Telegram heralding war’s end saved for 100 years
MADISON- It looks hurriedly scribbled.
Using a pencil on a small piece of paper, the commanding officer of the Wisconsin National Guard’s 1st Battalion, 127th Infantry wrote two sentences that changed the lives of his men.
Hold where you are. Armistice goes into effect at 11:00 a.m.
The field telegram was sent by runner to the commanders of companies A, B, C and D at 7:25 a.m. Nov. 11, 1918. Sure enough, on the 11th hour of the 11th day of the 11th month, the bloody conflict that came to be known as the Great War did indeed end. By then, millions of people had died on battlefields and from disease, including almost 4,000 from Wisconsin. More than 122,000 Wisconsinites served in uniform during World War I.
Among the thousands of pieces of paper in the archives of the Wisconsin Veterans Museum, the armistice telegram stands out.
“This stopped the war for the men of companies A, B, C and D,” said Kevin Hampton, curator of history at the museum. “Had that runner not found them or been killed ...”
Hampton added: “This is the first time a war ends so promptly. We think the Civil War ended when (Gen. Robert E.) Lee signed the surrender, but it didn’t; it went on for six more months.”
Soldiers of the 1st Battalion, 127th Infantry Regiment had been ordered to attack German front lines on what turned out to be the last morning of fighting. There had been rumors the war was possibly ending, but they were just that — rumors. So when the runner finally reached the Wisconsin National Guard companies, the firing soon stopped and soldiers heard an odd sound.
“One man said the silence was as eerie as a haunted house,” said Hampton.
The armistice telegram was saved by John F. Mullen, who enlisted as a private in Company B in May 1917. Within a year, Mullen had risen through the ranks and by the time the war ended he was sergeant major of the 127th.
Mullen stayed in the Wisconsin National Guard, earning a commission as a 1st lieutenant in 1925 and becoming adjutant general in 1946 before retiring as a major general after 33 years in the military. The Milton Junction native donated the telegram to the National Guard Museum at Volk Field, and it was was later transferred to the Wisconsin Veterans Museum.
While museum staff members often get calls and emails from families inquiring if the facility wants their father’s or grandfather’s dress uniforms or medals, Hampton said the museum is more interested in items that reflect stories of men and women who served.
One time a Vietnam veteran donated a combat uniform coat and when Hampton noticed orange threads on the front, the veteran explained that he had sewn blaze orange fabric on the coat and used it for deer hunting. The veteran wanted to return the coat to its original appearance before donating it, but Hampton said it would have been much more interesting to see how the coat had been refashioned for another use.
The museum’s World War I collection is extensive, with much of it donated within 30 years after the armistice. The World War II papers and artifacts have mostly arrived since the 1990s, said Hampton. When World War II hit, the veterans of World War I wanted to make sure their history was “not forgotten in the shadow of World War II,” Hampton said.
Judging by the donations to the museum, it appears more battlefield relics were brought home from World War I compared with World War II, when the military issued more strict guidelines on what could be taken.
Among the World War I items in the museum collection: barbed wire from “no man’s land” on the front lines, signs in German, a German helmet acquired by a Wisconsin soldier who wrote his mother’s name and address on the top and successfully mailed it home, a piece of fabric from the last German plane shot down before the armistice and trench clubs.
The museum’s exhibit on World War I closes Dec. 29.