On the cold, wet morning of 11 November,
the American First Army gathered on the banks of the River Meuse. The air above was rent by the sound of
artillery pounding German positions east of the river. Behind them the wet
earth was well churned over from seven weeks of bitter fighting. More than half
a million American soldiers had walked over that ground. 26,000 would never
leave and 95,000 more left part of themselves there. As far as anyone knew the
Meuse-Argonne campaign was over and the battle for the Woevre Plain and the
great citadel at Metz was about to begin.
A
few miles north of Verdun, on the east bank of the Meuse, the gunners of the
101st Field Artillery, 26th (Yankee) Division, bombarded German
positions on the Woevre Plain. A
historian of the 101st describes the seen as the hour approached 11:00, 'The
breech blocks closed with a sharp, metallic snap. The empty shell cartridges
clanked and clattered on the trials. The odor of powder and of hot metal and of
oil hung on the cool, motionless air.'[1] News of the armistice reached the 101st at
8:42. Most of the gunners refused to believe it, brushing the news off as
another rumor. Finally convinced of the truthfulness of the message, the
artillerymen got on with it. The subsequent deluge seemed bizarre, as men who
had mastered the complicated military specialty of gunnery realized that soon
they would have no need for that skill, though they would carry it with them
the rest o their lives. The Massachusetts men simply went about their jobs,
performing their tasks by wrote. Finally someone shouted, 'Hey, for Christ's
sake, what time is it?' Realizing that the 11th hour approached,
many crews quickly fitted their guns with long lanyards so that the entire crew
could grab on and fire their piece's last round. At 11:00 it all stopped.
Artillerymen accustomed to the constant thunder of their guns looked about in
confusion in the silence of the 11th hour. What now? It seemed to many a
terrible, cruel pause. Some waited for the Germans to fire to renew. Eventually
the gunners realized that the armistice would hold. Some began to sing, others
asked when they would eat. One man dryly commented 'it sure was a great little
war while it lasted.'[2]
Up
the River at Dun-sur-Meuse the men of the 32nd Division were just
going over the top when breathless messengers arrived from HQ with news of the
armistice. As word of 'Finis la Guerre!'
matriculated down the line, Doughboys quickly pulled their compatriots back
into the trenches and officers recalled the skirmishers from
no-man's-land. The 32nd
Division, 'Les Terribles' as they had been nicknamed by their French comrades,
was one of the best divisions of the AEF. ‘Les Terribles’ had slugged its way
up the Marne, pinched off the German salient at St. Mihiel, and executed some
brilliant maneuvers in the struggle for the Kriemhilde Stellung in the
Mesuse-Argonne. When the guns fell
silent at 11:00, 'Les Terribles' saw German troops coming out of their trenches
to fraternize. The Doughboys of the 32nd were Michigan and Wisconsin
men, and thousands of 'Les Terribles' spoke German at home, including their
commander General William G. Haan. The Germans may have been in the mood to
talk, but not the Yanks, who were under strict 'no fraternization' orders.
These orders would not prevent General Haan from visiting relatives in Coblenz
a few weeks later.
Further
north at Mouzon the 2nd Division was readying an attack across the
Meuse when word of the armistice arrived. Captain R.C. Hilton, MG Company, 9th
Infantry expressed his 'Glad tidings' at the news and noted a general feeling
of happiness among his gunners. Here too the Germans came out of their trenches
'promptly at 11:00 O'clock' and celebrated the armistice in the shattered
streets of Mouzon. They even came down to the river bank and urged the
Americans to come across, but Hilton was having none of it and ordered his men
to remain at their guns. Behind the division's lines at Beaumont, Private John
Hughes of the 15th Field Artillery saw the streets fill with euphoric
Frenchmen. He noticed a 'funny feeling' among himself and his comrades. 'After
months of constant roar of the guns and exploding shells, to have everything
stop all at once; the quietness was too much for us.' He remarked that, 'I
couldn't get my mind to believe that the war was ended.' Neither could the division's commanding
officer General John Lejeune.[3]
Under orders from Lejeune, the men of the 'Indian Head' Division began staking
out territory for a fresh trench line should the armistice collapse.
