1918

“I thought it was a declaration of human liberty and a declaration of the terms which should be written into the peace conference. I felt that it was the most important document that he had ever penned, and remarked that he would either be on the crest of the wave after it had been delivered or reposing peacefully in the depths.”

— Edward Mandell House, adviser to President Wilson, in his diary · diary · source ↗

“So he jerked his halter, cantered his mare down the path, and rode out plain to view beneath the easternmost houses of the village. There he reined in, and shook a hand at them, booming in his wonderful voice: “Dogs, do you not know Auda?” When they realized it was that implacable son of war their hearts failed them.”

— Thomas Edward Lawrence, British liaison officer with Feisal’s army, quoting the cry of Sheikh Auda Abu Tayi · memoir · source ↗

“An hour after the passing of the above resolution of the Constituent Assembly — it was then four in the morning — the Cronstadt sailors who were on guard began to murmur among themselves. They were tired and they wanted to go home. Finally one cleared his throat and said: “All the good people have gone, why don’t you go? The guards want to get some sleep. . . .” So ended the Constituent.”

— Louise Bryant, American correspondent in Petrograd, in the press gallery of the Tauride Palace · account · source ↗

“The situation is this: without supplies from outside, mass starvation must set in within a few weeks, according to Seidler. […] But if we do not reach peace quickly, the unrest at home will be repeated, and with every demonstration in Vienna the peace here grows dearer, for Messrs Sevryuk and Levytsky read the degree of our famine from this unrest as from a thermometer.”

— Ottokar Czernin, Austro-Hungarian Foreign Minister, in the diary he kept at Brest · diary · source ↗

“People of Ukraine! By your strength, your will and your word a Free People's Republic has arisen on Ukrainian soil. The old dream of your fathers, fighters for the liberties and rights of working people, has come true. But the freedom of Ukraine has been reborn in a hard hour.”

— Ukraińska Centralna Rada, parliament of the Ukrainian People's Republic (chairman Mykhailo Hrushevsky); the Fourth Universal · proclamation · source ↗

“Thus ended our parliamentary struggle, which had lasted since John Stuart Mill moved a women’s suffrage amendment to the Reform Bill of 1867. […] People used to talk about our fifty years’ struggle as fifty years in the wilderness […]. But there was no call for commiseration. We had had a joyful and happy time, marked by victory in some phase or other of our movement all along.”

— Millicent Garrett Fawcett, president of the National Union of Women’s Suffrage Societies · memoir · source ↗

“This evening peace with Ukraine is to be signed. The first peace in this terrible war. But is the Rada really still sitting in Kiev?”

— Ottokar Czernin, Austro-Hungarian foreign minister, at Brest · diary · source ↗

“We refuse to sanction the terms which German and Austro-Hungarian imperialism is writing with the sword on the bodies of living nations. We cannot put the signature of the Russian revolution to terms which bring oppression, grief and misfortune to millions of human beings.”

— Lew Trocki, head of the Soviet delegation at Brest; the delegation's statement, read out by him · speech · source ↗

“The resignation of the Polish government is a protest against the violation of the rights of the Polish nation by the treaty of Brest-Litovsk, and in particular a protest against the humiliation inflicted on the Polish government, which was deprived of any possibility of defending Poland's interests when this treaty was concluded.”

— Jan Kucharzewski, prime minister of the Kingdom of Poland; “Reasons for the resignation of the Council of Ministers”, signed by the whole cabinet · letter · source ↗

“This population was not asked which state it wishes to belong to. Its fate was decided with one stroke of the pen: and so the principle of the self-determination of peoples, the right to decide for oneself, so often and so solemnly proclaimed by German and Austrian diplomats, has been violated with regard to Poland.”

— Rada Regencyjna Królestwa Polskiego, the regents Archbishop Aleksander Kakowski, Józef Ostrowski and Zdzisław Lubomirski; proclamation “To the Polish Nation” · proclamation · source ↗

“Wherever you are, whether here in the heart of Poland, in Bukovina and Galicia, or on the distant borderlands of the Commonwealth, remember that you all form for the Polish State the cadres of a future united and valiant Polish army.”

— Rada Regencyjna Królestwa Polskiego, the regents Archbishop Aleksander Kakowski, Józef Ostrowski and Zdzisław Lubomirski; appeal “To the Polish Army!” · proclamation · source ↗

“Our answer […] will be to draw two lessons from this: that in future the cause of nations must not be bound up with the interests of dynasties, and that on 9 February 1918 the star of the Habsburgs went out in the Polish firmament.”

— Ignacy Daszyński, deputy to the Austrian Reichsrat, in the Chamber of Deputies in Vienna · speech · source ↗

“Before the whole civilised world we lodge a solemn protest against this intended plunder of Polish land. Recognition of the sovereignty of the revived Polish state means that only the Polish state has the right to dispose of land belonging to Poland.”

— Jan Goetz-Okocimski, chairman of the Polish Club in the Austrian Reichsrat, statement in the Chamber of Deputies · speech · source ↗

“It is the most comical war I have ever known – it is waged almost entirely by rail and motor car. You put a handful of infantrymen with machine guns and one gun on the train and set off to the next station, take it, arrest the Bolsheviks, bring up more troops by rail and go on.”

