Harvest home.
In 1914, the nations of Europe had marched to war while the corn ripened.
Now it was 1918 and the harvest was being reaped.
For two months, the whole weight of the Alliance
had pressed upon the German army on the Western Front.
July 18th, the Battle of the Marne.
August 8th, the Battle of Amiens.
August 21st, the Battle of Bapaume.
August 26th, the Battle of the Scarpe.
September 12th, the Battle of St Mihiel.
Now on September 26th, another massive blow fell on the German army.
Marshal Foch launched a series of offensives by all the Allies.
Field Marshal von Hindenburg wrote:
"For us another battle was raging side by side with those in the field.
"The other battlefield was in our hearts.
On September 28th, this inward battle raged most fiercely."
On September 28th, the German high command
knew that its Bulgarian allies were on the point of surrender.
General Ludendorff concluded: "We must plainly sue for peace.
"I went down to the field marshal's room.
"I explained my views. The field marshal listened to me with emotion.
"He answered that he had intended to say the same to me.
"The field marshal and I parted with a firm handshake
like men who have buried their dearest hopes."
The next day the surrender of Bulgaria became a fact -
the first rift in the front of the central powers.
The British Army burst through the Hindenburg Line.
GUNFIRE
The German government and high command
held a conference at Spa in the Hotel Britannique.
The ministers told the generals of possible revolution in Germany.
The generals told the ministers that the army had reached the end of its strength.
Our anxieties for the army, said Hindenburg,
were mingled with cares for the homeland.
"If the one did not stand firm, the other would collapse."
I went through the streets of Frankfurt and was not saluted.
I was a commissioned officer and in the army we had to be saluted.
That was not the only soldier I met who didn't salute.
Quite a number refused to salute.
I realised that the discipline and mood of people was really bad.
We hadn't realised at the Front how bad it was at home.
People were fed up with war.
They wanted it to end as soon as possible - victory or no victory.
"We placed our proposals for a peace step before his majesty.
"He approved our proposals with a strong and resolute heart."
"It had to be peace. Peace after 50 months of war."
There were children going to school who had never known peace.
Men had forgotten what peace was like.
The very sense of the word had changed. What was peace?
Whatever else it might be, it was something very difficult to obtain.
The first stage towards peace must be an armistice.
Fire!
There could be no peace while guns thundered and the killing went on.
But in every country, soldiers and political leaders knew
that once the guns fell silent and the killing ceased,
it was inconceivable that the weary, blood-stained armies
could ever be made to rise up and fight again.
And so before there could be an armistice
there must be an assurance that it would lead to peace.
And after 50 months of hatred and suspicion,
how could there be such assurance?
The clamour of the guns went on.
Despite losses, despite exhaustion,
the mood of the Allies in 1918 was implacable.
20% of the French nation had been taken
into the armed forces since the war began.
Nearly eight million men.
3.5% of the French nation had been killed.
Over 1,300,000 men.
France had suffered and fought and bled as no other country had done.
Great Britain also had put forth a tremendous effort.
13% of her population had been drawn into the armed forces - over six million men.
Since 1916 the toll of British dead had mounted steeply.
Now they numbered 750,000 - more than half the French figure.
Britain had also lost something Continental nations never possessed.
A centuries-old sense of immunity.
Over 7.5 million tonnes of British shipping
had been sunk by October 1918 - over 1,000 ships.
A blow at Britain's lifelines, which struck at every citizen.
And every large city now knew that it was a potential war target.
Only 1,413 people had actually been killed in air raids,
but the enemy in the sky had brought war home to British people
as nothing else could do.
They didn't like it.
The British mood was sour.
The clamour of the guns continued.
Now it was October.
On the 3rd, a new government was formed in Germany
under the liberal Prince Max of Baden.
First he addressed himself to the President of the United States.
"To avoid further bloodshed,
"the German government requests the President
to arrange the immediate conclusion of an armistice
"on land, by sea and in the air."
How would America react?
For Germany and Austria, this was the all-important question.
CHEERING
President Woodrow Wilson was the man of the hour.
His own views were simple and did not alter.
"If the Germans are beaten, they will accept any terms.
"If they are not beaten, I do not wish to make terms with them."
Wilson lost no time in putting German intentions to the test.
He asked whether the German and Austrian governments
were prepared to accept the peace programme
which he had delivered to the US Congress in January, 1918,
known as the Fourteen Points. It was an unfortunate criterion.
