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Wars and ConflictsΒ  permalink

On this day: 11 November

• Message 1.Β 

  Posted by Vizzer aka U_numbers (U2011621) on Thursday, 11th November 2010

  •1918: Fighting in World War One ceases with the signing of an armistice between Germany and the Allies at 11 am. 
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  Was the armistice signed at 11 am?

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• Message 2

  , in reply to message 1.

  Posted by dmatt47 (U13073434) on Friday, 12th November 2010

  I believe it was to allow time for the message to stop fighting to get through.

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• Message 3

  , in reply to message 1.

  Posted by an ex-nordmann - it has ceased to exist (U3472955) on Friday, 12th November 2010

  Hi Vizzer
  
  According to my "Course of German History", AJP Taylor informs me that the signing took place between 5.12 and 5.20am on the 11th November.
  
  Neither did fighting cease at 11.00am. It appears the Germans were more efficient at relaying the news than the Allies, and in paticular the Americans. One colonel in the Meuse sector, Robert Barrack, was later reprimanded for ordering his men to shoot German soldiers, an activity he endorsed for some weeks until being ordered to stop by General March personally following up Barrack's failure to respond to demobilisation orders. By then it was reckoned that Barrack's men had killed between 100 and 150 Germans as well as some French locals when it appears he went on what can only be called a one-man invasion into enemy territory (without seemingly noticing that the enemy were curiously unarmed and heading in the wrong direction). He later claimed he had received the armistice orders but ignored them in the belief that they were enemy "propaganda" and that he had attributed the absence of the sound of shelling and mortar rounds to "wind direction".
  
  March ordered an immediate clampdown on this whole event as it represented a clear breach of armistice and could be used against the Allies in future peace negotiations or strain relations between the French and other allied factions with almost as damaging an effect. This saved Barrack from court martial but also deeply offended the residents of Lamorville who repeatedly petitioned both the French and US governments for years for recognition of the fact that their townspeople had been slain. They finally got this in 1945 (Patton insisted upon it and attended a memorial service in Verdun). However to this day the whole episode is still compressed in popular histories as one German soldier being mistakenly killed by one anonymous US soldier unaware of the armistice late on the 11th November.

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• Message 4

  , in reply to message 1.

  Posted by Pete- Weatherman (U14670985) on Saturday, 13th November 2010

  Look on" I player" for the Prog " The Last day" it was on the Βι¶ΉΤΌΕΔ a few days ago. With M Palin. It gives a concies account of the last day of WW1

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