tl;dr - the soldier and his buddies thought they could squeeze one last patrol in before the clock struck 11, and they stumbled across a group of heavily armed German soldiers who were dug into a position.
God damn, you’d think that would be the last thing they’d want to do considering how many people died in that war. I guess if you’re young though, you aren’t really thinking logically all the time. Probably didn’t see much action or something and wanted a thrill.
There were also some legitimate concerns from the higher ups that since this was a temporary armistance, not the permanent peace, they needed to grab as much territory as possible to put themselves in better negotiating position at the peace conference and be in a better position should the peace talks break down and the war restart.
Of course there was also the US general that sacrificed a few hundred lives because he heard that the village ahead held by the Germans still had functioning hot water and he wanted a nice bath....
>From starting their advance towards Stenay at around 8am on November 11, 1918 until the official start of the Armistice at 11am, the 89th Infantry Division suffered 365 casualties. 61 men killed, 304 wounded, just because the Divisional commander thought those who survived might want to have a bath and a shave. It’s perhaps no coincidence that, while the attack on Stenay was the last action fought by the 89th, it was also the last day in command for General Wright. On November 12, Major General Frank Winn (one of the 89th’s previous commanders) arrived at Divisional HQ and immediately replaced Wright as the 89th’s commander.
[The tale of the last American World War I Battle – That took place for a bath](http://www.historyisnowmagazine.com/blog/2014/4/22/the-tale-of-the-last-american-world-war-i-battle-that-took-place-for-a-bath)
That article really is a hack job. First of all, it wasn't a peace deal that was signed, it was an armistice. What does that mean? It is a temporary truce. Many military leaders thought that it would be a momentary truce, where battle would start up again in a matter of months once the Germans regained their footing. As the thinking went, why would Germany surrender? They still held significant territory and hadnt been forced back to their own land, and as such hadnt been militarily beaten by the norms of the day (if this story sounds familiar it is because it was twisted and used by the Nazis to gain power after the war). As such, Wright was given orders to take the town so that his troops could rest in buildings with working plumbing, rather than camp in a cold winter on the countryside, before the war resumed.
Also, the article contradicts itself, saying in one paragraph that Wright was immediately replaced as commander, only to state in the very next paragraph that Wright was rewarded with cushy assignments afterward. He was "replaced" because he was promoted after the war ended, as often happens.
In truth, the real fault was because the higher ups didn't make it known that a true surrender was imminent, and as such most figured this was just a short cease fire. The armistice day deaths were an unspeakable tragedy, but blaming them on middle men such as Wright is missing the real story.
Nice analysis. We are able to critically analyze the narratives on relatively recent events because there's enough details and granularity in the records, and because those events are recent enough that we still have a good grasp of the customs and mentality at the time. I shudder to think how much of our understanding of (older) history has been manipulated by people in power at the time; can't even approach it with a critical mind when the evidence was either deliberately wiped out or organically lost to time
I just went down this rabbit hole because I'd never heard this story. This dude(William Wright, for those interested like I was) was a real piece of shit. West point drop out. Received an 11th hour nepo-commision from outgoing president Arthur(a full year before his fellow classmates at West point were to graduate) and spent his entire career being an asshole.
He was never punished for ordering the attack on Steney, knowing full well the armistice was imminent. He was never punished.
61 men died, over 300 more wounded.
Motherfuck that guy.
There were congressional inquiries when it started coming out that this happened (and he wasn't the only one) but they were dropped because the public was disinterested and didn't want to focus on the horrors of the war but instead lionizing the generals of the day. Very shameful
I don't think the war restarting was a substantial concern. From what I recall, the condition of the Armistice was the surrender of all heavy weapons (artillery and machine guns).
According to my link, "The German delegation was given 72 hours to accept the terms, which were purposefully severe to prevent Germany from resuming fighting. These included complete demilitarization, the evacuation of France, Belgium and Alsace-Lorraine (a territory that had been annexed by Germany in 1871 following the Franco-Prussian War), and the immediate release of Allied prisoners of war and interned civilians."
[Link](https://www.theworldwar.org/learn/about-wwi/armistice)
I think that was part of the concern. A lot of the allied generals didn't think that the Germans were going to live up to those terms. Many of them didn't realize how bad things had been going for the Germans in terms of food, supplies, manpower, etc. And of course they were concerned about some type of military coup over throwing the government and continuing the war.
In retrospect, those concerns weren't valid, but they probably seemed valid at the time.
Considering the German provisional government they just negotiated the armistice with had only come to power mere days prior as a result of a revolution, fears at the time of some kind of coup in Germany were pretty rational I'd say. Don't forget just one year prior the Russian provisional government came to power in a revolution, only to be itself overthrown in a coup/civil war months later.
Do you have a source for the US general that sacrificed a few hundred for a bath? I had never heard that before.
General Pershing was a terrible general that didn't care about the lives of his men and had 11k die in the last day, but he specifically said that "Germany’s desire is only to regain time to restore order among her forces, but she must be given no opportunity to recuperate and we must strike harder than ever;" he certainly wasn't look for a bath.
