The armistice that ended the First World War (1914 to 18) on the Western Front was signed between Germany and the Allies on 11 November 1918. The guns fell silent at 11:00 a.m. that day. The Allies, who included Britain, France, and the United States, had defeated Imperial Germany and its allies, who included Austria-Hungary and the Ottoman Empire.

Around 11 million people were killed in the world's first global conflict. The terms of peace for Germany – decided at the Paris Peace Conference and presented in the Treaty of Versailles – were harsh and included accepting responsibility for starting the war, loss of territories, an obligation to pay reparations, and severe limits on its future armed forces.

Through the summer of 1918, the Allies on the Western Front made great advances in what became known as the Hundred Days Offensive. Thanks to improved tactics, a better coordination of combined arms (infantry, artillery, and air support), superior equipment, the better use of new technology like tanks, and a large influx of new troops from the United States, the German Army was pushed back, losing most of the territory it had gained in the spring. While the Allies were increasing the number of men at the front, Germany was running out of soldiers in this long war of attrition. The German Army was bashed and demoralised, and it seemed now only a matter of time before the Allies gained total victory.

Within the space of 100 days the Allies took 363,000 German soldiers prisoner (25 per cent of the army in the field) and captured 6,400 guns (50 per cent of all German guns on the Western Front). These numbers show the effectiveness of the Allied strategy and the low morale of the German soldiers.

(Winter, 170)

Germany and its main ally, Austria-Hungary, made their first moves for a surrender by sending word to United States President Woodrow Wilson (1856 to 1924) at the end of September. The president responded that, for a peace to be agreed, both countries would have to adhere to what became known as Woodrow Wilson's Fourteen Points, which included the necessity of giving up territory these aggressors had gained during the war. For now, the German government rejected Wilson's terms on the grounds that they seemed to require nothing less than an unconditional surrender. The German generals decided to fight on "with all our strength" (Simkins, 76).

With the Western Front further deteriorating for German forces and the Allied blockade of Germany causing food shortages at home, there was an increase in the instances of discontent within Germany over the continuance of the war. Perhaps as many as 400,000 German civilians died of starvation in 1918. The spirit of revolution against Germany's leadership was spreading, with riots in several cities, a mutiny in the navy at Kiel on 28 October, the army suffering mass desertions, and even a Bavarian Republic being declared on 7 November. Calls for an armistice became ever more urgent. As the historian P. Simkins notes, "the German Army was essentially beaten in the field by November 1918 and would have unquestionably suffered an even more humiliating defeat the following year" (91). By November, Germany was fighting alone now that Bulgaria, Turkey, and Austria-Hungary had all surrendered.

Even the obdurate Kaiser Wilhelm II saw the writing on the wall and abdicated on 9 November, fleeing Germany for the greater safety of the neutral Netherlands. The abdication was formally signed on 28 November, and with the Kaiser's six sons each swearing not to succeed their father, the ruling Hohenzollern dynasty came to an end.

As 1918 reached its close, the Allies were still successfully advancing and so were in a much stronger position to dictate terms than ever before. The new temporary German government was obliged to accept the following:

….the immediate evacuation of all occupied territory, including Alsace-Lorraine, and the occupation of Germany west of the Rhine. All U-boats were to be surrendered and the High Seas Fleet was to be disarmed and interned. Large quantities of arms, equipment and transport were to be surrendered. The treaties of Brest-Litovsk with Russia and of Bucharest with Rumania, which had been dictated by the Germans, were set aside.

(Bruce, 28)

The German surrender was signed at 5:00 a.m. on 11 November 1918. The location of the signing was the headquarters of Marshal Ferdinand Foch (1851 to 1929), Supreme Commander of the Allied forces, in the Forest of Compiègne. Germany was represented by Foreign Minister Count Alfred von Oberndorff, Admiral Ernst Vanselow, General Detlof von Winterfeldt, and Matthias Erzberger of the Centre Party. Britain was represented by Admiral Rosslyn Wemyss.

