The inside story of the last week of the First World War, in the words of its soldiers

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The inside story of the last week of the First World War, in the words of its soldiers

Post by DuncaninFrance » Sun Nov 04, 2018 6:49 am

Reproduced from today's Daily Telegraph.........Will Elsworth-Jones


This week we commemorate the ending of the First World War: four years of fighting; 10 million soldiers dead, including almost one million from the British Empire. In Britain alone about three million people lost a close relative.
The armistice that brought the war to an end was signed at 5.10 on the morning of 11 November 1918. But to give time for the news to reach the front line, the ceasefire did not come into force until 11am. On that last morning, 2,738 men on all sides lost their lives.
 In the previous weeks the Bulgarians, the Turks and Austria-Hungary had collapsed. The German army was in retreat, the revolution started by mutinying sailors was spreading fast and demands for the Kaiser’s abdication were growing. But all over the Western Front both sides kept fighting right up to the eleventh hour. 
This is the story of the last week of the war told by those who lived and died during those final days. 
Will our luck run out? Monday 4 November
Dawn: The last major British and French offensive of the Great War began. Seventeen British and 11 French divisions attacked on a 30-mile front, hoping to break the German army who were holding a line along the Sambre-Oise Canal.
Sergeant Robert Cude, twice awarded the Military Medal and a runner in the 7th Battalion The Buffs (East Kent) Regiment, had volunteered with ‘three of the lads from the firm’ in the East End of London a month after the war started. ‘Now we are so near to the finish we begin to wonder if our luck, that has brought us right through up to now, will hold out to enable us to live and reap the benefits that we have given up the best years of our life for.’
However 25-year-old artillery officer Colonel ‘Joe’ Rice, MC, had a more insouciant view of the same battle. ‘As usual I started the barrage and took charge of the first part of it. It was a very long one and finished at 6,700 yards. We did not even hear an enemy shell.’
Just a few days earlier he had noted: ‘I was now the only officer in brigade who had come to France with the Division and had not been killed or wounded or gassed or evacuated sick. And I felt that if the war did not end pretty soon I was just about due to join the majority in some way or another.’
On the German side of the canal, Herbert Sulzbach, 24, who was from a prominent Frankfurt Jewish family and had risen from private to lieutenant with the elite Frankfurt 63rd Field Artillery Regiment, faced a rather different day. ‘At 6.45 the French began to lay down a barrage such as I haven’t experienced in all these four years. A few seconds later our own barrage starts rattling down on the canal… with our batteries putting up a crazy rate of rapid fire. Nobody knows anything: are our lines giving way? Has everyone been taken prisoner, and are we going to be captured any minute?’

The poet and officer Wilfred Owen, 25, who had insisted on returning to the front after a spell in Craiglockhart Hospital recovering from shell shock, seemed confident. Four days earlier he had written to his mother from the snug cellar of a forester’s house: ‘It is a great life. I am more oblivious than alas! yourself, dear Mother, of the ghastly glimmering of the guns outside, and the hollow crashing of the shells… Of this I am certain: you could not be visited by a band of friends half so fine as surround me here.’
Perhaps this sense of togetherness gave Owen and his men the determination to attempt crossing the 70-foot-wide Sambre-Oise Canal while under fire. They were easy targets and Owen was killed by a machine gunner on the opposite bank as he encouraged his men to find a way across on rafts.
There is no reliable eyewitness account of Owen’s death but the award of a posthumous Victoria Cross to Second Lieutenant James Kirk, 21, in the same regiment as Owen, trying to cross the same canal, paints a very good picture of the impossibilities the Manchesters were still being asked to face at this stage in the war.
‘For most conspicuous bravery and devotion to duty North of Ors on 4th Nov. 1918, whilst attempting to bridge the Oise Canal. To cover the bridging of the canal he took a Lewis gun, and, under intense machine-gun fire, paddled across the canal on a raft, and at a range of 10 yards expended all his ammunition. Further ammunition was paddled across to him and he continuously maintained a covering fire for the bridging party from a most exposed position till killed at his gun. The supreme contempt of danger and magnificent self-sacrifice displayed by this gallant officer prevented many casualties and enabled two platoons to cross the bridge before it was destroyed.’ Kirk’s was one of the last VCs of the war.
