Armistice Day
By Anthony Gregory • Friday November 11, 2011 9:15 AM PDT • 29 Comments
Updated*.
On November 11, 1918, the world finally had enough of the irrational killing spree known as World War I. Fifteen million individual human beings had perished in what was the largest military conflict the world had yet seen. Armistice Day, marking the end of the war, was declared a holiday by the Allied nations. Some countries still observe it every November 11.
Although the day was memorialized by governments whose integrity in the whole matter we can question, there is no doubt that there was much to celebrate in the end of hostilities. World War I convinced much of the world of the insanity of war.
Thanks mostly to mutual defense treaties among nations that had no real reason to fight each other, what started out as a royal family feud and regional squabble exploded into a global bloodbath. Serbia was joined by Britain, France, Belgium, Greece, Romania, Italy, Russia, Portugal, Montenegro, Japan, Brazil and, eventually, the United States, to fight Austria-Hungary’s alliance, which included Germany, the Ottoman Empire, and Bulgaria. This madness was triggered when a Bosnian Serb secessionist, sponsored by members of the Serbian military, assassinated Archduke Ferdinand of Austria. One act of violence—over one localized territorial dispute—resulted in the loss of lives, property and liberty of tens of millions of human beings.
It was a complete diplomatic disaster on numerous fronts. Pat Buchanan summed it up well in his book Churchill, Hitler, and the Unnecessary War (2008):
Had the Austrians not sought to exploit the assassination of Ferdinand to crush Serbia, they would have taken Serbia’s acceptance of nine of their ten demands as vindication. Had Czar Nicholas II been more forceful in rescinding his order for full mobilization, Germany would not have mobilized, and the Schlieffen Plan would not have begun automatically to unfold. Had the Kaiser and [Chancellor Theobald von] Bethmann realized the gravity of the crisis, just days earlier, they might have seized on [Sir Edward] Grey’s proposal to reconvene the six-power conference that resolved the 1913 Balkan crisis.
And the governments of other major belligerents—Russia, Britain, and the United States—were also too willing to go to war.
The mass death of the was barbaric, on an unspeakable scale and amounted to nothing good. In one day at the Battle of the Somme, the British suffered more losses than any other day in the history of the empire. Practically all sides stooped to committing atrocities. Particularly savage was Britain’s starvation blockade against Germany that consumed between 600,000 and 800,000 lives, according to most estimates.
At the Battle of Verdun, the insanity of war was most apparent. From February to July in 1916, Germans and Frenchmen slaughtered each other relentlessly because their governments told them to. Germany “won” after losing 330,000 soldiers to France’s 350,000. It was all over a worthless piece of land, which, by the end of the battle, was littered with corpses and with about 1,000 rifle shells per square meter. Neither side gained any true strategic victory from the battle.
And on November 11, 1918, the world had finally had enough on this insanity. About ten million soldiers and millions more civilians were dead. The war left behind about nineteen million refugees and nine million orphans. In recognition of the horrible war and the glorious peace, November 11 would be known internationally as Armistice Day, a day for remembering the veterans and war dead from around the world, a day to reflect on the moment that the killing ended and the two sides called a truce.
The United States had lost 116,700 men to the war, just in terms of military deaths. Many returning soldiers brought back the Spanish flu that took many thousands more lives in 1918 and 1919. During the war, America lost priceless economic and civil liberties that were never fully restored.
Americans, by and large, didn’t want to enter the war in the first place, and Woodrow Wilson had won in 1916 on a campaign slogan that he “kept us out of war.” More than twenty years after World War I, Americans reelected Franklin Roosevelt for his third term after he promised not to send Americans to die in another global conflict.
The disastrous effects of World War I had continued, however, and US entry had prolonged the conflict, most likely making the outcome worse. The property destruction eventually translated into global depression. The brutal treatment of Germany under the egregiously unfair Versailles Treaty and German suffering under crushing sanctions and debt made the country ripe for the rise of Adolph Hitler. The war had decimated the Russian monarchical structure and had given Lenin what he needed to establish communism. The damage to internationalism and globalism would not be undone for at least several decades, and in the meantime, international distrust and broken friendships allowed for hostilities to build up, from Europe to Asia, until the boiling point eventually came.
As totalitarianism of different strains began to take root throughout Europe, Americans looked across the sea and saw the failures of foreign intervention. The Great War hadn’t made the world safe for democracy. Anti-war scholarship became mainstream in a way that has never again been repeated.
As war in Europe once again broke out, most Americans wanted nothing to do with it until December 7, 1941, when the Japanese military attacked Pearl Harbor. World War II was even far worse than its antecedent. After that, the United States would never revert to a peaceful state for longer than a few years.
At the end of the Korean War, President Eisenhower signed a bill in 1954 that changed the name of the national holiday to Veteran’s Day. Perhaps it made no sense any more to honor an Armistice that had been overshadowed by World War II and the beginnings of the Cold War. Whereas after World War I, the United States brought its armed forces home, the war against Communism guaranteed that the United States would henceforth have little interest in armistice, in truce, in peace.
