A godsent Christmas box for the world
It was at 11 o'clock on the morning of Monday 11th November 1918 that that day finally came. Soldiers, from both sides, had hung on by clinging to the promise of that day. It meant the chance to embrace their families and friends once more after years apart. It meant the chance to be clean and dry, rather than knee deep in mud and infested with lice. It meant the chance to return to a place where the air was filled with things other than bullets and shells, the smells of life rather than death. It meant the chance to return to a place where loved ones were no longer just memories.
When that day finally came, when after more than four years of fighting the guns went silent, people around the world rejoiced. For Australians soldiers on the Western Front, excitement and jubilation took hold. For many, such feelings were tempered by thoughts of mates who should have been there to celebrate it, but had never made it. Many recorded the news in their diaries or letters home, and below are excerpts from some of them.
Above: A postcard of French and English representatives beside a train carriage after the German representatives signed the Armistice documents which signalled the end of the First World War, 11 November 1918.
Keith Shadforth Sheen Dowling, a gunner with the 107th (Australian) Howitzer Battery, had taken part in the fierce fighting during the months prior to the Armistice. He was in the middle of writing a letter home when he was interrupted with the news:
By JOVE!!! Crikey!!! What shall I say? We’ve just had a breathless bombardier of the guard rush into the dugout, fall over the bed at the end and shout out some glorious news – can’t repeat it, as it’s strictly against orders to mention the subject (or I could have filled a book with the last two weeks’ entertaining furfies!) but you just note the date! Only hope this is dinkum, as he swears it is! What a godsent Xmas box for the world!
Lieutenant Ronald Alison McInnis was a Gallipoli veteran who had fought at Passchendaele in 1917 and St. Quentin Canal just over a month before. Earlier in the war he had narrowly missed being crushed to death by a collapsing trench. Just shy of his 29th birthday, he celebrated the news:
The official message bearing the news of the signing of the armistice came through about noon. We celebrated it in our mess tonight, and Madam brought out two bottles of very old and special champagne, in order, so she said, that we might do it properly.
He wrote the next day:
We are only just beginning to realise what yesterday’s signing means…Demobilisation is to proceed, and we are to be returned to Australia practically in the order in which we came away. We hardly dare to think of it. It all seems to be some fantastic dream as yet.
Driver John Henry Lewellyn Turnbull had landed at Gallipoli on 25 April 1915. After serving at Gallipoli he joined an ammunition column and drove donkeys and their carts packed with artillery shells through the incessant cold and mud of the Western Front. He remarks on how he found out:
We were pulled off the road for our midday meal. We had just finished putting our mules noses in nose bags and were about to feed and water ourselves on bully (2 men to a tin) and biscuits. The big hard square ones you make photo frames out of when we saw a motor car coming along flying a Staff General’s Flag over the bonnet. One of our men had the nerve to stand in the middle of the road and hold up his hand and cry ‘Halt’. He had a tin of bully in one hand and a slab of concrete biscuit in the other. The chauffeur had to halt or run over him. He halted. This bird of ours inquired of a General, who was becoming blue or purple in the face, if the “b------ armistice was signed yet.” The General recovered his wind and inquired of our bird, who he was. He replied he was a God-darned Yank Australian. We thought we were going back to the Yanks. The General completely recovered from his shock and replied "I might have known you are an Australian. The Armistice was signed at 11 o’clock this morning." Our mate saluted and turned to the driver and ordered him to ‘Carry on’. The General was in a good humour again. He would have a good tale to tell at the Officer’s Mess that night.
Corporal Wilfred Denver Gallwey had fought at Bullecourt in 1917 and was serving as a signals instructor in England at the time. He wrote:
London has gone mad and I am intoxicated with joy. My leave is up long ago but I cannot leave London yet. It is all a blaze of light. Women have never been so free. I have been mobbed and kissed and hugged to death. The happiest days I have had for years.
Celebrations were not confined those serving on land. Leading Signalman John William Seabrook, who had served on HMAS Sydney since the beginning of the war, including during its encounter with the German cruiser Emden in November 1914, remarked:
We took in 120 tons of coal with a jolly good heave as the Armistice was signed by the Germans. Admiral Beatty sent a signal to the Grand Fleet to ‘splice the mainbrace’. A tot of rum was served out to the ship’s company, the first time since the ship was commissioned. Fireworks display and all kinds of whistles, in fact anything that a sound could be got out of was under way.
For some, the occasion required few words. Captain Percy Lay, having served for four years and been awarded the Military Medal, the Military Cross, the Distinguished Conduct Medal and the French Croix de Guerre, simply remarked:
Heard that the armistice had been signed and things began to liven up. Large night. Nuff said.
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The above excerpts are from diaries and letters digitised as part of the Anzac Connections digitisation project. To view the digitised collections of more than 200 other soldiers and nurses click here.
Crowd fill the city streets on Armistice Day in Melbourne, 11 November 1918.