Okla-homey
11/11/2006, 08:25 AM
http://aycu16.webshots.com/image/5535/2000675521682983824_rs.jpg (http://allyoucanupload.webshots.com/v/2000675521682983824)
11:00, 11/11/1918: World War I ends
Precisely 88 years ago, at 11 o’clock in the morning of the 11th day of the 11th month of 1918, the First World War--known at the time as the Great War-- mercifully comes to an end.
By the end of autumn 1918, the alliance of the Central Powers (German/Austria-Hungarian/Turkish(Ottoman) Empires) was unraveling in its war effort against the better supplied and coordinated Allied powers (British/French/Italian/Russian Empires, plus the US which pitched in in 1917.)
http://aycu12.webshots.com/image/7171/2002444555559402895_rs.jpg (http://allyoucanupload.webshots.com/v/2002444555559402895)
Facing exhausted resources on the battlefield, turmoil on the home front and the surrender of its weaker allies (Austria-Hungary, Bulgaria and the Ottoman Empire,) Germany was finally forced to seek an armistice with the Allies in the early days of November 1918.
On November 7, the German chancellor, Prince Max von Baden, sent delegates to Compiegne, France, to negotiate the agreement; it was signed at 5:10 a.m. on the morning of November 11.
French Marshall Ferdinand Foch, commander-in-chief of all Allied forces on the Western Front, sent a message by telegraph to all his commanders: "Hostilities will cease on the entire front November 11 at 11 a.m. French time."
http://aycu08.webshots.com/image/5087/2004740747188292789_rs.jpg (http://allyoucanupload.webshots.com/v/2004740747188292789)
American soldiers in France burying their dead in 1918.
The commanders ordered the fighting to continue throughout the morning of November 11, prompting later accusations that some men died needlessly in the last few hours of the war. As the historian John Buchan has written of that memorable morning: "Officers had their watches in their hands, and the troops waited with the same grave composure with which they had fought."
As watch hands reached 11, "there came a second of expectant silence, and then a curious rippling sound, which observers far behind the front likened to the noise of a light wind. It was the sound of men cheering from the Vosges [mountains] to the sea."
The Great War took the life of some 9 million soldiers; 21 million more were wounded. Civilian casualties caused indirectly by the war numbered close to 10 million. The two nations most affected were Germany and France, each of which sent some 80 percent of their male populations between the ages of 15 and 49 into battle.
http://aycu17.webshots.com/image/5496/2004860849102414826_rs.jpg (http://allyoucanupload.webshots.com/v/2004860849102414826)
At the peace conference in Paris in 1919, Allied leaders would state their desire to build a post-war world that would safeguard itself against future conflicts of such devastating scale. Unfortunately, the Versailles Treaty, signed on June 28, 1919, would not achieve this objective.
http://aycu30.webshots.com/image/4469/2002442559714880705_rs.jpg (http://allyoucanupload.webshots.com/v/2002442559714880705)
Table at the palace of Versailles upon which the Versailles Treaty of Peace was signed in 1919
Saddled with war guilt and heavy reparations and denied entrance into the League of Nations, Germany complained it had signed the armistice under false pretenses, having believed any peace would be a "peace without victory" as put forward by U.S. President Woodrow Wilson in his famous "Fourteen Points" speech of January 1918. Instead of merely resulting in an equitable peace, Germany was slammed with immense monetary damages it was required to pay the victors and was further enjoined from rebuilding its military and naval forces.
http://aycu08.webshots.com/image/7567/2002427378620206822_rs.jpg (http://allyoucanupload.webshots.com/v/2002427378620206822)
German image of sanguine Uncle Sam, a Brit (probably Haig), a Frenchman and a Russian sealing the coffin on Germany. The Germans were particularly resentful that the Treaty of Versailles officially blamed the German Empire for starting the war.
http://aycu31.webshots.com/image/7070/2004883601666735486_rs.jpg (http://allyoucanupload.webshots.com/v/2004883601666735486)
Map showing territory Germany was forced to cede as a peace condition.
As the years passed, smoldering German resentment, and German hatred of the treaty and its authors, manifested itself as fertile ground for the seeds of Naziism to sprout and flourish.
http://aycu07.webshots.com/image/7926/2002479569024887206_rs.jpg (http://allyoucanupload.webshots.com/v/2002479569024887206)
The Germans were so resentful of the way WWI ended, they were sure to make the French surrender in 1940 in the same railroad car in which the 11/11/1918 Armistice had been negotiated.
