by Barrie Pitt
With Ludendorff gone, the clamour rose for the abdication of the Kaiser, but this event was to be postponed for a few days by the return to Supreme Headquarters of the Imperial War Lord, and also by the fact that at this moment, Prince Max was stricken by the Spanish influenza. He took to his bed, endeavoured to continue from there with his ministerial duties, but either by accident or design took an overdose of sleeping-draught which gave him a doubtless blissful release from strain for thirty-six hours. When he returned to his desk on November 3rd it was to discover that both Austria and Turkey had completed their armistice terms with the Allies, and there was no doubt that Germany was looking to him to complete hers.
As he hesitated, Admiral von Scheer attempted to take the High Seas Fleet to sea in a last bid for glory by the Imperial Navy. The crews mutinied, killed some of their officers, brought the ships back into port with red flags flying from the gaffs, and then deserted their ships to flood through the ports spreading revolution, which quickly spread to Berlin, its flames fanned by the reported reluctance of the Kaiser to abdicate.
To Prince Max and the Government it now became obvious that if they were to save anything of the old order, the war must quickly be brought to an end so that they might retain some form of control within the country. On November 6th therefore, delegates left Berlin for Supreme Headquarters, whence, half an hour after midnight, a wireless message was sent to Foch asking him to name a meeting place at which the armistice terms might be agreed. Names of the delegates were given, and at seven o’clock on the morning of November 8th they arrived by train at a siding in Compiègne Forest. There they were greeted by Foch who, after examining their credentials, asked brusquely, ‘What is the purpose of your visit? What do you want of me?’
Prince Max’s representative, Erzberger, replied that they had come to receive ‘the proposals of the Allied Powers towards the conclusion of an armistice …’ and was accordingly disconcerted when Foch announced blandly ‘I have no proposals to make’, and indicated that the Allies were quite willing to continue the war.
During the silence which followed, some inkling of the utterly powerless condition to which Germany had been reduced must have permeated the consciousness of the delegates and banished from their minds any hopes of retrieval from disaster. With a voice far gone in humility, Count Oberndorff then asked, ‘How do you wish us to express ourselves? We are not standing on any form of words. We are ready to say that we ask the conditions of an armistice.’
‘I have no conditions to give you,’ replied Foch.
There was another pause, and Erzberger began, hesitantly, to read out President Wilson’s third Note. He was abruptly silenced.
‘Do you wish to ask for an armistice?’ asked Foch, who was not particularly concerned to spare anyone’s feelings. ‘If so, say so – formally.’
‘Yes, that is what we are asking.’
‘Good. Then we’ll read out to you the conditions on which it can be obtained.’
There were no points which the Allies had overlooked in their determination to ensure that Germany would be unable to recommence the conflict after an armistice period, and few that Germany would be left so defenceless that she could not resist whatever demands the Allies chose to make at a Peace Conference. As the clauses were read out, the countenance of another of the delegates, Major-General von Winterfeldt, became increasingly crestfallen, although the other members retained expressions of blank immobility. When Weygand (Foch’s aide) finished reading the terms, there was silence for a moment and then questions were asked in order to clarify certain points. Erzberger also asked that hostilities should cease forthwith in order to save lives – a request which was refused – and Winterfeldt asked for time and facilities with which to communicate with the Government in Berlin. This was granted, but the time limit for agreement to the armistice conditions was fixed to expire at 11 a.m. on the following Monday morning, November 11th.
There followed a dispatch of signals, the departure of one of the Germans, Captain von Helldorf, back to headquarters at Spa, a flurry of telegrams between Foch and Clemenceau and between the British representative, Admiral Sir Rosslyn Wemyss (the First Sea Lord), and the British Government in London … and what must have seemed an endless wait. Then at eight o’clock on the evening of November 10th, a wireless message was intercepted reading ‘The German Government to the plenipotentiaries at the Allied Headquarters: The German Government accepts the conditions of the Armistice communicated to it on November 8th … The Imperial Chancellor – 3,084.’
The number was merely a code to establish authenticity, and the main terms which Germany accepted were as follows:
Immediate evacuation of all occupied territory – including that of Alsace-Lorraine.
Evacuation of the western bank of the Rhine by all form of German military force, and also of bridgeheads on the east bank of the Rhine at Mainz, Coblenz and Cologne, these bridgeheads to be as much as thirty kilometres radius.
Repatriation of all Allied prisoners of war, without immediate reciprocity, and repatriation of all civilians of Allied nations.
Surrender, in good condition, of the following materials of war:
5,000 guns (2,500 heavy, 2,500 field).
25,000 machine-guns.
3,000 trench mortars.
1,700 aeroplanes, including all night-bombing machines in the possession of the German forces.
All German submarines.
The internment in British ports with only German care and maintenance parties on board, of the following German Naval vessels:
6 Battle-cruisers.
10 Battleships.
8 Light cruisers (including two mine-layers).
50 destroyers of the most modern types.