Britain, depending on sea power, disliked the insistence
on "absolute freedom of navigation upon the seas in peace and in war".
Proposals for altering the frontiers of Europe,
which seemed straightforward in Washington,
took on a different look when seen from Paris or Rome.
Wilson had not consulted the Allies before replying to Germany.
And now for the Allies, the war seemed a little less promising
than it had in October's early days.
In Flanders, drenching rain had halted the Belgian and British advance.
The Americans in the Argonne also faced insoluble transport problems.
The French army fought hard,
but the men of 1918 were not the dashing soldiers of 1914 and 1915.
And the memory of the mutinies of 1917
was not likely to fade in the mind of their commander, General Petain.
He could not press them too hard.
MACHINE GUNFIRE
The burden of the advance fell upon the British Army.
Against it, the Germans summoned up
their last reserves of courage, skill and fortitude.
All of these they possessed in a rare degree.
The British had been within three miles of Cambrai on September 27th.
They didn't enter the burning city until October 9th.
Yet the British Army also possessed reserves of fortitude and courage.
On October 17th, they attacked again on the river Selle,
capturing 20,000 prisoners and 475 guns.
By the end of October their own losses in this offensive
had been as heavy as any they had sustained throughout the war.
The British Army, Haig told the Government on October 19th:
"...was never more efficient than it is today.
But it has fought hard and lacks reinforcements.
"With diminishing effectives, morale is bound to suffer.
"The French and American armies are not capable
of making a serious offensive now.
"The British alone might bring the enemy to his knees.
"But why expend more British lives and for what?"
Around the whole perimeter of the war, the central powers faced disaster.
In Syria, the city of Damascus had been taken on October 1st.
Aleppo was captured on the 26th.
On the 30th, Turkey asked for an armistice.
Allied forces advancing from Salonika now stood on the Danube.
On October 24th, the Italians had launched
their final offensive against Austria.
By the end of the month, Austrian resistance had collapsed.
Austria surrendered on November 3rd.
Now Germany stood quite alone
to face her agonising moment.
She had no choice.
She had to accept whatever terms she was offered.
A semi-official newspaper wrote:
"There will be a moment of rebellion against the terms.
"Then we shall have to say to ourselves that we have the right to die ourselves
"but not the right to let others die;
"that our business is to prevent useless bloodshed
"and that further bloodshed has become really and obviously useless."
A socialist leader summed it up:
"Better a terrible end than terror without end."
Germany faced the truth with wracking despair.
November came and a Munich paper
bitterly recalled the Kaiser's promise in August 1914,
that the army would be home "when the leaves fall".
"'When the leaves fall.'
Many are now dead who thought that they would be home when the leaves fall.
"Who does not remember with pain those cheerful words of the Kaiser?
"The leaves are now falling for the fifth time.
Now perhaps peace will come."
"The signs of internal commotion in Germany
are growing more numerous and more serious.
"Want and the collapse of all the expectations of victory and plunder
"have evidently excited very dangerous passions among the masses.
"The people of Cologne are sick of the war.
They say they've been grossly deceived.
"They were told it would bring them prosperity but it's brought misery."
By November 6th, there was revolution in all parts of Germany.
Mutinous sailors from the fleet at Kiel took over Hamburg and Bremen.
There were insurrections in Hanover,
Brunswick, Cologne and Munich.
Berlin was in ferment.
Ludendorff had resigned on October 27th.
Now his successor told the Government:
"We shall have to cross the lines with a white flag.
"Even a week is too long to wait."
The next day, November 7th, the German Armistice Commission crossed the lines.
The last days of the war were at hand.
The last shells were being fired,
the last attacks mounted, the last killing being done.
From first to last, the price of war was fearful.
The poet Wilfred Owen, who had written in his poems
one of the sternest indictments of war,
was only one of the many who fell during these last days.
"If in some smothering dreams you too could pace
"Behind the wagon that we flung him in,
"And watch the white eyes writhing in his face,
"His hanging face, like a devil's, sick of sin
"If you could hear, at every jolt, the blood
"Come gargling from the froth-corrupted lungs,
"Obscene as cancer, bitter as the cud
"Of vile, incurable sores on innocent tongues -
"My friend, you would not tell with such high zest
"To children ardent for some desperate glory,
"The old lie: 'It is sweet and glorious to die for one's country.'"
100 days of savage fighting which had begun in August
and which had never relaxed its pressure
had cost the British Army almost 400,000 men.
