Armistice Day -- Remembrance Day -- Veteran's Day

This is Veteran’s Day or Remembrance Day depending on where you are. It used to be Armistice Day in the United States, commemorating the end of the war-to-end-wars, World War I, The Great War. On the 11th hour of the 11th day of the 11th month it all came to a halt.

The next day they moved forward again and supported the New Zealanders in the assault on Le Quesnoy. The brigade car was the first to enter the town, where the Colonel, to his intense embarrassment, was soundly kissed by a grateful old woman. He was so unnerved that on his return to head-quarters he poured himself out a tumblerful of neat gin and started to drink, thinking it was water. His staff watched him with amusement. Expressions of astonishment, anger, defiance, and gratification chased each other in succession across his face as without a word, he emptied the tumbler.

Alone 2XX went forward into the Forest of Mormal. It was here, on the 8th of November, that news was received that Merredew had been killed four days earlier at Moen on the Scheldt.

Very early on the last morning Shadbolt was watching the men dragging the heavy howitzers into a little clearing in the wood. The day was grey and overcast and the raindrops from a recent shower were dripping sadly off the trees. Above them a few pigeons, disturbed by the movements and cries of the men, circled and wheeled. A despatch rider rode up and handed him a message form. 'Hostilities will cease at 11 a.m. to-day. A.A.A. No firing will take place after this hour.' He sat down on the stump of a tree. In any case, the order did not affect them. The enemy was already out of range, and they could move no further.

This then, was the end. Visions of the early days, their hopes and ambitions, swam before his eyes. He saw again his pre-historic howitzer in the orchard at Festubert, and Alington's long legs moved towards him through the trees. He was back with the Australians in their dug-out below Pozieres. He saw the long slope of the hill at Heninel, covered with guns, ammunition dumps, tents and dug-outs. Ypres, the Salient, Trois Tours, St Julien—the names made unforgettable pictures in his mind. Happy days at Beugny and Beaussart, they were gone and the bad ones with them. Hugh was gone, and Tyler and little Rawson; Sergeant Powell, that brave old man; Elliot and James and Johnson—the names of his dead gunners strung themselves before him. This was the very end. What good had it all been? To serve what purpose had they all died? For the moment he could find no answer. His brain was too numb with memories.
'Mr Straker.'
'Sir.'
'You can fall the men out for breakfast. The war is over.'
'Very good, sir.'
Overhead the pigeons circled and wheeled.

--Lt.-Col. F. Lushington

11 November 1918.
... the grim business of war itself went on as usual, right up to 11 a.m., and, at one or two points along the line, even beyond. Thus a captain commanding an English cavalry squadron which took the Belgian village of Erquelinnes wrote that morning:
"At 11.15 it was found necessary to end the days of a Hun machine-gunner on our front who would keep on shooting. The armistice was already in force, but there was no alternative. Perhaps his watch was wrong but he was probably the last German killed in the war—a most unlucky individual!"

Elsewhere on the British front an officer commanding a battery of six-inch howitzers was killed at one minute past eleven—at which his second-in-command ordered the entire battery to go on firing for another hour against the silent German lines.
But generally, any firing still going on ended on the last second of the tenth hour, sometimes with droll little ceremonies—as on the British front near Mons, where another and more fortunate German machine-gunner blazed off his last belt of ammunition during the last minute of the war and then, as the hour struck, stood up on his parapet, removed his steel helmet, bowed politely to what was now the ex-enemy opposite, and disappeared.

The British division on whose front that little incident took place had lost, during that one final week of the war, two officers killed and twenty-six wounded, and among the other ranks one hundred and seventeen killed, six hundred and ninety-three wounded and sixty-one missing. Small wonder that its historian recorded 'no cheering and very little outward excitement' as peace came.

--Gordon Brook-Shepherd




ADDENDUM:

I forgot to give proper credits above. Both texts are from "The Oxford Book of Military Anecdotes" (A great read. It claims to survey all of military history but, in fact, relies overwhelmingly on the British military. Nevertheless, easy to get lost in for an hour or two.) The first picture shows President Bush at last year's Arlington Cemetery ceremony. The second shows Remembrance Day at the cenotaph memorial in London with the band, pipes and drums of the Royal Irish and the pipes and drums of the London Irish Rifles, recognizable by their piper's cloaks lined in St Patrick's blue.

Finally a repeat from last year, taken from Johnstone's "Orange, Green, and Khaki: The Story of the Irish Regiments in the Great War 1914-1918". After the armistice:

Four selected divisions occupied part of Germany before Christmas – the Guards, the 29th Regular, 15th (Scottish) and 1st Canadian Divisions. The Irish Guards crossed the frontier with their pipers playing ‘St. Patrick’s Day’, while the pipers of the Leinster Regiment played ‘Come Back to Erin'. However, it was on the Rhine that a triumphal crossing was staged. The Canadians, Scots and Regulars were to cross Rhine bridges simultaneously. The Scots marched to ‘Scotland the Brave’ across a bridge of boats at Mulheim. At Cologne the Regulars, led by the fusilier battalions of 86 Brigade, which included 1st Dublins, marched to ‘The British Grenadiers’. Behind them in 88 Brigade the pipers of the effervescent Leinsters, their saffron kilts making a splash of colour, played the rollicking ‘Paddy Maginty’s Goat’. Later, the Guards Division made its imposing entry. And as the Irish Guards swung into the Hohenzollern Ring, fittingly their pipers played ‘Brian Boru’.