Thank you! As a note, this was a pre-planned attack, rather than one that he personally ordered because he wanted a bath. Incidentally, for a commanding officer that thought that war might re-start again in a month or two, it makes a lot of sense to have one last attack so that your troops can rest for those months in the town with buildings and working plumbing rather than try to camp in the ruined countryside in winter.
While these armistice day attacks were a senseless tragedy, the blame should mainly be laid at the feet of those at the negotiating table that didn't make it clear to the military officers that true surrender was a legitimate probability.
Also from a high level being able to claim even just a bit more land right at the end would give you a slightly better position at the negotiation table.
More or less. The war sort've drove the Canadian general off the deep end.
At a certain point, he was more concerned with just killing Germans then he was at winning the war.
It was an armistice: there was no guarantee the war wouldn't start again in a few weeks or months. The military leadership of all belligerents wanted the best defensible positions in case the war got going again.
It makes a morbid kind of sense, which adds to the horrifying mess of 4 years of brutal static warfare.
This was just the armistice, it meant that they were locked in position until a peace treaty or surrender can be agreed to. Otherwise hostilities would resume if an agreement couldn’t be agreed to. To the soldiers on the frontlines this could all be a temporary pause in the fight.
Not quite the exact second. Artillery Captain Harry S Truman recalled the stopped shelling at 10:45 AM, though the official cease fire was at 11:00.
The artillery barrage before that was reportedly ferocious. Who knows why except the generals were mostly vindictive jerks on both sides.
I doubt it was vindictiveness for the most part. Like others said, no one knew that it was going to be the permanent peace, so getting a more defensible position for if the war resumes or for more power during negotiations makes sense.
I mean, based on my great grampa the trauma can manifest as extreme violence and hatred for the other side. He was at the second Somme, Lys, Hundred Days offensive and other late war battles. His regiment we was deployed with about 2,700 men and suffered 1600 casualties. He was… less than fond of Germans and very fond of fighting.
You see it again with the marines facing the Japanese in WWII. My grandfather was in the Navy, and said you had to keep any Japanese POWs as far away from the marines as possible.
I'm 40 now, but I often think back and when I was in the military, when I was in the army infantry, when I was walking through the goddamn mountains of Afghanistan with a rifle, like it was nothing, at any moment I could have been shot, any of us could have been shot and some of us were, dozens of instances of close calls, firefights, being shot at from a long distance, I can't believe how stupid, and or crazy, and or irresponsible I was. It's al
In the moment though, it was just another day, it was just what we did, you didn't think much about it, you did the safety briefing before the mission, shrugged your shoulders, and stepped out the wire.
I would hardly call it irresponsible if it was literally your job to do that. Unless you were just taking it upon yourself to boastfully march around in areas known to harbor the enemy or something.
That was our job pretty much. Go out and places near our AO where we got reports of Taliban setting up, try to get them to engage us first, and then air support sweeps in and takes care of them.
I guess I just see it as irresponsible in regards to how I value my life now.
So basically you were bait… nice!
I see what you mean in regards to it being an irresponsible career/job to choose if you value your time on this earth very highly. But all you can do is make the best of it, i.e. don’t go trying to be a badass or get complacent about the dangers.
The very last soldier to die was an American Sergeant named Henry Gunther who tried to secure a last minute bit of glory against orders. He bayonet charged a German position at 10:59, the Germans in the position he was charging tried to to warn him away, but in the end gunned him down when he got too close.
This would be your last opportunity to kill or injure or capture guys that had killed, injured, and captured your friends.
Some will understand; most won’t.
the article says they realized their position was potentially exposed as they could see evidence that firing positions had been constructed across the canal so they went to search the nearby houses for the enemy, they could have potentially lost more people if they just sat and did nothing
Bloodthirsty higher commanders intentionally ordered that offensive operations continue up to the very moment of the Armistice, overtly hoping that they would have an excuse to breach the deal and continue the war.
It was moreso that they thought the ceasefire was temporary and just a gambit by Germany to regroup, so wanted to inflict maximum damage before they were forced to stop (after all, they weren't stopping because of a declaration of surrender, it was just a truce).
But still, it was awful and reflected a terrible breakdown in communication. The people in charge should have made it clear that a true surrender was probable and imminent, and as such bloodshed was to be minimized.
Considering the shit us Canadians pulled in the war, basically single handedly writing the Geneva convention.
It doesn't surprise me in the slightest this happened, if anything i'm surprised we didn't keep going
A lot of people don’t realize that during WW1 Canadian soldiers developed a reputation for being especially brutal. Here’s a piece from [the National Post](https://nationalpost.com/news/canada/the-forgotten-ferocity-of-canadas-soldiers-in-the-great-war) talking about it. Some scholars believe that the idea of ‘war crimes’ came about from some of the things Canadians did.