The
89th Division was down river at Stenay. For the last few days the 89th had been
pushing hard to establish a bridgehead across the Meuse and occupy the town.
Commanding General William Wright saw Stenay as a jumping off point for
operations on the east bank. It was also a good place for the Doughboys to
bathe and delouse. Having been in line since 1 November, the men of the 89th
were badly in need of both. News of the
armistice reached General Wright at 8:45. He issued several orders. The 89th
was to keep pushing right up until the 11th hour. After 11:00, men were to dig
in on the ground they occupied. Furthermore 'absolutely no communication with
the Boche under any circumstances or any subject would be permitted, nor would
there be any hilarity or demonstration on the part of my troops.'[4] The division’s 356th Regiment did not receive
word until 12:15. As such, the regiment began its assault on the nearby village
of Inor as planned. When lead elements of the 356th encountered Germans just
north of the town, they opened fire. As it turned out this was a party of one
German officer and two enlisted men come to inquire if the Americans would need
Inor for housing. The officer was wounded and strangely drew a revolver and
shot himself in the head. The German
government later lodged a protest with the AEF over the incident.
Behind
the lines General James Harbord, late commander of the 2nd Division, and
currently head of the Service of Supply was touring the chateau of Chinon, home
to the Dukes of Anjou and the Plantagenet kings of England. The confident and opinionated general who
spent the war in a French infantry helmet enjoyed the visit; his diary includes
detailed descriptions of the chateau and its history. At midmorning Harbord and
his retinue received word of the armistice. Upon returning to his office in
Tours, Harbord found the band of the 11th Regiment playing patriotic songs. He
ordered them to switch to La Marseillaise.
He then left for Versailles to consult with Pershing. Harbord, who had for so long been consumed by
the task of supplying the one million man AEF, now contemplated the obvious,
'Peace meant so much in the way of a reversal of our plans and troop and
tonnage program'.[5]
On
the east bank of the Meuse, General Robert Lee Bullard was managing his Second
Army's advance on Metz. Attacking on a four-division front, Bullard noticed
that as his troops pushed east German resistance stiffened along the 2nd
Hindenburg Line. He was pleased with the result obtained by his 33rd Division,
and noted that the 28th and 7th divisions 'had some but no great success' and
'advanced some'. Of the 92nd (Negro) Division, Bullard wrote that they 'gained
a good deal of ground but did the enemy little harm.'[6] Of course, Bullard had been aware that peace
negotiations were underway. Rumors were rampant. When word of the armistice
reached his headquarters at about 6:30 AM he issued
appropriate orders to his lead divisions. At 11:00, like everywhere else,
Second Army Headquarters was the scene of a celebration lasting into the next
day. Bullard noted that, 'I saw to-day [Diary November 12th] a line of eight or
ten Americans, French, and British soldiers, arms locked, singing and walking
together, in celebration of the armistice and the hoped-for peace.' For his
part, Bullard was disappointed by the ceasefire. He thought the armistice terms
far too lenient and believed that had the Allies continued their assault, the
Germans would have totally capitulated. Bullard wrote somewhat regretfully, ‘It
was evident then that at the time of the armistice, when the enemy was asking
peace, we had him worse beaten and in greater confusion then we knew.’[7]
At
the American tank school at Bourg, one American officer knew what he thought
about the armistice – he didn’t like it:
I stood in the flag-decked cheering
crowd
Where
all but I were gay
And
gazing on their extecy [sic]
My
heart shrank in dismay…
So
wrote the tank commander 33-year-old Lt. Colonel George S. Patton, who had
ridden his tanks into battle at St Mihiel and in the Argonne, where he had been
wounded. [8]
At
Pershing's headquarters in Chaumont, Colonel George Marshall, First Armies'
Chief of operations, was overseeing the transfer of four AEF divisions to
Bullard's 2nd Army in preparation for the drive on Metz planned for 14
November. Talk at the Chaumont mess
hall [AT2][WS3] inevitably turned
to the ongoing armistice negotiations. Marshall had listened in amusement as
the British and French liaisons negotiated and parceled out German colonies
amongst themselves. Marshal wrote, 'We had no thought of colonies, but they
thought of little else, and at one meal Colonel Forte [the French liaison] told
me that the United States should take Syria.' Seeing how seriously the French
and British officers were taking the conversation, Colonel Marshall decided to
have a little fun with them, 'I replied that from the viewpoint of an Army
officer, America was opposed to any colony that had a wet or a dry season, and
an abnormal number of insects.' He then added, 'Bermuda was the only possible
colony we would consider.' The British attaché, Colonel Geiger, was
'flabbergasted'. Marshall thought that Geiger 'undoubtedly carried away with
him the fixed conviction that my statement was founded on official
information.'
