The word “armistice” appears to have been coined by the French in the 17th century from the Latin words for “arms” and for “standing still”. The latter also gets into “solstice”, for when the sun seems to stand still. The Great War armistice was initially for 36 days and concluded:
The present armistice was signed on the 11th day of November, 1918, at 5 o’clock a. m. (French time).
At least one record of what was received in the trenches was recorded as:
Official Radio from Paris – 6:01 A.M., Nov. 11, 1918. Marshal Foch to the Commander-in-Chief.
1. Hostilities will be stopped on the entire front beginning at 11 o’clock, November 11th (French hour).
2. The Allied troops will not go beyond the line reached at that hour on that date until further orders.[signed]
MARSHAL FOCH
5:45 A.M.
Marshal Foch was one of the signatures to the armistice itself, along with UK admiral Wemyss, German minister without portfolio Erzberger, German diplomat Oberndorff, German soldier Winterfeldt and Geman naval officer Vanselow. The number and range of German signatories reflects the instability of the time with the German empire ceasing two days before. The headline of the New York Times for 11 November 1918 sums it up:
ARIMISTICE SIGNED, END OF THE WAR! BERLIN SEIZED BY REVOLUTIONISTS; NEW CHANCELLOR BEGS FOR ORDER; OUSTED KAISER FLEES TO HOLLAND!
Herr Erzberger was assassinated in 1921 by the right wing Organisation Consul.
According to Churchill, Foch said after the Treaty of Versailles “This is not Peace. It is an Armistice for twenty years.” This has frequently and wrongly been regarded as prescience by a person believing the terms to be too harsh, in fact Foch advocated for harsher terms. More interesting for current purposes is Foch’s recognition that “armistice” carries an impermanence. Ironically the German calque “Waffenstillstand” better captures the particular quality of an armistice being a temporariness pending a final resolution.
The day is, of course, commemorated in many nations. In France as in Commonwealth countries, it has become Jour de Souvenir or Remembrance Day, while Belgium, whose invasion by Germany in 1914 was a catalyst in the war’s beginning, keeps Jour de l’Armistice.
Travelling alongside the commemoration is a complex political dialogue, what exactly is being remembered? Is it the camaraderie of war or is it the hope of peace or is it both?
The complexity is well illustrated by the US experience. Since 1868, the US federal holiday Memorial Day has existed to honour and mourn US military personnel dying in service. In 1938, Congress passed an Act “Making the 11th day of November in each year a legal holiday”, intending it as “a day to be dedicated to the cause of world peace and to be hereafter celebrated and known as Armistice Day”.
By 1954, the idea of “world peace” was well and truly politicised. In the meantime, veterans from World War II and more recently the Korean War had been agitating for change. In that year, Congress made an Act “To honor veterans on the 11th day of November of each year, a day dedicated to world peace”. It simply provided:
That the Act entitled ‘An Act making the 11th day of November in each year a legal holiday’, approved May 13, 1938… is hereby amended by striking out the word ‘Armistice’ and inserting in lieu thereof the word ‘Veterans’.
The change has not been universally welcomed. The US Department of Veterans Affairs deals with a minor aspect when it maintains on its website:
Veterans Day does not include an apostrophe but does include an “s” at the end of “veterans” because it is not a day that “belongs” to veterans, it is a day for honoring all veterans.
The wider question of the role of peace was raised by Kurt Vonnegut. In Breakfast of Champions he wrote:
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 Veteran’s Day over my shoulder. Armistice Day I will keep. I don’t want to throw away any sacred things.
Vonnegut’s own experiences as a soldier in World War II are well-known. He was born on 11 November 1922, a year to the day after President Harding unveiled the Tomb of the Unknown Soldier at Arlington and a year to the day before Herr Hitler was arrested on the charge of treason for his role in the Munich Beer Hall Putsch.
