History Daily - The Signing of the World War One Armistice

Episode Date: November 11, 2025

November 11, 1918. World War One comes to an end when an armistice agreement is signed by the Germans and the Allies. This episode originally aired in 2021. Support the show! Join Into History for ad-free listening and more.History Daily is a co-production of Airship and Noiser.Go to HistoryDaily.com for more history, daily.

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A.j.upte www.fi. It's the morning of November 11th, 1918. The first world war is raging along the western front

in northeast France. soldiers on both sides, exhausted by four years of unrelenting war, take shelter in artillery craters as enemy bullets whistle overhead. The air is filled with smoke and shrapnel and the groans of dying men. For several days, two battalions had been locked in a bloody stalemate over control over a strategic riverbank, feet from the German line. And after a night of heavy rain, the ground has turned to a freezing sludge. Each day brings more casualties and more soldiers.

suffering. That's what this war has become, a slow and torturous fight to the death in hellish conditions. But the lieutenant in command of the Allied Regiment has heard rumors of an impending ceasefire. The Germans may be on the verge of surrender, but without confirmation, he cannot call off his men, so with a heavy heart, he orders another wave over the top. Meanwhile, back behind the reserve lines, a young British private is scampering through the trenches towards the front, clutched in his right hand is a message from high command. He struggles through the muck, trying desperately to get to the front. He must deliver this message, saying the armistice has been signed.

The war is over. Vaulting the outstretched limbs of his injured compatriots, the private holds onto his helmet as he runs, bursting with excitement at the news. He knows that many more men will die before he can relay the message to his lieutenant. Every second counts because many lives are at stake. 10,000 soldiers will die on that final morning of World War I. Before the armistice comes into effect,

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I'm Lindsay Graham. This is History Daily. History is made every day. On this podcast, every day, we tell the true stories of the people and events that shaped our world. Today is November 11, 1918, the signing of the World War I Armistice. It's November 7th, four days before the armistice is signed. Three German automobiles went their way through a no-man's land, an apocalyptic hellscape of artillery craters and razor wire. Inside one of the cars, German Secretary of State, Matthias Erzberger, peers gloomily out across the desolate battlefield.

He has been sent by his government to negotiate a peace treaty with France and Great Britain, and he is feeling the pressure. The war, Erzberg knows, is already lost. A ceasefire might look like a more respectable result for Germany than unconditional surrender, but the difference is largely semantic. This war has not ended in a stalemate. The Germans are beaten, and the French and British want to make sure this truce looks like a defeat, and a humiliating one at that. Erzberger balances his pince-nez eyeglasses on the bridge of his porcine nose and reads through the proposed terms. Without any real bargaining power, his main aim here is to minimize the damage.

For the German military, the outlook has been bleak for months. Defeat at the Battle of Armienne in August heralded the start of the hundred hundred hundredthes. day offensive, a string of successive Allied victories along the Western Front, victories that dismantled Germany's territorial advantage. And now, with the support of the United States, who joined the Allied cause in 1917, Germany's enemies are amassing even greater stocks of weaponry and manpower. Making matters worse, morale at home in Germany is at rock bottom. Food shortages caused by the Allied blockade or leading to widespread discontent.

In 1918 alone, nearly 300,000 German civilians will die from hypothermia and starvation. Germany's allies aren't faring much better. The Ottoman Empire is close to exhaustion, while the Austro-Hungarian Empire is descending into chaos under the privations of war. Germany's own monarch, Kaiser Wilhelm I. has been steadily losing his grip on power. In a matter of days, his government will be overthrown. So it is in this context of military collapse and domestic turmoil that a car carrying a low-spirited Matthias Erzberger snakes its way through the no-man's land. Soon he and three other envoys

will board a train that will take them deeper into enemy territory. On the morning of November 8th, they pull into a railway siding in the forest of Campienne, 60 kilometers or just 37 miles north of Paris, where the British and French delegates are already waiting. There, the scree- of metal makes Marshal Ferdinand Fogg glance up from his desk. The commander-in-chief of the Allied forces stands and walks to the window of his office, temporarily housed in a train carriage in the forest of Campiennes. He looks out the window to see that the German delegates have arrived. Emerging from the carriage, Fock is joined by his chief of staff, General Maxine Wingent, the British representative, Admiral Roslyn Weems, as well as two British naval officers

named George Hope and Jack Marriott. The five men line up, stiff in their military uniforms. The German envoys climbed down from their train. A strained silence ensues as the sworn enemies stand face to face, neither party certain of how to greet the other. There were never going to be warm handshakes. No water under the bridge sentiments. The French and British aren't here to go easy on their enemy.

Nevertheless, many will criticize the armist. When Falk first received a radio message from the Germans requesting a ceasefire, the Allied position was strong. American support, better equipment, and a number of decisive military victories in key locations all helped the Allies establish superiority by November 1918. For soldiers on the winning side, the opportunity to march through Berlin to stamp their authority over those who had slaughtered so many of their compatriots would have been a satisfying end to the conflict. But invading Germany, even in their weakened state, would have cost countless more lives for no discernible advantage. In addition, the war was becoming cripplingly expensive for all involved.

And so, despite their advantage, the Allied powers chose to accept Germany's request. They would sign a ceasefire. But Germany would have to agree to their terms. As Matthias Erzberger reads through the conditions of the armistice, he can hardly believe his eyes. He was expecting severe measures, but these are harsher than he feared. This is no peace settlement. This is revenge. As well as a complete withdrawal of German forces from France, the Allies are demanding that Germany disarms completely and cedes huge tracks of territory.

