One hundred years ago, on Nov. 11, 1918, the guns had fallen silent in the Great War, ending what was then the bloodiest conflict in human history.
For more than four years, continental Europe was torn apart by war between the great powers. The Russian Empire withdrew in March 1917, allowing millions of German and Austro-Hungarian soldiers to head to the stalemated Western Front. The United States joined the war on the side of the allies in April 1917, helping to hasten the end and prompt Germany to ask for an armistice.
At the end of the war, the German Empire, Austro- Hungarian Empire and Ottoman Empire ceased to exist. The Russian Empire endured a bloody revolution that eventually ended as the Bolsheviks transformed Russia into the Soviet Union.
The Ottoman Empire, which had existed since 1299 as a religiously and ethnically-diverse state, disintegrated into eight independent states and other territories occupied by the Allied Powers around the Middle East and the Levant.
The ethnically heterogeneous Austro-Hungarian Empire first fragmented into seven countries based on nationality, which continued to break apart into more than 12 countries by the end of World War II.
Germany lost its overseas possessions as it faced a revolution that led to the abdication of Kaiser Wilhelm II and the abolition of 22 constituent monarchies. The weak Weimar Republic was unable to withstand the political and economic collapse of the country, setting the stage for the militant nationalist parties on the far right and far left, eventually leading the ascension of the fascist Nazi Party in the 1930s.
U.S. President Woodrow Wilson had envisioned a League of Nations to peacefully resolve conflicts before they led to open warfare. But due to lack of international support, the League would fail to prevent the next great war in 1939, far more devastating in scale and human suffering than the fighting between 1914 and 1918.
Yet the future was still unwritten in the days after Nov. 11, 1918. The world merely breathed a sigh of relief that the fighting had ended.
Exactly a year later, Wilson called on Americans to honor the veterans who had served on Armistice Day, writing, “To us in America the reflections of Armistice Day will be filled with solemn pride in the heroism of those who died in the country’s service, and with gratitude for the victory, both because of the thing from which it has freed us and because of the opportunity it has given America to show her sympathy with peace and justice in the councils of nations.”
After World War II ended in 1945, a veteran of that war, Raymond Weeks, led an effort in Birmingham, Ala., to celebrate all veterans on Armistice Day, not just those from World War I. In 1954, President Dwight Eisenhower, who served as supreme commander of the Allied Expeditionary Forces in Europe, signed a bill changing Armistice Day into Veterans Day, which we still honor on Nov. 11 or observe on the following Monday, should Nov. 11 fall on a weekend, as it did this year.
Veterans Day lets us honor our men and women in uniform who have served our nation, both those who returned home and those who gave the last full measure of devotion for our democracy.
It is an odd coincidence that Election Day, which can divide our nation so passionately down political lines, is followed only a few days later by Veterans Day, which demonstrates our unity as a diverse nation of native-born and immigrant citizens who shed their religious, ethnic, provincial and socioeconomic differences to wear a uniform and fight alongside strangers — not for power or territory, but for the ideals of our nation. They do not swear allegiance to any man or woman in power, nor to any political office, but to “support and defend the Constitution of the United States against all enemies, foreign and domestic.”
Whether fighting in the trenches in France, on the beaches of Normandy, on islands in the Pacific, in villages of Korea, jungles of Vietnam, the deserts of Iraq or the hills of Afghanistan, or serving at airfields, bases, missile silos or aboard submarines or surface ships around the world, American troops have fought to defend the values we hold most dear.
For this tireless service, we thank our veterans.
Christopher Fox Graham
Managing Editor