That
night Marshall and the headquarters staff dined with General Wagstaff, head of
the British mission at Chaumont. As they sliced up a cake portraying the Kaiser
as Humpty Dumpty, Wagstaff spoke briefly of the Anglo-American bond forged in
France. After that, champagne was poured and Marshall was not able to get to
bed until 2 A.M. At six he was woken by an urgent telephone call. It was Colonel Carl Boyd, one of Pershing's
most trusted advisors, telling Marshall that the armistice was to take effect
at 11:00. There followed a mad scramble on the part of Marshall and the staff
at Chaumont to get word of the armistice to all the front lines units. Talk of
the post war colonial order continued. Marshall noted that Forte regretted that
he would not march into Germany at the head of a column of marauding Moroccan
troops. Geiger continued to mentally divvy up the colonies of the German
empire. That afternoon of the 11th, all three were nearly killed
when an American airplane flew over Chaumont and accidentally released a bomb,
blowing out the windows of the mess hall and knocking all present to the floor.
'I thought I had been killed,' Marshall wrote.
The
future General of the Armies had for several weeks made his headquarters in a
railcar at Souilly in order to be close to the fighting in the Meuse-Argonne.
But on the night of 10 November, John J. Pershing was back at GHQ in Chaumont.
Here Pershing waited for word on the negotiations conducted personally by his
colleague and sometimes adversary, General Foch. Pershing finally received that
word at 6:00 AM. He issued orders to the AEF accordingly. There was little more
for the great general to do, he remained at Chaumont as the guns fell silent.
The
next day Pershing went back to Paris and briefly consulted with General Harbord
before heading out to Foch's headquarters at Senlis. Pershing found a
justifiably happy Foch. Here the two men
who had clashed fiercely over the deployment of American troops embraced
warmly, and in the glow of victory each praised the other for their bravery and
gallantry. They exchanged what Pershing called 'the time honored French
"accolade"', that is, they kissed one another on the cheek.. In a
small, brief ceremony befitting a Missouri man, Pershing decorated Foch with
the American Distinguished Service Cross. Then the two dined and Foch
graciously related the course of the Armistice negotiations to Pershing. After
a warm goodbye Pershing went back to Paris to meet with General Joffre. In
Paris he was mobbed by throngs of jubilant Frenchman on the Place de la
Concorde. He wrote, ‘It looked as though
the whole population had gone entirely out of their minds. The city was turned
into pandemonium.'[9]
Eventually a group of American soldiers saw Pershing's car and formed an escort
for their commanding general. Pershing was finally able to get through the
throng and proceed to his appointment with Joffre.
We know nothing about General Pershing's impromptu
escort of American soldiers. They were probably rear-echelon personnel, perhaps
assigned to the Service of Supply. Eighteen months before, they were almost
certainly civilians and had definitely been in the United States. In fact,
eighteen months before 11 November 1918, the behemoth two million strong
American Expeditionary Force hadn't even existed and John J. Pershing was in
Mexico chasing banditos.
Reviewjournal.com
[1]
101. 253
[2]
101 253
[3]
82nd, 285-287
[4]
Wright, 165
[5]
Harboard 391
[6]
Bullard, 303
[7] Billard 314
[8]
De’este, 270
[9]
Pershing, II 395.
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