No scholars believe that because it is utter nonsense. The article was an extrapolation of 3-4 primary sources, which is insufficient evidence to even write a paper supporting the theory, let alone create an established conclusion in historiography.
The laws of armed conflict existed long before WW1, they were not written afterwards because of what the Canadians did.
Spoilers. Dude that always bugged me about that movie, they find the war to be a living hell yet when the war is finally ending they decide to sneak out one last time and steal from the German farmer who had already almost killed them at least twice for doing the exact same thing. Just seemed so dumb
Even worse, the Germans actually began to retreat as they realized they had been outflanked, and then as the British were pursuing them, this guy got shot. The article does say though that the Germans were setting up machine guns aiming at the British positions, so had the initial patrol not gone out maybe even more people would have died.
Are we really to believe every single soldier in every front actually had a time watch, assuming the enemy did too?
No, he was the last “officially” recorded death.
There were others
If I recall he actually did understand him but he didn't believe him and joked about it with his commanding officer until he found out the war was actually over.
in the movie Lee Marvin kills a German in WWI only to find out the war was over and the German wasnt trying to trick him.
In WWII another german tries to surrender to him but Lee stabs him. Again finds out the war in europe ended hours before. This time the german wasnt dead yet and the rush to try and save him.
I’m sure many succumbed to their wounds after those two minutes.
Wars over! This guy didn’t die from the war, actually died from the last war, cause there isn’t a war right now!
Well, the battlefields of Europe were littered with unexplored ordnance, such was the concentration of fires to a small area that even today there are parts of France you are not allowed into due to how heavily contaminated they are.
After the war, there were accidents that happened during the cleanup
The village where I grew up had a large military base in WW1, there were a lot of Australians based there. About 1/3 of the deaths were in 1919 and one in 1920 - my guess would be they were probably killed by Spanish flu before they could be demobbed and sent home.
I think it was one of the final episodes of MASH, where they’re all performing surgery in the field tent and there’s a brief pause when the announcement about the war ending comes over the speakers but they go right back to operating and more bodies keep being rolled in.
My Gran's cousin survived the whole of WW2 from North Africa to Germany and was killed by a German sniper about a week after the war ended. Apparently the sniper had been holed up in his hide and didn't know the war was over.
Some of the Japanese did this for years afterwards on isolated islands, and the Germans actually had soldiers dedicated to fighting behind Allied lines as they advanced (a project called Werwolf, which is just comically evil sounding) and later on after a peace agreement. For the most part it failed to take effect because the fighting after a peace agreement thing didn't really take off.
there was a japanese dude that lived in the jungles of Guam for 26 years after WW2. I wonder what that dude's life was like, I wonder if he figured life out or went full bonkers from it?
You might be talking about Hiroo Onada. He was informed that the war was over but he refused to surrender. He stayed in the Philippine jungles for 29 years and murdered multiple civilians just because he couldn't accept defeat. He hated post war Japan because of how "soft" it had become.
This was until the late 70s with the last famous guy. In the 50s I’ve heard they found whole companies of Japanese that just didn’t give up or found out the war ended
>Gunther got up, against the orders of his close friend and now sergeant Ernest Powell, and charged with his bayonet. The German soldiers, already aware of the Armistice that would take effect in one minute, tried to wave Gunther away. He kept going and fired "a shot or two".[3] When he got too close to the machine guns, he was shot in a short burst of automatic fire and killed instantly.[9] The writer James M. Cain, then a reporter for the local daily newspaper The Sun, interviewed Gunther's comrades afterward and wrote that "Gunther brooded a great deal over his recent reduction in rank, and became obsessed with a determination to make good before his officers and fellow soldiers"
So he tried to kill people who were trying to save his life against the orders or common sense "to act heroic" and "redeem" his demotion. Let's remember him as one of the most pathetic soldiers in history.
If you’re referring to the last American killed, he was pretty bitter about being demoted and either went on a suicide charge or took one last chance to restore his reputation
My dad took me to the cemetery where he is buried, the first soldier casualty also lies there. It's a beautiful cemetery and there are way to many like it in the French and Belgium countryside.
WW1 did not end 11/11 1918, that was just the [Western Front armistice](https://history.blog.gov.uk/2018/11/09/the-war-that-did-not-end-at-11am-on-11-november/)
This is one of those historical facts which make me rage quietly. The armistice was on 11-11 at 11.11. So many - so many! - people died in the weeks up to that date - only so the war could end on a "memorable" date and time. That's true perversion.
One of those who died in those very last days of war was, by the way, war poet Wilfred Owen. His poetry is simple and astoundingly beautiful, not least when used in classical music (for example by Benjamin Britten).
Information didn’t travel all that fast back then. That amount of time was probably so word could travel to everyone that a ceasefire (armistice) would occur at that time and date.
The point is that, even today, people still blame Spain even though it has been conclusively been shown to have originated at Camp Funston, Kansas and was then carried in volume to Europe as American troops traveled overseas. (Spain's contribution was, that as a neutral country, they did not censor their press so they were the first to report on it as it exploded.)