In short, Hitler rose to power because he preached a twisted nationalistic gospel which had three fundamental tenets. They were; 1) Germans were superior humans -- which made the defeated people feel good about themselves; 2) Germany hadn't lost WWI on the battlefield, instead it had been bamboozled into an armistice, whereupon Allied trickeration resulted in a very bad deal for Germany; 3) the world's Jews had played a pivotal role in Germany's intolerable situation and deserved to die for it. Indeed, most historians agree that the very punitive Versailles Treaty was one of the direct causes, two decades later, of the Second World War.
http://aycu23.webshots.com/image/5582/2002435662482945561_rs.jpg (http://allyoucanupload.webshots.com/v/2002435662482945561)
You don't have to be a German speaker to realize this 1938 German poster means a vote for Hitler is a vote to p1ss on the hated Versailles Treaty.
But that would all come later. On November 11, 1918, the dominant emotion for many on and off the battlefield was relief at the coming of peace, mixed with somber mourning for the many lives lost.
In a letter written to his parents in the days following the armistice, one soldier--26-year-old Lieutenant Lewis Plush of the American Expeditionary Force (AEF)--eloquently pondered the war’s lasting impact: "There was a war, a great war, and now it is over. Men fought to kill, to maim, to destroy. Some return home, others remain behind forever on the fields of their greatest sacrifice. The rewards of the dead are the lasting honors of martyrs for humanity; the reward of the living is the peaceful conscience of one who plays the game of life and plays it square."
Precisely three years later to the day, in 1921, the Tomb of the Unknown Soldier is dedicated at Arlington Cemetery in Virginia during an Armistice Day ceremony presided over by President Warren G. Harding.
http://aycu19.webshots.com/image/6778/2004899580301945416_rs.jpg (http://allyoucanupload.webshots.com/v/2004899580301945416)
Two days before, an unknown American soldier, who had fallen somewhere on a World War I battlefield, arrived at the nation's capital from a military cemetery in France. On Armistice Day, in the presence of President Harding and other government, military, and international dignitaries, the unknown soldier was buried with highest honors beside the Memorial Amphitheater.
As the soldier was lowered to his final resting place, a two-inch layer of soil brought from France was placed below his coffin so that he might rest forever atop the earth on which he died.
The Tomb of the Unknowns is considered the most hallowed grave at Arlington Cemetery, America's most sacred military cemetery. The tombstone itself, designed by sculptor Thomas Hudson Jones, was not completed until 1932, when it was unveiled bearing the description "Here Rests in Honored Glory an American Soldier Known but to God."
The World War I unknown was later joined by the unidentified remains of soldiers from America's other major 20th century wars and the tomb was put under permanent guard by special military sentinels.
In 1998, a Vietnam War "unknown," who was buried at the tomb for 14 years, was disinterred from the Tomb after DNA testing indicated his identity. Air Force Lieutenant Michael Blassie was returned to his hometown of St. Louis, Missouri, and was buried with military honors, including an F-15 jet "missing man" flyover and a lone bugler sounding taps.
Thus, with the advent of DNA identification technology, there will probably never again be an Unknown American soldier buried in the Tomb. Nevertheless, the Tomb will stand as a silent and moving reminder of those from prior generations who made the ultimate sacrifice for their people and homeland.
http://aycu10.webshots.com/image/4889/2000660548424315482_rs.jpg (http://allyoucanupload.webshots.com/v/2000660548424315482)
This day is no longer considered "Armistice Day." In Emporia, Kansas, on November 11, 1953, instead of an Armistice Day program, there was a Veterans' Day observance. Congressman Ed Rees, of Emporia, was so impressed that he introduced a bill into the House to change the name to Veterans' Day. After this passed, Mr. Rees wrote to all state governors and asked for their approval and cooperation in observing the changed holiday.
http://aycu30.webshots.com/image/6069/2003187844285758760_rs.jpg (http://allyoucanupload.webshots.com/v/2003187844285758760)
1919 Armistice Day (now Veterans' day) observance in Ft Payne, Alabama. Pretty typical of observances in small towns all around the US.
The name was officially changed to Veterans' Day by Act of Congress on May 24, 1954. In October of that year, President Eisenhower called on all citizens to observe the day by remembering the sacrifices of all those who fought so gallantly, and through rededication to the task of promoting an enduring peace. The President referred to the change of name to Veterans' Day in honor of the servicemen of all America's wars.
