Armistice

CHAPTER 11 · NOVEMBER 1918 · The Great War, 1914–1918

The end begins with an order too far. In late October the High Seas Fleet — idle since Jutland — is ordered out for a final, honor-saving death-ride against the Royal Navy. Its sailors, unwilling to die for the officer corps’ epitaph, douse the boilers. From Kiel (the marker) the mutiny becomes revolution with astonishing speed: within a week workers’ and soldiers’ councils hold every major city, Bavaria declares a republic, and on 9 November — with Ludendorff already dismissed and the army’s chiefs telling him plainly that it will not fight for him — Kaiser Wilhelm II abdicates and takes a tr

The turn: The eleventh hour, 11 November 1918.

This chapter is one scene of an interactive atlas: the map repaints as the dates advance, campaigns draw themselves, and every chapter argues its causes and consequences — then a field exam asks you to prove it on the map.