And our country’s been at war ever since, with more and more veterans to observe every November.
* The way I had this originally written came off to some readers as placing more blame on Serbia than was deserved. This was not my intention, but I am guilty of welcoming this interpretation. I have attempted to clarify my position on this, mostly with the quote by Buchanan.
Tags: Imperialism, War 
Excellent points! What bothers me too is the gimmickry of 11th hour of the 11th day of the 11th month. How many lives were needlessly lost those last days just to provide the politicians with a catchy phrase?
Williamm Guerriero | Nov 11, 2011 | Reply
A couple of points:
* The starvation blockade ran on after the armistice so as to insure that Germany agreed to terms.
* The 10 million dead soldiers figure only covered the Western Front. A similar number died on the Eastern Front.
Brian Cantin | Nov 11, 2011 | Reply
Capitalism was the source of World War II.
Tom Mauel | Nov 11, 2011 | Reply
To say that all the carnage was the result of one act of violence–the assassination of Franz Ferdinand–is an oversimplification, to say the least. Greater insight would be gained by exploring the web of entangling alliances that sprang into application with that spark.
Tom Yohannan | Nov 11, 2011 | Reply
I meant to say Capitalism was the source of World War I.
Tom Mauel | Nov 11, 2011 | Reply
State capitalism played a role, but war is the opposite of the free market. In the United States, classical liberals opposed the war, and progressives waged it.
Anthony Gregory | Nov 12, 2011 | Reply
WWI was a folly, OK.
US intervention, not something I would bring a judgement upon.
Gavrilo Princip was a terrorist, OK.
Regional territorial dispute, false: WWI would have happened with or without Princip. The stake was the redistribution of colonies. Rethink Wilson.
Princip sponsored by the Serbian government, false. He was sponsored by one rogue element in the Serbian military secret services: http://www.google.fr/search?q=dragutin+dimitrijevic+apis&hl=en
Besides, the Serbian government accepted almost everything in the Austro-Hungarian ultimatum that ensued. Austro-Hungarian ultimatum in 1914=Rambouillet ultimatum in 1999.
Please, if you want to be credible, show respect to historical facts.
Vojkan Milosavljevic | Nov 12, 2011 | Reply
Check your facts, Princip was not sponsored by the Serbian government. Funny how warmongering propaganda of the Austrian Empire lives on a hundred years later. Will one hundred years from now well meaning peaceniks claim the Taleban wouldn’t give up Osama bin Laden?
Karl | Nov 12, 2011 | Reply
The “madness” was triggered when the Austrian Empire invaded Serbia, over Serbia not accepting in full an Austrian ultimatum to relinquish its sovereignty.
Karl | Nov 12, 2011 | Reply
“This madness was triggered when a Bosnian Serb secessionist, sponsored by the Serbian government, assassinated Archduke Ferdinand of Austria.”
This is misleading. Gavrilo Princip, the seventeen-year-old assassin, was driven to shoot the Archduke because the Austro-Hungary had annexed Bosnia (the 1908 Anschluss) but allowed the Bosnian Muslims to exercise Sharia law in the region with respect to Serbs and other non-Muslims (i.e., Croats). Princip was born a serf (a “kmet”), a medieval instituion that had been abandoned long ago in Europe. Austro-Hungary issued a ten-point ultimatum, of which Serbia agreed to nine, yet Austro-Hungary still started the war. Serbia lost 52% of its male population during WWI. No other country had such high casualties.
Milo Yelesiyevich | Nov 12, 2011 | Reply
Agreed. The pomp and ceremony of national leaders for their egos put the value of their citizens/subjects life secondary.
A truce should have been called while they were in deliberation for the signing of the Armistice. But instead, both armies fired off their artillery in final final orgy of killing. The last man reported to be killed was a Canadian by a German sniper.
No one would stop the killing. Too many years of war turned them into conditioned robots to reflectively kill until order to stop.
11-11-11 (Hour day, month)is a example of governmental bureaucratic fondness for neatness with no concern for human lives.
Remember 100 hour time limit for ground assault for the First Persian Gulf war? It left the Kurds and Anti-Hussein resistance in the lurch after Bush the first publicly called for them to rise up against Saddam.
Ron Shirtz | Nov 12, 2011 | Reply
You’re quite right. I don’t know why I wrote it so sloppily. I made a correction. The support for Princip was largely my rogue elements in the military, including the Chief of Serbian Military Intelligence. But it would probably be overstating it to say he was acting on behalf of the government.
As for the Taliban-bin Laden thing, peaceniks started claiming that as early as 2002.
Anthony Gregory | Nov 12, 2011 | Reply
Very good point. The way I had it written was too slanted against Serbia.
Anthony Gregory | Nov 12, 2011 | Reply
Hardly. Often it is difficult to believe that many individuals still hold this misconception. Rather, the European powers practiced a form of neomercantilism, hardly a free market in any capacity.
Mechanized | Nov 12, 2011 | Reply
Imperatives of columns lead to the constraint of balancing concision vs precision.
I can speak only in my own name, but I’m confident that I am not alone to appreciate that you have added the quote from Mr Buchanan’s book.
