The signing of #Armistice100 - General Weygand, Admiral Wemyss and Marshall Foch after signing the armistice with Germany to mark the end of World War One. The ceremony was carried out in a railway car.
Photograph taken at 7.30am, 11 November 1918.
Photograph taken at 7.30am, 11 November 1918.
Also known as the Armistice of Compiègne from the place where it was signed, it came into force at 11 a.m. Paris time ("the eleventh hour of the eleventh day of the eleventh month") and marked a victory for the Allies and a complete defeat for Germany.
This photo was a challenge....
On 29 September 1918 the German Supreme Army Command informed Kaiser Wilhelm II and the Imperial Chancellor, Count Georg von Hertling at Imperial Army Headquarters in Spa of occupied Belgium, that the military situation facing Germany was hopeless. #ArmisticeDay100
Quartermaster General Erich Ludendorff, probably fearing a breakthrough, claimed that he could not guarantee that the front would hold for another two hours and demanded a request be given to the Entente for an immediate ceasefire. #ArmisticeDay100
In addition, he recommended the acceptance of the main demands of US president Woodrow Wilson (the Fourteen Points) including putting the Imperial Government on a democratic footing, hoping for more favorable peace terms. #ArmisticeDay100
This enabled him to save the face of the Imperial German Army and put the responsibility for the capitulation and its consequences squarely into the hands of the democratic parties and the parliament. #ArmisticeDay100
On 3 October, the liberal Prince Maximilian of Baden was appointed Chancellor of Germany (prime minister), replacing Georg von Hertling in order to negotiate an armistice. #ArmisticeDay100
In late October, Ludendorff, in a sudden change of mind, declared the conditions of the Allies unacceptable. He now demanded to resume the war which he himself had declared lost only one month earlier. However, the German soldiers were pressing to get home. #ArmisticeDay100
It was scarcely possible to arouse their readiness for battle anew, and desertions were on the increase. The Imperial Government stayed on course and Ludendorff was replaced by Wilhelm Groener. #ArmisticeDay100
On 5 November, the Allies agreed to take up negotiations for a truce, now also demanding reparation payments.
The latest note from Woodrow Wilson was received in Berlin on 6 November. That same day, the delegation led by Matthias Erzberger departed for France. #ArmisticeDay100
The latest note from Woodrow Wilson was received in Berlin on 6 November. That same day, the delegation led by Matthias Erzberger departed for France. #ArmisticeDay100
The Armistice was the result of a hurried and desperate process. The German delegation crossed the front line in five cars and was escorted for ten hours across the devastated war zone of Northern France, arriving on the morning of 8 November. #ArmisticeDay100
They were then taken to the secret destination aboard Ferdinand Foch's private train parked in a railway siding in the forest of Compiègne. #ArmisticeDay100
The Germans were handed the list of Allied demands and given 72 hours to agree. The Armistice amounted to complete German demilitarization, with few promises made by the Allies in return. #ArmisticeDay100
There was no question of negotiation. The Germans were able to correct a few impossible demands, extended the schedule for the withdrawal and registered their formal protest at the harshness of Allied terms.
But they were in no position to refuse to sign. #ArmisticeDay100
But they were in no position to refuse to sign. #ArmisticeDay100
On Sunday 10 November, they were shown newspapers from Paris to inform them that the Kaiser had abdicated. That same day, Ebert instructed Erzberger to sign. #ArmisticeDay100
The Armistice was agreed upon at 5:00 a.m. on 11 November, to come into effect at 11:00 a.m. Paris time. Signatures were made between 5:12 a.m. and 5:20 a.m. #ArmisticeDay100
The British public was notified of the armistice by a subjoined official communiqué issued from the Press Bureau at 10:20 a.m. An official communique was published by the United States at 2:30 pm #ArmisticeDay100
Although the information about the ceasefire had spread among the forces at the front in the hours before, fighting in many sections of the front continued right until the appointed hour. At 11 a.m. there was some spontaneous fraternization between the two sides. #ArmisticeDay100
A British corporal reported: "...the Germans came from their trenches, bowed to us and then went away. That was it. There was nothing with which we could celebrate, except cookies." #ArmisticeDay100
On the Allied side, euphoria and exultation were rare. There was some cheering and applause, but the dominant feeling was silence and emptiness after 52 exhausting months of war. #ArmisticeDay100
The peace between the Allies and Germany was subsequently settled in 1919, by the Paris Peace Conference and the Treaty of Versailles that same year. #ArmisticeDay100
A few years later, in June 1940, Hitler ordered the signing of the Franco-German Armistice to take place in the same railway carriage in which Germany had surrendered. #ArmisticeDay100
Many artillery units continued to fire on German targets to avoid having to haul away their spare ammunition. Consequently, there were 10,944 casualties, of whom 2,738 men died, on the last day of the war. #ArmisticeDay100
Augustin Trébuchon was the last Frenchman to die when he was shot on his way to tell fellow soldiers, who were attempting an assault across the Meuse river, that hot soup would be served after the ceasefire. He was killed at 10:45 a.m. #ArmisticeDay100
Earlier, the last soldier from the UK to die, George Edwin Ellison of the 5th Royal Irish Lancers, was killed that morning at around 9:30 a.m. while scouting on the outskirts of Mons, Belgium. #ArmisticeDay100
The last Canadian soldier to die was Private George Lawrence Price, shot and killed by a sniper while part of a force advancing into Ville-sur-Haine just two minutes before the armistice at 10:58 a.m. #ArmisticeDay100
Henry Gunther, an American, is generally recognized as the last soldier killed in action in WWI. He was killed 60 seconds before the armistice came into force while charging astonished German troops who were aware the Armistice was nearly upon them. #ArmisticeDay100
(He had been despondent over his recent reduction in rank and was apparently trying to redeem his reputation.)
The total number of military and civilian casualties in World War I was about 40 million: estimates range from 15 to 19 million deaths and about 23 million wounded military personnel, ranking it among the deadliest conflicts in human history. #ArmisticeDay100
*done*
