Daily Mail dated November 12th 1918
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As seen before on this blog broadsheets of this period
devoted their front page to adverts, so the only indication that this paper is
reporting on a momentous day in 20th Century history is the small
block in the top right hand corner.
I
see Christmas used to start in November
– Whiteley’s Grand Xmas Bazaar. Now, of course, it’s closer to August.
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After four and a half years of the bloodiest and most costly
war in history it must have been an enormous relief to open this paper and read
the words ‘Germany surrenders’.
The Armistice Terms were regarded as harsh by the Germans
and in them were the seeds of the discontent that led to the rise of
Nationalism and finally World War II.
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November 11th 1918 was not the actual end of the
Great War; merely a cease-fire that could have been broken by either side at
any time in the 7 months before the signing of the Treaty of Versailles in June
1919 which marked the true end of the War.
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George V had changed the name of the British royal family
from Saxe-Coburg-Gotha to Windsor as late as 1917 to distance himself from his
cousin the Kaiser Wilhelm (they were both Grand-sons of Queen Victoria).
These messages were to the survivors – 5 and half million
Allied troops didn’t live to read them.
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The men who helped to win the War – familiar names like
Lloyd George, Clemanceau, Wilson, Haig, Allenby, Foch, Pershing, Beatty and
Petain along side those that are less familiar after all these years – Plumer,
Rawlinson, Byng, Monash, Keyes, Geddes, Hughes, Joffre and Tyrwbitt.
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The Kaiser was allowed to stay in Holland, which
had been neutral throughout the War, and died there in 1941.
The political chaos in Germany at the end of the War was too
complex for me to even think about summarising, suffice to say Kaiser Wilhelm
II was forced to abdicate on the 9th November 1918 and a Republic
was declared but the Left wing Parties couldn’t agree among themselves any more
than the right-wing anti-Republicans, and a virtual civil-war continued until
the adoption of the Weimar Constitution in August 1919.
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This idea for a permanent memorial to the War dead became
the Cenotaph in London’s Whitehall, designed by the architect Edwin Lutyens.
The original structure was a temporary one made of wood and plaster, which was
replaced in time for the Victory Day parades of July 1919 by the Portland stone
cenotaph that has been the focus of Remembrance Day every November 11th
ever since.
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Victory Day as it became known was held on 19th
July 1919 just after the official end of World War 1 with the signing of the
Treaty of Versailles on 28th June 1919. See this post.
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What possible objection could there be to vehicle lights if
the streetlights are to be switched on? I would have thought that most people,
particularly those who’d been fighting on the front line, had had enough of
fireworks for the last few years.
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Time to tot up the scores.
I can see that warships, transport ships, ammunition and supply ships
were ‘legitimate’ targets, but I wonder what stories lay behind the figures for
steamships and sailing ships?
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The National Birth Rate Commission was formed in 1913 to
look into the falling birth rate in the years since the turn of the Century and
its effect on the population figures. The massive loss of life during the Great
War made their concerns even more acute so a 1918-1920 investigation was set up
under the Presidency of the Bishop of Birmingham and a group that included such
note worthies as Sir Rider Haggard, General Booth’s widow, Dr. Marie Stopes and
the Duchess of Marlborough. Sir Arthur Conan Doyle was one of 46 witnesses that
made statements to the commission about various social, moral and economical
aspects of having or not having children.
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One way to celebrate a great victory, steal the
Secretary for War’s car. He won’t be needing it anymore!
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Nothing like a couple of aristocrats slogging it out in the
divorce courts to take one’s mind off one’s troubles.
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Maskelyne Theatre of Mystery (near Oxford
Circus) caught my eye. Is the mystery in how to find the Theatre? Actually it
was in Langham Place. John Nevil Maskelyne was a magician, escapologist,
inventor, and paranormal investigator. He invented the penny-in-the-slot public
toilet lock!