In contrast Sgt Cude was being welcomed by French villagers who were certain that victory had been won. ‘One house that I visited, after being invited in, was full of girls, aged 18 to 30 years, and I was embarrassed by the kisses that I had to submit to, but I have as much Cognac as I am able to carry for a while. Am more than unsteady in my walk, but I am considerably lightened by the fact that I gave my bully and biscuits away to them.’
Major Edmund (Eddie) Giffard, aged 31, was one of six brothers from Marlborough, three of whom were killed in the war. He commanded a Royal Field Artillery battery and kept a pencilled diary of his experiences in a tiny set of notebooks. Today was not a happy experience for him: ‘Established wagon lines in Villers-Pol. Feeling rather seedy [he had been intermittently unwell, probably from flu for almost two months]. Got into a drafty cottage for the night. A wretched night with griping pains. Attack on wide front appears to have gone well.’
Lights out, knives out Tuesday 5 November
Field Marshall Sir Douglas Haig, Commander in Chief of British Forces, wrote in his diary: ‘I had a long talk with General Byng… He finds that our men are fighting better than they have ever done, and are killing more Germans… He ascribes this to our men feeling that they are better men than the Germans, and now always fight it out. A few months ago… sometimes a platoon in close fighting would “hands up” if the Enemy did not immediately give in.’
In Germany, Kiel was in the hands of 40,000 mutineers and they were fast spreading out to other ports. The Naval High Command had wanted to sail their ships out to a final battle believing that even defeat, with officers and men resting ‘in immortal fame at the bottom of the sea’, was better than surrender. Wisely the mutineers were having none of it.
It was a fresh morning in Kiel with a hint of rain out to sea when, at 8pm, all the ships of the Third Battle Squadron hoisted the red flag of revolution – except the battleship König where the Imperial colours were hoisted as they had been every day for the last four years. It is difficult to imagine anyone being killed over a flag, but the ship’s commander, Captain Karl Weniger, ignored the mutineers’ ultimatum to take the flag down and so they opened fire. Lieutenant Wolfgang Zenker and another officer were shot as they stood by the halyards. ‘I have done my duty,’ Zenker told his Captain as he lay dying. Weniger, hit three times himself, replied ‘You have all done your duty.’ The red flag was duly hoisted.
A report on the morale of the German 5th Army facing the Americans showed just how bad it had become. ‘In the cinemas no pictures of the Kaiser, Hindenburg and Ludendorff [former deputy chief of staff] can be shown. Everyone whistles. When a picture of Hindenburg was shown in an area of the Corps, shouts of “Lights out, Knives out, two mess kits to catch the blood” allegedly could be heard… the enlisted will not fight any more if we do not reach a peace agreement at once.’
Frank James Tooke knew nothing of that. A signalman with the Royal Engineers, he had been captured in May and was being force marched through Belgium with 22 English and two French, pushed on by four guards in a hectic retreat. On 5 November they covered 23km, ending up in a barn. ‘Called up at 7am and after rushing breakfast of coffee and a few small biscuits we load up our old cart and start off… in the pouring rain.
We were saturated through to the skin and my boots were full of water. Nearly all of us have sores on our feet, especially one or two of the lads who have no boots and have to drag along in clogs, their feet protected by pieces of rag or old socks. Having no chance of drying our clothes most of us lie down on our straw bed and sleep just as we are.’ 
The flu is raging Wednesday 6 November
Ernest Cooper was town clerk, captain of the fire brigade and manager of the harbour in Southwold, Suffolk, where the latest problem was flu, which was now killing 7,000 people a week in Britain. ‘The flu was raging in the town and several deaths occurred. One woman was quite well at noon and dead next morning. Whole families were in bed at once and it spread in the most wholesale manner. My wife went down and I had one day in bed but escaped the real thing. My neighbour Docwra of the Red Lion kept about with it for too long then went to bed and was dead in no time. A fine strong man but too fat.’
