A Canadian brigade, serving as Guard of Honor, in the occupation of Mons, Belgium, taken by Canadian forces on November 11, 1918. The fighting of British troops thus ended with a victorious entry into the town where their first terrible battle was fought in 1914.
Hostilities ceased on all the battle fronts at 11 a. m. on November 11, 1918. The machine guns and great cannon that had rattled and thundered for fifty months were silent. On the front lines, when the last shot was fired, the British, Americans, and Belgians gave free vent to their feelings of joy that the war was over, the victory won. The soldiers of France were less demonstrative and seemed unable at first to realize that the long-drawn agony was ended; but though they did not express themselves in wild cheering, every face was aglow with pride and happiness. Back of the lines, among the ruined villages, there were more evidences of the gladness that filled every war-weary heart, and while church bells rung out a joyous peal the songs of victory, which had cheered the poilus through the long conflict, resounded again with a deeper feeling and more triumphant note.
According to the terms of the armistice the Germans yielded over to Allied occupation "the countries on the left bank of the Rhine," together with surrender to Allied control of the crossings of the Rhine at Mayence, Coblenz, and Cologne, including bridgeheads of thirty-kilometer radius on the eastern bank of the river and the establishment of a neutral zone on that bank from thirty to forty kilometers in breadth and running from the frontier of Holland to the Swiss frontier.
On November 17, 1918, the Allied armies of occupation began the march to the Rhine. The American army, consisting of six divisions under General Dickman, was the first to start, moving in a northeasterly direction on a front of fifty miles from Mouzon on the Meuse to beyond Fresnes. At Montmédy, the first important place reached by the Americans, they were received with wild acclamation by the inhabitants and the Stars and Stripes waved from the Hôtel de Ville. At Longwy and Briey, the great industrial centers, it was the same story. Lorraine and Luxemburg were crossed and Coblenz was reached on December 12, 1918, where headquarters of the army of occupation were established.
On the same date the British Second and Fourth Army under Generals Plumer and Rawlinson began their advance to Cologne. In conjunction with their allies, a French army under General Mangin set out for Mayence, while General Pétain, now a marshal of France, entered Metz. Throughout Belgium and France the armies of the Allies received the most enthusiastic reception in which there was no discordant note. It was only when they crossed the border and entered Germany that they met with veiled hostility. There were crowds and bands, but no enthusiasm. But, if this was lacking, there were no aggressive manifestations of hatred toward the invaders of the Fatherland. A sense of joy and relief that the war was over vanquished for the time at least every other feeling.
PART II—RUSSIA
CHAPTER VI
COUNTERING THE GERMANS IN FALLEN RUSSIA