Armistice with Germany (Compiègne)

This photograph was taken after reaching an agreement for the armistice that ended World War I. This is Ferdinand Foch's own railway carriage and the location is in the forest of Compiègne. Foch is second from the right.

The armistice treaty between the Allies, who fought Germany during World War I, and Germany was signed in a railway carriage in Compiègne Forest on November 11, 1918, and marked the end of the First World War on the Western Front. Marshal Ferdinand Foch, the Allied Commander-in-chief, and Matthias Erzberger, Germany's representative were the most important persons who signed it.

Front page of the New York Times on Armistice Day, 11 November 1918.

The Armistice was agreed at 5 AM on November 11, to come into effect at 11 AM Paris time.

Acting German commander Paul von Hindenburg had requested arrangements for a meeting from Ferdinand Foch via telegram on November 7. He was under pressure of imminent revolution in Berlin, Munich and elsewhere across Germany.

Main persons

For the Allies, the personnel involved were entirely military:

• Marshal of France Ferdinand Foch, the Allied supreme commander
• First Sea Lord Admiral Rosslyn Wemyss, the British representative
• General Maxime Weygand, Foch's Chief of staff

For Germany:

• Matthias Erzberger, a civilian politician;
• Count Alfred von Oberndorff, from the Foreign Ministry;
• Major General Detlev von Winterfeldt, the army;
• Captain Ernst Vanselow, the navy.

General Weygand and General von Gruennel are not mentioned in the (French) document.

The peace between the Allies and Germany that followed this armistice was the Treaty of Versailles in 1919.

Related pages

• Remembrance Day
• Treaty of Versailles (1919)

Other websites

• La convention d'armistice du 11 novembre 1918 (in French)
• The Armistice Demands, translated into English from German Government statement The World War I Document Archive, Brigham Young University Library, accessed July 27, 2006