At 11:56 on the morning of November 7, 1918, the United Press Association in New York City received a cable from its Paris agent. “Urgent. Armistice Allies Germany signed, eleven morning. Hostilities ceased.” Three minutes later the message passed the censor, and minutes after that the news hit the street. “WAR OVER,” screamed the New York Evening World in its biggest type ever.
Upon hearing newsboys hawking Extras, everyone froze – businessmen hurrying to meetings, girls scampering back to the office, people rushing to the subway – a bewildered look on all the faces. Seconds later hats flew, strangers hugged, couples turkey-trotted through the streets, pretty girls kissed rejoicing soldiers. The bells of City Hall tolled, sirens shrieked, cheers rent the sky.
J. P. Morgan launched an armful of ticker tape from his office on Wall Street, laughing and kicking his heels like a school boy. Below a street sweeper drummed his steel dust pan, soon joined by a broker and his fiddle. Dancers picked up their beat.
Soon all were buried in an avalanche of ticker tape, newsprint, pages torn from almanacs, dictionaries, telephone directories. For a moment, the street sweeper looked ruefully around, but the work before him couldn’t keep the grin off his face.
The whole city went wild, marching, singing, dancing in the greatest demonstration New York had ever seen said the World in its final edition. Even the Stock Exchange had degenerated into bedlam. Peace stocks skyrocketed, war stocks plummeted.
The evening celebrations would be even greater, the World predicted, announcing that the wartime ban on light had been lifted this evening and all corners of the city would blaze bright. “We hope that every citizen in New York will burn every light he has on his premises,” announced one official. “If he hasn’t enough lights let him go and buy, beg, or borrow some.”
More news slowly slipping out could not quell the city’s “explosion of ecstasy,” “the delirium that possessed its very soul.” Peace was the only word anyone would hear. Even when the stocks pulled back as the market closed. Even when at sundown the joyous drinking that drained the city’s supply of intoxicants gave way to fisticuffs over the question. Had the Kaiser really surrendered?
Only when New York awakened to the next morning’s papers would the hangover set in. “SIGNING OF ARMISTICE OFFICIALLY DENIED,” headlined the New York Sun. “False Peace Report,” reported the Times.
No longer could the jubilant throngs reject the denials. The World War had not ended. The following days brought no stories of celebration, only headlines of “Kaiser Refuses to Resign” and “Armistice Delayed.”
An armistice celebration redux hit four days later when confirmation of the German surrender reached New York at 3 am. People awoke to police sirens and ringing bells and flashing searchlights.
Hundreds rose from their beds and ventured out in tousled clothes to confirm the news. As the word spread, businesses closed their doors so employees could celebrate. Other workers simply walked off the job. School children refused to stay in the classroom. By midday, jubilant crowds blocked Fifth Avenue sidewalk to sidewalk.
As the day progressed, spontaneous parades numbering thousands took to the streets. Throughout the city, the people formed “a struggling, laughing, cursing, gay, ugly, and festive mob,” or so the Sun assessed. In sheer mass and weight and driving power it surpassed the outpouring of the false armistice, and it lasted a full twenty-four hours.
But in the noise, one heard “a hollow note,” the Sun judged, “for only once in a lifetime do a whole people rise transfigured as on the earlier occasion.” The Times agreed this second time around was a different tone, lacking the pressure and spontaneity to repeat the unprecedented outpouring of emotion, to build quite up to the enthusiasm, the rapture, manifested when the false peace dropped suddenly as if out of the skies.
Predictions for the “Victory New Year” six weeks later, dedicated to men in uniform, rang hollow too. “The night of all nights – armistice nights, peace nights, and all other New Year’s Eves notwithstanding?” A celebration that “will never again be excelled and possibly may never be equaled?”
Really? Hundreds of extra military police and navy patrols to be deployed on the Eve – “to look after the welfare of men in uniform” – didn’t inspire confidence. Nor did orders from the Retail Liquor Dealers Association that its 12,000 members must close every saloon by 6 pm on December 31st.
While the olive and navy of uniformed men would pack Broadway, rowdy, boisterous reveling was not on the docket. Nonetheless, peace had come at last.
Read more about World War One.
Illustrations, from above: The New York Evening World inaccurately declares “War Over” on November 7, 1918; New York City Celebrates the False Armistice on November 7th; New York City celebrates the real World War One Armistice on November 11, 1918 (New York Times).
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