An Excerpt of 1918
An excerpt from 1918 by Melina Druga
The news was met with unbridled joy in North America with spontaneous celebrations breaking out in communities small and large.
In Ottawa, the first Canadian city to receive the news, wireless operators feverishly telegraphed the news to other parts of the dominion. The church bells, factory whistles, train whistles and fire alarms that proclaimed the news awakened residents at 3 a.m. Eastern time, and within minutes demonstrations began.
The Retail Merchants’ Association gave members and its employees a civic holiday to join in the celebrations or, as the Ottawa Journal called it, the work of making noise. Other businesses followed suit and closed as did government offices and schools.
The entire city had simply gone wild, the newspaper said, celebrating with unprecedented enthusiasm. Vehicles were decorated, and people paraded, both on foot and in their cars. As the morning progressed, the crowds and parades grew larger.
“Dignity was thrown to the winds by everyone and many prominent citizens paraded with decorations and horns, and hundreds of women joined the procession,” the paper said.
A public meeting of Thanksgiving was held on Parliament Hill at 3 p.m., and all the Methodist churches in the city also planned similar services.
At Connaught Place, the national anthems of the Allied nations were played and people sang. Similar demonstrations took place throughout the city, and crowds burned effigies of the Kaiser.
Three were injured during the celebrations, two from motor vehicle traffic accidents and one from a firework mishap.
In Winnipeg, celebrations started at 2 a.m. Central time, before both the Tribune’s special edition and the city’s whistles blew and bells rang. Ignoring Spanish Flu precautions, people embraced, and the telephone system reached its limit. Anything that could be used to make noise was put into service – garage can lids, pots and pans, car horns, dinner horns or utensils.
Those going to work found their workplaces closed when they arrived, and an electric sign was install in front of city hall that read “Give Thanks and Rejoice.”
Not everyone, however, was pleased with the war’s end. “I would very much like to have seen the Allies refuse an armistice and carry the war, with all its devastation, into Germany,” a Winnipeg civil servant said. “But the lives of 20,000 Huns is not worth the blood of one Allied soldier.”
“It was a wildly hilarious Vancouver which, shortly after the midnight hour, broke into general rejoicing over the announcement of peace,” the Vancouver Daily World said.
Like Ottawa, Winnipeg and communities throughout Canada, Vancouver celebrated with throngs of people on the streets, noisemakers, fireworks, and song. Even soldiers recuperating at the military annex of General Hospital held a parade, in their pajamas, through the hospital.
American celebrations were just as boisterous and followed the same routine of noisemaking, singing, parading and burning effigies. New York City’s celebration went unabated for 24 hours.
The White House was the first to hear the news in the United States. Once President Woodrow Wilson learned what had occurred, word was telegraphed to the rest of the country.
The Chicago Tribune learned the news via a phone call from the Associated Press. The message was “armistice signed,” and then the AP reporter hung up. The Tribune was first in the city to blare its sirens, and within 30 minutes the paper’s special edition was being sold on the streets.
“Night manager Michael O’Brien had a general telephone alarm sent throughout the house, ‘Chicago Tribune announces armistice signed’,” the paper said. “That was sufficient. The lobby soon looked like New Year’s Eve. Every known noise device was soon gathered. Brass cuspidors [spittoons] were grabbed. Flags were torn down and waved.”
Overseas, celebrations were more muted. In Paris, it was “quiet joy” as a few bands played and crowds sang the national anthem. Businesses were illuminated outdoors as were streets for the first time since the war began. The populous had a suspicion Germany would pull some sort of trick and peace would not last.
“And yet, despite the bedlam, the incomparable scenes of joy, there were many solemn scenes,” the Vancouver Daily World said. “Sober garbed women, whose husbands and sons would never return, stood on the curb, a strange mingling of emotions stirring in them. Old men saw the hand of God in the demonstration, and from hospital cots of pain bed-ridden soldiers raised their wracked bodies to listen, and smiles of contentment sank back on their pillows – ‘thank God, after all, our sacrifices have not been in vain’.”