All Quiet On The Western Front. . .
(All Quiet On The Western Front. . .) Happy Veterans' Day. November 11th, 1918 the Armistice that ended the First World War went into effect at 1100 hours. The line where the combatant armies had ceased hostilities lay some distance to the east from the actual "Western Front," which had been a snaking line of trenches some 470 miles long that stretched from the English Channel to the Swiss Border. The opening rounds of August 1914 as armies maneuvered for position became a stalemate by the end of the year and, as Allied and German armies dug-in, an elaborate system of defenses, had been created. By the time the Germans launched what would be their last offensive of the War in the Spring of 1918, both German and indeed Allied trench systems had been fully developed. Cuts in the ground can still be seen in Belgium and France. The area that lay between the lines was called no-mans' land. The horrific quality that had been World War I combat was that Allied and German ge...