Armistice of 1918 - Thousands Die During Last Hours

WARNING: THIS VIDEO CLIP CONTAINS GRAPHIC SCENES OF WAR AND DEPICTS FACIAL WAR INJURIES SUSTAINED BY SOLDIERS. PROCEED WITH CAUTION.

In this segment of "The Last Day of World War One," from the BBC's Time Watch series, Michael Palin takes us behind the scenes to learn what happened to soldiers fighting on 11 November 1918 - the day the Armistice was signed.

Although a cease fire had been agreed to before dawn, to take effect about six hours later (at 11:00 a.m. Paris time), at least 10,000 soldiers were killed from fighting on the last day. About three thousand of them were Americans.

When Adolf Hitler, then a German foot soldier, learned that his country had agreed to the Armistice, he reportedly burst into tears. He vowed to devote the rest of his life "to erasing that shame."

See, also:

Last Day of World War I - The Armistice, Part 1