— Max Hoffmann, chief of staff to the Commander-in-Chief East · diary · source ↗

“On the other hand, agonisingly shameful reports of regiments refusing to hold their positions, refusing to defend even the Narva line, failing to carry out the order to destroy everything during the retreat; not to mention the flight, chaos, ineptitude, helplessness and slovenliness.”

— Włodzimierz Lenin, chairman of the Council of People's Commissars; article “A Painful but Necessary Lesson” · proclamation · source ↗

“Our peace terms are so mild that they ought to be offered to defeated Romania as a magnanimous gift and not made a subject of negotiation at all. On no account should these negotiations take on the character of trading or haggling. If Romania refuses to make peace on the basis we offer, our answer can only be the resumption of hostilities.”

— István Tisza, former Prime Minister of Hungary, in a memorandum for the emperor handed to Czernin · letter · source ↗

“And therefore more shameful than any harsh and extremely harsh peace imposed by the lack of an army – more shameful than any shameful peace – is shameful despair. We shall not perish even from a dozen extremely harsh peace treaties if we take insurrection and war seriously.”

— Włodzimierz Lenin, chairman of the Council of People's Commissars; article “Strange and Monstrous” · proclamation · source ↗

“As you will have learned, the much advertised offensive crashed upon us last Thursday, since when we have been fighting a rearguard action, almost continuously. A retreat was the one possibility that had never occurred to us, and, unfortunately, it involves a kind of manœuvring in which we are unversed, in spite of all our experience.”

— Rowland Feilding, lieutenant-colonel commanding the 6th Battalion, Connaught Rangers, British Army · letter · source ↗

“It is not so cheerful when the convoys come in. Last night we had a convoy come in that seemed to be all D. I. cases, many were too badly off to be operated on. It still makes one sick at the stomach to read on a man's card: “Gun-shot wound, face, chest and right arm, amputation both legs.””

— Julia C. Stimson, American Army chief nurse in a British hospital at Rouen · letter · source ↗

“To pay him a courtesy I said respectfully: “You have given us trouble; you have held out for a long time!” He answered: “What holding out! We have been ‘running’ (run) for five days and five nights now.” It turned out that when he could no longer make the brigade he led stand, he had sat down at a machine gun himself to hold the retreating troops by his example.”

— Rudolf G. Binding, German dragoon officer on a divisional staff, quoting the captured British General Dawson · diary · source ↗

“A stir: Foch arrives, surrounded by officers, and in his cutting voice, drowning out everything: “You are not fighting. I would fight without stopping. I would fight in front of Amiens. I would fight in Amiens. I would fight behind Amiens. I would fight all the time.””

— Georges Clemenceau, Prime Minister of France, quoting General Ferdinand Foch · memoir · source ↗

“It rained day after day. The rough mountain tracks became almost impassable. The Walers ploughed through. Infantry struggled on up to their knees in mud, frequently fording wadis in spate three feet deep. Camels slithered and slid all over the place. […] The Cameliers dismounted and led their mounts all the night — a night they will long remember.”

— Oliver Hogue, Australian officer of the Imperial Camel Corps · memoir · source ↗

“On the way back we found the roads crowded with columns of refugees. We are back in the bad days of 1914. All the ground gained since then has been lost again, and more. Poor Nesle, poor Noyon, poor Ham! Brave people whom I had gone to greet on their return to the French family!…”

— Raymond Poincaré, President of the French Republic, on his way back from Doullens · memoir · source ↗

“On Saturday morning, the third day of the battle,—at about half-past seven—as I was sitting in the garden listening to the guns, I heard an explosion in the direction of Paris, and, while I was wondering what it could mean, the church bells all along the valley began to ring out an alerte. I had not heard a sound even resembling a moteur in the air.”

— Mildred Aldrich, American writer and journalist living in the countryside near Crécy-en-Brie · letter · source ↗

“We are now in the trenches again, and though I feel very sleepy, I just have a chance to answer your letter, so I will while I may. It's really my being lucky enough to bag an inch of candle that incites me to this pitch of punctual epistolary. I must measure my letter by the light.”

— Isaac Rosenberg, British soldier (King’s Own Royal Lancaster) and poet · letter · source ↗

“From a point nearby the cathedral of Amiens can be seen. The fighting was cruel. In the church at Rainecourt Englishmen and Germans still lie clenched together in death. The number of dead horses, still not cleared away, exceeds all imagining and lets one guess at the human sacrifice. If only we do not win ourselves to death!”

— Rudolf G. Binding, German dragoon officer on a divisional staff, in a captured British camp near Proyart · diary · source ↗

“I leave for Saint-Gervais. A dreadful sight. The vault of the great nave has partly collapsed. The stones fell in a mass on a large congregation of the faithful during a performance by the singers of Saint-Gervais. The dead and wounded number several dozen. Unfortunate beheaded people remained sitting on their chairs.”

— Raymond Poincaré, President of the French Republic · memoir · source ↗

“Our troops have had no luck. It is our division that had to fight the heavy battles for the heights north of Moreuil mentioned in the reports. We are making no progress here. The fresh divisions fare no better. The slippery ground is against us. For every step forward one slides two back; and the ground rises.”

