The End of the First World War: The Armistice was signed in Fochs railway car at 5 a.m. on Nov. 11, 1918, to go into effect six hours later. Senselessly, to no military or political purpose, Allied infantry and artillery attacks continued full steam through this morning. On this final half day of the war, after the peace was signed, 2,738 men from both sides were killed and more than 8,000 wounded. The first and last soldiers to die in the war - 16-year-old John Parr of Finchley, North London, a golf caddy who lied about his age to get into the army, and George Ellison, a 40-year-old miner from Leeds who survived all but the last 90 minutes of fighting - were killed within a few miles of each other near Mons, Belgium. It was recently discovered, by coincidence, that they are buried beneath pine trees and rosebushes in the same cemetery, Saint Symphorien, seven yards apart. - To End All Wars, by Adam Hochschild
Posted on: Tue, 12 Nov 2013 03:57:08 +0000