Thursday, June 15, 2006

The Last Day of World War One

When did the First World War end? Many of you just said to yourselves…The 11th Hour of the 11th Day of the 11th Month of 1918. It sounds like that was scripted by Hollywood.

The most awful part of the story is that the armistice was signed at 5am on November 11th but was not effective until 11am. The fighting continued for the last six hours between 5am and 11am.
  • After the war, in a Congressional Hearing, General Pershing blamed Marshal Foch but the many said that, at the time, Pershing appeared to be gung ho about the last assaults.
  • These were full frontal assaults as vicious as any on any other day of the war.
  • The Germans were shocked when the assaults started but defended against them with all that they had.
  • During these six hours, thousands of men were wounded or killed fighting for land on which they could have casually strolled smoking a cigarette at 11:01am on the 11th Day of the 11th Month of 1918.

Would I kid u?