By Thursday 7 November 1918, separate armistice agreements had already stopped the fighting between the Allies and Austria-Hungary, Bulgaria, and the Ottoman Empire (the countries aligned with Germany). And on that day, German delegates were travelling to the Western Front to conclude an armistice between Germany and the Allies, which they eventually signed on Monday 11 November 1918. The delegates did not reach the Front until late evening on 7 November, but hours before they arrived there the news broke in Paris that they had signed an armistice: the false German armistice news of 7 November 1918. The news spread around France initially, and from Paris to Britain and the USA by military cablegrams. From the USA it crossed into Canada, Mexico and other parts of Latin America, and from Canada reached Australia and New Zealand.1 ENDNOTES
This article relates how the false armistice news entered the USA and Britain in cablegrams (some unverified) from American officials in Paris and in Roy W. Howard’s notorious uncensored cablegram from Brest. An Addendum describes an order from Vice Admiral Frédéric Paul Moreau, the Maritime Prefect of Brest, concerning the signing of an armistice with Germany. The order is not a false armistice message; it is a precautionary measure that could conceivably have prevented the release of the 7 November afternoon false armistice news in Brest.
[Note: The time of the day in France and Britain in November 1918 (Allied time) was the same. In the United States, Washington, DC, time – Eastern Standard Time (EST) – was five hours behind Allied time. German time was one hour ahead of Allied time. Thus, 11:00 am in Britain was 11:00 am in France, 6:00 am in Washington DC, and midday in Germany.]
Verified False Armistice Cablegrams To The United States
Major B. H. Warburton’s False Armistice Cablegram to the War Department
Major Barclay Harding Warburton (1866-1954) had been a captain in the Pennsylvania Artillery during the 1898 war between the United States and Spain. Between 1914 and April 1917, he served as chargé d’affaires in London for President Woodrow Wilson; after the US entry into the war, with the rank of major, he became an aide-de-camp to General Pershing at US General Headquarters in Chaumont, France. In March 1918, he moved to the American Embassy in Paris as American Military Attaché.2
The earliest official 7 November armistice cablegram was the one he sent to Secretary of War Newton D. Baker at the War Department in Washington, DC. It read simply “Armistice signed” and arrived at 8:55 am local time, which was 1:55 pm in Paris.3a Unfortunately, neither this nor other cables Warburton sent on 7 and 8 November show the time of transmission from Paris. But at 1:00 pm in Paris Warburton told Colonel Cabot Ward, the Assistant Chief of Staff of G-2 (SOS) – American Military Intelligence – that he had sent it “during the morning”, that is, before midday French time.3b
As Military Attaché, Warburton was officially a member of staff of the American Embassy in Paris, and presumably had an office there. Using the Embassy’s so-called “war-time system of quick [telegraph] communication” with Washington, DC, it would have taken about 10 minutes for his armistice cablegram to reach the US War Department.4 If it had been in a transmission queue, it might have taken much longer to arrive.
The State Department is informed
“At 10 o’clock that morning”, Secretary of State Robert Lansing received “a secret copy” of Warburton’s armistice dispatch from the War Department, which he showed to State Department Counsellor Frank Polk. They decided the news must be wrong because “it was physically impossible for the German parliamentaries to have reached the French lines and much less to have conferred with Marshal Foch” (the German delegates having left Berlin for the Western Front, hundreds of miles away, only the previous afternoon). But to be entirely certain, Lansing cabled Edward House, President Woodrow Wilson’s Special Representative in Paris, asking him to “confirm” Warburton’s message and “notify us of when we may publish armistice” – what Lansing called a “confirmation or denial” request to House. The request carries the time “11 a.m.” from the State Department.5a (Reportedly, it “got through to the embassy . . . in nine minutes” and so would have arrived sometime after 4:10 pm in Paris.6) “A short time later”, Army Chief of Staff General Peyton C. March confirmed to Lansing that “it was physically impossible” for the delegation to have arrived yet, stated that he believed Warburton’s news was “false” and so had not reported it to President Wilson. Lansing told the President about it not long before midday.5a
At 12:25 pm the War Department received a follow-on cablegram (“No. 629”) from Warburton cancelling his “Armistice signed” message. It reported – without elaboration – that although “G-2 S.O.S., Paris” had “confirmed” the armistice news, a Major Straight (an American liaison officer most likely) had telephoned from Marshal Foch’s Headquarters (in Senlis) to deny the news and inform that the German delegates would arrive at 5 o’clock that afternoon.7 The War Department immediately informed the State Department of the development, and sometime after 12:45 pm, Frank Polk took a copy of the cancellation message to Secretary of State Lansing, who was having lunch at a nearby club.8 Later that afternoon, at 2:04 pm (7:04 pm French time), and around three hours after Lansing had asked Edward House for confirmation of the armistice news, House’s reply arrived: “Armistice has not yet been signed. German representatives will not meet Marshal Foch until this afternoon at 5 o’clock”. It shows the time “6 p.m.” from Paris (1:00 pm EST).5b
So, no German armistice had been signed that morning, and Major Warburton’s false news about it was successfully contained in the War and State Departments.
