The Armistice, Compiegne railway carriage, Maurice Pillard Verneuil.
Although there were some official photographs of the scene inside the Compiègne railway carriage, this seems to be the only painting that has survived. It shows Foch and the French General Weygand beside the British naval officers, Admiral Wemyss and (on his right) Rear Admiral George Hope, with the staff Captain Jack Marriott. The head of the German delegation, Matthias Erzberger, is standing opposite Foch with (on his left) General von Winterfeldt, Count von Oberndorff and Admiral Vanselow.
It was Vanselow who, when he heard that the German fleet was to be surrendered, said plaintively, ‘But our Navy has not been defeated.’
To this Admiral Wemyss responded, ‘It has only to come out! ‘
General von Winterfeldt had been included because he had worked with the French before the war, and it was thought he might be better received by the French negotiators. He had, five years earlier, actually been presented with the French Legion of Honour and was wearing the ribbon when the Germans were brought into the railway carriage. Foch looked at him and said, ‘You have my permission not to wear that.’
The German delegates had already had a gruelling journey before they found themselves in Foch’s railway carriage, having crossed the front line, under white flags, in five cars, near La Capelle. The French seem to have been determined that they should see the devastation which their armies had left behind them, and they were given a ten-hour tour of the battlefields before they were finally put on board a train and taken to the forest of Compiègne, north of Paris, where Foch in his own railway carriage was waiting.
Foch curtly asked them what they wanted, and then left his lieutenants and his Allies to convey the French and British demands. These were a lot more severe than the Fourteen Points which President Wilson had spelt out ten months earlier and were what the Germans were hoping for.
Indeed, the proposed terms were precise, severe and unequivocal. The Germans would have fourteen days to evacuate France, Belgium, Luxembourg and Alsace Lorraine. Any troops that were still there when the fortnight elapsed would be treated as prisoners of war.
They were to surrender, in addition to the fleet, 2,000 aircraft, 2,500 heavy guns and 2,500 field guns, to be handed over where they stood, along with 30,000 machine guns.
The Allies were to occupy the Rhine crossings at Cologne and Coblenz, and the Germans would have a month to evacuate their troops from everywhere within 6 miles of the river.
The Allies then required the surrender of huge quantities of railway equipment – the very means which had allowed the Germans to move their armies about so quickly and effectively in the previous four years. Five thousand locomotives were required to be surrendered, and the same number of lorries. All German shipping in the Belgian ports was to be handed over. All Allied prisoners of war were to be immediately repatriated
There were attempts to negotiate, which were dismissed by the Allied side. But the German representatives protested that they did not have the authority to sign, so one of their staff officers, Count von Helldorff, was sent off to take the terms back to Germany. He was delayed when his own front line would not accept the white flag, but the terms eventually reached the newly installed socialist Prime Minister, Friedrich Ebert. By now Ludendorff had fled to Sweden, and it was left to Hindenburg to tell Ebert that the Army had collapsed and a ceasefire was essential. So, on 10 November, Ebert instructed Erzberger to sign, which he did at 5.00 am the next morning. The Armistice was to take effect six hours later at 11 o’clock.
The ceasefire was to cover hostilities all round the globe, from Romania to East Africa. The Germans were also required, rather optimistically, to hand back all the gold they had seized from conquered territories. Though the document was signed, and much of the seizure of equipment began within days or even hours, there was a strong element in Germany which wanted to disown the Compiègne deal. Indeed, there were outbreaks of fighting on the eastern frontier, with Hindenburg actually putting together an army group and attacking the Poles around Danzig. There was a series of meetings to try and nail down the details of the Armistice, the Germans claiming, for example, that they simply didn’t possess the number of aeroplanes they were supposed to surrender.
Foch began to prepare the Allied armies for the possibility that they might have to resume the war and occupy Germany, and it was to be more than three months before a definitive Armistice was signed at Trèves on 16 February 1919.
Moreover, the Germans who had signed the Compiègne document were to return home to find themselves vilified by fervent nationalists. There was already talk of the ‘stab in the back’ by the politicians. They were ultimately to be branded ‘the November criminals’ and subjected to violent abuse in the conservative Press.
Erzberger was to hold a number of posts in the Weimar governments, but in 1921, when he was out walking in the Black Forest, he was shot dead by two naval officers, who then escaped to Hungary.
Count von Helldorf, who had been given the job of taking the Allied terms back through the lines to the German side, was eventually hanged in 1944 for his involvement in the July plot to assassinate Hitler.
Armistice Night in Amiens, Sir William Orpen.