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November 10, 2018
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ARMISTICE APPROACHES: The first page of the Marion Chronicle chronicle of Saturday, November 9, 1918, just prior to the signing of the Armistice Agreement on November 11, creating the Day of the. armistice – what is now called Veterans Day.
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PEACE: The November 11, 1918 edition of the Marion Chronicle, the day of the signing of the Armistice Agreement and the first day of the veterans, announces the screening of "The response of the America: The Pictorial History of America's First Year in World War "Lyric Theater, a film presented by the US Government. Advertising says it will be the final screening of the film.
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VICTORY: The November 12, 1918 edition of the Marion Leader-Tribune records the mad events of the first armistice, on November 11, 1918, when Marion residents burned images of the Kaiser in effigy and scaled the Courthouse walls to adorn a statue of liberty at the top of the courthouse.
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BY Carolyn Muyskens – [email protected]
The news of the end of the First World War – at the time known as "the war to end all wars" – hit Marion at 2 am exactly 100 years ago today. ; hui. The response from the city was immediate and, according to the newspapers of the time, would have been the biggest party ever seen by the city of Marion.
The inhabitants flooded the streets in the middle of the night and burned images of straw Kaiser Wilhelm II, former German emperor, on the place of the courthouse in the city center.
"The joy was crazy. No effort has been made to stop it, "reported the Leader-Tribune.
According to reports, the celebrations lasted all day. All schools and businesses have closed so everyone can join the crowd. "At no time between 2:15 and Monday night, the central part of the city was uneventful," according to Leader-Tribune.
The news was relayed by a police officer who was in the press room of Leader-Tribune when the telegraph operator of the Associated Press learned that the peace agreement had been signed. The officer "is rushed to a window and fired nine shots of his .45 Calves automatic revolver and received an almost spontaneous response from several of his police colleagues in different parts of downtown." city ", according to the Leader-Tribune.
"A boundless frenzied joy, unprecedented in the annals of all history, erupted like an explosion at 2 am local time Monday morning, after receiving the official announcement, that the great World war had ended definitively and authentically and twenty-four hours, "reads the report of the event published November 12, 1918.
The city was prepared to start parades anytime, night or day.
An article in the Marion Chronicle, published November 9, 1918, reminded residents to be ready to party at any time of the day. "Now, this can happen sometime in the night – no one knows when peace is likely to be announced. It depends on Germany. But remember, even if it's two o'clock in the morning, get up and get dressed and "tear up in town," the article writes.
Parades of veterans of the civil war – "the boys of 1861 who preserved the Union" – of the Spanish-American war and those who had taken leave of the war which had ended that day. there have all parade through the streets.
At one point, a man – "an unknown brave steeplejack" – climbed the courthouse "with his bare hands" to drape a white and blue flag over the Statue of Liberty above the courthouse.
"This daring feat was highly applauded by the crowd in the streats," according to the Leader-Tribune.
An effigy of Kaiser Wilhelm II, the German leader, was burned in what the Leader-Tribune called a "big bonfire" and prompted editorials in the newspaper to criticize burning the effigy as a public scandal, according to Grant County Historian Mun Munn. .
Munn said that some of the darker aspects of the Armistice Day celebration, such as the fire effigy, reflected the dark realities of the war to which America was not exposed. maybe not prepared.
"We did not understand the cost of the war, and when we discovered it, it was too late," Munn said.
Grant County alone lost more than 60 men during the First World War, said Munn, and many of those who did not die have suffered all their lives after the aftermath of the war, both physical and mental .
"The Veterans Hospital welcomed a large number of veterinarians after the war, men who had sustained non-fatal injuries caused by toxic gases," Munn said. "They were incapable for life. Some of them lived until the 1960s but were disabled all their lives. "
Many others suffered from post-traumatic stress disorder (PTSD), which was then called shellshock.
"Back in the day, there was no treatment, but imprisonment," Munn said.
Munn said these veterans and their mental and physical anguish were "a living reminder of the cost of the war."
This living recall has disappeared and the last veterans are now dead.
"I think we never know, or sometimes forget, that it was expensive (that we won the war)," said Munn.