At 4am Sulzbach had had enough. ‘I directed concentrated fire on one particular village: a reprisal raid by all my batteries… and felt enormous anger and indignation against the base, cowardly crime committed by the inhabitants, who shot two riflemen from our 154th Regiment in the back.’

In Berlin, urgency was turning to panic; Germany was facing not only defeat but also revolution. Prince Max von Baden, who had only been appointed chancellor on 3 October, was told by his new army chief, First Quartermaster General Wilhelm Groener, that they must seek a ceasefire at once: ‘Even Monday will be too late: it must be Saturday at the latest.’ 
Prince Max chose Matthias Erzberger, 43, leader of the Catholic Centre party in the Reichstag, to head the German armistice delegation: ‘Obtain what mercy you can, Matthias, but for God’s sake make peace.’ (Erzberger was branded one of the Novemberverbrecher – November criminals – and murdered by two assassins from the far right in August 1921.)
A batman wrote to his officer’s parents from a casualty clearing station: 
‘Dear Mr and Mrs Burleigh,
A short note to let you know that you will regret to hear that your son Capt L G Burleigh has been wounded during a sharp advance yesterday…
The worst part of the business was that the Boshe sent over gas so I managed to get his gas mask on. The poor fellow got wounded at 3 o’clock and we couldn’t start shifting him till eight. Mr Burleigh… was a good reliable man in the line and was loved by all the lads who came under him and all his officers. I am only sorry I have got to leave him here as he just seemed like a brother to me for about two years and two months.
As I am writing he is like a new man from what he was yesterday; you can rest easy as he is certain to pull through, so have no fear as he is well on the road for the best. 
I am, your Obedient Servant, 
Pte F Meichen A Coy 15th Battalion.’
(In a letter eight days after the war ended Burleigh writes: ‘I believe Meichen wrote to you. By jove! I don’t know what I should have done without him. He saved me from being gassed when I was knocked out. He’s a rough diamond but he’s been wonderful to me.’)
The last deserters Thursday 7 November
At 6.10am Private Ernest Jackson, 32, was shot by firing squad at Saint-Python in northern France, having been found guilty of ‘deserting his Majesty’s Service’. As part of his defence he listed mental problems: ‘Both my father and mother died in an asylum. I suffer from the same mental trouble caused by worries.’
It did him no good.
Nineteen minutes later, Private Louis Harris, 23, was shot by firing squad in Locquignol, a few kilometres away, found guilty of the same crime. His Lewis gun team was moving towards the front line and when they stopped for a breather, Harris disappeared.
Harris had no ‘prisoner’s friend’ to advise him, did not cross-examine any witnesses and made no statement in his defence. They were the last two men to be shot for desertion in the British Army. After the ceasefire all outstanding death sentences were commuted to penal servitude. (A total of 266 men were shot for desertion; they were all pardoned in 2007.)
Sgt Cude, having fought his way through the forest, had to advance along roads that were mined. ‘[They] provide work for the jerrys that we have caught and they prove to be good decoys. Where we think that a house is mined one of them has to walk in first and this frequently saves one or more of our chaps from visiting Kingdom come and means that it is one less for us to feed.’
At La Capelle in northern France the nervous wait for the main German peace delegation was over. Sergeant Maître reported from the forward observation post. ‘Suddenly, at exactly half past eight in the evening while a card game was going on among the gentlemen a call was heard in the distance and then soon much nearer till it was loud and clear near our command post. “They wouldn’t run over us would they?” Captain Lhuillier cried out. Standing on the running boards of the car, there were two Boches each sounding in turn a cease fire with a silver bugle, at least 5 feet long, much like a Jericho trumpet. While one was blowing, the other one was waving a large white cloth by way of a pennant.’
The end of the kaiser Friday 8 November
Major Giffard could almost smell the peace that lay around the corner. ‘All sorts of rumours of armistice. Bosch deputation reported to have entered the French lines.’
There his diary stops. There is a picture of Robina, the daughter of his older brother Bob who was killed in 1914, in the inner pocket of his diary. Nothing else. He was fatally wounded by a shell that landed by his battery – one of the last the Germans fired in his sector – and died two days later.
