2,738 men died on the Armistice morning – more than the Allies lost on D-Day… just one of the heart-rending human details laid bare in this minute-by-minute account of November 11, 1918
The Daily Mail from 2017
As they awaken on the morning of November 11 1918, along the 400-mile Western Front from Switzerland in the south to the Belgian coast in the north, nearly 10 million men on both sides know from developments over recent days that an armistice is imminent.
They are praying for a swift end to the war. What they are not aware of yet is that at 5.20am in the Compiegne Forest just north of Paris, on the private train of Marshal Foch, commander-in-chief of the Allied armies, the Armistice agreement was signed after three days of negotiation. The war is entering its final hours.
Soldiers in Nousard, France play a piano left by the Germans on Armistice Day on November 11, 1918
5.30am: In the Belgian village of La Bascule on the outskirts of Mons, schoolboy Georges Licope and his family can’t sleep. Yesterday the Germans left after a fierce Allied bombardment. Suddenly the Licopes hear a far-off noise and run outside into the courtyard. The family realise that it is the cheers of the people in the next village — the British have arrived!
5.40am: The American 89th Division is continuing an assault on the River Meuse that began yesterday evening. The U.S. Marines in particular have suffered many casualties.
Major-General John Lejeune asked a marine sergeant why he crossed a bridge in the face of machine-gun fire when he knew the war would finish in a few hours. He explained that their commanding officer had told them: ‘Men, I am going to cross that river, and I expect you to go with me.’
‘Surely we couldn’t let him go by himself,’ said the marine. ‘We love him too much for that.’
6am: The phone rings at 10 Downing Street. It is Admiral Sir Rosslyn Wemyss, from the Allied delegation in the Compiegne Forest, with news of the Armistice for the Prime Minister Lloyd George. Wemyss then calls King George V at Buckingham Palace.
6.50am: A message is sent out to the British Army by telegraph, and by messengers on horseback, motorbike and bicycle: ‘Hostilities will cease at 1100 hours today, November 11th. Troops will stand fast on the line reached at that hour, which will be reported by wire to Advanced GHQ. There will be no intercourse of any description with the enemy until receipt of instructions.’
7am: Marshal Ferdinand Foch leaves the Compiegne Forest for Paris with the Armistice document in his pocket.
In Mons, Canadian soldiers are being hugged by delirious locals. Corporal George Tizard is dragged into a house: ‘I was enjoying myself smoking a good cigar and had two very nice-looking girls as companions.’ Outside, Belgians are kicking the corpses of dead Germans.
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A total of 2,738 men died on the Armistice morning – more than the Allies lost on D-Day – before they were told the agreement had been signed (pictured, Armistice celebrations)
8am: In a hut close to the front, Captain Robert Casey of the U.S. 33rd Division is writing in his diary: ‘In three hours the war will be over… I suppose I should be thrilled and cheering. Instead I am merely apathetic and incredulous.’ Casey’s adjutant says: ‘Now all we have to do is keep alive until eleven o’clock.’
8.30am: The commander of the 88th Infantry Brigade, 29-year-old Brigadier General Bernard Freyberg, who won the VC at the Somme in 1916 and has been wounded nine times, receives orders that his cavalry should seize the Belgian town of Lessines ten miles away and capture its river bridges before they are blown up by the Germans. Freyberg tells a squadron to ‘saddle up and rush on at once’.
Now that trench warfare is over, fast-moving cavalry units have come into their own again.
9am: The early edition of The New York Times hits the streets. Its headline says: ‘ARMISTICE SIGNED, END OF THE WAR!’ Many American soldiers on the Western Front have yet to hear the news.
Since the early hours, much of the front in Belgium has been covered in mist and fog. Captain Ernsberger of the U.S. 89th Division is walking cautiously towards the German lines. He has yet to hear about the Armistice.
Suddenly Ernsberger comes across two German gunners standing up with their hands in the air, waiting to be captured. Ernsberger asks a sergeant who can speak a smattering of German to find out why they didn’t fire at him. The men say, ‘Don’t the Americans know that the war will soon be over? We see no reason to sacrifice our lives, or yours.’
9.30am: The War Cabinet is meeting at Downing Street. They decide that full military celebrations should be allowed. Prime Minister Lloyd George warns his colleagues they should ‘behave as a great nation and do nothing which might harbour a spirit of revenge later’.
On the outskirts of Mons, Private George Ellison of the Royal Irish Lancers is on horseback as part of a reconnaissance patrol.
Forty-year-old Ellison is one of the most experienced soldiers in the Lancers. A former miner from Leeds, married with a young son, he has fought on the Western Front for the past four years and is one of the few survivors of the original British Expeditionary Force.
Ellison knows that peace is just an hour and a half away and he’ll soon be able to return home. A shot rings out and he falls from his horse. He is the last British soldier to die in World War I. Ellison will be buried just a few feet from Private John Parr, the first British soldier to be killed.
10am: American gun batteries have attached ropes to the lanyards that fire the guns, long enough for hundreds of men to pull and therefore claim that they fired the last shot of the war.
At the Golden Hill Fort on the Isle of Wight, Private Harry Patch, destined to be the last survivor of World War I, is eagerly awaiting news of the Armistice. Harry was injured at the Battle of Passchendaele in September 1917 and is now considered fit to return to his regiment — but he knows that to go back could be a death sentence.
Harry and a unit of other soldiers have been told that when news of the ceasefire comes through, a rocket will be fired from the fort.
10.37am: In the U.S. 33rd Division, Captain Robert Casey writes more in his diary. A German shell has just exploded close by and soldiers have been hit. ‘Twenty men killed,’ he writes. ‘Thirty-five wounded. The war has 23 minutes still to go.’
