Remembrance day...

with an hour and a half to go before the 11th of the 11th...Australia remembers today the sacrifice of 60 thousand Aussie battlers who died on foreign soil. 100 years ago today the armistice was signed that ended the war to end all wars. Celebrations began in Sydney on the 8th as the Germans were being pushed back and winter was beginning to set in...news of the Germans making overtures for an armistice filtered back to Australia...So many Australians signing up for a war on the other side of the world...thousands would never see their island home again. So too we remember the sacrifice of thousands of animals, most Australian horses known as walers, as this breed came from New South Wales. Fast and with heavy endurance, these animals rushed the enemy with the same courage as their riders only to be cut down.

We will miss them...we will remember them.

 

Cyril Vivian.
Gt. Grandad.
38, 5 kids.
Killed at Neuve-chapelle with the Devonshires, 10/03/15, quite likely by friendly fire.




John Morgan-Richards.
Volunteered from reserved occupation.
Killed by his jeep striking a mine shortly after arrival in Burma.
Never spoken of by his immediate family again.
Casualty

 

The only image I find equal to the words of Flanders Field is this one by John Singer Sargent in the Imperial War Museum.

 

Pershing, an American general didn’t like the whole armistice idea...he thought they should push forward to Berlin and have the Germans on their knees...perhaps prophetically he said otherwise the Germans won’t believe they were defeated and that they would have to do all this again...

 

On 11 November 1918, the guns of the Western Front fell silent after four years of continuous warfare. With their armies retreating and close to collapse, German leaders signed an Armistice, bringing to an end the First World War. From the summer of 1918, the five divisions of the Australian Corps had been at the forefront of the allied advance to victory. Beginning with their stunning success at the battle of Hamel in July, they helped to turn the tide of the war at Amiens in August, followed by the capture of Mont St Quentin and Pèronne, and the breaching of German defences at the Hindenburg Line in September. By early October the exhausted Australians were withdrawn from battle. They had achieved a fighting reputation out of proportion to their numbers, but victory had come at a heavy cost. They suffered almost 48,000 casualties during 1918, including more than 12,000 dead.

In the four years of the war more than 330,000 Australians had served overseas, and more than 60,000 of them had died. The social effects of these losses cast a long shadow over the postwar decades.

Each year on this day Australians observe one minute’s silence at 11am, in memory of those who died or suffered in all wars and armed conflicts.

 

I understand Armistice Day was first observed in the UK on 11.11.1918, to commemorate the end of WW1. A year or two later, the term Remembrance Day was introduced. Growing up, 11th November was always Remembrance Day, and Remembrance Sunday was the nearest Sunday to 11th November. Armistice was the actual agreement signed to indicate the end of the war. I am sure the terms used and the traditions observed would be different in different countries.

 

The 11/11/1918 Armistice was only one of a number of armistices. It saw a temporary cessation of fighting on the Western Front and had to be renewed with a stricter one on 28th December 1918. Separate armistices on other dates were signed with the KuK, Bulgaria, Ottoman Empire/ Turkey etc. The war did not legally cease until all the subsequent peace treaties were signed - hostilities were suspended . It''s complicated for example the USA signed a separate treaty with Germany and did not sign the 1919 Versailles treaty which Congress repudiated.The Soviet Union repudiated the Imperial Russian/German one. The new Turkish state repudiated that signed by the Ottoman Empire and even took up arms again for a short period. The 11/11 Armistice ceremonies commemorate the cessation of hostilities by Britain (and Commonwealth),France, Belgium, the USA, Portugal and Germany. BTW logically you cannot commemorate something on the day it happened - you can commemorate the day on a subsequent anniversary.
For the purpose of medal qualification, pensions etc most countries did not close the war until at least 1921. There was still fighting between British forces and Turkish on the Kurdish border at that date for example. Congress and Harding signed the official US cessation in 1921

 

Thanks, that's really interesting. Lots of people on here clearly have far more knowledge of the subject than I do. My point was more about how the name given to the event, whether in the present or the past, changed over the years or differs in other countries. Lest we forget.

 

There are some international legal consequences to the difference between suing for peace, surrendering and negotiating an armistice. France negotiated an armistice in 1940 but did not surrender or negotiate peace. Germany negotiated an armistice in 1918 but did not sign a peace agreement until 1919, Germany surrendered in 1945 but did not negotiate an armistice or sign a peace agreement. Italy negotiated an armistice in 1943 but did not surrender and did not sign a peace agreement until 1947 (which is why she was a co-belligerent and not an ally)

 

AKA Lyse, Men of the British 55th Div near Bethune although one does appear to be Portuguese. The last turn of the tide and the last gasp of the Kaiser's battle

 

There were still battles in the Russian area until early 1920. The Royal Navy attacked Kronstadt helping the Baltic countries to get independence. Also there were troops in the Murmansk area. I think the idea was to help the White Russian generals and the Czech legion to win the bolsheviks. The RN left early 1920 but when did Britain and the communist Russia sign for Peace or did they?

 

see