Prince Max von Baden knew that he had to persuade the Kaiser to abdicate if Germany was to avoid a civil war. As he recorded in his memoirs, he telephoned the Kaiser at 8pm and told him: ‘This is the last possible moment. It is even possible that the abdication might produce a decisive turn in the course of the peace negotiations and take the wind out of the jingoes’ sails.
Unless the abdication takes place today I can do no more. Nor can the German Princes shield the Kaiser any more… This voluntary sacrifice is necessary to save your good name before the bar of history.’
The Kaiser was having none of it and, when Prince Max offered his own resignation, he told him: ‘You sent out the armistice offer, you will have to put your name to the conditions.’ (In fact the Socialist leader, Friedrich Ebert, became chancellor the next day.) Reverend Percival Gardner-Smith, a chaplain with the Royal Air Force, had rather different worries.
‘The whole German Navy has mutinied and it is said that the Kaiser has abdicated. No one knows what may happen next. These are stirring times. Much worried at the complete disappearance of my washing.’ (He found it three days later.)
A homecoming Saturday 9 November
At 10am the German army chiefs Hindenburg and Groener were received into the Kaiser’s presence at Château de la Fraineuse in Spa, the German army headquarters. Hindenburg, a big man, stood unable to speak, the tears trickling down his face.
It was left to Groener to tell the Kaiser, ‘The army will march back to Germany peacefully and orderly, under its commanders and commanding generals, but not at the command of Your Majesty because it no longer supports Your Majesty.’
At about 1pm the Kaiser agreed to renounce the Imperial throne but still remain King of Prussia, before going in to what his son, Crown Prince Wilhelm, called ‘this unbearably painful lunch’.
‘That silent meal in a bright white room whose table was decked with flowers but surrounded only by bitter grief is among the most horrible of my recollections. Every mouth full seemed to swell and threaten to choke the eater.’
A phone call after lunch made it worse: a German republic had been proclaimed in Berlin – it had been announced that the Kaiser had abdicated and he was no longer even King of Prussia. It was arranged that the following day the Kaiser would head for the border and exile in Holland.
Private Oliver Coleman, 27, had been in France with the 88th Field Ambulance, Royal Army Medical Corps for a year and a half. They had reached Bossuyt in Belgium, ‘a village which has been knocked about a lot by our artillery… Civilians are coming down loaded with as much as they could get together in the hurry to get out of Fritz’s clutches. I helped a nice m’selle with her load. When she came in sight of her house… the poor girl burst into tears. Very pitiful scene for a while. ‘We helped to put things a bit straight, although it was rather hopeless, and cheered her and other friends… Gave them some of our hot tea and bread and cheese which they ate ravenously. One is indeed a lovely looking girl just under 20.’
In Southwold, where only a month before it was announced that four new pillboxes were to be built, town clerk Cooper reported cautious optimism. ‘We re-elected Mr Pipe as our victory mayor as we hope, building upon the urgent request of the Germans for an armistice and the marvelous success of the Allied armies everywhere, all felt quietly optimistic. At lunch afterwards the Vicar took a cigar to smoke after the Declaration saying that he had renounced smoking for the period of the war, which prompted me to relate my vow not to buy any new clothes during the war.
‘It is strange how very quietly everyone here is taking the sudden prospect of an early peace, either owing to the sickness everywhere or to the people having steeled themselves to another and harder winter of war and not wishing to shout until well outside the wood.’
His hour had come Sunday 10 November
It was arranged that the Kaiser would head for the border and exile in Holland, 60 miles away. A staff officer recalled: ‘At 5 o’clock the train started for the Dutch frontier. It had a guard of four soldiers in each car, since it had to pass through places occupied by mutinied troops. Soon we halted at the little station La Reide. In the darkness, the Kaiser left the train and stepped, accompanied by a few gentlemen, into the automobile provided to take him across the Dutch frontier.