Thus, for 52 years now, today is simply known as Veterans' Day...a day set aside to remember and pay tribute to all who have donned the uniform of the United States and honorably served her.
http://aycu33.webshots.com/image/6472/2000637595757782176_rs.jpg (http://allyoucanupload.webshots.com/v/2000637595757782176)
11:00, 11/11/1918: World War I ends
Precisely 88 years ago, at 11 o’clock in the morning of the 11th day of the 11th month of 1918, the First World War--known at the time as the Great War-- mercifully comes to an end.
By the end of autumn 1918, the alliance of the Central Powers (German/Austria-Hungarian/Turkish(Ottoman) Empires) was unraveling in its war effort against the better supplied and coordinated Allied powers (British/French/Italian/Russian Empires, plus the US which pitched in in 1917.)
http://aycu12.webshots.com/image/7171/2002444555559402895_rs.jpg (http://allyoucanupload.webshots.com/v/2002444555559402895)
Facing exhausted resources on the battlefield, turmoil on the home front and the surrender of its weaker allies (Austria-Hungary, Bulgaria and the Ottoman Empire,) Germany was finally forced to seek an armistice with the Allies in the early days of November 1918.
On November 7, the German chancellor, Prince Max von Baden, sent delegates to Compiegne, France, to negotiate the agreement; it was signed at 5:10 a.m. on the morning of November 11.
French Marshall Ferdinand Foch, commander-in-chief of all Allied forces on the Western Front, sent a message by telegraph to all his commanders: "Hostilities will cease on the entire front November 11 at 11 a.m. French time."
http://aycu08.webshots.com/image/5087/2004740747188292789_rs.jpg (http://allyoucanupload.webshots.com/v/2004740747188292789)
American soldiers in France burying their dead in 1918.
The commanders ordered the fighting to continue throughout the morning of November 11, prompting later accusations that some men died needlessly in the last few hours of the war. As the historian John Buchan has written of that memorable morning: "Officers had their watches in their hands, and the troops waited with the same grave composure with which they had fought."
As watch hands reached 11, "there came a second of expectant silence, and then a curious rippling sound, which observers far behind the front likened to the noise of a light wind. It was the sound of men cheering from the Vosges [mountains] to the sea."
The Great War took the life of some 9 million soldiers; 21 million more were wounded. Civilian casualties caused indirectly by the war numbered close to 10 million. The two nations most affected were Germany and France, each of which sent some 80 percent of their male populations between the ages of 15 and 49 into battle.
http://aycu17.webshots.com/image/5496/2004860849102414826_rs.jpg (http://allyoucanupload.webshots.com/v/2004860849102414826)
At the peace conference in Paris in 1919, Allied leaders would state their desire to build a post-war world that would safeguard itself against future conflicts of such devastating scale. Unfortunately, the Versailles Treaty, signed on June 28, 1919, would not achieve this objective.
http://aycu30.webshots.com/image/4469/2002442559714880705_rs.jpg (http://allyoucanupload.webshots.com/v/2002442559714880705)
Table at the palace of Versailles upon which the Versailles Treaty of Peace was signed in 1919
Saddled with war guilt and heavy reparations and denied entrance into the League of Nations, Germany complained it had signed the armistice under false pretenses, having believed any peace would be a "peace without victory" as put forward by U.S. President Woodrow Wilson in his famous "Fourteen Points" speech of January 1918. Instead of merely resulting in an equitable peace, Germany was slammed with immense monetary damages it was required to pay the victors and was further enjoined from rebuilding its military and naval forces.
http://aycu08.webshots.com/image/7567/2002427378620206822_rs.jpg (http://allyoucanupload.webshots.com/v/2002427378620206822)
German image of sanguine Uncle Sam, a Brit (probably Haig), a Frenchman and a Russian sealing the coffin on Germany. The Germans were particularly resentful that the Treaty of Versailles officially blamed the German Empire for starting the war.
http://aycu31.webshots.com/image/7070/2004883601666735486_rs.jpg (http://allyoucanupload.webshots.com/v/2004883601666735486)
Map showing territory Germany was forced to cede as a peace condition.
As the years passed, smoldering German resentment, and German hatred of the treaty and its authors, manifested itself as fertile ground for the seeds of Naziism to sprout and flourish.
http://aycu07.webshots.com/image/7926/2002479569024887206_rs.jpg (http://allyoucanupload.webshots.com/v/2002479569024887206)
The Germans were so resentful of the way WWI ended, they were sure to make the French surrender in 1940 in the same railroad car in which the 11/11/1918 Armistice had been negotiated.
