Veterans Day is an official U.S. holiday that is observed every year on Nov. 11.
It was previously called Armistice Day and is held on the anniversary of the end of World War I.
It commemorates the signing of the armistice agreement between the Allies of World War I and Germany.
The agreement took effect at 11 a.m. – the 11th hour of the 11th day of the 11th month in 1918.
The United States officially entered World War I on Friday, April 6, 1917, when it declared war against Germany.
Shipworkers, their trucks filled to capacity, parade up lower Broadway in New York during the first Armistice Day, Nov. 11, 1918. (AP Photo)ASSOCIATED PRESS
The United States had initially opted to remain neutral. That position changed after the sinking of the British ocean liner Lusitania by the Germans in 1915.
In May 1917, Congress passed the Selective Service Act to reinstate the draft. By the end of World War I, 2.8 million men had been inducted into the U.S. military. Another 2 million served voluntarily.
By the end of the war, more than 53,00 American soldiers had died from combat and another 63,000 died from the Spanish flu epidemic in 1918.
A truckful of jubilant celebrants cheer along Broadway near Times Square in New York City as news of the Armistice spreads on Nov. 11, 1918. (AP Photo)ASSOCIATED PRESS
The armistice agreement required that Germany withdraw from territories it had taken, disarm and demobilize its military and release Allied prisoners.
The official end of World War I came later in the form of the Treaty of Versailles that was signed on June 28, 1919, at the Paris Peace Conference.
“Negotiated among the Allied powers with little participation by Germany, its 15 parts and 440 articles reassigned German boundaries and assigned liability for reparations. After strict enforcement for five years, the French assented to the modification of important provisions. Germany agreed to pay reparations under the Dawes Plan and the Young Plan, but those plans were cancelled in 1932, and Hitler’s rise to power and subsequent actions rendered moot the remaining terms of the treat,” from history.com.
This was the scene in France when news of the signing of the Armistice Treaty was heard, Nov. 11, 1918. (AP Photo)ASSOCIATED PRESS
The treaty included 15 parts. The first part created the League of Nations, which Germany was not allowed to join until 1926. Other parts rearranged Germany’s boundaries, created a demilitarized zone, stripped Germany of its colonies and prohibited Germany from possessing certain weapons.
The treaty also included what is called the “war guilt clause.”
“This clause forced the German national to accept complete responsibility for starting World War I. As such, Germany was to be held liable for all material damages,” according to the Holocaust Encyclopedia.
Germany signed the treaty under protest, according to history.com.
The U.S. Senate would not ratify the treaty.
“For five years the French and the Belgians tried to enforce the treaty quite rigorously, leading in 1922 to their occupation of the Ruhr. In 1924, however, Anglo-American financial pressure compelled France to scale down its goals and end the occupation, and the French assented to modifying important provisions of the treaty in a series of new agreements,” from history.com.
Germany had agreed to pay reparations but the Great Depression in 1932 led to cancellation of those reparations.
In 1935 Hitler denounced the entire treaty. In 1939 he invaded Poland, starting World War II.
Americans join the celebration on the Grand Boulevard on Armistice Day for World War I in Paris, France, Nov. 11, 1918. (AP Photo)ASSOCIATED PRESS
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