— Rudolf G. Binding, German dragoon officer on the staff of a division fighting near Moreuil · diary · source ↗

“One last and final attempt to break through the Australian phalanx north of the Somme was made by the enemy on April 5th. The full weight of this blow fell chiefly upon the gallant Fourth Australian Division. The battle of Dernancourt will live long in the annals of military history as an example of dogged and successful defence.”

— John Monash, commander of the 3rd Australian Division, holding the front on the Somme and the Ancre · memoir · source ↗

“On 9 April, the anniversary of the great crisis at Arras, our assault troops rose from the mud-choked positions on the Lys front from Armentières to La Bassée. Not in broad waves of attack but mostly in small parties and the narrowest columns, they waded through a morass torn up by shells and mines, between deep, water-filled shell craters or along the few reasonably firm strips of ground, towards the enemy lines.”

— Paul von Hindenburg, Chief of the General Staff of the Field Army · memoir · source ↗

“Among them were two poor little girls of ten, from the hamlet there, one of whom, with both legs shattered and other wounds, soon breathed her last. How sorry I felt for those two children, […] one of them dead, while the other looked at her timidly, almost furtively, as if afraid that all the men around her might scold her for looking at her companion.”

— Alexandre Malheiro, lieutenant colonel, second-in-command of the Portuguese 6th Infantry Brigade · memoir · source ↗

“Many amongst us now are tired. To those I would say that Victory will belong to the side which holds out the longest. […] There is no other course open to us but to fight it out. Every position must be held to the last man: there must be no retirement. With our backs to the wall and believing in the justice of our cause each one of us must fight on to the end.”

— Douglas Haig, Field Marshal, Commander-in-Chief, British Armies in France · order · source ↗

“We come back by way of Sarcus, where General Foch has his headquarters. He is in very good form; he saw Clemenceau and Lord Milner today at Beauvais. He is pleased to be recognised as commander-in-chief of the Allied armies, but he would like an official investiture and a letter of command, and he is right. Haig has completely stepped aside before him.”

— Raymond Poincaré, President of the French Republic, after a visit to Foch’s headquarters at Sarcus · memoir · source ↗

“Barely three hundred yards distant, dead ahead of us, appeared a long low dark object which was immediately recognised as the Mole itself with the lighthouse at its extremity. […] It was truly a wonderful sight. The noise was terrific and the flashes of the Mole guns seemed to be within arm's length.”

— Alfred Carpenter, Captain RN, commanding the cruiser Vindictive · memoir · source ↗

“The 8th and 58th Divisions have been fighting more or less continuously since March 21, and the reinforcements which they have received are mainly composed of young boys, who were under fire for the first time. I fear that the heavy bombardment which the Germans put on before the attack must have shaken these children a good deal, hence the success of their second effort.”

— Henry Rawlinson, commander of the British Fourth Army · diary · source ↗

“We must storm the Kemmelberg. Like a block this hill has lain before our eyes for years. […] Successes such as that at Kemmel lift up not only the troops who achieved them, they put new life into whole armies. So onward, at least as far as Cassel!”

— Paul von Hindenburg, Chief of the General Staff of the Field Army · memoir · source ↗

“Clemenceau comes back at about four to tell me: “I don’t bring good news. The Germans claim on their radio that in taking Mont Kemmel they made 6,500 prisoners, most of them French. Is it Plumer’s fault or Mitry’s? I don’t know; in any case, it is bad.””

— Raymond Poincaré, President of the French Republic, recording the words of Prime Minister Georges Clemenceau · diary · source ↗

“As a faithful son of Ukraine I have decided to answer this call and to take upon myself, temporarily, the fullness of power. By this charter I proclaim myself Hetman of all Ukraine.”

— Pawło Skoropadski, Hetman of all Ukraine; “Charter to the whole Ukrainian people” · proclamation · source ↗

“Politically it is of interest that the Ukrainians have at last overthrown their government. They have proclaimed a general Hetman of Ukraine and dictator. Since the man takes his stand on the Brest-Litovsk peace and all the other agreements on deliveries of grain etc., that suits us well enough.”

— Max Hoffmann, chief of staff to the Commander-in-Chief East · diary · source ↗

“Overhead the stars vied with the lights on the graves. It was a wonderful picture, all those white crosses and the tiny lights beneath the trees in full blossom. When at last I got back to my bed, it was long before I could sleep, as I kept thinking of all those brave young fellows lying so peacefully beneath the ground, so blissfully unaware of our poor country’s torture.”

— Maria, królowa Rumunii, Queen of Romania, in her diary · diary · source ↗

“Bad news from the Aisne. We have lost the Chemin des Dames, the heights. The enemy has even managed to cross the river. Once again we have been taken by surprise. […] We had consistent indications, set out in today’s bulletins: information from prisoners and from escaped Frenchmen. We let ourselves be surprised all the same. […] A night of anguish and sleeplessness.”

— Raymond Poincaré, President of the French Republic · diary · source ↗

“So I said finally: “Don’t be discouraged yet. All these things will be arranged, and your children will have a better world to live in. Besides, the American boys are coming over as fast as they can get here. There are nearly a million here now, I should think.” He shook his head. “Too late,” he replied. “What are a million against the three millions the Huns have brought from Russia?””