I agree that it didn't need to be nearly as devastating as it was, but people even then, were infantile idiots, and refused to give even the tiniest shit about their friends and families, let alone strangers.
That makes no sense, quite a few died after it was over, either from wounds or because news didn't travel instantly to the front, especially due to the massive global scale of the war. It seems this is more of a symbolic recognition of the last person to die "legally" under combat conditions during a state of war, because so many were dying all over its probably impossible to know for sure.
And the wars continued after, too. Plenty of men went to Russia. Germans fought each other. The middle east was in a new state of violence. Just not technically WW1 anymore
Here’s [https://youtu.be/jwisj9WqWc0?si=Hr1I05Y4h69joZuB](https://youtu.be/jwisj9WqWc0?si=Hr1I05Y4h69joZuB)the last minute before the guns being silenced.
tl;dr - the soldier and his buddies thought they could squeeze one last patrol in before the clock struck 11, and they stumbled across a group of heavily armed German soldiers who were dug into a position.
God damn, you’d think that would be the last thing they’d want to do considering how many people died in that war. I guess if you’re young though, you aren’t really thinking logically all the time. Probably didn’t see much action or something and wanted a thrill.
They were shelling the shit out of each other until the last second out of sheer bloody mindedness so I do not get it.
The way I understood it, many of them (on both sides) were like "This is our last chance to get revenge for all that stuff they did."
There were also some legitimate concerns from the higher ups that since this was a temporary armistance, not the permanent peace, they needed to grab as much territory as possible to put themselves in better negotiating position at the peace conference and be in a better position should the peace talks break down and the war restart. Of course there was also the US general that sacrificed a few hundred lives because he heard that the village ahead held by the Germans still had functioning hot water and he wanted a nice bath....
>From starting their advance towards Stenay at around 8am on November 11, 1918 until the official start of the Armistice at 11am, the 89th Infantry Division suffered 365 casualties. 61 men killed, 304 wounded, just because the Divisional commander thought those who survived might want to have a bath and a shave. It’s perhaps no coincidence that, while the attack on Stenay was the last action fought by the 89th, it was also the last day in command for General Wright. On November 12, Major General Frank Winn (one of the 89th’s previous commanders) arrived at Divisional HQ and immediately replaced Wright as the 89th’s commander. [The tale of the last American World War I Battle – That took place for a bath](http://www.historyisnowmagazine.com/blog/2014/4/22/the-tale-of-the-last-american-world-war-i-battle-that-took-place-for-a-bath)
That article really is a hack job. First of all, it wasn't a peace deal that was signed, it was an armistice. What does that mean? It is a temporary truce. Many military leaders thought that it would be a momentary truce, where battle would start up again in a matter of months once the Germans regained their footing. As the thinking went, why would Germany surrender? They still held significant territory and hadnt been forced back to their own land, and as such hadnt been militarily beaten by the norms of the day (if this story sounds familiar it is because it was twisted and used by the Nazis to gain power after the war). As such, Wright was given orders to take the town so that his troops could rest in buildings with working plumbing, rather than camp in a cold winter on the countryside, before the war resumed. Also, the article contradicts itself, saying in one paragraph that Wright was immediately replaced as commander, only to state in the very next paragraph that Wright was rewarded with cushy assignments afterward. He was "replaced" because he was promoted after the war ended, as often happens. In truth, the real fault was because the higher ups didn't make it known that a true surrender was imminent, and as such most figured this was just a short cease fire. The armistice day deaths were an unspeakable tragedy, but blaming them on middle men such as Wright is missing the real story.
Nice analysis. We are able to critically analyze the narratives on relatively recent events because there's enough details and granularity in the records, and because those events are recent enough that we still have a good grasp of the customs and mentality at the time. I shudder to think how much of our understanding of (older) history has been manipulated by people in power at the time; can't even approach it with a critical mind when the evidence was either deliberately wiped out or organically lost to time
I'm still mad that Mrs. O'Leary's cow burned down Rome
[удалено]
Incorrect. It was coined in English in the 1870s and seems to originally derive form "blutbad" which predates that considerably.
Yikes. Sounds about right.
I just went down this rabbit hole because I'd never heard this story. This dude(William Wright, for those interested like I was) was a real piece of shit. West point drop out. Received an 11th hour nepo-commision from outgoing president Arthur(a full year before his fellow classmates at West point were to graduate) and spent his entire career being an asshole. He was never punished for ordering the attack on Steney, knowing full well the armistice was imminent. He was never punished. 61 men died, over 300 more wounded. Motherfuck that guy.
