On the eleventh hour of the eleventh day of the eleventh month

On a day that should have ended the war to end all wars “early on November 11th [1918], the Germans met the Allies near Paris to sign an Armistice ending the fighting. The agreement set 11:00am Paris time as the moment the truce would begin – the 11th hour of the 11th day of the 11th month.”

But, as the World War I Centennial Commission adds:

The fighting continued until the last possible moment. As a result, there were 10,944 casualties, including 2,738 deaths, on the war’s last day. Most occurred within a period of three hours. The last soldier to be killed in World War I was Henry Gunther, an American of German descent, who was killed just sixty seconds before the guns fell silent.

The agreement between the armies to stop fighting – the armistice – lasted long enough to sign the Treaty of Versailles.

It sounds like a great excuse to have a three day weekend, but in reality what happened was A Peace to End All Peace.