Glade of the Armistice

"Only the dead have seen the end of war." 

• George Santayana, 1922¹

If asked, some people would say we live in a post Word War II world, with others stating that it's a post Cold War world and most having no idea what the question even means. This may be due to the fact that some still remember World War II and others the Cold War, with most have no knowledge of either.    

We actually live in a post World War I world. 

From the 1700 until 1914, the world consisted of a continental Europe balanced between the Russian Empire, the German Empire (in one form or another), the French Republic or Monarchy, with the British Empire watching over it all very closely, the Ottoman Empire slowly collapsing, the Austrian Empire envying the German Empire, and the United States of America living in complete ignorance. 

The Congress of Vienna ( 1814-1815) was a series of diplomatic meetings that included every European power (except the Ottomans). Its purpose was settle critical issues arising from the French Revolutionary Wars and the Napoleonic Wars. Its result was to reorganize the political map of Europe while continuing to allow a European balance of power (and to minimize republican, liberal, and revolutionary movements which had upended the constitutional order of prior European régimes).

When it was signed on 9 June 1815, it left an enlarged Russian and Prussia, a reduced France, the creation of the modern The Netherlands,  with the United Kingdom acquiring a number of non-European possessions (Ceylon, the Cape Colony, Malta, the Ionian Islands, etc.). A set-up that proved to be very stable and helped ensure a rather peaceful European continent (especially when compared to the previous 300 hundred years).

That is until 28 June 1914, when Archduke Franz Ferdinand of Austria, heir presumptive to Emperor Franz Joseph I  (Emperor of Austria, King of Hungary and other states),  was assassinated in Sarajevo,  the capital of Bosnia and Herzegovina, initiating Word War I (called at the time, more hopefully, the Great War) exactly one month later. This led to some five and half years of fighting, until 11 November 1919,  which marked the official end of the old order and the start of the new one.    

Therefore I felt it important to visit the Glade of the Armistice, in Compiègne, France, where on the 11th hour of the 11th day of the 11th month of 1919, World War I ended. 

After taking  a train north from Gar de Nord, Paris and then a 10 minute Uber,  I was immediately struck by the remoteness and even more so by the complete lack of tourists, which after being engulfed by them the day prior at the Eiffel Tower was little shocking (but quite welcome).

After exiting, as the Renault Rafale drove away I wondered if I was at the right place, as I was now in the middle of a large forest with towering trees with not a single human being in sight. Eventually I located a small sign that directed me down a path that took me to a clearing some 200 yards away.    

The armistice that ended World War I was signed in a railway car that was located in the clearing. Marshall Ferdinand Foch,² the French general and Supreme Allied Commander, chose this location because its remoteness provided seclusion and secrecy, which was important for avoiding public humiliation of the German delegation,  preventing hostile crowds from interfering with the negotiations, and keeping it all from the prying eyes of the press. 

After the Armistice of 11 November 1918 was signed, the railway car was soon after rolled into a building specifically constructed to house it and a modest museum. 

After doing some research on the subject two things stood out:

1. Foch was Frenchman who, with French staff nearly singlehandedly drafted the armistice. While it's difficult to believe that the British and Americans would allow a Frenchman to be the Supreme Allied Commander, it nearly incomprehensible that they would allow one to singlehandedly draft the armistice, with almost no British or American input and almost no political input. 

2. While four Germans signed, only Foch and British First Sea Lord Admiral Rosslyn Wemyss, signed for the Allies. You would think think more Generals and Admirals would want to be in on it, including at least one more Brit and one American.³  

Now if this was the end of the story, it still would be a very significant historical location with successive French governments quite possibly enlarging it and making it much more of a tourist destination, but then came World War II and . . . 

After the British and French were soundly defeated by Germany during the Battle of France (10 May – 25 June 1940), the French sued for peace. Adolf Hitler, the dictator of Germany demanded the armistice that ended the fighting between France and Germany be signed in Compiègne, in the exact same rail car the Germans had signed the armistice to end WW I. So a wall of the nearby building/museum was carefully removed so the Compiègne Wagon could be rolled out to the exact spot it sat on 11 November 1918.  

Then on 21 June 1940, Hitler sat in the chair that Marshal Foch had sat in with the French delegation sitting where the German delegation had sat some 22 years earlier. After listening to the reading of the preamble, he exited the rail car, as Foch had done in 1918, leaving the last few minor negations to the chief of the Oberkommando der Wehrmacht (High Command of the Armed Forces), General Wilhelm Keitel. 

William Shirer, the author of The Rise and Fall of the Third Reich, was there that day and reported, "I am but fifty yards from him . . . I have seen that face many times at the great moments of his life. But today! It is afire with scorn, anger, hate, revenge, triumph." He doesn't mention happiness, as Hitler became so excited that he danced a little jig after exiting the railcar.  

 Standing in Hitler's Footsteps: The Glade of the Armistice, 21 June 1940 and 09 September 2025⁴

The interior of the Compiègne Wagon (note that on 21 June 1940, Hitler sat in Foch's chair)

The day after the 22 June 1940 Armistice was signed, Hitler toured Paris stopping at the Trocadéro. It was his only visit to the city.