— Mildred Aldrich, American writer living in the country near Meaux, on the Marne · letter · source ↗

“Meanwhile we passed a great many French officers and men, but all going from and none towards the front. All afternoon they passed, that motley array which we read characterizes the rear of a routed army. Along towards nightfall there came one unit with its faces turned towards and not from the enemy: a brigade of French cavalry, neat, natty, horses well kept and equipment well turned out, headed for the front.”

— James G. Harbord, general commanding the Marine brigade of the US 2nd Division · diary · source ↗

“The ground under the trees in the wood was covered with small bits of white paper. I could not account for their presence until I examined several of them and found that these were letters from American mothers and wives and sweethearts—letters—whole packages of them, which the tired, dog-weary Marines had been forced to remove from their packs and destroy in order to ease the straps that cut into aching grooves in their shoulders.”

— Floyd Gibbons, Chicago Tribune correspondent with the Marines · account · source ↗

““I went over,” he tells me, “the whole front where the offensive was expected, exactly the one on which it broke out last night. Everything was ready. […] Pershing came to see me this morning and asked me anxiously: ‘If things went badly, would France make peace?’ I answered him: ‘Rest easy. Neither the President of the Republic nor I will give way, and the country will follow us.’””

— Raymond Poincaré, President of the French Republic, recording the words of Prime Minister Georges Clemenceau · diary · source ↗

“It is the moment at which the resolution was adopted, and not its content, that gives it its true character. The Polish government agrees with the whole nation in its untiring striving to create an independent state endowed with the basic political, cultural and economic conditions of development, and in this it will not be thrown off balance by the Versailles resolution.”

— Rząd Królestwa Polskiego (gabinet Jana Kantego Steczkowskiego), communiqué of the Polish government in Warsaw · proclamation · source ↗

“The conduct of our troops and of the Allied troops in the battle is admirable. From the Stelvio to the sea everyone has understood that the enemy absolutely must not pass: each of our brave men defending the Grappa has felt that every inch of the historic mountain is sacred to the Fatherland.”

— Armando Diaz, Chief of Staff of the Italian Army, in the Comando Supremo bulletin · proclamation · source ↗

“During the fury of the enemy artillery and infantry in the long battle […] there was not a single man in the whole army to be stopped and led back. […] My sons! I can only say to you: well done! and give you this certificate of honour. But I point you all out to the admiration and love of the Fatherland!”

— Gaetano Giardino, commander of the Fourth Army (Army of the Grappa), in his order of the day “To my little soldiers of the Army of the Grappa” · order · source ↗

“For the brave soldiers here before me and for all Poland, you, flags, have the force of a symbol still more powerful and more sacred. You are the living fatherland; you are the past renewing itself in the present; you are the dawn after the night, freedom after servitude.”

— Raymond Poincaré, President of the French Republic · speech · source ↗

“A perfected modern battle plan is like nothing so much as a score for an orchestral composition, where the various arms and units are the instruments, and the tasks they perform are their respective musical phrases. Every individual unit must make its entry precisely at the proper moment, and play its phrase in the general harmony.”

— John Monash, Lieutenant-General commanding the Australian Corps · memoir · source ↗

“In the morning, around half past ten, three workmen came up to the open window, lifted a heavy grille and fixed it to the outside of the frame – without any warning from Yu[rovsky]. We like this type less and less! […] Alexei had his first bath since Tobolsk; his knee is getting better, but he cannot straighten it completely. The weather is warm and pleasant. We have no news at all from outside.”

— Mikołaj II, former Emperor of Russia, held with his family in the Ipatiev house in Yekaterinburg · diary · source ↗

“That is where the Frenchman deliberately lured us; he offered no resistance in front and had neither infantry nor artillery in this battle 'outpost zone' […]. Our guns shelled empty trenches, our gas shells gassed empty artillery positions; but in small spared hollows, sparsely scattered, the machine-gun nests sat like lice in the seams and folds of a tunic.”

— Rudolf G. Binding, cavalry captain on the staff of a German division, on 15 July liaison officer with the neighbouring division in Champagne · diary · source ↗

“On the morning of 18 July parts of the fighting troops not lying in the defensive positions go out to bring in the harvest in the cornfields. They are surprised when suddenly a violent hail of shells strikes the ground. […] Before anyone is fully clear about it, enemy tanks emerge in the tall corn.”

— Paul von Hindenburg, field marshal, Chief of the General Staff of the Field Army · memoir · source ↗

“The rain had stopped and the first faint pink of the early summer morning lighted the sky. Absolute silence hung over everything, broken only by the twittering of birds. Suddenly out of the stillness, without the warning of a preliminary shot, our artillery opened with a crash. […] I heard the men begin to call, "Let's go, let's go!"”

— Theodore Roosevelt Jr., battalion commander in the US 26th Infantry (1st Division) · memoir · source ↗

“We are calm and confident here. We are not throwing our hats in the air yet. The tension has been terrible, and it is a comfort to know that to-night there is not a German on the south bank of the Marne, and we hope they have crossed it for the last time.”

