Armistice of 11 November 1918 ends fighting on the Western Front

The Armistice was an agreement to stop fighting between Germany and the Allied powers, chiefly Britain, France and the United States. It was signed in the early hours of 11 November 1918 in a railway carriage in the forest of Compiègne, in northern France, and came into effect at 11am that morning.

The agreement followed months of Allied advances and growing unrest in Germany, where the Kaiser had abdicated and a new government sought an end to the war. Allied commander Ferdinand Foch led the talks for the Allies, while a German delegation led by politician Matthias Erzberger accepted the terms. They required Germany to withdraw from occupied territory and hand over military equipment.

The Armistice was a ceasefire, not a peace treaty. The formal settlement came with the Treaty of Versailles in 1919. Even so, the silence along the front after four years of industrial-scale slaughter became a defining moment of the twentieth century. Millions of soldiers and their families, including those exchanging letters across the lines of the war, finally had reason to hope for a return home. The date is still marked each year as Armistice Day or Remembrance Day.