Forêt de Compiègne, La Clairière de l'Armistice

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Forêt de Compiègne, La Clairière de l'Armistice

Forêt de Compiègne, La Clairière de l'Armistice

Mons – the little old trench
La Clairière de l’Armistice (The Forest Clearing of the Armistice)
The very flower of our manhood

La Clairière de l’Armistice (The Forest Clearing of the Armistice)

The path to the Clairière de l’Armistice (The Forest Clearing of the Armistice), Compiègne. [DVA]

A French soldier guards the approach to the forest clearing at Compiègne where the carriages with the German and Allied delegations were drawn up for armistice discussions between 8 and 11 November 1918. H W Wilson, The Great War: the standard history of the all–Europe conflict, London, 1914–1917

Near midnight, with white flags flying and a bugler sounding his trumpet with regular four note blasts, the delegation approached the French line near Houdroy. From Houdroy, with a French trumpeter replacing the German, they drove on through devastated countryside to La Capelle to where a train was waiting to take them to a secret rendezvous in the great forest of Compiègne. There, in the dim morning light of 8 November 1918, the Germans could see that they had come to a clearing in the middle of which was a railway siding with two parallel tracks. Opposite their train was another – the headquarters train of the Allied Commander–in–Chief General Ferdinand Foch. With Foch was the leading British delegate on the Allied side, First Sea Lord Admiral Sir Rosslyn Wemyss. Wemyss was well known to Australians as the base commander at the island of Mudros, Greece, from which the AIF had set out for Gallipoli on 24 April 1915.

Position of the carriage of Marshal Ferdinand Foch during the armistice negotiations of 8–11 November 1918, Clairière de l’Armistice (The Forest Clearing of the Armistice), Compiègne. [DVA]

The Musee de l’Armistice with the position of Marshal Ferdniand Foch’s railway carriage (chained off area in the foreground) during the armistice negotiations of 8–11 November 1918, Clairière de l’Armistice (The Forest Clearing of the Armistice), Compiègne. [DVA]

Marshal Ferdinand Foch, the chief Allied delegate at the armistice negotiations in the Clairière de l’Armistice (The Forest Clearing of the Armistice) at Compiègne between 8 and 11 November 1918. H W Wilson, The Great War: the standard history of the all–Europe conflict, London, 1914–1917

At 9 am on 8 November 1918, the German delegation was ushered into Foch’s train to a specially prepared dining car in which stood a table with seats for four delegates on either side. After starting proceedings with a salute and curt bow to his enemies, Foch asked them what they wanted. When they replied that they had come to inquire into the terms of an armistice, Foch replied:

Tell the gentlemen that I have no proposals to make.

Pillars and chains, Clairière de l’Armisitice (The Forest Clearing of the Armistice), Compiègne. [DVA]

Marshal Ferdinand Foch. [DVA]

The Clairière de l’Armistice (The Forest Clearing of the Armistice), Compiègne, showing the view across the site from the position of the carriage of the German delegation to the armistice negotiations of 8–11 November 1918. [DVA]

Position of the carriage of the German delegation during the armistice negotiations of 8–11 November 1918, Clairière de l’Armistice (The Forest Clearing of the Armistice), Compiègne. [DVA]

Quite simply, armistice terms had been prepared between the British and French governments and it was not their intention to allow any but the most trifling discussion on details. The 34 clauses of the Armistice were now read out to the Germans who listened in horror. The fighting was to cease; within 28 days Germany was to be occupied west of the River Rhine with Allied enclaves to a depth of 30 kilometres on the east bank; all occupied territories were to be evacuated within 14 days; large numbers of locomotives and railway cars and wagons, lorries and other war equipment (artillery, aircraft, machine guns etc) was to be handed over; and all cash and gold from occupied banks instantly returned. The British naval blockade of Germany would continue. Hearing these conditions, one of the Germans wept openly. Germany was given 72 hours to accept or reject the terms but, meanwhile, the war would go on.

The British delegate to the armistice negotiations in the Clairière de l’Armistice (The Forest Clearing of the Armistice) at Compiègne between 8 and 11 November 1918, First Sea Lord Admiral Sir Rosslyn Wemyss. Wemyss was well known to Australians as the base commander at the island of Mudros, Greece, from which the AIF had set out for Gallipoli on 24 April 1915. H W Wilson, The Great War: the standard history of the all–Europe conflict, London, 1914–1917

Eventually, after referring the terms back to Berlin, the German delegates were authorised to sign. In the interim, the Kaiser had abdicated, going into exile in Holland, and a German Republic had been declared with a new socialist government in Berlin. At 5.30 am on 11 November 1918 both delegations signed the armistice, the Germans with tears in their eyes. Erzberger, whose officer cadet son had recently died in a military hospital, spoke protesting what he saw as the harsh conditions imposed on Germany:

The German people, which held off a world of enemies for fifty months, will preserve their liberty and their unity despite every kind of violence. A nation of 70 millions of peoples suffers, but it does not die.

Erzberger, quoted in Stanley Weintraub, A Stillness Heard Round The World: The End of the Great War, November 1918, New York, 1985, p.157

Foch, whose only son, Germain, had been killed in action on 23 August 1914, now declared the proceedings over with a ‘Très bien’ and then waved the Germans away with these words:

Eh bien, messieurs, c’est fini, allez.
(Very well, gentlemen, its over, go.)

Instructions were then sent out to all allied units to cease fire at 11 am that morning, 11 November 1918.

The Armistice, 1918

HMAS Australia at the surrender of the German fleet in the Firth of Forth, Arthur Burgess. Under the provisions of the Armistice of 11 November 1918, the Germans were obliged to hand over to the Allies seventy–four named warships. These warships sailed into the Firth of Forth on the east coast of Scotland on 21 November 1918 where they were met by a grand Allied fleet. The Royal Australian Navy’s battlecruiser HMAS Australia was given the honour of leading the capital ships of the Royal Navy’s port line. [oil on linen, AWM ART00192]

Inscription on the stone in the middle of the Clairière de l’Armisitice (The Forest Clearing of the Armistice), Compiègne. It reads, in French,
ICI
LE 11 NOVEMBER 1918
SUCCOMBA
LE CRIMINEL ORGUEIL
DE L'EMPIRE ALLEMAND
VAINCU
PAR LES
PEUPLES LIBRES
OV IL PRETENDAIT
ASSERVIR
A loose English translation is: ‘Here, on 11 November 1918, the criminal pride of the German Empire was brought low, vanquished by the free peoples it sought to enslave’. [DVA]

Mons – the little old trench
La Clairière de l’Armistice (The Forest Clearing of the Armistice)
The very flower of our manhood

Forêt de Compiègne, La Clairière de l'Armistice

La Clairière de l’Armistice (The Forest Clearing of the Armistice)

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