There were numerous other minor clauses which regulated such matters as movement of troops during the armistice period and the charge upon the German Government of the upkeep of the occupation forces, and in Clause XIX nestled a time-bomb inserted with considerable cunning but unforeseen consequences by Clemenceau, which read:
With the reservation that any subsequent concessions and claims by the Allies and United States remain unaffected, the following financial conditions are imposed:
Reparation for damage done. …
This would in the end prove a highly efficient rod with which the mess of European politics could be vigorously stirred until it was finally whipped up once again into an explosion of national hysteria and war: but that was twenty years ahead.
This war was to end with the expiry of the period for armistice agreement, at 11 a.m. on Monday November 11th.
12. Epilogue and Aftermath
AT 6.50 a.m. on the morning of November 11th, the following message was sent out to the British armies:
‘Hostilities will cease at 11 hours today, November 11th. Troops will stand fast on the line reached at that hour, which will be reported by wire to Advanced GHQ. Defensive precautions will be maintained. There will be no intercourse of any description with the enemy until receipt of instructions from GHQ.’
In fine, cold, but misty weather along almost the whole of the fronts as far south as Le Câteau and between the Argonne and the Meuse, the Allied advance therefore continued against varying resistance – and during the closing hours of the war occurred minor actions which typified national mentalities, and pointed an unerring finger at the future.
German fanaticism and ruthlessness, for instance, were clearly demonstrated in a small village east of Valenciennes. A British battalion had reached the edge of a plantation and saw across open fields a small and apparently unoccupied cluster of houses some five hundred yards away. A patrol probing forward found a young German lieutenant, wounded by shell-fire in the thigh and left propped against a wall, presumably for the better medical attention the Allies could give him. The village was empty, he told them in educated English, the last German rearguards having left two hours before – and as a result, the British battalion emerged from the plantation, formed up a
nd marched into the village.
As it halted in the village square, machine-guns opened up from well-sited vantage points all around – including the church tower – and killed or wounded over a hundred of the massed men before the square emptied and the enraged British stormed through the buildings to attack the machine-gun crews. These, during the brief seconds left to them, concentrated on finishing off the wounded lying in the square, and then fought coldly and skilfully when the moment of their own deaths approached, intent only upon taking as many as possible of their attackers with them.
In the meantime, the corporal of the scouting party had run back through the village to find the wounded lieutenant, who was obviously expecting him and watched his approach with an amused and scornful look; he did not flinch as the bayonet descended, later, the same corporal discovered in a barn the naked and mutilated body of a young girl, obviously dead only a matter of hours, victim of the strange Teutonic lust to take the whole world with them to their own destruction.
The British managed to finish the war as so many of them would have liked to conduct it, with a cavalry charge.
At 10.50 a.m. and with only minutes to go, a squadron of the 7th Dragoons was sent forward to capture a bridge over the river Dendre at Lessines, the official reason given being that a bridgehead was required over the river in case the Germans chose to violate the terms of the armistice. Along a straight road lined with trees, and in perfect formation, the squadron galloped forward – and even had the war been over, they would have presented to the German machine-gunners a most tempting target. But the war was not over and the machine-guns were manned by the toughest and now bitterest of the German troops. These opened fire – together with some like-minded riflemen – and although the impetus of the charge carried some of the horsemen on to the bridge, the position was not taken until 11 a.m., when the machine-gunners ceased fire in accordance with their instructions. During the closing minutes of the action, the Germans were attacked with sticks and stones by released British prisoners of war who, fighting as unarmed infantry, proved more effective at hampering the enemy than the galloping Dragoons. Over one hundred German officers and men were captured as a result of this action – although to what Allied profit is difficult to see – but according to one observer, Allied losses were remarkably light. Except, of course, to those who were killed, and their families.
On the American front, the Germans would appear to have had large stocks of artillery ammunition which they had no desire to see wasted, and throughout the whole of the morning they shelled the positions in front with a prodigality which was as haphazard as German innate efficiency would allow. Not unnaturally the Americans replied, but as eleven o’clock drew nearer, the feeling apparently spread through the gun-teams that as American artillery had not been present to fire the first shell of the war, they could at least make certain of firing the last.
This might not have mattered had it not been for the American national trait of competition, for each gun-team wanted the doubtful honour for itself alone – and it is fatally easy, while ammunition lasts, to fire ‘just one more shot’. The war therefore did not end at 11 a.m. on the front between the Argonne and the Meuse, and it needed several orders from increasingly high-ranking sources before the shelling finally ceased.
And with Gallic logic and reasonableness which compels admiration and strikes the happiest notes in the sorry tale of the morning’s innumerable, wasteful tragedies, the French troops – once the news of the signing of the Armistice reached them – did nothing but post their sentries and stand ready to defend their positions against any sudden, suicidal attacks which the local German troops might, in the madness of despair, attempt to launch.
