11/11/2025
There are two kinds of officers, sir: killin' officers and murderin' officers. Killin' officers are poor old buggers that get you killed by mistake. Murderin' officers are mad, bad, old buggers that get you killed on purpose - for a country, for a religion, maybe even for a flag.
- Sgt. Patrick Harper, Sharpe’s Rifles
On November 11, 1918, Armistice Day, the American Expeditionary Forces (AEF) on the Western Front in France suffered more than thirty-five hundred casualties, although it had been known unofficially for two days that the fighting would end that day and known with absolute certainty as of 5 o’clock that morning that it would end at 11 a.m.
Nearly a year afterward, on November 5, 1919, General John J. Pershing, commander of the AEF, found himself testifying on the efficiency of the war’s prosecution before the House of Representatives Committee on Military Affairs.
By allowing the fighting to go forward, Pershing stated that he was simply following the orders of his superior, Marshal Ferdinand Foch, commander in chief of Allied forces in France, issued on November 9, to keep up the pressure against the retreating enemy until the cease-fire went into effect. Consequently, he had not ordered his army to stop fighting even after the signing of the armistice, of which, “I had no knowledge before 6 a.m. November 11.”
After the Pershing was notified that the signing had taken place at 5 a.m., the order going out from him merely informed subordinate commanders of that fact. It said nothing about what they should do until 11 o’clock, when the cease-fire would go into effect.
Pershing’s order left his commanders in a decisional no man’s land as to whether to keep fighting or spare their men in the intervening hours. The generals left in that limbo fell roughly into two categories: ambitious careerists who saw a fast-fading opportunity for glory, victories, even promotions; and those who believed it mad to send men to their deaths to take ground that they could safely walk into within days.
One of his subordinates was General Charles Summerall. Summerall's actions on November 10–11, as the war was ending, resulted in over eleven hundred American casualties, and he has been criticized as causing unnecessary loss of life.
Henry Nicholas John Gunther (June 6, 1895 – November 11, 1918) of the US Army was likely the last soldier of any of the belligerents to be killed during World War I. He was killed at 10:59 a.m., about one minute before the Armistice was to take effect at 11:00 a.m.
What price glory?
Pictures:
- A large crowd gathered for the dedication of the Liberty Memorial on a cold grey day on November 11, 1926. President Calvin Coolidge addressed the crowd.
- General Charles Pelot Summerall (March 4, 1867 – May 14, 1955), commanded the 1st Infantry Division in World War I.
- Alvan T. Fuller of Massachusetts asked, General Pershing, “… if American troops were ordered over the top on the other side on the morning of the day when under the terms of the Armistice firing was to cease…and that those troops who were not killed or wounded marched peacefully into Germany at 11 o’clock. Is that true?”
- General of the Armies John Joseph Pershing (September 13, 1860 – July 15, 1948), nicknamed "Black Jack", was the commander of the American Expeditionary Forces (AEF) during World War
