WE STAND STILL AND REMEMBER
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Today at 11am – exactly 100 years since World War One ended – the nation will fall silent to remember the fallen.
But how much do you know about Armistice Day? Here JAMES MOORE reveals 11 fascinating snippets… The Armistice to end World War One was signed at 5am on November 11 in a railway carriage in the Forest of Compiègne, north of Paris. Adolf Hitler later insisted on using the same carriage for France’s surrender to the Germans in 1940.
Although it was agreed the fighting should end at 11am, it continued that morning with around 11,000 casualties
– more than those later suffered on D-Day in World War Two.
The last British soldier to die was Private George Edwin Ellison, aged 40, at 9.30am. He was on patrol near Mons, the Belgian town where he joined the war in 1914. The last Allied casualty was American Henry Gunther, 23, killed by machine gun fire at 10.59am.
Back in the UK, church bells and Big Ben rang out for the first time in four years. Crowds sang “For He’s A Jolly Good Fellow” to Prime Minister David Lloyd George outside No.10.
In Shrewsbury, at noon, the parents of poet Wilfred Owen, inset, received a telegram telling them he had been killed as the church bells rang in celebration of the war’s end.
The two-minute silence tradition was started by Harry Hands, mayor of Cape Town in South Africa. He introduced it there in 1918 after his son Reginald was killed in the trenches. The idea spread and George V approved Britain’s first official commemorative silence for November 11, 1919.
Armistice Day, also known as Remembrance Day, is now marked across the world. In the
United States it is known as Veterans
Day. The Cenotaph, a memorial to the war dead in Whitehall, London, was unveiled on this day in 1920. The date also saw the burial of the Unknown Solidier at Westminster Abbey.
The first Poppy Day was held on November 11, 1921. Nine million were made. They sold for three pence each and raised £106,000 for veterans. In France, blue cornflowers are traditionally worn.
On November 11, 2005, EastEnders became the first British TV drama to feature a two-minute silence in an award-winning episode which saw characters Alfie Moon, played by Shane Richie and Nana Moon, played by Hila Braid, visiting Normandy, left.
Other historical events on this day include the hanging of Aussie outlaw Ned Kelly in 1880 and, in 1987, Van Gogh’s Irises painting selling for £27million.