Islamic memorial, Verdun Cemetery and Ossuary. © 2015 John M. Shea
"Bells are ringing. The air is full of their peals. Soldiers dance with ecstasy. They brandish flags. They wave bouquets of flowers. It is a pleasure to witness their delight. Tragedy was looming over them. The 1919 class . . . they were just on draft for reinforcements. Within six months they would all have been killed. At noon, we heard of the flight of the Kaiser to Holland.At three o'clock, I was informed by telephone from Paris of the terms of the armistice. . . . The only chance that this unparalleled war shall not entail further war, lies in vigorous action by international Socialism during the peace discussions. God grant it may play its full part! And now, for the moment, we must savour the gladness of salvation and echo the soldiers' words: 'The war is over.'"
Entry from the diary of Michel Corday, a senior civil servant in the French government based in Paris on November 11, 1918. Kaiser Wilhelm II of Germany had renounced the throne and fled to the Netherlands, which had remained neutral through the war, as Wilhelm Hohenzollern on the 10th.
The Paris Front: an Unpublished Diary: 1914-1918 by Michel Corday, page 387, copyright © 1934, by E.P. Dutton & Co., Inc., publisher: E.P. Dutton & Co., Inc., publication date: 1934
1918-11-11, 1918, November, peace, armistice, Kaiser Wilhelm, French dead, Verdun Islamic Memorial