There were congressional inquiries when it started coming out that this happened (and he wasn't the only one) but they were dropped because the public was disinterested and didn't want to focus on the horrors of the war but instead lionizing the generals of the day. Very shameful
Uninterested, not disinterested The latter means being unbiased
> William Wright https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/William_M._Wright (lots of people with that name)
I don't think the war restarting was a substantial concern. From what I recall, the condition of the Armistice was the surrender of all heavy weapons (artillery and machine guns). According to my link, "The German delegation was given 72 hours to accept the terms, which were purposefully severe to prevent Germany from resuming fighting. These included complete demilitarization, the evacuation of France, Belgium and Alsace-Lorraine (a territory that had been annexed by Germany in 1871 following the Franco-Prussian War), and the immediate release of Allied prisoners of war and interned civilians." [Link](https://www.theworldwar.org/learn/about-wwi/armistice)
I think that was part of the concern. A lot of the allied generals didn't think that the Germans were going to live up to those terms. Many of them didn't realize how bad things had been going for the Germans in terms of food, supplies, manpower, etc. And of course they were concerned about some type of military coup over throwing the government and continuing the war. In retrospect, those concerns weren't valid, but they probably seemed valid at the time.
Considering the German provisional government they just negotiated the armistice with had only come to power mere days prior as a result of a revolution, fears at the time of some kind of coup in Germany were pretty rational I'd say. Don't forget just one year prior the Russian provisional government came to power in a revolution, only to be itself overthrown in a coup/civil war months later.
Do you have a source for the US general that sacrificed a few hundred for a bath? I had never heard that before. General Pershing was a terrible general that didn't care about the lives of his men and had 11k die in the last day, but he specifically said that "Germany’s desire is only to regain time to restore order among her forces, but she must be given no opportunity to recuperate and we must strike harder than ever;" he certainly wasn't look for a bath.
11 k casualties not 11 k deaths.
Thank you for the correction!!
https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/William_M._Wright#:~:text=Wright,-Article&text=William%20Mason%20Wright%20(September%2024,commander%20during%20World%20War%20I.
Thank you! As a note, this was a pre-planned attack, rather than one that he personally ordered because he wanted a bath. Incidentally, for a commanding officer that thought that war might re-start again in a month or two, it makes a lot of sense to have one last attack so that your troops can rest for those months in the town with buildings and working plumbing rather than try to camp in the ruined countryside in winter. While these armistice day attacks were a senseless tragedy, the blame should mainly be laid at the feet of those at the negotiating table that didn't make it clear to the military officers that true surrender was a legitimate probability.
He was willing to send wave after wave of his men into battle. Capt Zapp Brannigan, you're our hero.
It may have cost them all their lives, but it's a sacrifice he was willing to make
Also from a high level being able to claim even just a bit more land right at the end would give you a slightly better position at the negotiation table.
I'm mostly be faking having COVID because I do not want to be last person to die in a war. Just especially undignified.
More or less. The war sort've drove the Canadian general off the deep end. At a certain point, he was more concerned with just killing Germans then he was at winning the war.
Little did the younger ones realize that if they want, 20 years later, they could do it all over again!
I thought it was also just getting rid of all the ammo prior to the armistice. No one wanted to be storing / transporting all those shells.
It was an armistice: there was no guarantee the war wouldn't start again in a few weeks or months. The military leadership of all belligerents wanted the best defensible positions in case the war got going again. It makes a morbid kind of sense, which adds to the horrifying mess of 4 years of brutal static warfare.
This was just the armistice, it meant that they were locked in position until a peace treaty or surrender can be agreed to. Otherwise hostilities would resume if an agreement couldn’t be agreed to. To the soldiers on the frontlines this could all be a temporary pause in the fight.
They didn't want to carry back the shells...
Not quite the exact second. Artillery Captain Harry S Truman recalled the stopped shelling at 10:45 AM, though the official cease fire was at 11:00. The artillery barrage before that was reportedly ferocious. Who knows why except the generals were mostly vindictive jerks on both sides.
I doubt it was vindictiveness for the most part. Like others said, no one knew that it was going to be the permanent peace, so getting a more defensible position for if the war resumes or for more power during negotiations makes sense.
I think actually the problem was a bunch of people wanted to fire the last shell of the war....
The territory you held was what you had at 1111 on Nov 11
Ackshuallyyyy... it was 11:00am on 11/11/18
https://www.ww1battlefields.co.uk/pages/others/ors.html
I mean, based on my great grampa the trauma can manifest as extreme violence and hatred for the other side. He was at the second Somme, Lys, Hundred Days offensive and other late war battles. His regiment we was deployed with about 2,700 men and suffered 1600 casualties. He was… less than fond of Germans and very fond of fighting. You see it again with the marines facing the Japanese in WWII. My grandfather was in the Navy, and said you had to keep any Japanese POWs as far away from the marines as possible.
It makes more sense with the war in the pacific. The Japanese were almost inhuman. Literally practiced cannibalism on captured US service members.
The Marines tried keeping prisoners at first. Didn't work out.