Then comes more bad news — a German shell has just landed on their field kitchen. Casey writes: ‘Fourteen dead. Four wounded. In 22 minutes we shall have peace.’
10.40am: Ferdinand Foch arrives in Paris at the Ministry of War and hands over the Armistice document to Prime Minister Georges Clemenceau, saying: ‘My work is finished. Yours begins.’
Captain Lebreton of the French Army’s 415th regiment wants a bugler to mark the ceasefire, but the only man he can find has forgotten the tune. Lebreton whistles the melody to help him.
10.45am: A cavalry squadron of nine dragoons led by Brigadier General Bernard Freyberg is charging into the Belgian town of Lessines with swords drawn.
German machine-guns open fire and a bullet lodges in Freyberg’s saddle, but he carries on at full gallop towards the bridge which they must take before the Germans blow it up. After a brief fight, the British seize control and more than 100 Germans are captured.
The citizens of Lessines are keen to attack the Germans in revenge for how they’ve been treated. The regimental history notes: ‘Considerable difficulty was experienced protecting the prisoners from the fury of the people.’
Close to the River Meuse, 40-year-old Private Augustin Trebuchon of the 415th Regiment d’Infanterie is carrying a message for his comrades when he is shot dead by a sniper. He is the last French soldier of the war to be killed. The message he’s carrying reads, ‘Assemble for food at 11.30.’
Crowds wait outside Buckingham Palace in 1918 to hear the official notice of the armistice being read by King George V
10.50am: Half an hour ago, Downing Street was deserted, but rumours of an armistice have spread like wildfire and now a huge crowd is calling for the Prime Minister. A cheer goes up as Lloyd George steps out of No. 10, his white hair waving in the wind.
He shouts, ‘At eleven o’clock this morning the war will be over. We have won a great victory.’ The crowd roars its approval. ‘You are entitled to rejoice. You have all had a share in it!’
Lloyd George is secretly furious. He had wanted to announce the news of the Armistice himself in the House of Commons. But Admiral Wemyss of the Allied peace delegation had phoned King George V from France with the news, and the King told the Royal Household. When Wemyss arrives at Downing Street tomorrow, he will be met by ‘black looks and an icy reception’ from the PM.
In the village of Chaumont-devant-Damvillers, near Verdun, Private Henry Gunther of the U.S. 79th Division is advancing towards a German road block consisting of two machine-gun nests.
Gunther’s grandparents are German so he’d been reluctant to enlist but was conscripted in September 1917. The following July he wrote to a friend describing the ‘miserable conditions’ in France and advised him not to join the war. The letter was intercepted by the censor and Gunther was demoted from sergeant to private.
He has been determined since then to prove he is no German sympathiser.
On the outskirts of Mons, a unit from the 2nd Canadian Division is slowly advancing through the streets. Every now and then a group of Germans fire at them and then retreat.
The Canadians have picked up rumours that an armistice may be imminent, but they are continuing to fight. Twenty-five-year-old Private George Price asks his friend Private Arthur Goodmurphy to help him check out some houses ahead. ‘They look like a wonderful place to stick a machine-gun out of,’ Price says.
10.55am: In the German trenches, Feldwebel Georg Bucher and his unit hear the American guns go quiet. Could it be a trap, they wonder? They put on their helmets, grab pistols, rifles and grenades and stand waiting. Shell smoke is drifting over no-man’s land. Bucher stares at his watch.
10.58am: On the outskirts of Mons, Canadian privates George Price and Arthur Goodmurphy are under attack from a German machine-gun. Bullets are knocking bricks out of the wall above their heads. Price mutters ‘How the hell are we going to get back . . . ?’ then there’s a gunshot and a bullet hits him, piercing his heart.
10.59am: In the village of Chaumont-devant-Damvillers near Verdun, a German machine-gun opens fire on Private Henry Gunther’s platoon.
Gunther, keen to prove himself, starts to run towards the machine-gun with his bayonet fixed. He shoots at the Germans, and they turn the gun on him. A short burst cuts him down.
Henry Gunther is the last man to die in World War I. He will be posthumously reinstated to the rank of sergeant.
Captain Lebreton kicks his bugler, who is lying down to avoid a German barrage. He stands up cautiously and puts the instrument to his lips.
It is estimated that on the last morning of the war, 2,738 men were killed on the Western Front and 8,206 were wounded. This was more than the daily average throughout the war and greater losses than on D-Day according to one respected historian, though estimates do vary.
11am: Suddenly there is silence along much of the front. American private Frank Groves later said you could feel the quiet: ‘There was no singing, no shouting, no laughter; we just stood around and looked and listened.’
Near Mons, a German machine-gun unit that had kept British troops pinned down all morning stops firing. The British troops watch in amazement as a German officer stands up, lifts his helmet and bows. He then orders his men to fall in, and they all march off.
In London, for the first time in two years Big Ben strikes the hour. In 1916 it was silenced and its clock faces were no longer illuminated so it couldn’t act as a guide for Zeppelins bombing the city.
Maroons, or fireworks, that had been used as air-raid warnings are fired from the roofs of police and fire stations. Some people think it’s an air raid and run for cover.
Florence Younghusband, whose husband George is a major-general in the army, is on the top deck of a London bus. In front of her are two soldiers, one of whom has a hideously scarred face.
He doesn’t react to the sound of the maroons but keeps staring straight ahead. His comrade suddenly starts crying.
The bus conductress sits down next to Florence, and then to her surprise puts her head on her shoulder and also starts to weep. ‘I lost my man two months ago,’ she says through her tears. ‘I can’t be happy today.’