Apology accepted, Mr Gregory.
Vojkan Milosavljevic | Nov 12, 2011 | Reply
Excellent article. In John Barry’s definitive work The Great Influenza, the terrible impact of Wilson’s monstrous pro war policies are detailed in horrifying specifics. The flu pandemic killed far more soldiers in WWI than actual fighting, plus millions of civilians.
It appears to have started in Kansas military camps created by mass mobilization. This epidemic killed a larger percentage of the population than any epidemic before or since. All due to Wilson’s Total War mentality. Unbelievable history, almost.
Mike Holmes | Nov 12, 2011 | Reply
Greedy Noo Yawk bankers that imposed the ruinous Versailles Treaty obligations on a defeated Germany were the cause of WWII.
Too bad General Wesley Clark was ignored when he said something similar :)
Naseer Ahmad | Nov 12, 2011 | Reply
An article worth quoting repeatedly (confusion about Princip and the assassination notwithstanding). I’d even quibble with Buchanan blaming Russian mobilization for Germany’s belligerence (as David Fromkin showed in “Europe’s Last Summer”, Germany wanted a war and exploited Austria’s Serbophobia to get a pretext for it).
Still, the point here isn’t who started the war, or even who could have stopped it, but chose not to. It’s that the day supposed to commemorate the end of nihilistic slaughter has morphed into a celebration thereof. How exactly is anyone’s freedom in the US “defended” by invasions, occupations and murder all over the world?
Nebojsa Malic | Nov 12, 2011 | Reply
It was during that minute in nineteen hundred and eighteen, that millions upon millions of human beings stopped butchering one another. I have talked to old men who were on battlefields during that minute. They have told me in one way or another that the sudden silence was the Voice of God. So we still have among us some men who can remember when God spoke clearly to mankind.
Armistice Day has become Veterans’ Day. Armistice Day was sacred. Veterans’ Day is not.
So I will throw Veterans’ Day over my shoulder. Armistice Day I will keep. I don’t want to throw away any sacred things.
What else is sacred? Oh, Romeo and Juliet, for instance.
And all music is.
Kurt Vonnegut
Breakfast of Champions (1973)
alfred t mahan | Nov 12, 2011 | Reply
What? The armistice was signed at about 5:00 am on the morning of the 11th November. The hour that it came into effect was chosen to give six hours notice so that all the troops could be notified of the ceasefire.
Ken | Nov 12, 2011 | Reply
re @Karl’s “Will one hundred years from now well meaning peaceniks claim the Taleban wouldn’t give up Osama bin Laden?”
and
@AnthonyGregory’s “As for the Taliban-bin Laden thing, peaceniks started claiming that as early as 2002.”
I might be misunderstanding you both, but it is my understanding that the Taliban DID ‘refuse’ to hand over bin Laden unless they were furnished with evidence of his involvement in the events.
The ‘narrative’ that I am aware of (see, for example, http://bbc.in/t9GZn3 from Sept 12 2001) was that they were prepared to hand him over if the US presented any evidence of what we would call ‘probable cause’.
Are you saying that this entire narrative is false – that they would have refused had the US furnished evidence that would enable the Taliban to renege on their obligations to a protect their guest (under Pashtunwali)?
If you mean that the “Taliban refused to hand over in Laden” is trotted out without context (i.e., it should be “Taliban refused to hand him over in the absence of concrete evidence of his involvement”) then we are on the same page, I think.
It’s been a long day, and I’ve had four decent deb-catcher sized glasses of Rosé... so maybe I am not properly interpreting your interaction.
And... I’m only a ‘peacenik’ when it comes to giving government the power to slaughter on an industrial scale... in personal affairs I believe firmly in MASSIVE, asymmetric retaliatory violence. Never initiate, but if initiated against, ‘proportionality of response’ is entirely up to the aggressee (this is part of a ‘penalty function’ that the aggressOR must account for in his decisions).
GT | Nov 12, 2011 | Reply
I agree. WWI was the stupidest war ever fought — a greedy fight over worthless real estate. It was supposed to have been the “war to end all wars,” and it should have been. As the first technologically sophisticated war, it was all the proof needed that war is far too costly for both winners and losers. Now WWI is better known as the cause of WWII.
delia ruhe | Nov 13, 2011 | Reply
Thank you for acknowledging that your wording was not ideal Anthony, you’re a big man for that.
@alfred, the Taleban offered A.) to immediately hand over OBL to an Islamic country of American choosing, or alternatively B.) to the United States directly if they were provided some evidence (standard procedure in extraditions and more than could have been expected from them seeing they had no extradition treaty with the US that anyway had never recognized their government). I think it was clear that they had no desire to shelter OBL any longer but were merely trying to save face (OBL after all was not some shepherd but a son-in-law of Mullah Omar and someone they had felt indebted to for his money and his services). So yes, just saying the Taleban refused to hand over bin Laden is misleading, the truth was that they were trying to unload him into the hands of Americans (or their Saudi allies), but Bush would only accept him under terms that would leave them completely humiliated.
Karl | Nov 13, 2011 | Reply