None occurred, and it would appear that the only Frenchmen killed that morning lost their lives as the results of accidents. It is said that if one maintains a consistent attitude towards life’s larger problems, circumstances will in the end conform to give the attitude validity: certainly on the morning of November 11th, Pétain’s view of the value of French lives was justified.
By midday, silence lay across the battlefields like a blessing. Men climbed out of their rifle-pits or shallow ditches – for the elaborate trench systems were miles away to the westward – stood erect in open country with feelings of apprehension and uncomfortable nakedness, and then, as the wonder and release from danger took hold of their minds, they became excited. They formed groups and stared at other groups forming not so far away in space, but until that moment divided from them by hatred and the bar of war. Slowly, almost shyly, the groups approached each other, but often they would halt some few yards apart, while each member of each group scanned the faces of the men opposite, watching for the flash of ferocity which they had learned by precept or experience to associate with the alien uniform. Then some movement or expression by one of them would break the tension and the groups would mingle, shaking hands, all talking excitedly in an effort to break the incomprehension, exchanging souvenirs, the British and Americans forcing cigarettes on the Germans who, pathetically, had little to offer in exchange.
Wine was produced and in some places the men managed to get drunk together, but not often, for only too soon came the stern, forbidding order against fraternization: by mid-afternoon an Allied picket was posted between the lines along almost the entire front.
After all, something might still have happened to wreck the negotiations, and then these men would have to start killing each other again: it would not do for them to become too friendly.
But officialdom was not completely successful, and where the lines were close, shouted messages and singing celebrated the spiritual release from enforced animosity, and when night fell each side treated the other to fantastic firework displays of rockets, flares, signal lights and burning explosive. The morrow would bring a million problems of withdrawal and reparation, of occupation and control: but for the moment, hatred could be forgotten.
If silence greeted the end of the war on the battlefronts, the centre of London greeted it with a poignant explosion of joy and grief which grew from nothing to near pandemonium in the time taken by Big Ben to chime the momentous hour. According to Sir Winston Churchill, on the first stroke of the clock Trafalgar Square and Whitehall were deserted: by the eleventh stroke, the whole area was choked with a sea of people, dancing, laughing, singing and cheering, while from the office windows above, waste paper, official forms, carbons, dockets and leaflets floated down as the clerks abandoned their desks and flung the symbols of war-straightened economy into the street before flooding down to join the tumult themselves.
Flags appeared, the bells of all the city began to peal, from heaven alone knows what dusty shrines were produced tarnished bugles and hunting-horns green with verdigris, and to the accompaniment of their unmusical blasts augmented by those from taxicabs and military lorries, the crowd swarmed through the Park towards Buckingham Palace and sang ‘God Save the King’ until at last he appeared on the balcony, and tried, ineffectually, to speak through the uproar. Nobody heard him: nobody minded – and when at last after many re-appearances to stand waving to the crowd acknowledging their loyal demonstrances, the Royal Family disappeared and the tall windows were closed, the crowds still stayed, singing and cheering outside the forecourt. A thin, cold rain fell on them, but no one seemed to notice and when dusk came and the Palace lights remained unscreened, all were reminded of other forgotten joys which now they could taste again.
They dispersed through the Park and filled the streets, living again the wonderment of children as they wandered between walls of brilliantly lighted shop fronts, unable after four years to compare the poverty of the wares now on show with pre-war abundance. When pubs and restaurants opened, the crowds packed in and although food ran out quickly there was plenty to drink and an apparently unlimited supply of money to pay for it: no one’s glass remained empty for long, and who paid for the filling was of little concern. As the evening wore on, alcohol enabled many to forget their pas
t losses, and even to ignore the almost continual stream of funerals passing along the streets – even at this hour – bearing the victims of the latest wave of Spanish influenza.
Pickpockets had the best haul of the century.
In Paris the joy-making was neither so spontaneous nor so concentrated, for there was no monarchical figure around which it could focus at its outset, and the guiding spirits in what celebrations developed were usually British or American servicemen. The French themselves were in general too tired and too war-weary to do much more than remain at home, mourning their losses or celebrating their deliverance in quiet domesticity, or if their calling demanded, assisting the public revelry in a professional capacity.
New York slept for some hours after the end of the war, for it was 2.45 a.m. when the State Department announced to the nation that the fighting had ceased. A searchlight on Times Tower was switched on, a few nightbirds celebrated in Times Square, but until breakfast time the streets remained comparatively empty and quiet. But after that, the crowds began to form and the tumult to build up, until by mid-morning, Broadway was witnessing the scenes which had enlivened Trafalgar Square eight hours before. Ticker tape floated in the concrete canyon of Wall Street, Times Square became packed and remained so all day, an English girl sang ‘Praise God from whom all blessings flow’ to a silent and apparently deeply impressed crowd on Broadway, following it with ‘America’, ‘God Save the King’ and ‘La Marseillaise’ – and with all their native illogicality, the Irish joined in with such enthusiasm that an uninformed observer might well have deduced that England had suffered a major defeat.