Armistice Day

When World War One broke out in August of 1914, few adults alive at the time envisioned the conflict lasting beyond the end of the year, yet by Christmas Day, more than a million soldiers lay dead in fields, trenches and war-ravaged cities across Europe.

Worldwide Celebration

In a war that eventually spread throughout most of the world, including China and Japan, the first sign of an end to the conflict came in October of 1918, when the Ottoman Empire signed an armistice with the Allies, ending fighting in the Middle East, while days later, a disintegrating Austro-Hungarian Empire signed an armistice with Italy.

German Kaiser Abdicates

Bereft of manpower and supplies and facing imminent invasion, on November 10th, 1918, German leader Kaiser Wilhelm the 2nd abdicated his thrown, offering instructions to newly-installed government officials that Germany should make peace with her Allied victors. As a result, at 5:00 A.M. the next morning, after the German Army formally surrendered in a rail car outside Compiégne France, ending a bloody war of attrition that witnessed the death of nine million soldiers, injuring an additional 21 million, with an estimated five million civilians taken by disease, starvation and exposure.

Official End of War

World War One officially came to an end on the eleventh hour of the eleventh day of the eleventh month, and while celebrations broke out around the world—causing a drastic spike in cases during the Spanish Flu pandemic of 1918—after 52 months of unimaginable bloodshed, celebrations on the Eastern and Western fronts were much more subdued. “And this is the end of it,” wrote Robert Casey of the 124th Field Artillery Regiment. “In three hours the war will be over. It seems incredible even as I write it. I suppose I ought to be thrilled and cheering.

Surreal Time in the Trenches

Instead I am merely apathetic and incredulous … There is some cheering across the river—occasional bursts of it as the news is carried to the advanced lines. For the most part, though, we are in silence … With all is a feeling that it can’t be true. For months we have slept under the guns … None of us can comprehend the stillness,” making Armistice Day, a bittersweet close in the war to end all wars.