In short, Hitler rose to power because he preached a twisted nationalistic gospel which had three fundamental tenets. They were; 1) Germans were superior humans -- which made the defeated people feel good about themselves; 2) Germany hadn't lost WWI on the battlefield, instead it had been bamboozled into an armistice, whereupon Allied trickeration resulted in a very bad deal for Germany; 3) the world's Jews had played a pivotal role in Germany's intolerable situation and deserved to die for it. Indeed, most historians agree that the very punitive Versailles Treaty was one of the direct causes, two decades later, of the Second World War.
http://aycu23.webshots.com/image/5582/2002435662482945561_rs.jpg (http://allyoucanupload.webshots.com/v/2002435662482945561)
You don't have to be a German speaker to realize this 1938 German poster means a vote for Hitler is a vote to p1ss on the hated Versailles Treaty.
But that would all come later. On November 11, 1918, the dominant emotion for many on and off the battlefield was relief at the coming of peace, mixed with somber mourning for the many lives lost.
In a letter written to his parents in the days following the armistice, one soldier--26-year-old Lieutenant Lewis Plush of the American Expeditionary Force (AEF)--eloquently pondered the war’s lasting impact: "There was a war, a great war, and now it is over. Men fought to kill, to maim, to destroy. Some return home, others remain behind forever on the fields of their greatest sacrifice. The rewards of the dead are the lasting honors of martyrs for humanity; the reward of the living is the peaceful conscience of one who plays the game of life and plays it square."
Precisely three years later to the day, in 1921, the Tomb of the Unknown Soldier is dedicated at Arlington Cemetery in Virginia during an Armistice Day ceremony presided over by President Warren G. Harding.
http://aycu19.webshots.com/image/6778/2004899580301945416_rs.jpg (http://allyoucanupload.webshots.com/v/2004899580301945416)
Two days before, an unknown American soldier, who had fallen somewhere on a World War I battlefield, arrived at the nation's capital from a military cemetery in France. On Armistice Day, in the presence of President Harding and other government, military, and international dignitaries, the unknown soldier was buried with highest honors beside the Memorial Amphitheater.
As the soldier was lowered to his final resting place, a two-inch layer of soil brought from France was placed below his coffin so that he might rest forever atop the earth on which he died.
The Tomb of the Unknowns is considered the most hallowed grave at Arlington Cemetery, America's most sacred military cemetery. The tombstone itself, designed by sculptor Thomas Hudson Jones, was not completed until 1932, when it was unveiled bearing the description "Here Rests in Honored Glory an American Soldier Known but to God."
The World War I unknown was later joined by the unidentified remains of soldiers from America's other major 20th century wars and the tomb was put under permanent guard by special military sentinels.
In 1998, a Vietnam War "unknown," who was buried at the tomb for 14 years, was disinterred from the Tomb after DNA testing indicated his identity. Air Force Lieutenant Michael Blassie was returned to his hometown of St. Louis, Missouri, and was buried with military honors, including an F-15 jet "missing man" flyover and a lone bugler sounding taps.
Thus, with the advent of DNA identification technology, there will probably never again be an Unknown American soldier buried in the Tomb. Nevertheless, the Tomb will stand as a silent and moving reminder of those from prior generations who made the ultimate sacrifice for their people and homeland.
http://aycu10.webshots.com/image/4889/2000660548424315482_rs.jpg (http://allyoucanupload.webshots.com/v/2000660548424315482)
This day is no longer considered "Armistice Day." In Emporia, Kansas, on November 11, 1953, instead of an Armistice Day program, there was a Veterans' Day observance. Congressman Ed Rees, of Emporia, was so impressed that he introduced a bill into the House to change the name to Veterans' Day. After this passed, Mr. Rees wrote to all state governors and asked for their approval and cooperation in observing the changed holiday.
http://aycu30.webshots.com/image/6069/2003187844285758760_rs.jpg (http://allyoucanupload.webshots.com/v/2003187844285758760)
1919 Armistice Day (now Veterans' day) observance in Ft Payne, Alabama. Pretty typical of observances in small towns all around the US.
The name was officially changed to Veterans' Day by Act of Congress on May 24, 1954. In October of that year, President Eisenhower called on all citizens to observe the day by remembering the sacrifices of all those who fought so gallantly, and through rededication to the task of promoting an enduring peace. The President referred to the change of name to Veterans' Day in honor of the servicemen of all America's wars.
Thus, for 52 years now, today is simply known as Veterans' Day...a day set aside to remember and pay tribute to all who have donned the uniform of the United States and honorably served her.
http://aycu33.webshots.com/image/6472/2000637595757782176_rs.jpg (http://allyoucanupload.webshots.com/v/2000637595757782176)