At the 11th hour of the 11th day, of the 11th month

It is after 8 p.m. on November 7, 1918. Five cars adorned with the imperial eagle are driving on the broken roads of the Aisne department. In their headlights the ghostly silhouettes of ruined villages appear then disappear. an immense white flag, attached to the first automobile, stands out in the night wet with light rain, while a trumpeting soldier mounted on the step announces the convoy.

At La Capelle, it stops, six shadows get out to get into French cars: these are the German plenipotentiaries who cross the lines to negotiate the ceasefire. They are led by a civilian, State Minister Matthias Erzberger. He has been campaigning for peace since early 1917 when he understood that Germany could not win.

The peace plan proposed by Pope Benedict XV has finally convinced this fervent Catholic. As a deputy, in July 1917 he obtained a peace resolution then ignored by the soldiers Paul Von Hindenburg and Erich Ludendorff, who controlled power.

But since August 1918, Germany has retreated on all fronts in the West. The army is exhausted. There are no more reserves. Since October, protests have been brewing across the country and a new government has entrusted Erzberger with this difficult role.

Opposite, Marshal Foch, commander in chief of the allied forces, decided the time and place of the meeting, which we hope to be discreet, far from the media but also from the hostility of the population, very experienced in this region. The French nevertheless wish to give a certain solemnity to the event.

Since October, protests have been brewing across the country and a new government has given Matthias Erzberger the difficult role of negotiating.

At 3 a.m. on November 8, the German delegation reached Tergnier (Aisne). The train station of the devastated town is lit by torches, while a company of hunters presents their weapons. The Germans, impressed, board a train whose windows are covered. They are installed in the former lounge car of Napoleon III, hung with green satin, before driving towards an unknown destination.

Meanwhile, Marshal Foch and the Allied delegation left Senlis for Compiègne where they changed locomotives. The train leaves by “returning” (backwards) towards Rethondes (Oise) and stops in a clearing, in the territory of the town of Compiègne (Oise), where two sections of parallel tracks had been laid out.

In the early morning, Marshal Foch, General Weygand (French Chief of Staff), British Admiral Wemyss and his Rear Admiral Hope learned that they had to shave with mineral water: the tanks had not been filled!

Marshal Foch gives nothing away

At 7 a.m., the German train arrives. Foch informed the delegates that he expected them at 9 a.m. in his office, set up in a restaurant car of the Compagnie des wagons-lits. between the two trains, a grating was installed on the sponge floor to facilitate connections.

In reality, there is no negotiation possible: Foch, calm and dry, explains simply: “Are you asking for an armistice? If you request it, I can let you know the conditions under which it will be obtained. » He did not give in to any German demand – cessation of hostilities during the meeting, additional time to refer the matter to their government… The German plenipotentiaries, dismayed, insisted on consulting their leaders. They immediately send back an emissary to carry the conditions of peace.

In the meantime, Emperor William II, hostile to the armistice, abdicated. The republic was proclaimed on November 9 in Germany.

Sunday, November 10, the delegations exchange notes, while waiting for the German response. Foch goes to mass in Rethondes, 11 km away. He is not waiting for Erzberger who wanted to go there too.

At 9 p.m., finally, a long telegram arrived from Marshal Von Hindenburg. He considers that it is important “to achieve without delay the suppression of hostilities” in order to spare human lives.

Are you asking for an armistice? If you request it, I can let you know the conditions under which it will be obtained.

On November 11 at 2:15 a.m., the Germans resigned themselves. In Foch’s wagon, silent, they listen to General Weygand’s reading of the twenty-four articles of the armistice. This stipulates that hostilities must cease six hours after its signature and this, for thirty-six renewable days*. It is also requested the evacuation of the invaded territories, the retrocession of Alsace and Lorraine, the return of prisoners and the abandonment of all military equipment and weaponry…

It was 5:30 a.m. when Marshal Foch put his signature at the bottom of the document, followed by the German and allied representatives.

At 7 a.m., Foch leaves for Paris. Quickly, an army photographer takes an official photo of the Allies on the footboard of the train. This will be the only image of this historic moment – ​​although the photographer will take a second, on the fly, for his personal memory…

We had to wait until the “11th hour of the 11th day of the 11th month” – also the day of Saint Martin, patron saint of the military, dear to Foch – for the bugle to sound the ceasefire across the entire front.

In the process, the bells beat with joy in all the villages of France… In Paris, the jubilant crowd surrounds Foch’s car which arrives to deliver the text sealing the victory to Georges Clemenceau, president of the Council, then to Raymond Poincaré, president of the republic.

That evening, with lucidity, Clemenceau already told a friend: “Now we will have to win the peace.”

* The armistice will be renewed three times before the signing of the peace treaty at Versailles in June 1919.

Thanks to Bernard Letemps, president of the Armistice Memorial association.

Visitors to the clearing and the very interesting Armistice Memorial will be able to see the twin brother of Foch’s wagon 2419 D, identically fitted out in 1950. In fact, the original, first exhibited at the Invalides, was brought back to Compiègne in 1922, when an American patron offered France to build a memorial in the clearing that could house it.

Alas, on June 21, 1940, at Hitler’s express request, the memorial was torn open to bring out the wagon where the armistice of German revenge would be signed, in exactly the same places! The wagon was then sent to Berlin as a curiosity and then stored near the Ohrdruf deportation camp where it was accidentally burned during the release of the prisoners in April 1945.

Rens. : Armistice Memorial, route de Soissons, 60200 Compiègne, [email protected] or 03 44 85 14 18.