All was quiet on the Western Front at 11:00 a.m. on November 11, 1918.
The German Empire’s Kaiser Wilhelm II had fled to the Netherlands, and a new German Republic was established. The Great War earned its name—more than 8.5 million soldiers died. Its battlefields littered Europe, Africa, and the Middle East. Troops from many of Europe’s countries and also including Africa, China, Japan, New Zealand, Australia, Canada, India, and the United States had engaged in battle.
By the end of the war, the empires that had seemed so indestructible just a few years before had either collapsed during the war or crumbled after it was over. The regimes included the Hapsburgs in Austria–Hungary, the Romanovs in Russia, the Turks in the Ottoman Empire, and the Hohenzollerns in Germany. Britain, while still an empire, was left in a weakened state. Some of its former dominions signed peace treaties as the independent countries of Canada, Australia, New Zealand, and South Africa.
NEGOTIATING PEACE
The war’s end brought the daunting task to negotiate peace on a scale never before seen. Officials convened in France in January 1919 for the Paris Peace Conference. The top three diplomats to participate were French prime minister Georges Clemenceau, British prime minister David Lloyd George, and U.S. president Woodrow Wilson. They dominated the conference. Although the United States had been involved in the war for only 19 months, European powers needed its money and supplies.
This story is from the May/June 2017 edition of Cobblestone American History Magazine for Kids.
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This story is from the May/June 2017 edition of Cobblestone American History Magazine for Kids.
Start your 7-day Magzter GOLD free trial to access thousands of curated premium stories, and 9,000+ magazines and newspapers.
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Putting the Pieces Together
Americans needed to begin to put the past behind them, come together, and plan for the future in the spring of 1865. But Abraham Lincoln, the man best equipped to lead them and who had hoped to restore the country as smoothly and peacefully as possible, had been assassinated.
LAST SHOTS
The last Confederate forces in the Civil War didn’t surrender in the spring of 1865 or on a battlefield.
AND IN OTHER 1865 NEWS
A group of African Americans stop at the White House’s annual public reception on January 1, where they shake hands with President Abraham Lincoln.
A Plot to Kill President the
For several months, actor John Wilkes Booth’s band of conspirators had plotted to capture President Abraham Lincoln and hold him hostage in exchange for Confederate prisoners.
Let the Thing Be Pressed
In June 1864, Union Lieutenant General Ulysses S. Grant began a nearly 10-month campaign in Virginia.
HEALING THE NATION
President Abraham Lincoln took the oath of office for the second time on March 4, 1865.
A Helping Hand
The spring season is hard in any agricultural society. Plants and animals are too small to eat.
WAR SHERMAN-STYLE
As far as Union Major General William T. Sherman was concerned, the Civil War had gone on long enough.
PEACE TALKS
The fall of Fort Fisher made clear that the Confederacy’s days were numbered. Southerners were tired and hungry.
FORT FISHER'S FALL
Outnumbered Confederate soldiers inside Fort Fisher were unable to withstand the approach of Union troops by land and the constant Union naval bombardment from the sea.