— Mildred Aldrich, American writer and journalist living in the countryside near Crécy-en-Brie · letter · source ↗

“Château-Thierry is badly damaged, above all by our own guns. The town is full of soldiers clearing away the rubble. […] General Degoutte is still very pleased with the Americans. Only two reservations: they do not take enough precautions and they get themselves killed too much. They are very eager, but tire more quickly than our troops.”

— Raymond Poincaré, President of the French Republic, in liberated Château-Thierry · memoir · source ↗

“Confused rumours begin to spread in our fighting lines. It is said that masses of English cavalry are already far behind the foremost German infantry. Men in front grow uneasy, leave the positions from which they have just beaten off strong frontal attacks, and look to the rear for the lost connection. Imagination conjures up phantoms and sees real dangers in them.”

— Paul von Hindenburg, field marshal, Chief of the General Staff of the Field Army · memoir · source ↗

“Already prisoners are coming back, in little knots, in squads, in whole detachments, sometimes under guard, oftener left to their own device […]. "You Canadians have no business down here," says one in excellent English. "We were told you were in Flanders; how I would like to hang our fools of Intelligence officers!"”

— J. F. B. Livesay, Canadian journalist accompanying the Canadian Corps · account · source ↗

“Canada has always placed the most implicit confidence in her Army. How nobly has that confidence been justified, and with what pride has the story of your gallant success been read in the homeland! This magnificent victory has been won because your training was good, your discipline was good, your leadership was good.”

— Arthur Currie, commander of the Canadian Corps · order · source ↗

“From this train of thought I believed I had to state to the leaders of the Reich on 13 August, at a political conference in Spa, that the military situation was indeed serious, but that it must not be forgotten that we still stood deep in enemy country. […] So in mid-August I did not yet consider that the time had come to doubt a satisfactory end to the war.”

— Paul von Hindenburg, field marshal, Chief of the General Staff of the Field Army · memoir · source ↗

“We have been at it, hammer and tongs, the last few days, but I got out last night for a breather, having been on my feet—which are very sore—almost continuously for four days and nights. Things have gone well, and there is no doubt but that we are killing a lot of Germans—considerably more than they are killing of us. […] I am with a splendid crowd. They are like little lions—these London men.”

— Rowland Feilding, lieutenant-colonel commanding the 1/15th London Regiment (Civil Service Rifles), 47th Division · letter · source ↗

“"And so you think you're going to take Mont St. Quentin with three battalions! What presumption! However, I don't think I ought to stop you! So, go ahead, and try!--and I wish you luck!"”

— John Monash, commander of the Australian Corps, quoting General Henry Rawlinson, commander of the Fourth Army · memoir · source ↗

“An hour passes, then another. I keep watch at the window impatiently for the familiar car to return. At last it comes racing, somehow especially fast. But what is this? The driver jumps out and opens the doors. That had never happened before. Some strangers lead Ilyich out of the car. He is without his coat and without his jacket, walking, leaning on the comrades.”

— Maria Uljanowa, Lenin's sister, who lived with him in the Kremlin · memoir · source ↗

“The mist lifts a little and dimly can be seen the "trained elephants," the life-saving tanks, making their way on the far slope among the wire and the machine-gun posts. Two have passed up and over the enemy defense and for a moment are silhouetted against the dawn moving heavily forward. Then their career comes to a sudden end.”

— J. F. B. Livesay, Canadian journalist accompanying the Canadian Corps · account · source ↗

“The silence of the night was suddenly rent by an excited Russian voice. A sailor rushed on deck exclaiming in accents of despair, “My wife! My wife! I’ve left my wife behind! Oh, save my wife!” an appeal that to the sentimental crew was far more urgent than any orders from the Captain of the ship.”

— Lionel Dunsterville, major-general commanding the British force at Baku (Dunsterforce) · memoir · source ↗

“We reach the main road and, our hearts tight with emotion, we drive quickly down into Saint-Mihiel and stop the cars at the first houses. Two old men are talking with the soldiers. They recognise us; they rush towards us and throw their arms round my neck. At once we hear the sentence these poor people will all repeat to me until we leave: “We have suffered greatly; but it is over; we are saved, we forget everything.””

— Raymond Poincaré, President of the French Republic · diary · source ↗

“We did, and passed a most exhilarating hour — like listening to election returns when things are going one's way. […] In the midst of all this someone announced that thousands of prisoners were coming in. The General looked skeptical, remarking that prisoners always dwindled in number or else about half of them got away. Still, we went out and stood on the slippery duckboards commanding a view along the valley where masses of Boches were being herded down the road.”

— Harvey Cushing, Senior Consultant in Neurological Surgery, American Expeditionary Forces; on 12 September at the command post of General Clarence Edwards's 26th Division · diary · source ↗

“The three shining aeroplanes had much restored the Arabs, who lauded the British, and their own bravery and endurance, while I told them the scarce-credible epic of Allenby’s success:—Nablus taken, Afuleh taken, Beisan and Semakh and Haifa. My hearers’ minds drew after me like flames. Tallal took fire, boasting; while the Rualla shouted for instant march upon Damascus.”

— Thomas Edward Lawrence, British liaison officer with Emir Feisal's Arab army, flown back from Allenby's headquarters to the Arab camp at Um el Surab · memoir · source ↗

“We over here, who have been living on the map for four years, have had that sharp point in the front piercing our hearts as well as our eyes all these long months. To the north and east the line had wavered, but St. Mihiel held, and so long as it did no Allied offensive was possible between the Argonne and Lorraine.”