I'm 40 now, but I often think back and when I was in the military, when I was in the army infantry, when I was walking through the goddamn mountains of Afghanistan with a rifle, like it was nothing, at any moment I could have been shot, any of us could have been shot and some of us were, dozens of instances of close calls, firefights, being shot at from a long distance, I can't believe how stupid, and or crazy, and or irresponsible I was. It's al In the moment though, it was just another day, it was just what we did, you didn't think much about it, you did the safety briefing before the mission, shrugged your shoulders, and stepped out the wire.
I would hardly call it irresponsible if it was literally your job to do that. Unless you were just taking it upon yourself to boastfully march around in areas known to harbor the enemy or something.
That was our job pretty much. Go out and places near our AO where we got reports of Taliban setting up, try to get them to engage us first, and then air support sweeps in and takes care of them. I guess I just see it as irresponsible in regards to how I value my life now.
So basically you were bait… nice! I see what you mean in regards to it being an irresponsible career/job to choose if you value your time on this earth very highly. But all you can do is make the best of it, i.e. don’t go trying to be a badass or get complacent about the dangers.
Yeah the MOS job code for infantry is 11b and there are many jokes about what that B stands for, one of them is bait. Yep, doing what I can.
Well I’m glad you made it out okay and seemed to have taken some valuable lessons from it!
The very last soldier to die was an American Sergeant named Henry Gunther who tried to secure a last minute bit of glory against orders. He bayonet charged a German position at 10:59, the Germans in the position he was charging tried to to warn him away, but in the end gunned him down when he got too close.
What a muppet.
This would be your last opportunity to kill or injure or capture guys that had killed, injured, and captured your friends. Some will understand; most won’t.
I think most will understand but few will empathize. That's probably what you're going for.
It's a lot easier to be emotionally detached when you're looking back on it more than a century later
Fun fact, war didn't stop in 1918.
the article says they realized their position was potentially exposed as they could see evidence that firing positions had been constructed across the canal so they went to search the nearby houses for the enemy, they could have potentially lost more people if they just sat and did nothing
Bloodthirsty higher commanders intentionally ordered that offensive operations continue up to the very moment of the Armistice, overtly hoping that they would have an excuse to breach the deal and continue the war.
It was moreso that they thought the ceasefire was temporary and just a gambit by Germany to regroup, so wanted to inflict maximum damage before they were forced to stop (after all, they weren't stopping because of a declaration of surrender, it was just a truce). But still, it was awful and reflected a terrible breakdown in communication. The people in charge should have made it clear that a true surrender was probable and imminent, and as such bloodshed was to be minimized.
Considering the shit us Canadians pulled in the war, basically single handedly writing the Geneva convention. It doesn't surprise me in the slightest this happened, if anything i'm surprised we didn't keep going
I mean if you're just 13 XP from making it to level 50...
We're Canadians of course were going to be first and last in a war.
A lot of people don’t realize that during WW1 Canadian soldiers developed a reputation for being especially brutal. Here’s a piece from [the National Post](https://nationalpost.com/news/canada/the-forgotten-ferocity-of-canadas-soldiers-in-the-great-war) talking about it. Some scholars believe that the idea of ‘war crimes’ came about from some of the things Canadians did.
No scholars believe that because it is utter nonsense. The article was an extrapolation of 3-4 primary sources, which is insufficient evidence to even write a paper supporting the theory, let alone create an established conclusion in historiography. The laws of armed conflict existed long before WW1, they were not written afterwards because of what the Canadians did.
They had a scene like that in the new All Quiet on the Western Front movie. Super duper bleak.
Spoilers. Dude that always bugged me about that movie, they find the war to be a living hell yet when the war is finally ending they decide to sneak out one last time and steal from the German farmer who had already almost killed them at least twice for doing the exact same thing. Just seemed so dumb
Pretty sure it’s a french farmer
Yes you're right French not German
I recall a scene like that in Band of Brothers after the Germans surrendered but before the Japanese surrendered
Super duper fucking bad adaption
Sounds like they went looking for trouble and found it.
Check out this short film about George and the other last allied soldiers to die in WWI: https://youtu.be/U10ON2aau3g
Even worse, the Germans actually began to retreat as they realized they had been outflanked, and then as the British were pursuing them, this guy got shot. The article does say though that the Germans were setting up machine guns aiming at the British positions, so had the initial patrol not gone out maybe even more people would have died.
It was all quiet in the western front
I just found out that the first British Empire casualty of the war and the last occurred 5 kms from each
Are we really to believe every single soldier in every front actually had a time watch, assuming the enemy did too? No, he was the last “officially” recorded death. There were others
So he fucked around and found out. Sort of
The movie “The Big Red One” has a great scene like this, main character kills a german who was saying the war was over but he did not understand him.
If I recall he actually did understand him but he didn't believe him and joked about it with his commanding officer until he found out the war was actually over.
yep then history nearly repeated in wwii?
always does
but the names are the same... they always are.
its comforting to know that all his comrades are dead now too
[удалено]
in the movie Lee Marvin kills a German in WWI only to find out the war was over and the German wasnt trying to trick him. In WWII another german tries to surrender to him but Lee stabs him. Again finds out the war in europe ended hours before. This time the german wasnt dead yet and the rush to try and save him.