‘The rest of us continued in the train. About 7am the train stopped.  Obliquely across the track was a wire hedge. We had reached the Dutch frontier. As a parting greeting the last German sentinel had called after us some coarse words. Our car was uncoupled and we waited for the Dutch engine to take us across the frontier.  It came at about 10 o’clock and drew us into the neutral Kingdom.  When we reached the first Dutch station we saw the Emperor, who had preceded us, walking up and down the platform. In great depression of spirit we presented ourselves before him.’
Percy Lyon, a Lieutenant with the Durham Light Infantry was a prisoner of war held in Graudenz (now Grudziadz in Poland). One of the interpreters had brought ‘strange news.’ ‘The soldiers in the town are wearing red cockades and a republic seems well on the way… hardly any trains are running and a soldiers’ and workmen’s committee has been formed. Aeroplanes have been flying over with red flags flying – prisoners have been released on the town.
On the front a US Marine officer John Ausland came face to face with a German machine gunner: ‘The idea was firmly in my mind that I had to kill him. When I got so close that the rifle was only 18 inches from his face I stopped. I don’t know why, but I was going to pull the trigger and he knew I was, and he knew his hour had come.’ 
Erzberger was with the German armistice delegation, isolated in the forest at Compiègne, negotiating with the Allies on the private train of the Commander of Allied forces Marshal Ferdinand Foch. At 8pm he received word from Berlin that the armistice should be signed.
Clifford Carter was feeling apprehensive – he had enlisted as a private in 1914 and was now a Second Lieutenant with the 2nd battalion York and Lancaster Regiment. North-east of St Quentin he was riding out with another officer to reconnoitre the route they would take the following night.
‘It was so obvious that we were in for a hot time. The trenches that had been captured from the Germans were knocked to pieces. Their exact position was of course known to the enemy gunners and judging by the shells that burst around us they were determined to blast us out of existence. “We shall be their target in another 24 hours,” said my fellow officer quietly and we said very little more.’
Crown Prince Wilhelm reflected mournfully, alone in the chateau garden in the evening at the headquarters of the Third Army group.
‘I think of my father [the Kaiser] and the whole bitterness of this separation and this exile comes over me. Early dusk veils the autumn trees; sleet is falling and a penetrating chill arises from the wet mouldering leaves and the saddened earth. Suddenly along the road outside a company marches by. The men are singing our fine old soldiers’ song Nach der Heimat mocht ich wieder.  Good God. I think to myself. I struggle with my feelings as best I can; but they are too strong for me , I cannot resist them. Still they sing – softer now and more distant. I kept up until then but there in the darkness and solitude in which no one could see – they overcame me.’
It is a dream, tears fill the eyes Monday 11 November
‘Fine day but cold and dull,’ notes Field Marshal Haig. At 11am he had a meeting in Cambrai with the five Army Commanders and the Cavalry Corps, issuing deployment orders. ‘I then pointed out the importance of looking after the troops during the period following the cessation of hostilities. Very often the best fighters are the most difficult to deal with in periods of quiet.
‘After the Conference we were all taken on the Cinema! General Plumer [who commanded the Second Army] … stood before the camera trying to look his best, while Byng [who commanded the Third Army] and others near him were chafing the old man and trying to make him laugh.’
Sgt Cude heard of the armistice two hours before it was due to come into force. ‘I was up forward at the time and the lads let off all their ammo, but at a target every time… Right up to the minute of the time fixed for the armistice they are pumping over shells as fast as they can… We get a little back for Jerry has lost his temper I suppose… I would not miss the sport at any price, but I am as nervous as a kitten. If only I can last out the remainder of the time and this is everyone’s prayer. I am awfully sorry for those of our chaps who are killed this morning and there must be a decent few of them too, for mines are still going up.’
Corder Catchpool, a conscientious objector who had spent two years in prison – the last months in Ipswich: ‘I was sitting alone, stitching as ever – on special bright red mailbags. A hooter broke the silence… What is this? All the sirens in the town were booming. The war was over?