— Mildred Aldrich, American writer and journalist living in the countryside near Crécy-en-Brie · letter · source ↗

“The initial artillery preparation — very violent — began about 2 a.m. and continued till six. A cold, misty-clear morning. […] the Argonne ridge standing up beyond, the haze of the morning's barrage slipping away, the sky full of planes, the row of balloons to the north, the fields, where not being ploughed, simply alive with American soldiers who had emerged from the woods; all need for concealment over, they were being drilled in squads, eager to get forward.”

— Harvey Cushing, Senior Consultant in Neurological Surgery, American Expeditionary Forces · diary · source ↗

“While I was trying to see what the trouble was, a young officer, called Cope, of the 8th Battalion came up to me. […] I said, “How old are you, Cope?” He replied, “I am twenty.” I said, “What a glorious thing it is to be out here at twenty.” “Yes,” he said, looking towards the valley, “it is a glorious thing to be out here at twenty, but I should like to know what is holding them up.” He had hardly spoken when there was a sharp crack of a machine-gun bullet and he dropped at my side.”

— Frederick George Scott, Canon, Senior Chaplain of the 1st Canadian Division · memoir · source ↗

“Our names were linked with the greatest victories of the World War. Now we were agreed that it was our duty to lend our names to this step, which we had done everything conceivable to avoid.”

— Erich Ludendorff, First Quartermaster General of the German Army · memoir · source ↗

“Two telegrams then came in which caused me serious anxiety. […] These were only the first symptoms of a miscarriage of the plans. Evidences rapidly multiplied that all was not going well. But, concurrently, there came a stream of messages from the air that our troops and some of our Tanks were east of both Bellicourt and Le Catelet. The situation was therefore confused and uncertain, and it had to be diagnosed without delay.”

— John Monash, Lieutenant-General commanding the Australian Corps · memoir · source ↗

“This little episode presented an extraordinary spectacle, a British force guarding the enemy with whom it had been fighting for years, from the depredations of one of Britain’s Allies. Next day the New Zealand Brigade arrived to relieve the 2nd L.H. and found the Turkish trenches manned by Light Horsemen and Turks with their guns jointly trained upon the Arabs.”

— Charles Guy Powles, lieutenant-colonel, New Zealand Staff Corps, officer of the New Zealand Mounted Rifles Brigade · memoir · source ↗

“Quite quietly we drove up the long street to the Government buildings, on the bank of the Barada. The way was packed with people, lined solid on the side-walks, in the road, at the windows and on the balconies or house-tops. Many were crying, a few cheered faintly, some bolder ones cried our names: but mostly they looked and looked, joy shining in their eyes. A movement like a long sigh from gate to heart of the city, marked our course.”

— Thomas Edward Lawrence, British liaison officer with Emir Feisal's Arab army · memoir · source ↗

“Poles! Our fate now rests to a great extent in our own hands. Let us show ourselves worthy of the mighty hopes that our fathers nourished for more than a century amid oppression and misery.”

— Rada Regencyjna Królestwa Polskiego, the regents Aleksander Kakowski, Józef Ostrowski and Zdzisław Lubomirski, address “To the Polish Nation” · proclamation · source ↗

“The Battalion had a sheer time last week. I can find no better epithet; because I cannot say I suffered anything, having let my brain grow dull. That is to say, my nerves are in perfect order. It is a strange truth: that your Counter-Attack frightened me much more than the real one: though the boy by my side, shot through the head, lay on top of me, soaking my shoulder, for half an hour.”

— Wilfred Owen, second lieutenant commanding D Company, 2nd Battalion, Manchester Regiment; letter to Siegfried Sassoon · letter · source ↗

“At Bohain especially, the welcome given me is beyond imagining. From every house come old men, women and children rushing to meet me. […] At one moment a column of German prisoners, just captured in a nearby wood, passes under the guard of English soldiers, and the inhabitants, seeing beaten and captive those who inflicted four years of torment on them, raise again and again the cry of “Vive la France!””

— Raymond Poincaré, President of the French Republic · diary · source ↗

“As we reached the suburbs our band struck up the “Marseillaise.” It was happy inspiration, and I shall never forget the scene which it provoked. The people came running from their houses—old and young, men, women, and children—carrying lamps and candles. They followed the battalion, clapping and cheering. It was the first time for over four years that they had heard troops marching to that tune.”

— Rowland Feilding, lieutenant-colonel commanding the 1/15th London Regiment (Civil Service Rifles), 47th Division · letter · source ↗

“I hope the armistice comes soon; we are waiting for it here hour by hour. For this is no longer an honest war and fight. And if the gentlemen at home who still want to go on making war knew what it looks like out here and how things go, what state our soldiers are in, they would not manufacture such phrases. I only wish such people a few days out here with us.”

