Eleventh Month, Eleventh Day, Eleventh Hour

by Joseph Persico (Author)

• Used

  Hardcover
  2004

  $3.25

  This is the story of the day on which World War I, the war to end all wars, ended. Using military archives and public records, along with journals and diaries, the book will weave together the eleventh hour experiences of the famous, such as Lloyd George, President Woodrow Wilson, Field Marshall Haig and General Pershing. But more dominantly, it will deal with the ordinary men in the trenches, unsung and unremembered, the British Tommies, French Poilus, American Doughboys and German Feldgrau. Where, for example, was the Austrian corporal, Adolf Hitler, on that day? Four days before the War's end, with peace talks already underway, the beaten Germans propose an interim ceasefire to spare lives. However, the French Allied Commander, General Ferdinand Foch, refuses. Hostilities will not cease, Foch insists, before the appointed hour of the Armistice. Thus, even on the last day, the Allies are still launching full scale offenses and both sides bombard each other until the final minute of the agreed ceasefire, 11am, November 11, 1918. The last hours pulsate with tension as men in the trenches, airmen in the sky and sailors at sea hope to escape the melancholy distinction of being the last to die in the War.

• Used

  Paperback
  2005

  $3.25

  The futility of war - and the Great War in particular - has often been remarked upon, but it was carried to its logical, nonsensical conclusion on 11 November 1918. The prospect of peace appears to have left many with an unendurable sense of unfinished business, causing them to mount attacks even when war's end had been agreed. Almost 3,000 lost their lives in the last few hours before the Armistice: here their tragic story is poignantly told. - The Scotsman. Using military archives and public records, along with journals and diaries, Joseph Persico weaves together the eleventh hour experiences of the men in the trenches, unsung and unremembered, the British Tommies, French Poilus, American Doughboys and German Feldgrau. Where, for example, was the Austrian corporal, Adolf Hitler, on that day? The pointless fighting on the last day of war is the perfect metaphor for the four years of senseless slaughter that preceded it. This book is sure to become the definitive history of the end of a conflict Winston Churchill called 'the hardest, cruellest, and least-rewarded of all the wars that have been fought.'