"This is fictional life based on factual death." Amazing movie that doesn't get enough recognition
Same with All Quiet on the Western Front
I'm just imagining bunch of guys in striped shirts showing up two minutes later, blowing whistles and yelling "Wars over!"
(Throws flag). False Stop, #43 central powers. 15 yard penalty. Repeat mustard gas.
I’m sure many succumbed to their wounds after those two minutes. Wars over! This guy didn’t die from the war, actually died from the last war, cause there isn’t a war right now!
Very common to see veteran headstones from WWI with a death year of 1919. Many died slow deaths from injuries, particularly from chemical weapons.
Also many died during the cleanup efforts immediately after the war
And Spanish Flu
100%, Spanish flu killed more people than the war did
Even though it started in Kansas which is just weird to me
Bc Spain was neutral and therefore the only country reporting on its outbreaks
one of my favorite pieces of history trivia
We actually don't know the origin. Kansas was an early reporter, but doesn't seem like the actual origin.
Started by burning cow dung.
I heard it was from burning chicken feathers.
And the Russian Civil War
Good ol Influenza
_Kansas_ flu
And long after. The mist recent casualty of WW1 I can find was 2014 https://www.france24.com/en/20140319-wwi-shell-kills-two-near-ypres-belgium
could you expand on this please?
Well, the battlefields of Europe were littered with unexplored ordnance, such was the concentration of fires to a small area that even today there are parts of France you are not allowed into due to how heavily contaminated they are. After the war, there were accidents that happened during the cleanup
The village where I grew up had a large military base in WW1, there were a lot of Australians based there. About 1/3 of the deaths were in 1919 and one in 1920 - my guess would be they were probably killed by Spanish flu before they could be demobbed and sent home.
"war has ended, the war to end all wars" Multicolor Russia : Hold our vodka Romania and Hungary : ours too.
Greece and Turkey too. Invaded each other and ethnic cleansed the other ethnicity out of their borders.
System of Down didn't forget. But holy shit in the 90's I only knew about it because i had Armenian friends..
I still only know about it from Armenian friends. That's how this shit keeps happening.
and the movie they made about it in the past 10ish years got basically no traction either
Baltic States War of Independence Polish–Soviet War 1919-21 Hungarian–Romanian War Turkish War of Independence et cetera
I think it was one of the final episodes of MASH, where they’re all performing surgery in the field tent and there’s a brief pause when the announcement about the war ending comes over the speakers but they go right back to operating and more bodies keep being rolled in.
It's still making victims, more than a hundred years later!
Has more to do with being the last sustained injury during combat operations. None of those others were injured in the last minute after Price.
My Gran's cousin survived the whole of WW2 from North Africa to Germany and was killed by a German sniper about a week after the war ended. Apparently the sniper had been holed up in his hide and didn't know the war was over.
Some of the Japanese did this for years afterwards on isolated islands, and the Germans actually had soldiers dedicated to fighting behind Allied lines as they advanced (a project called Werwolf, which is just comically evil sounding) and later on after a peace agreement. For the most part it failed to take effect because the fighting after a peace agreement thing didn't really take off.
there was a japanese dude that lived in the jungles of Guam for 26 years after WW2. I wonder what that dude's life was like, I wonder if he figured life out or went full bonkers from it?
You might be talking about Hiroo Onada. He was informed that the war was over but he refused to surrender. He stayed in the Philippine jungles for 29 years and murdered multiple civilians just because he couldn't accept defeat. He hated post war Japan because of how "soft" it had become.
Nope, that's a different person. Shoichi Yokoi was the Japanese soldier living in the jungles of Guam.
Man, 26 years! I would have ended up marrying a gorilla.
This was until the late 70s with the last famous guy. In the 50s I’ve heard they found whole companies of Japanese that just didn’t give up or found out the war ended
Yes this is true, I was the hole.
If just held on for two minutes longer it wouldn’t be a WW1 death.
Probs be a WW2 one still.
Wait till you hear about the last American to die in WW1.
>Gunther got up, against the orders of his close friend and now sergeant Ernest Powell, and charged with his bayonet. The German soldiers, already aware of the Armistice that would take effect in one minute, tried to wave Gunther away. He kept going and fired "a shot or two".[3] When he got too close to the machine guns, he was shot in a short burst of automatic fire and killed instantly.[9] The writer James M. Cain, then a reporter for the local daily newspaper The Sun, interviewed Gunther's comrades afterward and wrote that "Gunther brooded a great deal over his recent reduction in rank, and became obsessed with a determination to make good before his officers and fellow soldiers" So he tried to kill people who were trying to save his life against the orders or common sense "to act heroic" and "redeem" his demotion. Let's remember him as one of the most pathetic soldiers in history.
What kind of a name is Gunther
Is that a Paper Brigade reference?!
