Nobody shared my TIL about Armistice Day. Even had a Leonard Cohen linked to it.
It's interesting how some historians are now starting to look at wwI and wwII as one war with a pause in between. There was a segment on the stocks and jocks podcast that I listen to on that idea and I found it to be an interesting way to look at that part of our history
Not recently eitherOn 11 November 1918 Foch accepted the German request for an armistice. Foch advocated peace terms that would make Germany unable to pose a threat to France ever again, but was overruled by the British and Americans for being too in favor of French interests. When the Treaty of Versailles was signed on 28 June 1919, Foch declared, due to France not being allowed to annex the Rhineland or occupy the area for a period of thirty years, "This is not a peace. It is an armistice for twenty years". His words proved prophetic: the Second World War started twenty years and 64 days later.
I don't know that that's entirely fair. Tuchman was one who pointed out that "armistice" doesn't mean "peace" and that a country that has not been invaded is a country that doesn't feel beaten. Margaret McMillan certainly extended no love to the Nazis, going as far arguing that Germany's economic collapse had fuckall to do with reparations.
Too many degrees of freedom to make that remarkable, but it does give me an opportunity to point out that no one seems to have recognized the significance of D. B. Cooper II's drop coordinates at 44.44N 111.1 W. There's a story on Wikipedia or somewhere that is interesting and only mostly hinges on politics.the total was 11.11