The prison-bell tinkled timorously. Then it rang out, greatly daring, loud and long. It was only 11am by my sewing – I can guess within five minutes. Suddenly I went a little mad too, and did an unheard of thing. I rang my Emergency Bell! A warder unlocked the door. The war was over. It was 11.05am. Click, click went the lock again. ‘I started to sing the Te Deum, but stopped half way. I was overwhelmed, oppressed with a sense of the awful responsibility of being spared.’
Col Rice: ‘As I walked through the billet on the way to the mess for breakfast Sharp met me and said, “It’s all over, Sir.” I said, “What is?” And he replied that orders had come in for hostilities to cease at 11am and all troops to remain where they should be.
All the officers took it very calmly and after breakfast we managed to buy a bottle of port from an anti-aircraft battery as we had no drink in the mess. We then told the NCOs and men. As an example of the calmness with which it was received when we met Sgt Goodall walking across the gun park and told him he merely halted, saluted, said, “Very good Sir” and walked on.’
Phyllis Constance Iliff was just 17 when her boyfriend, Lieutenant Philip Pemble, a 19-year-old pilot, was killed in a mid-air collision over Dunkirk in June.
‘You were so certain of coming back and I was so certain of it too… And here on this night when all are laughing and enjoying themselves, left alone I sit and think of what it would have been had you not been taken away and my heart were not slowly breaking. This night when “everyone is happy” as people say. Dear Lord! Have mercy it is not in human nature to stand so much.’
Herbert Sulzbach: ‘The war is over. How we looked forward to this moment, how we used to picture it as the most splendid event of our lives, and here we are now, humbled, our souls torn and bleeding and know that we have surrendered.’ (Sulzbach left Germany in 1937; his wife and her sister followed a year later. When war broke out in 1939 he was interned on the Isle of Man but eventually became a captain in the British Army.)
Prisoner of war Frank Tooke saw things rather differently. ‘Before proceeding on the march we are ordered to parade with all our belongings at 8am. It is a dark, cold and miserable morning with mist arising from the River Meuse adding to the dreariness… I drag myself towards the parade ground but as soon as I arrive there loud cheers go up for it has just been announced that the war is over and that we shall remain here until further orders.
It is a dream, tears fill the eyes of many men while French, English and Germans smiling almost hysterically shake hands with each other. Our English lads although few in number sing Tipperary at the request of the French who ask for it again and again.’
Captain Thomas Franklin Grady, serving with a machine gun battalion, who had only left the USA in April: ‘Buried Jones. Big German hospital nearby… Cold and raining. Runner in at 10.30 with orders to cease fire at 11. 306 Machine Gun Company on my right lost 12 men at 10.55 when a high explosive landed in their midst. At 11 sharp the shelling ceased on both sides and we don’t know what to say.
Capt comes up and told us to dismount and go into the hospital and build a fire – that the war was over. We were dumbfounded and finally came to and cheered and it went down the line like wild fire. I reported Jones’s death and marked his grave. Captain conducted a prayer and cried like a baby. The bully beef tasted like turkey.’
Second Lieutenant H C Blagrove writing to ‘Dear Old Mums’ in Ashtead, Surrey: ‘I expect you have heard the news by this time that the war is finished. Many many thanks for the lovely parcel which came yesterday. I gave some of the cake to some French people in my billet in a little village. They have not tasted cake or chocolate for nearly four years. They hid all their brass door knobs etc and even clothing and mattresses by burying them in the garden and they even had to take their bread to bed with them as the Bosche used to come in and take it. It is rather interesting to see them digging their various possessions from the garden.’
For 13-year-old Olive Wells at school in Streatham the war’s end meant, among other things, no homework for a week. ‘We came to school this morning hardly realising what a great day this was going to be. Miss Bassett told us that the Armistice was signed. We cheered until we were hoarse. At 11 o’clock the guns were fired, the church bells were rung, the sirens were blown – we did not think of air raids as we would have done any other day. Our home work was excused for the week. The guns are booming while I am writing this.
'We are coming out of school at 12.30pm instead of 12.45pm this morning. This has started as a day of rejoicing and I am sure will end as happily.’
