An armistice ended fighting between the Allied Nations and Germany at 11:00 a.m.,
on November 11, 1918. The war formally ended 7 months later with the signing of
the Treaty of Versailles on June 28, 1919.
Photo courtesy of the Library of Congress.
At 11:00 a.m. on November 11, 1918, an armistice ended hostilities between the Allied Nations (including Great Britain, France, Italy, and the United States) and Germany bringing more than 4 years of global warfare to an end. Fought on land, sea, and air, and involving nations on every continent (including Antarctica), the "war to end all wars" killed and wounded millions, obliterated villages and cities, and left behind a scarred landscape that continues to heal 100 years after the opposing armies fired their last artillery shells.
The First World War began on July 28, 1914, following the assassination of Austria-Hungary's Archduke Franz Ferdinand and his wife Sophie, on June 28, 1914. Alliances and treaties soon had the majority of European nations and their colonial possessions mobilizing for war. Despite the rapid movement of armies in the first weeks of battle, progress stalled by the end of 1914. By 1915, the "Great War" became a war of attrition, as the opposing armies developed new technologies to bleed each other's militaries dry; navies attempted to strangle nations' ability to resupply; and air forces harassed military and civilian targets. Over the next 4 years, the territorial gains from attacks and counterattacks could be measured in feet or yards. The battlelines of late 1914 remained largely unchanged after 4 years of fighting.
In August 1918, an Allied offensive succeeded in breaking through enemy lines and forced the Central Powers (Germany, Austria-Hungary, and the Ottoman Empire) to retreat. Within weeks, Germany's allies began negotiating separate peace deals, leaving Germany to face the Allied Nations on its own by November 1918. Unable to supply its troops and feed its civilian population, the Imperial German government and its military began to collapse. Peace negotiations began in earnest on November 8. Fully aware that conditions in Germany's cities and military were deteriorating rapidly, the Allied Nations offered few concessions. When Germany's Kaiser Wilhelm II abdicated on November 9, the new German government instructed its peace delegation to stop negotiating and ordered them to sign the armistice regardless of its terms. As a result, the German delegates agreed to the armistice at 5:00 a.m., on November 11, 1918. The agreement provided 6 hours to spread the news that the armed forces were to cease hostilities at 11:00 a.m.
Despite the war's end being so near, soldiers continued to fight and die pursuing the German Army until precisely 11:00 a.m. Artillery units hurriedly fired all their ammunition to avoid having to carry it away. In an effort to gain a better position on the battlefield should hostilities resume, Allied troops continued attacking weary German troops who, in many instances, were reluctant to return fire. According to historian Joseph E. Persico (author of Eleventh Month, Eleventh Day, Eleventh Hour ), more than 2,700 men died and 8,000 were wounded in these final hours of the First World War.
Exactly 5 years after Franz Ferdinand's assassination, the Treaty of Versailles officially ended the World War I on June 28, 1919. The U.S. Congress refused to ratify the treaty or allow the United States to join the League of Nations—the organization of world governments that President Woodrow Wilson envisioned would prevent future global conflicts. The treaty's harsh terms and failure of the League of Nations would eventually lead to an even deadlier war just two decades later.
You can learn more about World War I, the men and women who fought and died in the war, and the armistice using census data and records. For example:
Soldiers of the U.S. Army's 27th Division—composed entirely of soldiers from the New York National Guard—parade past the New York Public Library on March 25, 1919,
following their return home from Europe.
The 27th Division returned to active service in July 1917, and began arriving in France during the Spring of 1918. The division lost its first man (Private Robert P. Friedman)
during an artillery barrage on July 13, 1918. Between July and November 1918, the 27th suffered 8,209 casualties in Belgium and France (including the Ypres-Lys and Somme
Offensives) before celebrating the armistice near Corbie, France. The last of the 27th returned to New York on March 19, 1919, and the division was deactivated in April 1919.
Photo courtesy of the State of New York.
Five months after the Treaty of Versailles officially ended the First World War, President Woodrow Wilson observed Armistice Day for the first time on November 11, 1919.
In 1926, President Calvin Coolidge issued the first Armistice Day Proclamation, and in 1938, the day became a federal holiday.
On June 1, 1954, an act of Congress changed the name of the holiday from "Armistice Day" to "Veteran's Day."
That same year, President Dwight Eisenhower asked all Americans to observe Veterans Day on November 11, as a way to honor the sacrifices made by "all those who fought so valiantly, on the seas, in the air, and on foreign shores."
Prior to welcoming the U.S. Census Bureau's National Processing Center (NPC), the city of Jeffersonville, IN, was home to a U.S. Army quartermaster depot from 1864 to 1958.
During World War I, 8,000 civilians worked at the site and another 20,000 worked from their homes supplying goods for the depot's quartermasters, like the canvas leggings pictured above.
The Census Bureau's processing staff moved to Jeffersonville soon after the depot closed in 1958. Today, as many as 6,000 employees process demographic and economic data at the NPC.
The census first collected veterans' data in 1840. The published data included the name, age, and location of each person receiving a military pension.
A special schedule collected veterans' data in 1890, and the general population schedule asked about military service in 1910. World War I veterans (like these soldiers from the 369th Infantry Regiment) first provided data about their military service in 1930.
From 1940 to 2000, the census collected veterans' data from a sample of the U.S. population.
Today, the American Community Survey collects veterans' data. In 2016, it found that about 19.5 million of the nation's 245 million people aged 18 years and older were veterans. States with the most veterans were California (1,720,635), Texas (1,513,294), and Florida (1,480,133).
Photo courtesy of the National Archives and Records Administration.