Ithaca Bound: Armistice Day

In this country, the day is officially called Veterans' Day. Considering the reason why the day was originally celebrated in the first place, though, Armistice Day it will always remain in my thinking. To my mind, the distinction is important.

Over the years, a good many books on the origins of the First World War, the war itself, and the aftermath of that war have come into and now more and more out of my personal library. When the guns finally fell silent on the eleventh hour of the eleventh day of the eleventh month of 1918, it was fervently hoped by most all that had survived that the war to end all wars, as it was then being called, would be just that. Surely, the carnage of that war - nine million soldiers killed, twenty-one million more wounded, and five million civilians also killed, as well as untold destruction of homes, farms, and factories - would motivate the leaders of the allied nations that had finally worn down the German ability to continue the war to do everything in their power to seek a peace treaty that would truly end all war.