A railway carriage was selected as the actual point of signature. By agreement of the signatories, the guns would fall silent at 11:00 a.m. later that day (the "eleventh hour of the eleventh day of the eleventh month"). All commanders in the field were informed and told to relay the message to their men, but this did not stop the tragic deaths of more soldiers at the front line that morning, as British soldier Jim Fox recalls:

Of course, when the armistice was to be signed at 11 o'clock on the 11th of November, as from 6 o'clock that morning there was only the occasional shell that was sent either by us over the German lines or the German over at our lines. Maybe there was one an hour. And then, about 10 am, one came down and killed a sergeant of ours who'd been out since 1915. He was killed with shrapnel, you know. Thought that was very unlucky. To think he'd served since 1915, three years until 1918, nearly four years and then to be killed within an hour of armistice…

(Imperial War Museums)

The last soldier to die in the war was an American, Henry Gunther, killed while charging a German machine gun post at 10:59 a.m. One minute later, at last, all was quiet on the Western Front. This terrible war, which had killed or injured at least 35 million people, was finally over after 1,568 days of fighting.

Many soldiers at the front had feelings of an anti-climax now that it was all over. Many recalled those who had fallen. Civilians in Britain, France, Belgium, and elsewhere packed the streets and celebrated victory. Winston Churchill, then Minister of Munitions, recalled the jubilation in London at 11:00 a.m. on 11 November:

Then suddenly, the first stroke of the chime. I looked again at the broad street beneath me – it was deserted. Then, from all sides men and women came scurrying into the street. Streams of people poured out from all the buildings. The bells of London began to clash. Northumberland Avenue was now crowded with people in hundreds, nay, thousands rushing hither and thither in a frantic manner shouting and screaming with joy. I can see that Trafalgar Square was already swarming. Around me, in our very headquarters, disorder had broken out – doors banged; feet clattered down corridors; everyone rose from the desk; all bounds were broken. The tumult grew, it grew like a gale, but from all sides simultaneously. The street was now a seething mass of humanity. Flags appeared as if by magic, streams of men and women flowed from the embankment. They mingled with torrents pouring down the Strand. Almost before the last stroke of the clock had died away the strict, war-straitened, regulated streets of London had become a triumphant pandemonium. At any rate, it was clear that no more work would be done that day.

(Imperial War Museums)

Other armistice agreements had already been or were signed to close other theatres of WWI, such as between the Allies and Turkey on 30 October 1918 and between the Allies and Austria-Hungary on 3 November 1918. There was still fighting going on in some places, notably in the ongoing Russian Civil War, which had theatres in Eastern Europe and East Asia.

The final peace terms regarding Germany were discussed at the Paris Peace Conference from January to June 1919. The terms of peace for Germany were then set out in the Treaty of Versailles, signed by all parties in June 1919. The terms of the treaty included the following points (amongst others):

Although designed to guarantee a lasting peace, in Germany, there was a widespread response from the public that the terms of the Treaty of Versailles were too harsh. This was a 'dictated peace', not a negotiated one. In actual fact, Germany had wished to impose far harsher terms on the USSR in the Treaty of Brest-Litovsk after that state's withdrawal from WWI in 1917 to 8. Under the peace terms, Germany, although a losing country, was still "geographically and economically largely intact and preserved her political unity and her potential strength as a great nation" (Shirer, 58). Nevertheless, resentment was high, and there was a persistent, if entirely inaccurate, feeling that the German people had been 'stabbed in the back' by their own 'cowardly' military leaders. The German chancellor and Nazi leader Adolf Hitler (1889 to 1945) stoked up this long-smouldering anger over how WWI ended during the 1930s for the purposes of promoting national socialism. Hitler formally repudiated the Treaty of Versailles in March 1935 and then set about reversing many of its terms. Historians, therefore, have identified the ill-feeling towards the treaty as one of several causes of WWII (1939 to 45).

As Marshal Foch had noted back in 1919, "This is not a peace but an armistice for twenty years" (York, 82). Once again, in 1939, Europe was ravaged by war. Hitler, in a poignant reference to the past, insisted that the surrender of France, after its occupation by German forces in 1940, be signed in the exact same railway carriage as that used for the signing of the 1918 armistice.

In France, Britain, and many Commonwealth countries, the 11 November armistice continues to be the date (or nearest Sunday) each year when remembrance services are held, not only to honour those who died in WWI but also in the conflicts which have followed what was unfortunately not, as everyone had hoped, 'the war to end all wars'.