World War One for the day

War History Online has an article by Colin Fraser about the end of the First World War:

Ten interesting facts about the Armistice that ended World War One:

1. The Kiel Mutiny and the German Revolution were the final blow to the Empire.
According to the German Federal Archive: "With the rebellion of the sailors and workers on 3 November 1918 in Kiel, the November revolution started. On 6 November, the revolutionary movement reached Wilhelmshaven. The German Empire was in a desperate position, and many knew that The Great War was not winnable. Some Army commanders still had schemes for victory, and the Navy wanted to engage the Royal Navy in a last decisive battle but, on 3 November 1918, the sailors of Germany’s High Seas Fleet revolted in the Kiel Mutiny.
The revolt spread through all of Germany and, in a few days, Kaiser Wilhelm II abdicated and the transition to the Weimar Republic began. On 10 November, Chief of the General Staff Paul von Hindenburg instructed the German delegation negotiating the terms of the Armistice to sign whatever terms and conditions were being offered quickly, due to growing riots and unrest at home. 

2. While many leaders were happy to end the fighting, some wanted more.
Though the Armistice ending World War One was essentially a German surrender, it still can’t quite be called true peace and, even if one calls it a peace, it wasn’t truly a full defeat, a complete victory.
General John J. Pershing, commander of the American Expeditionary Force, for one example, even after it was obvious the military might of the Allies was heavily beating Germany’s forces, he wanted to crush the Germans, believing that only their total defeat would keep the nations of Europe from fighting again before long. 

3. At 0512 AM on 11 November 1918, the Armistice was signed in Marshal Foch’s train car in the Forest of Compiègne.
French Marshal and Allied Supreme Commander Ferdinand Jean Marie Foch used his private train and railcar when Allied and German commanders and politicians signed the agreement to cease hostilities. The French turned the car into a monument but, when Hitler returned to France with Nazi Germany’s invasion a little over two decades later, he forced the French to sign the surrender of their country in the same car. He later ordered it blown up to avoid a similar symbolic gesture at the end of the Second World War. 

4. Though the Armistice was signed just after 0500, fighting went on for several more hours.
The eleventh hour of the eleventh day of the eleventh month was agreed as the time hostilities between Germany and the Allies would cease, but fighting continued up until the last minute. Future American president Harry S. Truman, then an artillery captain, kept his battery firing until the final moments. 

5. Much of the Armistice was built on President Woodrow Wilson’s Fourteen Points.
In a speech on 8 January 1918, Wilson outlined his principles for peace, and the end to the war between the major nations of the Western world, in fourteen points. These points included Germany evacuating troops from occupied areas, the dismantling of the Austro-Hungarian and Ottoman Empires into separate nations, all free and autonomous, and the understanding of self-determination for many countries.
Where self-determination was a condition that worked out well for many countries, places like south-eastern Europe would struggle with this for decades to come, as various peoples sought to govern themselves. Likewise, the Middle East has also struggled to work with and maintain the borders set up by European leaders in secret agreements after the war. 

6. The Armistice, understandably, was very unfavorable to Germany.
Among the Armistice’s terms were the cessation of all hostilities by 1100 the same day, the immediate removal of all German troops from territories outside of Germany’s 1 August 1914 borders, and the return of all POWs held by Germany.
Upon signing, Germany was also required to disarm their High Seas Fleet and surrender all their submarines to Allied powers. The Allied naval blockade of Germany was to stay in place while the armistice was in effect, however.
Furthermore, the terms stated that Allied armies were to occupy thirty kilometer bridgeheads in several places along the Rhine river, which Germany was to pay for. The general outline for war reparations from Germany to be paid to Allied nations for damage and the cost of the war was also included. 

7. Paris celebrated victory
That morning, flags were unfurled and bells rang out across Paris. Hundreds of students gathered at the Ministry of War, and Prime Minister Georges Clemenceau came out to proclaim Vive la France!, and the whole crowd cried the same. 

8. When the ceasefire took effect at 1100, celebration at the front looked different.
There were some cheers and happiness among the troops, and even some men that crossed the line to celebrate with their former enemy. But, for the most part, the troops were sombre, quiet, and exhausted after a long war. According to Jörn Leonhard, one British corporal recalled that "the Germans came from their trenches, bowed to us, and then went away. That was it. There was nothing with which we could celebrate, except cookies”.

9. The names of the last soldiers killed in each army on the Western Front:
George Edward Ellison, a British soldier killed at 0930
Augustin Trébuchon, a French soldier killed at 1045
George Lawrence Price, a Canadian soldier killed at 1058
Henry Gunther, an American soldier killed at 1059
Lieutenant Tomas, a German killed after the 1100 deadline by American troops who didn’t receive word of the ceasefire. 

10. The 'stabbed in the back' myth
This myth, exploited by the Nazis in their rise to power, began when German troops started coming home. Many, especially right-wing nationalists, believed that the forces of Germany had not been defeated, but undermined and betrayed by the new civilian government of the Weimar Republic trying to seize full power. However, the facts are against this notion, and that the Imperial Army and Navy no longer supported the Kaiser, the Navy was in full mutiny, and the people of Germany were rioting and starving, with various Socialist and Bolshevik groups trying to stage a revolution.

Rico says his maternal grandfather went, and (fortunately) survived. (And it's yet another war that Rico is glad he missed...)