City erupted in raucous delight on the day the guns fell silent
THIS weekend marks a century since the Armistice was signed and millions took to the streets to celebrate the end of World War One.
The agreement was signed at 5am on Monday, November 11, 1918, with guns finally falling silent on the four-year conflict at 11am.
On November 12, Wales’ newspapers reported jubilant scenes in the streets of Cardiff following the announcement of Germany’s surrender and the cessation of hostilities.
The Western Mail published pictures of crowds gathering in a spontaneous expression of relief in St Mary Street and in front of City Hall in Cathays Park.
According to one Western Mail report, Wales “came perilously near the Mafficking type of jubilation.
“In most places there was an absolute stoppage of work. Shortly after the dinner-hour shops were closed – the staff would not brook restraint, and the employers readily relaxed rules and regulations. The tramway girls got off the cars; they must, they said, join in the processions.
“It was a great day of rejoicing and abandon, and most people went to sleep at a late hour, satisfied that they had done the celebration of peace in a right worthy fashion.”
It was a moment of relief for millions following four years of a war that was unprecedented in the slaughter and destruction it caused.
National and local newspapers were filled with coverage reporting the mood in London and the regions.
An editorial published by the Western Mail read: “A feeling of devout thankfulness at the cessation of hostilities possesses the nation.
“The stress, the strain, the anxieties of four years and more – a period of peril and strife without precedent in our history – have given place to sensations of relief and joy equally without parallel.”
The Western Mail ran another piece carrying the headline: “Stirring scenes at Cardiff City Hall.”
It read: “At Cardiff, when the Western Mail siren announced with its shrill shrieks the signing of the armistice terms, endless hooters and other noise conductors in the city and docks re-echoed the glad tidings, and without any ado everybody ‘downed tools’.
“There was no dissent. Everybody felt that the hour had come for the abandonment of restraint and for the expression of a long pent-up enthusiasm.”
It continued: “Shortly before noon processions from all directions converged on Cathays Park, and when the hour of twelve struck the spacious square outside the civic buildings was thronged with a wildly enthusiastic crowd.”
An exclusive quote from Welsh Prime Minister David Lloyd George was included in the Western Mail’s coverage.
Headlined the Premier’s Message to Wales, it read: “What can I say now more than that the cause of righteousness has triumphed, and the freedom of the small nations of the world has been won and established for ever?
“I am proud to think that my own little nation of Wales has borne its full share of the task of winning this great triumph.”
On November 11, 1918, the South Wales Echo ran a story describing the celebrations as “Cardiff’s great chortle”.
The piece reports people rushing from all parts of the city – “often hatless and coatless” – to the main streets to join in with the spontaneous celebrations.
The report read: “Many amusing scenes were witnessed. One limbless soldier was wheeled on an invalid chair down St Mary Street, ringing a bell with the vigour of a muffin man.
“Others waved flags, others sang the national anthem, others blew on combs, others yelled through extemporised megaphones, but they were all different ways of expressing the same thing – uncontrollable delight that the long, long nightmare had passed, and that the dawn of peace had come.”
The Echo reported shops closing at 1pm, including Howells department store, and the local authority announced a week’s holiday “in celebration of peace”.
In a short piece published on November 18, the Cambria Daily Leader reported the story of Private Daniel Thomas, of Castle Graig, Landore, Swansea, who had been hospitalised after being struck dumb by shell shock.
The newspaper, which later merged with the South Wales Evening Post, claims: “On Monday when the news of the Armistice had been received, Thomas yelled out at the top of his voice, and his speech was regained, and he is quite alright now.”