A Century Since WWI Guns Fell Silent |
THOMAS ORITI: Tomorrow marks 100 years since guns on the Western Front fell silent and more than four years of warfare came to an end.
But as time has passed, the armistice on the 11th hour of the 11th day of the 11th month of 1918 has come to symbolise so much more than the end of a conflict.
It's a day of remembrance for the millions who died and a century on it's just as important as ever.
To learn more about the origins of Remembrance Day, I spoke to Dr Meleah Hampton, a World War One historian from the Australian War Memorial.
And I began by asking her to explain exactly what happened on that day;
MELEAH HAMPTON: There's word that the Germans want to sign an agreement and I'm not sure anyone can quite believe it. But all of a sudden this little party of Germans are making their way through the lines in a motor car, making "make way" noises.
And they suddenly appear and it's real and they get to be taken away and sign this armistice and there is this mind-blowing sort of stunned sense that this is actually really going to go ahead.
THOMAS ORITI: So broadly speaking, what was happening at the time on the Western Front that led to this peace settlement?
MELEAH HAMPTON: Well, the British had launched their major attack on the eighth of August, 1918 at the battle of Amiens and it had been a remarkable success that had pushed the Germans back for miles. And suddenly they had the impetus and they were pushing the Germans back and back and back.
In late September they break the Hindenburg Line, which is this really enormous German defensive position. It's 10 miles deep; it's got canals in it. It is really hard to break.
Once they're through that, there's no military options for the Germans but to continue to be pushed back. And that's a really important aspect in them coming to the table.
THOMAS ORITI: So as part of the peace settlement, what did the German forces have to agree to?
MELEAH HAMPTON: Well, this is an armistice, so they are agreeing to stop firing at 11:00am on the 11th of November, 1918 and then they are only going to agree to do it for a short period of time and then it will be renegotiated. And it is renegotiated regularly until the Treaty of Versailles is signed later the following year.
But it always a temporary truce, sort of like a front-wide, war-wide truce: that they will stop fighting until they can negotiate a proper peace settlement.
THOMAS ORITI: So I mean I used to think the armistice ended World War One: it was as simple as that. But when it was originally signed, what was the time limit originally?
MELEAH HAMPTON: I think it was a week. But you know, it felt like the end of war.
I don't think anyone had the stomach to re-start the war. Nobody really wanted to restart hostilities. So, you know, it is renewed every week or every month and as time goes on it becomes permanent, but they need to buy time to really nut out what the peace will be.
So it felt: people are acting like they feel like it is permanent. I can't say what it felt like because I wasn't there but that is how they are behaving.
THOMAS ORITI: So did Remembrance Day – or Armistice Day, as it was originally known – did it become a day of commemoration quickly? Or is it something that developed over the post-war years?
MELEAH HAMPTON: Very quickly: it was straight away. It is one of these things that people call an instant tradition, like our minute's silence. It just resonated with people and it was appropriate to remember it on Remembrance Day.
All throughout the war there had been commemorations for Violet Day or Poppy Day or South Australia Day or Anzac Day. And so they had already been having special days of commemoration and it solidified into Anzac Day and Remembrance Day.
THOMAS ORITI: So in 1919 then, a year after the armistice, what happened to commemorate it?
MELEAH HAMPTON: Oh, all sorts of things: and it is from people gathering in their local church in Dubbo to large scale commemorations in London and in Sydney and Adelaide and all around the place. So there's lots of different things. It can involve marches or ceremonies or church services.
It takes a little while for people to put it into the sort of well-worn paths of commemorative activities we have now. They all appear in different places at different times but there is something going on pretty much everywhere.
THOMAS ORITI: And what has the day come to symbolise now? Because it is about so much more than World War One these days?
MELEAH HAMPTON: Well, it is and, you know, in ways that Anzac Day is not because Anzac Day for Australians is so redolent of Gallipoli and we think of the beaches and the landing in the pre-dawn; whereas this has come to mean remembrance and sorrow. And we can apply that to anything.
It is a time to stop and think about any of our servicemen or family members that have been killed in a time of war.
And even today, thinking about people who haven't coped with their experience of war and are struggling really masterfully to deal with difficult situations that they've seen: it's a time to stop and think about all of that.
THOMAS ORITI: It's been a century now. How will the day be commemorated at the War Memorial this weekend?
MELEAH HAMPTON: We have the national ceremony, which is centred around 11:00am which is very traditional. We have a wreath-laying aspect to the ceremony and a minute's silence, together with the Last Post.
We're expecting a lot of people. The War Memorial has been a centre of part of these activities over the course of the centenary.
And one of beautiful things we've got going at the moment is on our lawns, not far from the front of the building. We've had people volunteer to knit bright red poppies and there is one poppy for every life lost by an Australian during the First World War. And it is just this carpet of remembrance. It's really beautiful.
THOMAS ORITI: Historian Dr Meleah Hampton from the Australian War Memorial.
© Australian Broadcasting Corporation