The eleventh minute of the eleventh hour of the eleventh day of…
Nov 11, 1918.
What were these idiots doing? It was “cool” to end the war on the 11th of the 11th, etc, but how many people died waiting for the armistice?
And still an armistice, waiting for France to put costs on Germany and start WWII.
It was more or less an accident. By Nov. 9 Wilhelm II had abdicated, and Germany (which was about to break out in civil war) declared itself a republic. They were pretty much completely falling apart. Their navy had mutinied, and called for revolution. Two days before, the armistice delegation had been sent over to France. So its not like they were sitting around waiting for an important sounding time.
Also, not all hostilities ceased at 11:00. It wasn’t until Nov. 25th that the Germans in East Africa surrendered. And the Austrians ceased fire on Nov. 3rd.
You’re nitpicking the end of the war? For sheer lunacy, why don’t you look at the beginning and prosecution of the war?
“Well, if we don’t mobilize our troops now, the enemy will get there faster and we won’t be able to use our war plan.”
“Well, the trains are on their way… Guess we’ll just have to start the war then.”
“Well, we lost 50,000 guys trying to take that hill yesterday, maybe they’re out of ammo. Let’s do the same thing today, only on the left side this time!” (Equivalent to the Lions running a slightly different Barry Sanders draw play every other down, except the opposing players had machine guns.)
“Well, we lost 1,000,000 guys last year and went 3 miles. Let’s try that again this year!”
OK, the last two are a bit exaggerated, but you get the drift…
IIRC, the cease-fire time was specifically chosen for its melodramatic impact. Word got out about it early, and both sides–particularly the artillerists–began whooping it up early–they had quite a fireworks display readily at hand.
The Germans were trying to expend all the ammunition they had so that the allied powers wouldn’t get it–and no doubt to send one last “f— you” to their adversaries. The allied powers were either celebrating, trying to be the ones who fired “the last shot”, or were trying to lighten the load of ammo they would have to drag with them once they moved into the German positions. Whatever the case, some ten thousand casualties occured that morning all along the front.