantry regiment

___

“Blewu was composed by Togolese singer Bellow in the mina language. It is a song of gratitude for the dedication of others and also a celebration of living together. The beauty and serenity of this melody evoke for me a future of universal peace and reconciliation.”

Angelique Kidjo, a Grammy-award winning singer from Benin, singing in honour of colonial soldiers recruited from around Africa and Asia to fight and die for European armies
 

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mla2ofus

Well-known member
GOLD Site Supporter
Little did they know in just a little over 20 yrs later they would be fighting for that same ground!!
Mike
 

EastTexFrank

Well-known member
GOLD Site Supporter
Can you imagine a war where you could suffer 100,000 dead in one day and it was considered acceptable. A small country like Britain lost about 750,000 men during WW1 and possibly twice that wounded. The senseless slaughter of that war is mind numbing.
 
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