00:00If you look at the average history textbook, the end of World War I isn't really covered all that much.
00:07It's usually boiled down to a catchy phrase.
00:09On the 11th hour of the 11th day of the 11th month, the war to end all wars was over.
00:16Of course, the reality of the situation wasn't nearly as neat and orderly as that saying would have you believe.
00:22After all, organizing a global ceasefire is rather a complex affair,
00:27especially when you don't have the luxury of instant communication.
00:31That's why the armistice went into effect a full five hours after it had been signed.
00:38Now, you'd imagine that during those crucial five hours,
00:42most soldiers would be hunkering down and nervously counting down the minutes.
00:46And that is indeed what some were doing.
00:49However, not everyone was just waiting around passively.
00:53In fact, these final hours of the First World War saw a flurry of action across all fronts,
01:00sometimes continuing to the very last minute.
01:03To understand why, it's worth pointing out that an armistice isn't a peace treaty,
01:09so it doesn't technically end a war.
01:12Many on the side of the Allies were worried that Germany would use the ceasefire as a stalling tactic.
01:18What they didn't know was that in early November 1918,
01:23Germany wasn't even remotely entertaining such a notion,
01:27for it was on the brink of collapse.
01:30After years of blockades and shortages, the German military was a shattered force.
01:36Soldiers and sailors openly disobeyed their orders to attack.
01:40Some deserted, while others banded together and instigated revolution.
01:45Inspired by the success of the Bolsheviks in Russia,
01:49these revolutionaries created soldier councils across Germany
01:53in an attempt to create their own Soviet republics.
01:57Now, of course, the Allies weren't aware of this.
02:00So, to ensure against bad faith negotiations,
02:04many commanders pushed on with their plans even after learning of the impending ceasefire.
02:09The commander of the American forces on the Western Front did exactly that.
02:14In a letter to the Allied War Council, he advised against an armistice,
02:19arguing that only an unconditional surrender would be enough to prevent Germany from ever rising up again.
02:25His warnings were ignored, and we all know how that turned out.
02:30Yet, nevertheless, he pushed to gain as much ground as possible in the final hours of the war.
02:36Unsurprisingly, this resulted in the last casualty of the war being an American,
02:42as the 313th Infantry Regiment assaulted a small village in Lorraine.
02:48Some soldiers took this fight-to-the-last-minute order more seriously than others.
02:53A certain Henry Gunther, who had recently been demoted from sergeant to private,
02:59tried to prove his valiance by charging a German machine gun position by himself.
03:05The German soldiers on the other side tried to shoo him away.
03:09But when he didn't relent, they shot him,
03:12exactly one minute before the armistice was to take effect, at 10.59 a.m.
03:19Of course, this incident was far from isolated.
03:23In fact, the final day of the war saw over 10,000 casualties.
03:28And it wasn't just the Americans attacking either.
03:31The 231st Brigade from Britain, for example,
03:35was planning to assault a vital bridge along the Dendree River
03:38when they learned of the impending armistice.
03:41They then received new orders.
03:43They had an hour and a half to capture the bridge.
03:46They were successful, but most likely because their opponents didn't really put up a fight.
03:51Understandably.
03:52The situation on the Austro-Italian front was a similar story.
03:56Their armistice had been signed on November 3rd,
03:59with a full 24-hour forewarning,
04:03leaving the Italians plenty of time to push into enemy territory.
04:07Now, it's worth noting that,
04:08although these advances weren't made with the intent of killing enemy combatants,
04:12they still saw plenty of ammunition being fired.
04:16We know from the memoirs of numerous artillerymen
04:19that they were encouraged to fire their shells liberally,
04:23with the end result being that they wouldn't have to haul them all the way back home.
04:28Thus, the final hours of World War I were full of a lot of fake fights,
04:34and some real ones,
04:35during which Henry Gunther and 2,000 other men lost their lives.
04:42It was all rather pointless at the end of the day,
04:44but on the bright side,
04:46at least Private Gunther was re-promoted to sergeant posthumously,
04:51for all that's worth.
04:52Well, my dear friends,
04:55don't go to war.
04:56Don't start a war.
04:57Spread peace and love and harmony and all that.
05:00While this was a gloomy adventure,
05:02I hope you nevertheless enjoyed learning about it.
05:06If you did,
05:07I'd appreciate it if you'd share it around with your friends
05:10and gave it a like,
05:11or dare I say it,
05:12if you became a patron on Patreon.
05:15Ah, yes, we would love you forever.
05:18In any case,
05:19we shall meet again in another two weeks
05:21for the next cynically instructive episode of SideQuest.
05:26SideQuest
05:28SideQuest
05:29SideQuest
05:30SideQuest
05:33SideQuest
05:34Armin
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