Under the terms of the Armistice, Germany would withdraw to its 1914 borders in both the east and west, evacuate Alsace-Lorraine, and surrender 5,000 artillery guns, 3,000 mortars, 25,000 machine guns, 1,700 aircraft, sixteen battleships and battle cruisers, and all of its U-boats. Until a peace treaty was signed, the Allied blockade of Germany would continue, and the Allies would occupy the western bank of the Rhine and three bridgeheads on its eastern bank. An experienced journalist in Chicago before the war, Robert J. Casey joined the army in 1917 and commanded Battery C, 124th Field Artillery Regiment, 33rd Division, in the St. Mihiel and Meuse-Argonne campaigns. In 1927 Casey published an anonymous memoir of his service as an artilleryman, in which he captured the moments leading up to “the eleventh hour of the eleventh day of the eleventh month” of 1918.
THE END OF THE ROAD
GAUDRON FERME, November 11, Eight o’clock A.M.
—And this is the end of it. In three hours the war will be over. It seems incredible even as I write it. I suppose I ought to be thrilled and cheering. Instead I am merely apathetic and incredulous.
We got the word about 5:30 this morning amid a scene of great anticlimax.
The little wooden shack was silent—or at least as silent as it could be with shells, friendly and hostile, just clearing the roof. The hillside along the east wall cut off most of the light of the dawn and the tenants, undisturbed by daylight, were sleeping like dead men.
A telephone switchboard had been installed at one end of the old brick stove. Before it an operator was fighting to keep awake. Near by the adjutant lay in a chicken wire cot. Beyond the board partition four lieutenants of the regimental staff lay draped on tables that had once been part of the Boche officers’ mess.
The officers did not stir in their sleep as the 77s cracked down on to the road or even when the shells of the 11th F.A.’s 155s started over toward the roads behind Pouilly with a detonation that jarred the choking dust from the rafters and the shingles from the roof. . . .
Then the big scene:
The telephone clicks.
The adjutant snores.
The operator hesitates.
A second click.
The operator plugs in:
“Hello, yes, hello, radio!”
I sat up. . . .
“He’s asleep. I’ll take the message. . . .”
Delay . . . Rustling of paper.
“Ready now . . . Shoot . . . I get you . . . I’ll repeat:
“‘An armistice has been signed and becomes effective on the eleventh November at 11 o’clock.’”
I rolled out of my blankets.
“‘At that hour hostilities and advance are to cease. Hold the line attained and give exact information as to the line attained at that hour. No communication nor fraternizing will take place with the enemy. . . . Signed . . . Pershing’”
“That all? . . . Sure, of course it’s enough. . . . Finie la guerre!”
I jumped over and grabbed the message.
The adjutant sat up in his cot.
“What’s that?”
“Armistice signed,” I reported. “Cease firing at 11 o’clock. . . . Radio from Eiffel.”
The adjutant: “Good! Now all we have to do is keep alive until eleven o’clock. I know where there’s a culvert half a kilo down the road. You’ll find me under it if I’m wanted.” Rolls up his blankets.
“Wish they could have decided this thing before we had to dope out that barrage.” He goes out in a hurry.
The Operations Officer: “It’s probably the bunk.”
The Radio Officer: “Picked it up by radio from Eiffel. My men are always on the job.”
I—just aware of a remarkably pleasant thought: “Slipped one over on ’em. I won’t have to string that wire to the O.P.”
The Medical Officer: “Quit the noise and let a fellow sleep.”
The medical officer seemed to have the right idea. We all crawled back into our blankets again and stayed there until the smell of frying bacon awakened us.
Nine A.M.—Heinie has some ammunition to dispose of. He’s dropping 150s on the Laneuville-Beaumont road. Not hitting anything so far.
Nine-fifteen A.M.—Order from Gen. Hall to lessen rate of fire and cease firing in thirty minutes. Runners start out to spread the glad tidings to the batteries.
Nine-forty-five A.M.—Sporadic shots. Distant shelling and machine gun chatter. Ambulances still going forward. Nobody on road who doesn’t have to be there.
Ten A.M.—Whiz-bang just burst at the bridge over the creek north of here. From doorway of the regimental P.C. one can count seven bodies in a stack at the side of the road.
Ten-thirty-seven A.M.—Heavies far back of Pouilly are dumping everything they’ve got. G.I. cans are tearing up the road. The sector has become another Romagne. . . .
A shell just lit in the old sawmill. Men are out in the road running madly about. Other men are staggering out of the wreck and dropping as they emerge. Ambulances have been stopped and litter bearers are on their way across the clearing.
There is a tinkling note, somehow familiar and yet like something out of a life we can barely remember having lived; moisture is dripping from the eaves.
The pontoon engineers are swinging down the road to the crossing singing:
“And we’ll all go back ’cause it’s over, over here.” Maybe they’re right.
There is some cheering across the river—occasional bursts of it as the news is carried to the advanced lines. For the most part, though, we are in silence. The air is full of half-forgotten sounds: the rustling of dead leaves, the organ tone of wind in the tree tops, whispers through the underbrush, lazy echoes of voices in the road.
With all is a feeling that it can’t be true. For months we have slept under the guns. For months the smash of the 75, the boom of the 155, the trembling roar of Heinie’s bursting G.I. cans, have been a part of our lives. We cannot comprehend the stillness.
A doughboy at the gate is wiping his eyes with his sleeve, his mud-caked rifle caught up under his other arm. Nobody has noticed him. We all would feel like doing the same thing if we felt like doing anything at all.
I am going back to sleep.