Column: Centennial observance of Armistice Day
Submitted by Brett Fisher on Sat, 11/10/2018 - 8:28pm
Veterans Day this year commemorates the 100th anniversary of World War I armistice, an agreement between the Allied Powers and Germany that brought an official end to hostilities in the "Great War."
Peace with Germany was the final hurdle to ending World War I, a four-year global conflict that claimed the lives of millions and devastated much of Europe.
Previous cease-fires had already been agreed to with other members of the Central Powers: The Ottoman Empire, Bulgaria and Austria-Hungary. Germany was the last hold-out.
By the end of September 1918, Germany's military supply situation had grown desperate. The German quartermaster general had declared the situation hopeless and urged a cease-fire.
Subsequent negotiations with the Allies — the United States, in particular — through October seemed to fall apart as Germany faced demands to end its monarchy, a key component of U.S. President Woodrow Wilson's "Fourteen Points" to bring peace and an end to World War I.
Oddly enough, though, it was other Allied nations — namely France, Britain and Italy — that rejected Wilson's "Fourteen Points" for peace, because the U.S. president called for sweeping de-militarization across Europe; a demand not limited to just the Central Powers.
The European Allies considered the "Fourteen Points" inconsistent, vague, inapplicable and unrealistic. Their arguments delayed the peace process for five weeks.
Regardless, Germany ultimately decided to proceed toward peace on Wilson's template, because attempting to rouse the fighting spirit among its demoralized troops would have proven futile.
By then, German troops were already anticipating an end to hostilities and had grown increasingly anxious. They began deserting in significant numbers.
Germany no longer had the men or the will to continue fighting.
As such, the German imperial government continued armistice negotiations that the Allies finally agreed to on Nov. 5, 1918.
The two sides met on Nov. 8 as the German delegation crossed into Northern France by train. They were then escorted to a secret destination aboard a private train in the forest of Compiegne.
Given 72 hours to agree to terms, Germany signed the armistice early on the morning of Nov. 11, 1918, the conditions having taken effect as of 11 a.m. Paris time.
Thus Armistice Day was established at the 11th hour on the 11th day of the 11th month of 1918, one hundred years ago on Sunday.
According to history, that first armistice was extended three times between 1918 and 1919 before peace agreed upon at the Treaty of Versailles in June 1919 was ratified on Jan. 10, 1920.
Terms for peace gave little to Germany and demanded much in return, including the seizure of lands and exorbitant war reparations that contributed to the country's post-war political, social and economic injuries.
World War I, once declared "the war to end all wars," redefined modern warfare and what it looked like. Chemical, trench, submarine and aerial warfare were all employed as combat methods. Machine guns settled battlefield disputes with swift, deadly efficiency.
Casualties, landscapes, topography, and living conditions were all measured by new standards of destruction.
The socioeconomic impact was massive, leaving an entire continent severely depleted of able-bodied men to rebuild war-torn regions and resulting in multiple worldwide revolutions.
Of the 60 million Europeans mobilized into military units, better than one in eight of those died in the war. About seven million civilians also perished.
The impetus to World War I was the assassination of Austro-Hungarian Empire Archduke Franz Ferdinand, who was killed by a Bosnian Serb nationalist in Sarajevo.
Austria-Hungary subsequently issued an ultimatum to Serbia. Both sides activated their political and military alliances with major European powers, causing the complex web of interlocking associations to rupture what was already a fragile balance of power maintained delicately for decades.
The domino effect of these alliances resulted in nations taking sides against one another and the beginning of the world's deadliest war.