But there will be no end to the naval blockade of Germany, and they'll have to pay economic reparations for years to come. The next three days are spent intense negotiation, but the German delegation has limited leverage. They must accept these humiliating conditions or face annihilation. Finally, at 5 a.m. on November 11th, the armistice is signed. But when Erzberger tries to shake Ferdinand Fawke's hand, Fock declines. There is still plenty of bitterness between the two former combatants. The representatives emerge from the train carriage into the pre-dawn gloom. The faraway rumble of artillery still shakes the forest floor. Many more thousands of

soldiers will die before the shooting stops. And it's these final deaths that will exemplify the tragedy of this cataclysmic war. AJ. Tuotteets, Kirste, we'll have enough timeitucs. Killedaugh our lives, we'll let them send me. Maelmastus, all over time. Sixotting is the moment. Sikytootteen is upuptopcoulde back toopi. AJ. Tuottealta, you're allstate place toopects, and nopeattocts.

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It's November 11th, 1818, hours after the armistice is signed. As day breaks on the

Western Front, soldiers on both sides prepare for another day of combat. Even as Fock and Erzberger

emerged from the train carriage, Infantrymen stand at arms in trenches, rifles trained on enemy soldiers who in just a few hours won't be enemies at all. 11 o'clock is Fox's original deadline for the ceasefire, allowing time for the news to travel along the front. Commanders have been notified in advance. What they haven't been told is what they should do in the meantime. For some allied commanders, sending their men to capture

ground that they will soon be able to walk across safely as madness, for others it is one last chance to punish the Germans, to gain territory, and to improve the Allies' position at the bargaining table. Such are the thoughts of one American officer, Major General Charles Somerol. His Marine regiment is camped on a riverbank in northeast France. Despite knowledge of the impending ceasefire, Somerall orders his men to cross the river. But the crossing is a catastrophe. Over 1,100 Marines are killed, picked off by German snipers. Further up the line, another American American Brigade attempts to seize a tiny French village from German troops. A morning mist hangs over the commiled streets of the village as the American soldiers advance. When German guns start

raining bullets down upon them, the Allies retreat, unwilling to perish in a war that is moments from being won. But one American supply soldier, 23-year-old private Henry Gunther, presses on. The Germans look up from their rifle sites in disbelief. Clearly, this foolish American does not know the war is nearly over. They shout and wave him away. A private Gunther keeps charging. So with an air of resignation, a German soldier fires a single shot,

stopping the private's advance. Gunther is the last American killed in World War I. The time of his death is 1044, 16 minutes before the ceasefire. Perhaps the most powerful story is that of Augustine Trebuchamp, a 40-year-old French soldier, the last to die of anyone on the Western Front. Trebuchamp, a shepherd from the mountains of southern France,

volunteered to fight in 1914. He served for the entirety of the war, fighting in major battles at Verdun and the Somme. At 10.50 a.m. on November 11th, he and his regiment are locked in a skirmish with German gunners in the Ardenne near the Belgian border. Five minutes later, at 1055, following a lull an artillery fire, Trebuschon lifts his head from the bunker and is immediately struck and killed by a German bullet. Five minutes later, the entire war is over. Eventually, the French will place a white cross at the very spot of Trebuchon's death, but French authorities embarrassed that their men died after the signing of the armistice will lie about the date. A plaque on the cross reads, died for France on November 10th, 1918. Then, finally, at the

11th hour, all guns fall silent. The horrific slaughter of the Western Front is over. For the survivors, emotions are mixed. There is relief, certainly, but mostly just a profound sense of loss and disbelief. One British soldier writes in his diary, I suppose I ought to be thrilled and cheering. Instead, I am merely apathetic and incredulous. There is some cheering across the river, occasionally bursts of it as news is carried to the advanced lines. For the most part, though, We are in silence. For months we have slept under the guns. We cannot comprehend the stillness.

The terms of the armistice will have far-reaching consequences. The Paris Peace Conference will begin in January, leading to the Treaty of Versailles in June 2019. And just like the Armisticeusis of 1918, the treaty will impose humiliating and crippling conditions on Germany's economy and military. Its terms will sow the seeds of resentment that will spawn another, more deadly,

political movement, Nazism. Ferdinand Falk, the architect of the 1918 armistice, will predict the carnage of the 20th century most accurately, when after the Treaty of Versailles signed, he turns to his aides and says darkly, this is not a peace treaty. This is war postponed for 20 years. It's August 26, 1921, in the Black Forest in Western Germany, almost three years after the armistice brought an end to World War I. Matias Erzberger strolled through the woods. Despite the summer heat, it's cool in the forest beneath the soaring trees, but more importantly for Erzberger, it's peaceful. Erzberger is loath by many in Germany who blame him for the harsh conditions imposed on the

country following the end of the war. Because Germany was never invaded, a conspiracy is circulating that the country never lost the war. Instead, it was betrayed from within by Jews or communes. or maybe both. It's a nonsense theory, but one which has been eagerly adopted and spread by right-wing extremists. And if Erzberger thinks he can escape his tormentors in the peace and quiet of the black forest, he's mistaken. While he's out hiking, he's ambushed by a member of a far-right extremist group and shot

dead. He'll be far from the last to die in the aftermath of World War I. The terms of the Treaty of Versailles will set in motion events that will wreak havoc all across Europe and the world. Many long years after the armistist was signed, and the guns fell silent on November 11, 1918. Next on History Daily, November 12, 1660, English nonconformist preacher John Bunyan is arrested and sent to prison, where from his cramped cell, he manages to write one of the most widely read books of all time. From Noisor and Airship, this is History Daily, hosted, edited, and executive produced by me, Lindsay Graham.

Audio editing by Molly Bond, sound designed by Derek Barron's, music by Lindsay Graham. This episode is written in research by Joe Viner. Executive producers are Stephen Walters for airship and Pascal Hughes for Noiser.