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Video: 'Armistice Day 1918 (1918)'

(Monday, November 11, 1918, 11:00 a.m. Western European Time/12:00 noon Central European Time/6:00 a.m. Eastern Standard Time; during World War I) — The Armistice of 11 November 1918, the armistice that ended fighting on land, sea and air in World War I, the largest war in human history (to date), between the Allies and their opponent, Germany, came into force this morning at “the eleventh hour of the eleventh day of the eleventh month,” less than six hours after it was signed inside a railroad car belong to Allied Supreme Commander, Marshal Ferdinand Foch, in Compiègne Forest, France.

The armistice,  signed less than six hours before inside a railroad car belonging to Allied Supreme Commander, Marshal Ferdinand Foch, in Compiègne Forest, France, marked a victory for the Allies and a complete defeat for Germany, although not formally a surrender.

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The actual terms, largely written by Foch, included the cessation of hostilities, the withdrawal of German forces to behind the Rhine, Allied occupation of the Rhineland and bridgeheads further east, the preservation of infrastructure, the surrender of aircraft, warships, and military material, the release of Allied prisoners of war and interned civilians, and eventual reparations.

Video: 'Armistice 1918'

No release of German prisoners and no relaxation of the naval blockade of Germany was agreed to.

Previous armistices had eliminated Bulgaria, the Ottoman Empire and the Austro-Hungarian Empire.

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An estimated nine million combatants and seven million civilians died as a direct result of the war, while it is also considered a contributory factor in a number of genocides and the 1918 influenza epidemic, which caused between 50 and 100 million deaths worldwide.