Military Collapse & Armistice | Scapaflow 1919 - The Big Scuttle
33073
page,page-id-33073,page-child,parent-pageid-33030,page-template-default,ajax_fade,page_not_loaded,,qode-child-theme-ver-1.0.0,qode-theme-ver-17.0,qode-theme-bridge,qode_header_in_grid,wpb-js-composer js-comp-ver-4.11.2.1,vc_responsive
 

Military Collapse & Armistice

On 11 November 1918, at eleven o’clock in the morning, the last shots on the Western Front were fired.

IMG_4453

For all, relief at the war’s end. For the Allies jubilation; for Germany despair and demoralisation. Especially for Germany’s Navy. Although undefeated in battle, it was a fleet in the throes of mutiny and dissent brought on by poor conditions for the men and the Fleet Command’s plan to use the Fleet’s still capable threat, for a last battle, days from the war’s end. Conditions aboard the Kaiser’s ships had been so bad that already in the summer of 1917 there had been open unrest.

Compiegne_armistice

In a train carriage at Compiègne, Germany’s political and military representatives were forced into accepting terms for a ceasefire. On another train, the ex-Kaiser and his family went into exile. 52 other wagons were attached  – with all the Hohenzollern treasures that he could take with him.

Kaiser Wilhelm_Abdication

Key to armistice process was the decision to intern the High Seas Fleet as a guarantor of Germany’s good faith while the peace negotiations were carried out in Paris, at Versailles, in the Hall of Mirrors where, almost a half century before, the new German Reich had been proclaimed.