— Otto Brian, theology student from Heidelberg, German soldier on the Western Front; killed in early November near Villers by Dun on the Meuse · letter · source ↗

“And while in the streets of Prague the Austrian imperial eagles were being taken down from the fronts of state buildings and thrown into the Vltava, German signs vanished, the people rejoiced at the end of the barbarous war and the rebirth of the independent Czechoslovak state, singing and joyful cries of “Nazdar” rang out everywhere, everything was drowning in rapture and roaring with enthusiasm – the troops were gathering on Žofín. Within an hour the island was packed.”

— Jaroslav Rošický, captain, instructor at the Prague cadet school, member of the clandestine military committee · memoir · source ↗

“As these lines are being written, the delegates of Ahmed İzzet Pasha's government are perhaps signing, on the island of Chios, an agreement with the English on the cessation of hostilities. As this armistice is being settled over the still unchilled and still bleeding blessed bodies of more than a million Ottoman heroes who gave their lives in the name of the “fatherland”, the eternal and tragic whims of history come to our mind.”

— Süleyman Nazif, poet and journalist, writing in the Istanbul daily Hadisat · account · source ↗

“Did I tell you that five healthy girls died of fright in one night at the last village? […] Shells made by women in Birmingham are at this moment burying little children alive not very far from here. It is rumoured that Austria has really surrendered. The new soldiers cheer when they hear these rumours, but the old ones bite their pipes, and go on cleaning their rifles, unbelieving.”

— Wilfred Owen, second lieutenant commanding D Company, 2nd Battalion, Manchester Regiment · letter · source ↗

“The Slovak nation is a part of the Czecho-Slovak nation, united in language and in its cultural history. The Slovak branch also took part in all the cultural struggles which the Czech nation waged and which made it known throughout the world. For this Czecho-Slovak nation we, too, demand the unlimited right of self-determination on the basis of complete independence.”

— Słowacka Rada Narodowa (Matúš Dula, Karol A. Medvecký), declaration adopted at Turčiansky Svätý Martin, signed by the Council's chairman Matúš Dula and secretary Karol A. Medvecký · proclamation · source ↗

“And now, are you tired, my little soldiers? It doesn't matter. There is no time. Nothing can stop the flight that the Eagle of the Grappa has taken from its fateful summit! Forward still, my soldiers! Forward beyond the old iniquitous border! Forward towards the just borders of the Fatherland! Forward always, until the enemy of the Fatherland is dead!”

— Gaetano Giardino, general commanding the Fourth Army (the “Army of the Grappa”) · order · source ↗

“When I was walking to church on the morning of All Saints’ Day it was quiet and gloomy, as if everyone were asleep. […] Soldiers were pouring out of their quarters and running past me, shouting joyfully: “Home, home!” In their quarters they left rifles, ammunition and knapsacks lying about anyhow, took only their own belongings and hurried towards the railway station.”

— Jan Słomka, former village head (wójt) of Dzików near Tarnobrzeg · memoir · source ↗

“On the square in front of the station, as in the hall, it was swarming with armed sailors. […] Standing upright, a man waved a red flag and kept shouting in an already hoarse voice: “Long live freedom!” […] One did not, however, get the impression that a great revolution had begun. Men and women laughed when my flag-waving companion sounded his cry of freedom.”

— Gustav Noske, Social Democratic member of the Reichstag, sent by the government to Kiel · memoir · source ↗

“The Hill of Execution was taken on its own initiative by Lieutenant Adam Świeżawski’s detachment, fighting an enemy three times as strong. […] A detachment of young men armed with revolvers broke through the enemy lines. […] The post office, desperately defended by the enemy, we took by storm with the help of 3 machine guns and hand grenades thrown from the windows.”

— Naczelna Komenda Wojsk Polskich we Lwowie, Polish command of the defence of Lwów (commander Captain Czesław Mączyński), communiqué no. IV of 5 November, printed in the Kurjer Lwowski · account · source ↗

““What happened was that our men laid down their arms and only then did the Italians really start shooting. With heavy guns they mowed down whole regiments and surrounded whole divisions. They report 300,000 prisoners and about a thousand guns. Everything is lost.” […] “More men died in this laying down of arms than in the bloodiest battle,” one of the officers muttered to himself.”

— Cécile Tormay, writer, on Red Cross duty in the evening at the Eastern Railway Station in Budapest, recording wounded Honvéd soldiers back from the Italian front · diary · source ↗

“Polish People! The hour of your deed has struck. Take the great work of freeing your land, soaked with the sweat and blood of your fathers and forefathers, into your toil-worn, strong hands, and hand on to the generations to come a great, free and united Fatherland.”

— Tymczasowy Rząd Ludowy Republiki Polskiej, Ignacy Daszyński’s government in Lublin, manifesto “To the Polish People” · proclamation · source ↗

“I fought a terrible inner battle. On the one hand, everything in me as a soldier rebelled against leaving my brave troops who had stayed loyal. On the other hand stood both the enemies' declaration that they would not make a peace bearable for Germany with me, and my own government's assertion that only my going abroad could avert civil war.”

— Wilhelm II, German Emperor and King of Prussia · memoir · source ↗

“The day of the Commandant’s arrival marks the beginning of a new epoch of our history. […] The times of our hard underground work are over. […] Until that happens you must not leave the posts you hold today. You will await the instructions and orders that you will receive very shortly.”