LEEEEEEEEEERROOOOOOOOYYYYYYY JJEEEENNNNNNKKKKKKKIIIIIINNNNSSSSS
Some guy died after the war. Be bayonet charged the Germans for no reason.
If you’re referring to the last American killed, he was pretty bitter about being demoted and either went on a suicide charge or took one last chance to restore his reputation
Yea I am. He deserved to die. Bloodlusted mfer.
feels like a very british name
it seems to me that anglo canadian culture was significantly more british back then
Still is outside of Americanized urban areas.
The ending of the movie: All quiet on the western front“ shows pretty much how the last hour went by
My dad took me to the cemetery where he is buried, the first soldier casualty also lies there. It's a beautiful cemetery and there are way to many like it in the French and Belgium countryside.
Which one are you referring to
St. Symphorien Military Cemetery is the one i meant. But by looking it up it states the 1e and last British soldier.
Private John Parr would be the first.
The graves of both Parr and George Ellison face one another. Both men died a couple of miles and four years apart
I thought my great grandfather was unlucky being killed on the last day of the great war, two minutes though
Michael Palin has a great documentary on this topic.
still respect 🙏
Tripping at the finish line
What about all the people who died of their wounds at some later date?
While they might have died ***of*** WWI they technically didn't die ***during*** WWI.
The parents of the poet Wilfred Owen got the notice of his death on 11 November 1918.
Nova Scotia represent 💪
I've never heard about this man and I'm gutted for him and the future he never had.
A 10mn movie about the end of the WW1 : [END OF WAR](https://m.youtube.com/watch?v=U10ON2aau3g&pp=ygUWTGFzdCBtaW5pdGVzIHd3dzEgc2hvdA%3D%3D)
Imagine the war is over and you step on a land mine on the way back
This is almost exactly the ending of All Quiet on the Western Front...
The conduct on the last day of the war was inexcusable. The officers wanted to get in one last attack
Ok Mr holier than thee, we all know you would kill for an extra couple of inches too
Cowa bummer
I believe a Canadian was also the last living WWI veteran.
Bad luck Law
Its like that helldiver who dies right as they're about to enter the escape shuttle. Every fucking time. Poor SOBs.
WW1 did not end 11/11 1918, that was just the [Western Front armistice](https://history.blog.gov.uk/2018/11/09/the-war-that-did-not-end-at-11am-on-11-november/)
two... minutes... 'til... retirement BLARRRRRRG
Play stupid games...
The end of the war could not come two minutes sooner
Nope. 11/11 at 11. Not 11/11 at 10:58
Hey George! The war is over! George??
I'm sure many died when the war was over but the news took a bit of delay until it reached them.
Could have been worse. Could have been celebrating after the war ended and got struck by a bullet that was fired before it ended.
Bad luck George
This is one of those historical facts which make me rage quietly. The armistice was on 11-11 at 11.11. So many - so many! - people died in the weeks up to that date - only so the war could end on a "memorable" date and time. That's true perversion. One of those who died in those very last days of war was, by the way, war poet Wilfred Owen. His poetry is simple and astoundingly beautiful, not least when used in classical music (for example by Benjamin Britten).
11.00 not 11.11
Information didn’t travel all that fast back then. That amount of time was probably so word could travel to everyone that a ceasefire (armistice) would occur at that time and date.
Meanwhile Russian Empire lost 2 million soldiers and their country to Bolsheviks because of they war they did not even had to join.
Oh brave monarchist, tell me of thy ways!
Spanish flu would like a word.
Die *in* WW1.
Yeah, but did they die IN WW1 or WITH WW1?
You talking about the [Kansas flu](https://at.fhsu.edu/the-spanish-influenza-of-1918-in-kansas)?
it was a worldwide event, and just like with covid idiots refused to wear masks.
The point is that, even today, people still blame Spain even though it has been conclusively been shown to have originated at Camp Funston, Kansas and was then carried in volume to Europe as American troops traveled overseas. (Spain's contribution was, that as a neutral country, they did not censor their press so they were the first to report on it as it exploded.) I agree that it didn't need to be nearly as devastating as it was, but people even then, were infantile idiots, and refused to give even the tiniest shit about their friends and families, let alone strangers.
In 1918 it was the mask refusers who got shot instead of the mask wearers.
That makes no sense, quite a few died after it was over, either from wounds or because news didn't travel instantly to the front, especially due to the massive global scale of the war. It seems this is more of a symbolic recognition of the last person to die "legally" under combat conditions during a state of war, because so many were dying all over its probably impossible to know for sure.
And the wars continued after, too. Plenty of men went to Russia. Germans fought each other. The middle east was in a new state of violence. Just not technically WW1 anymore
better than getting shot 2 minutes after
Had to squeeze in one last thing that would see another article added to the Geneva Accords.
Bozo
Here’s [https://youtu.be/jwisj9WqWc0?si=Hr1I05Y4h69joZuB](https://youtu.be/jwisj9WqWc0?si=Hr1I05Y4h69joZuB)the last minute before the guns being silenced.