In that time, the British had taken 188,000 prisoners.
The other Allies together, French, Americans and Belgians
had taken 196,000 prisoners.
Of these, the vast majority fell to the French.
No army in the world could stand this rate of loss.
A proud German army was breaking up in the field.
There could be no doubt about the outcome of the armistice negotiations.
The London Times wrote:
"All the world awaits with eager desire the news
that Germany has taken the next step towards peace.
"There is but one way, and every hour that she delays
increases her losses and her dangers.
"The terms have been irrevocably fixed.
They are to take or leave within a definite period."
At Compiegne, the drama was played out.
The German armistice delegation entered Foch's railway carriage.
"Foch invited them to be seated on one side of the table and sat down.
"'Do you request an armistice?' the marshal asked abruptly.
"'Yes. We are here to ask
that an armistice be concluded,' they replied together."
The terms were read out in complete silence. One German delegate wept.
The Germans were given 72 hours in which to reach a decision.
They did not need so long.
Revolution was sweeping through the cities of Germany.
ANGRY SHOUTING
On November 9th, the Kaiser abdicated
and the next day he fled to Holland.
Hearing the news, Sir Douglas Haig wrote in his diary:
"If the war had gone against us, no doubt our king would have had to go.
"And probably our army would have become insubordinate like the German army.
"Compare John Bunyan's remark on seeing a man on his way to be hanged.
"But for the grace of God, John Bunyan would have been in that man's place."
At 5am on November 11th, the armistice was signed
and a signal went out from Marshal Foch's headquarters to all the Allied armies.
"Hostilities will cease at 1100 hours today, November 11th.
Now, at last, on the hundredth day of the fifth year,
the guns fell silent, the killings stopped.
No more Very lights going up with their greenish wavering flare.
No lilies of the dead in the night.
No flash of howitzers on the horizon.
No drowning with droning of the shells.
No machine guns. No patrols going out.
Just nothing.
Silence.
The Canadians were approaching Mons.
Then we carried on into Mons.
And got to the main street
which was filled with the inhabitants screaming their heads off and shouting.
They didn't seem to know what had happened to them.
And as I got to the town hall in the main street of Mons,
the church clock chimed. It was 11 o'clock.
The war was over. This was the unbelievable moment.
And nowhere more unbelievable than at the front itself.
Slowly the news came in officially that an armistice had been signed.
But there was no show of emotion. No-one went berserk or anything.
We were too far gone. Our emotions were all killed long ago.
A French officer observed the reaction of his soldiers.
"They didn't show their joy by shouts or songs as one could have expected.
"They talked about it but remained remarkably composed and dignified.
"Peace came so suddenly that we were all rather stunned
"asking ourselves if it was possible or whether we were dreaming.
"Walking along the trenches several hours after the armistice,
"I was surprised to see all our soldiers at their listening posts
"or in their shelters, as if the war was still on."
The more boisterous Americans responded differently to it.
"In one unit, the men joined hands in one long line behind the gun.
"As the captain dropped his arm, they all pulled in unison
"so each could say he had fired the last shell."
EXPLOSION
In many British sectors, stern fighting went on until the very last minute.
There'd been one German machine gun unit
giving our troops a lot of trouble.
They kept on firing until almost 11 o'clock.
At 11 o'clock the officer stepped out of their position,
lifted his helmet and bowed to the British troops,
fell all his men in and marched them off.
CHEERING
British soldiers watched with astonishment
as civilians in the liberated areas dug up in gardens
clothes, money and valuables which had been hidden for years.
For these people, November 11th, 1918,
meant the end of enemy rule, repression and fear.
"If there are endless miles of ruins, there are thousands of beaming faces.
"Wounded, filtering back from the front,
"old men and women and then grandchildren,
"huddled with the remains of their possessions
on a creaking cart drawn by a lame old horse,
"returning perhaps to ruins which they may still fondly claim as home.
"One and all bear the stamp of trials bravely borne."
For some the armistice had another meaning.
An English officer heard stories of a different fear.
"Of how from want, because the children were hungry,
"to provide medicine for a sick baby
or to save an invalid mother from starvation,
"the girl or the wife had lived with a German officer,
"with men their men were fighting.
"Sometimes there was a child by this stranger
"and you felt the unhappy mother did not dare say,
"could not explain that she loved this one also.
"And I, the Englishman,
"thank God that my country had not been invaded."
The November day wore on.