Unaware as yet of the armistice, Clifford Carter was still thinking of the shelling that lay ahead for his men in the trenches recently captured from the Germans. ‘The first parade of my platoon was to the baths – an unusual treat. I left them there to spend an hour wallowing in hot water. They were in a gloomy mood having some idea of what was in store for them that night.’
He went for a stroll through the town and passed a house where a signaler ‘leapt through the door into the road as though he had been shot and pinned up a notice. It read hostilities will cease at 11am today. Its significance dawned on me. We shan’t have to go to the trenches tonight; the air won’t be pierced by bursting shells and whining bullets. I shan’t have any casualties in my platoon tonight; we shall all be alive tomorrow.
‘I rushed back to the baths and blew my whistle for attention, “Men” I said. “There is to be an armistice at 11 this morning.  No more fighting. No more trenches.” I can still hear the cheer that went up. It was then 10am. In an hour the war would be over.’
Southwold’s town clerk Ernest Cooper: ‘I went to the office and at 11 was rung up by the county adjutant who told me that the armistice had been signed and that guns were firing and bells ringing in Ipswich. I could not take it in at first and could hear him shouting “war is over,” at the other end… Flags soon came out, the bells began to ring and a few of us adjourned to the mayor’s house and cracked some bottles of Fizz. An impromptu meeting was held and the Mayor read the official telegram from the Swan balcony. Some soldiers came up with the Kaiser in effigy which they tied to the Town Pump and burnt amidst cheers.
‘At 12.45 we went to a short thanksgiving service at the church and nearly all work was knocked off for the day, but the town took it very quietly on the whole. The only sad event was poor Docwra’s funeral which took place with Military Honours in the afternoon. I think everyone felt it doubly sad that a man of 37, a keen volunteer from the start, should be buried amidst the armistice rejoicings.’
A signaler with the London Regiment had to put five francs in the kitty when he joined the section. The jealously guarded kitty would be won by ‘the signaler that was lucky enough to take the peace message – if any. We were very much aware that something big was in the air and we lived in lively anticipation of that kitty. I was on duty early on the morning of November 11 when out of the blue I received a priority signal and in due course received the peace message. I drew 175 Francs and it cost me nearly twice that in the first estaminet [café] we came to.’
Captain Leonard Burleigh, whose batman had saved him six days earlier, was still in hospital, but was now well enough to write home:
‘My dear Mother and Dad,
So the war is over – Hurrah!! – I can hardly realise it. I wonder what will happen now? No doubt there will be a lot of clearing up to do. I am getting on fine and expect to be moved to Lille very soon. When they will send me home is all a matter of luck once I am fit for the journey. Well don’t worry mother, I am getting on splendidly. Just looking forward to a rattling good time at home.
With Fondest love
Leonard.’
Sir Charles Petrie, attached to the historical section of the War Cabinet: ‘I went to the Savoy late that evening and the first thing I saw was a girl in evening dress being sick in the gutter in Savoy Court. Nobody minded or appeared to think it odd. Inside the hotel a number of young officers were trying to burn a German flag in spite of the protests of the management.’
Colonel Thomas Gowenlock, an intelligence officer in the American 1st Division, was talking to his chief of staff, Colonel John Greely, when they were told the ceasefire would start at 11am.
‘As night came, the men sat around log fires, the first they had ever had at the front. They were trying to reassure themselves that there were no enemy batteries spying on them from the next hill. 
‘Some suffered a total nervous collapse. Some, of a steadier temperament, began to hope they would some day return to home and the embrace of loved ones. Some could think only of the crude little crosses that marked the graves of their comrades. Some fell into exhausted sleep. All were bewildered by the sudden meaninglessness of their existence as soldiers… What was to come next? Their minds were numbed by the shock of peace. The past consumed their whole consciousness. The present did not exist – and the future was inconceivable.’
Duncan

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Re: The inside story of the last week of the First World War, in the words of its soldiers

Post by Niner » Sun Nov 04, 2018 12:24 pm

Good read. The end of a tragedy on a somber note. Not the song of victory, a new lease on life and universal joy. I guess that kind of "joy" was reserved for someone other than those who didn't do the fighting and bleeding and who didn't lose a close relative.
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