Humpday History Highlight

By Wyatt Earp | November 11, 2009

November 11, 1918 – World War I Ends

At 11 o’clock in the morning of the 11th day of the 11th month of 1918, the First World War–known at the time as the Great War–comes to an end.

By the end of autumn 1918, the alliance of the Central Powers was unraveling in its war effort against the better supplied and coordinated Allied powers. Facing exhausted resources on the battlefield, turmoil on the home front and the surrender of its weaker allies, Austria-Hungary, Bulgaria and the Ottoman Empire, Germany was finally forced to seek an armistice with the Allies in the early days of November 1918. On November 7, the German chancellor, Prince Max von Baden, sent delegates to Compiegne, France, to negotiate the agreement; it was signed at 5:10 a.m. on the morning of November 11.

Ferdinand Foch, commander in chief of all Allied forces on the Western Front, sent a message by telegraph to all his commanders: “Hostilities will cease on the entire front November 11 at 11 a.m. French time.” The commanders ordered the fighting to continue throughout the morning of November 11, prompting later accusations that some men died needlessly in the last few hours of the war.

The Great War took the life of some 9 million soldiers; 21 million more were wounded. Civilian casualties caused indirectly by the war numbered close to 10 million. (H/T – History.com)

Ironically, Germany felt slighted after signing the Treaty of Versailles, and that anger was an eventual cause of World War II.

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