The truth, the wonderful, incredible truth, sank in.
The war really was over.
A British officer wrote:
"Throughout the night, the singing, the hooting of railway whistles
"and the blast of factory sirens might awaken the dead.
"At last I lay down.
"Tired and happy. But sleep is elusive.
"Incidents thrash through the memory.
"The battles of the first four months.
"The awful winters in waterlogged trenches,
"cold and miserable.
"The terrible trench assaults and shellfire of the next three years.
"Loss of friends. Exhaustion and wounds.
"Thank God. The end of a frightful four years at the Front.
"Company officers, rank and file
"together with other front-line units
"had suffered bravely, patiently and unselfishly
"hardships and perils beyond even the imagination of those,
"including soldiers, who had not shared them."
To all his soldiers, Marshal Foch addressed an order of the day.
"Officers, non-commissioned officers and soldiers of the allied armies,
"You have won the greatest battle in history
"and rescued the most sacred of causes - the liberty of the world.
"You have full right to be proud.
"For you have crowned your standards with immortal glory
"and won the gratitude of posterity."
On the other side of the line, Field Marshal von Hindenburg
led the defeated German army home to a country bitterly divided.
Children were dying of hunger
and mobs attacked officers in the streets.
Even the soldiers were shot at
and all their achievements and courage, was set at naught.
Yet Hindenburg did not despair.
"I have witnessed the heroic struggle of my fatherland.
"and I shall never believe that it was its death struggle."
Germany reported 1,800,000 dead.
Austria-Hungary - 1,200,000.
Two great empires foundered in sorrow, in hunger, in ruin
to face a merciless future.
The day of reckoning had come.
The reckoning of victory was no less exorbitant.
Nearly five million French men were killed,
wounded or taken prisoner during the war.
That was the price France paid for victory.
General de Gaulle wrote,
"The sacrifice was cruel as it was paid with the lives of her youth.
"A treasure in which France was poorer than other European countries.
"Here dead we lie
"Because we did not choose to live
"And shame the land from which we sprung
"Life, to be sure, is nothing much to lose
"But young men think it is
"And we were young."
Now it was over.
Now the awful letting of blood was ended.
France could breathe again.
We had had so many years of suffering.
Four years. Four years of dull suffering. Acute suffering.
Pain everywhere.
It was dreadful.
Every day we heard about someone we loved being killed or wounded.
There was no relief anywhere
and we thought it would go on and on and on for ever.
But it didn't because armistice came.
We waited for it. We knew it was coming.
Although we weren't sure when.
We knew that one day it would come
and we waited and we waited,
with such tense feelings that everything around us seemed to wait.
The town waited.
Paris waited. The buildings waited. We were hushing everything.
We didn't want to talk because something was going to happen.
We waited and it came.
The day it came it was SO wonderful!
The news seemed too good to be true.
Even the excitable Parisians had to wait till it was confirmed.
Everyone knew that an armistice had been signed.
The war would surely end at eleven.
The great city remained calm until it had been announced officially.
Until the fighting ceased Parisians went about their affairs
and conducted themselves with good sense and restraint.
At 1100, the great fact established, Paris threw her chapeau into the air,
became alive with colour, began to sing and dance.
In America, most people were asleep when the news of the armistice came
They awoke to a joyful day.
America's war losses - 325,000 men - did not compare with Europe's.
But at least there would be no more young Americans
sailing away to death and wounds on distant fields.
London's relief matched that of Paris.
Now the bells could ring and go on ringing,
announcing what all British people desired to hear.
"There was wild rejoicing and crowds went crazy with delight.
"But it seemed to me that behind the ringing of these peals of joy,
"there was the tolling of spectral bells for those who would not return.
For the British Prime Minister, David Lloyd George,
it was a day for gratitude - and hope.
"In the House of Commons that afternoon,
I rose and announced the signing of the armistice.
"I concluded by saying, 'Thus at eleven this morning came to an end
"'the cruellest and most terrible war that has scorched mankind.'"
In the cities of the allied nations
the armistice set loose a wave of exaltation and expectation
like the breaking of a dam.
The very word was electrifying.
Clemenceau expressed the relief and happiness
of all those who greeted the armistice with cheers.
"A grand word.
"A great word to set down when after four years,
"lived through in anguished expectation of the worst,
"suddenly a voice is heard crying, 'It is finished.'"
"The armistice is the interval between the curtain's rise and fall.
"Hail to it! And welcome!"