A stillness heard round the world : the end of the Great War : November 1918

The eleventh hour of the eleventh day of the eleventh month in 1918 will live in history as a great moment--the hour the Armistice went into effect, bringing an end to the First World War. Guns were silenced, and worldwide the great and small alike celebrated the end of 51 months of fighting. In this magnificent book, Stanley Weintraub recreates the days leading up to the armistice and documents the reactions of survivors on both sides of the front. Thirty-year-old Major Omar Bradley lamented that his rank would be reduced to that of captain and that he was "professionally ruined." King George V celebrated with a bottle of brandy laid aside for the Battle of Waterloo. In America, for 16-year-old Charles Lindbergh the end of the war meant the purchase of a war-surplus "Flying Jenny." In a German hospital, Corporal Adolf Hitler, temporarily blinded by teargas, wept. Weintraub has delved into the archives, sifted through a large collection of letters and diaries sent to him by survivors and heirs to survivors, and interviewed many eyewitnesses to produce this vivid rendering of the end not just of a war but of an era. Here are notable literary, military, and political figures of the 20th century as young men and women--their careers to come still at the mercy of a last bullet or burst of shrapnel. Here also are the reflections of such figures as Albert Einstein, Thomas Mann and Joseph Conrad on the effects of the war, and eerie premonitions of the Second World War, whose seeds were sown in both the harshness and the paradoxical laxity of the peace agreement. A major evocation of the last days of the Great War, A Stillness Heard Round the World offers both historical vignettes and heartfelt visions of the horror of war and the ecstacy of peace. Contents Prologue: Endings The Dining Car in the Forest Armistice Eve Imperial Sunset The Signing Last Shots The Stillness A Joyful Noise Having A Knees-Up The Real Thing Aftermath: The Front Lines Prisoners of War The Other Fronts Behind the Rhine Epilogue: A Beer Hall in Munich Sources and Acknowledgments PROLOGUE: ENDINGS THE FALSE ARMISTICE ARMISTICE EVE IMPERIAL SUNSET THE SIGNING LAST SHOTS THE STILLNESS HAVING A KNEES-UP THE REAL THING PRISONERS OF WAR THE OTHER FRONTS BEHIND THE RHINE Index