The war ended on November 11, 1918, at 11:00am. We may call it "Veteran's Day" here in the United States, but the rest of the world remembers it as "Armistice Day" (or "Remembrance Day") when World War I finally ended. An Armistice is merely an agreement to stop shooting at one another, and to discuss peace. It is more commonly called a "cease-fire." Importantly, an armistice is not a peace treaty, which formally ends a war.
This is why we need to discuss two specific events during the course of this unit, the Russian Revolution, and the Treaty of Versailles, both of which can be found in the drop-down menu under this page. Though the Russian Revolution took place during World War I's final years, it will have serious ramifications for the remainder of the twentieth century, and is why it is placed here, rather than during the earlier unit which covered the war, the new industrial technologies, and the conflict's inhumanity. The Russian Revolution will lead to the rise of Communism, and the formation of the Soviet Union. As for the Treaty of Versailles, it will be the official peace treaty which ends World War I, but as will be seen, instead of fixing what caused the Great War, it will only lay the groundwork for World War II, twenty-one years later. |