This Sunday marks a bittersweet centennial. On the 11th hour, of the 11th day, of the 11th month, the Armistice ending the First World War took effect in 1918.
H.G. Wells was the first to call the conflict "The War to End War," arguing that the universal nature of the conflict among Western powers and the crushing of German militarism begun by Bismarck and continued by the Kaiser would settle all scores and bring about an era of European peace and prosperity. But the punishing treaties forced on Germany at Versailles were called by one attendee there "The Peace to End Peace," and indeed the reparations and punishment inflicted there led directly to the second "great" war and the Holocaust.
While it was European land that was blighted and ruined with trenches, poisoned fields, and towns turned to rubble, America was changed by the war, too. At the time, President Woodrow Wilson spoke proudly of how American industry and farmers were able to rapidly increase production for the war effort. Wilson created agencies using special ‘volunteers’ like Bernard Baruch to oversee the efforts. But in doing so, the hyper-extended economy became inextricably linked to war and war production, resulting in what Eisenhower eventually called the military industrial complex, making war a linchpin of our economic growth.
Likewise, since the times when George Washington warned against "foreign entanglements" and James Monroe’s warning that European influence would not be welcome in the Americas, we had depended upon the oceans to keep us apart from perpetual European wars and crises. Plunging into the Great War was the beginning of globalism and seeing ourselves as part of a community of nations rather than as a nation apart, which also happened to benefit the industrial interests as well.
We have changed as a nation in the century after the Great War. Another reason it was believed that the Armistice would end wars was the intense horrors of trench warfare – the rotting of feet inside boots due to perpetual damp, the rats feeding on the unburied dead of No Man’s Land and its automatic gunfire, and worst of all the poison gas, creeping and inescapable. There were plenty of reminders of the war – the women unmarried as a generation was dead, the amputees unable to support themselves.
My grandmother’s brother was gassed, and although he lived another 60 years, he was never able to take care of himself; he wandered and walked constantly around the city, unable to speak, lost in his past. Surely nobody would resort to war again when troops and bystanders alike were leveled by weapons their users could barely control. Yet less than 30 years later, we used a weapon to end another war that not only incinerated whole cities, but holds the potential to eradicate human life if unleashed.
The changes in attitude are reflected in the holiday itself. It was initially called Armistice Day, or Poppy Day for the poem about the dead in Flanders’ Fields, and was celebrated with a silence, a cessation of daily life to pause and reflect that this must never happen again. In 1926, Congress passed a law asking the president to declare an Armistice Day holiday, and that "the recurring anniversary should be commemorated with thanksgiving and prayer and exercises designed to perpetuate peace through good will and mutual understanding between nations."
Armistice Day became a federal legal holiday in 1938, 20 years after the war ended. In 1954, after lobbying efforts by service organizations for the 16 million soldiers who served in the Second World War, Congress struck the work "Armistice" in favor of "Veterans." President Eisenhower signed the new law to honor all veterans living and dead, early in the undeclared Korean ‘conflict’ which remains ongoing. There was the brief fiasco in 1971 to make the holiday a mundane Monday holiday, but in 1975 President Ford signed the law preserving the original and significant date.
But the emphasis had changed. The holiday went from being a prayer for peace, celebrating a treaty, to a celebration of the military, living and dead, who had served us, protected us, and died for us, along with those who still serve in an increasingly dangerous world. They deserve our thanks, they deserve celebration. But so does the end of conflict, something to hope for in a time when war has become pervasive and never-ending. The escalation and frequency of conflict makes the world more dangerous every day. This year, let us celebrate a brief moment of hope from 100 years ago, the Armistice ending the Great War, and hope that we will be able to remember the date again in 2118 at the bicentennial.
Cynthia Stead of Dennis may be emailed at email@example.com.