The Signature That Ended World War I, Armistice 100 Yrs. Ago

Last edited Fri Nov 9, 2018, 10:03 PM - Edit history (3)

- France 24. One century ago, on November 11, 1918, the armistice that ended World War I was signed in the French forest of Compiègne. The conflict had lasted for more than four years, during which an estimated nine million soldiers and seven million civilians lost their lives. France in Focus travelled to the very place where the agreement between the two delegations was signed in a railway carriage. We take a closer look at the events that led to Germany's defeat against France, Britain and their allies.
For a closer look at what the armistice meant from the soldiers' perspective, we visit the old quarry of Tracy-le-Mont, where some of the regiments of the French army were based. Finally, as Remembrance Day events are held around the globe, marking the end of the war, we tell you how this day is perceived differently in France and in Germany.
https://www.france24.com/en/20181105-france-focus-centenary-armistice-1918-world-war-one-germany-defeat-remembrance-day



- Remembrance Day https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Remembrance_Day

- America in the First World War. In 1917, Germany, determined to win its war of attrition against the Allies, announced the resumption of unrestricted warfare in war-zone waters. Three days later, the United States broke diplomatic relations with Germany, and just hours after that the American liner Housatonic was sunk by a German U-boat. On February 22, Congress passed a $250 million arms appropriations bill intended to make the United States ready for war. In late March, Germany sunk four more U.S. merchant ships, and on April 2 President Wilson appeared before Congress and called for a declaration of war against Germany. Four days later, his request was granted.

On June 26, the first 14,000 U.S. infantry troops landed in France to begin training for combat. After four years of bloody stalemate along the western front, the entrance of America’s well-supplied forces into the conflict marked a major turning point in the war and helped the Allies to victory. When the war finally ended, on November 11, 1918, more than two million American soldiers had served on the battlefields of Western Europe, and some 50,000 of them had lost their lives.
https://www.history.com/this-day-in-history/america-enters-world-war-i



Wilhelm II, German Emperor (Friedrich Wilhelm Viktor Albert; 27 January 1859 – 4 June 1941) was the last German Emperor (Kaiser) and King of Prussia, reigning from 15 June 1888 until his abdication on 9 November 1918. He was the eldest grandchild of Queen Victoria of the United Kingdom and related to many monarchs and princes of Europe, most notably, King George V of the United Kingdom and Emperor Nicholas II of Russia. Acceding to the throne in 1888, he dismissed the chancellor, Otto von Bismarck, in 1890. He also launched Germany on a bellicose "New Course" in foreign affairs that culminated in his support for Austria-Hungary in the crisis of July 1914 that led in a matter of days to the First World War.
Bombastic and impetuous, he sometimes made tactless pronouncements on sensitive topics without consulting his ministers, behavior which culminated in a disastrous Daily Telegraph interview in 1908 that cost him most of his influence. His leading generals, Paul von Hindenburg and Erich Ludendorff, dictated policy during the First World War with little regard for the civilian government. An ineffective war-time leader, he lost the support of the army, abdicated on 9 November 1918, and fled to exile in the Netherlands. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wilhelm_II,_German_Emperor



June 22, 1940 France Surrenders To Nazi Germany under Hitler. Franco-German Armistice World War II.