— Komenda Naczelna Polskiej Organizacji Wojskowej, command of the Polish Military Organisation (POW), notice posted in Warsaw on the day of Piłsudski’s arrival · proclamation · source ↗

“We pass on to our forward positions. It is an extraordinary experience. The front line is as silent as the grave. Our outposts stand chatting, boldly silhouetted against the skyline. No longer death screams overhead nor speeds its whistling shaft. Our guns are shrouded in their tarpaulins, stricken dumb, and the attendant crews move about mechanically or sit and smoke their pipes, unheedful of their target. It all seems unnatural, so entirely has war become second nature.”

— J. F. B. Livesay, Canadian journalist accompanying the Canadian Corps · account · source ↗

“Thus at eleven o'clock this morning came to an end the cruellest and most terrible War that has ever scourged mankind. I hope we may say that thus, this fateful morning, came to an end all wars. This is no time for words. Our hearts are too full of a gratitude to which no tongue can give adequate expression.”

— David Lloyd George, Prime Minister of the United Kingdom, in the House of Commons · speech · source ↗

“In the joyful hour of the Fatherland’s Resurrection, when the young are joining the army and the men are taking the government into their hands, assuming responsibility for internal order and security, we, Polish women, cannot stand idly by and watch these great events. We want to, and we must, enlist together under the banner of national service, to prove by organised, practical, well-planned work that not only in feeling but in deed we are growing up to the idea of True Freedom.”

— Komitet Organizacyjny Służby Narodowej Kobiet Polskich w Płocku, committee of women activists in Płock, appeal adopted at a meeting on 13 November and printed in the weekly Bluszcz · proclamation · source ↗

“This authority ought to be one. Therefore, guided by the good of the Fatherland, we resolve to dissolve the Regency Council, and from this moment we lay our duties and our responsibility towards the Polish nation in your hands, Commander-in-Chief, to be handed on to the National Government.”

— Rada Regencyjna Królestwa Polskiego, the regents Aleksander Kakowski, Zdzisław Lubomirski and Józef Ostrowski, letter to the Commander-in-Chief Józef Piłsudski · proclamation · source ↗

“Out of the fog came Marin, the town crier, with his drum on his back and a cocarde in his cap. […] It did not take two minutes for all our little hamlet to gather about him, while in a loud, clear voice he read solemnly the ordre de jour which officially announced that the war had ended at eleven o'clock […]. There was not a cheer.”

— Mildred Aldrich, American writer living in the village of Huiry on the Marne · letter · source ↗

“The English commander, a still very young officer of an amiable nature, read out to me at my request the latest Reuter dispatches, from which the complete collapse of Germany […] emerged. I cannot describe the impressions with which I listened to this news in silence among English officers.”

— Heinrich Schnee, Governor of German East Africa, with Lettow-Vorbeck's column on the march from Kasama to Abercorn · memoir · source ↗

“As early as 6 in the morning the first patrols of our victorious troops appeared in the part of the city held until now by the Ukrainians, with a loud, triumphant song on their lips: “Poland has not yet perished!” […] Honour and glory above all to the youngest, to those fearless Polish children who — to the shame of many older and better-qualified men — were the first to go to the barricades, to occupy posts still empty, to pave with their own bodies the road to victory for others!”

— „Kurjer Lwowski”, Lwów daily, unsigned leading article “Lwów is free!” in the evening edition (editor-in-chief Bolesław Wysłouch) · account · source ↗

“The National Assembly of the Romanians of Transylvania, the Banat and the Hungarian lands, in the glorious fortress of Michael the Brave, has declared, in a surge of boundless enthusiasm, the UNION of its territories with the Kingdom of Romania. Announcing to You this decision, which crowns the age-old aspirations of the Romanian nation, we ask Your Majesty to receive the homage which we come to express with profound submission.”

— Wielkie Zgromadzenie Narodowe w Alba Iulia, the Assembly's telegram to King Ferdinand I of Romania · proclamation · source ↗

“The task of those who are gathered here, or will presently be gathered here, to make the settlements of this peace is greatly simplified by the fact that they are masters of no one; they are the servants of mankind, and if we do not heed the mandates of mankind we shall make ourselves the most conspicuous and deserved failures in the history of the world.”

— Woodrow Wilson, President of the United States, at the University of Paris · speech · source ↗

“At last, by way of Piła and Oborniki, Mr and Mrs Paderewski arrive with the Englishmen, half an hour late. An enormous crowd!! Long live!! Enthusiasm beyond description!! At the station all the lights go out, but a thousand torches flare up instead. […] Soldiers carried the Englishmen into the hall on their shoulders; it struck them as strange that they were welcomed so enthusiastically by men in “German” uniforms!”

— Karol Rzepecki, Poznań bookseller and publisher, organiser of the People’s Guard (Straż Ludowa) · memoir · source ↗

“In the Bazar, meanwhile… chaos! In the hall downstairs, tables laid for 120 people… empty! Servants, women terrified; the wounded are being carried in; doctors dress wounds in a side room; every moment we let through people fleeing from the square across the hall and the courtyard into Kozia Street — some 300 people in all filed “in single file” between the tables.”

— Karol Rzepecki, Poznań bookseller and publisher, organiser of the People’s Guard (Straż Ludowa) · memoir · source ↗