The War Department demands an explanation
The following day, Friday 8 November, General Churchill demanded an explanation from Warburton. Evidently annoyed, the General instructed him to “explain fully the circumstances which led you to make the unqualified statement that the armistice had been signed, based merely on the authority of G-2, S.O.S., as stated in your No. 629. Rush answer.”9
Warburton replied the same day. He now told General Churchill he received the armistice news from the American Embassy but that they later asked him whether the news had been confirmed. He then repeated his claim that G-2 (SOS) had “confirmed” it:
“[The] information was furnished me by embassy, as I thought, officially. Subsequently after having sent my [“armistice signed” cablegram] embassy, to my astonishment, asked me if [armistice] report had been confirmed. Immediately upon discovery of my error endeavored to secure confirmation, which was obtained from Lt. Col. Ward, Assistant Chief of Staff, G-2, S.O.S., who stated at 1:00 P.M. that French War Office had called him by telephone and confirmed report and had requested him to notify our General Headquarters. This report was given absolute credence by various departments of French government and was not officially denied until the afternoon and at the same time this office sent you cable No. 629 [his follow-on cancellation message].” He concluded his explanation with the following vague comment: “Probable reason for universal belief of [armistice] report was no doubt caused by interception of wireless message ordering cessation of fire yesterday afternoon (November 7.) to permit the plenipotentiaries to cross lines.”10
What Warburton was saying here is that the 7 November German armistice news was widely believed in Paris because an intercepted wireless message contained an order for a cease-fire that afternoon to enable the German armistice delegates to cross the front lines. He named the American Embassy, Colonel Cabot Ward of G-2 (SOS) in Paris, the French War Office and other French government departments as having either affirmed or circulated the news; but he did not say which particular cease-fire order was intercepted, who intercepted it and at what time, when in the afternoon the cease-fire was to begin, or why people thought that it meant an armistice had been concluded. 11
A False Armistice Cablegram to the American Embassy in Britain
Around midday on Thursday 7 November, Roy W. Howard’s cablegram containing more detailed false armistice information arrived in New York City (some 300 miles away from Washington, D.C.) and was spreading rapidly across the United States: this was the afternoon false armistice news, contained in the Jackson Armistice Telegram sent from US Navy Headquarters in Paris to US Admiral Wilson’s headquarters in Brest. This news reached Britain from France sometime before 4:00 pm on 7 November, which was well before it reached the United States in Roy Howard’s cablegram.
It arrived in the signals room of the US Navy’s London Headquarters, went from here to the nearby American Embassy, and was leaked to the London office of the (American) Associated Press (AP) news agency. The Reuters news agency was told about it and released the scoop to the British press: “Reuter’s Agency is informed that according to official American information the armistice with Germany was signed at 2:30.” Within minutes, Reuters learned that the news was unconfirmed and immediately withdrew it. But it was already spreading rapidly across England, Wales, and Scotland and could not be stopped; the ensuing peace celebrations continued late into the evening.12
Information about what happened in the American Embassy in London on 7 November 1918, in relation to the false armistice news, was suppressed (as was information about what happened in the American Embassy in Paris): no evidence is available to shed light on events there. But may be assumed that the armistice news had arrived at the US Navy’s London Headquarters either from the Paris Headquarters or on its way from Admiral Wilson’s headquarters in Brest to the Navy Department in Washington D.C.13 And there is eyewitness evidence of how the false news reached the Associated Press and Reuters offices. It comes from a letter which Robert Collins, the AP Bureau Chief in London, sent to Jackson Elliott, the AP News Department Chief in New York City. In the letter, dated 12 December 1918 (over a month after the False Armistice), Collins admitted he had, unwittingly, played a part in the publication of the false news in Britain.
He explained that he had contacts in the Embassy (like the US Navy Headquarters, then situated in Grosvenor Gardens) who telephoned him on 7 November to say that, according to the American Naval Attaché in Paris, Captain Jackson, an armistice had been signed with Germany. One of Collins’ staff cabled the information to the Associated Press News Department in New York City, describing it as an “unconfirmed rumor”, which “seemed about what it was worth” in the circumstances. A little later, Collins passed it on to the “Reuter editor” in London, cautioning him that Associated Press was handling it “most guardedly”.14
News that Germany had signed an armistice was not entirely unexpected in London on Thursday 7 November. Press reports that the German armistice delegates had actually arrived at the Western Front started circulating during the evening on Wednesday 6 November, and Reuters itself issued a bulletin, just before midday on 7 November, that the delegates had crossed the front lines “according to information current in political circles in London”. There was also widespread press speculation that the German delegates had already received the Allies’ armistice terms and would sign them as soon as they met Marshal Foch.12
This helps to explain why, according to Collins, just “a few minutes” after he had given the Embassy leak to the Reuters editor, “the Reuter ticker” (ticker tape machine) announced that news of an armistice-signing with Germany had been received in “American official quarters”. On hearing this, Collins rushed to the Reuters office, told them he thought they were “making a mistake”, and persuaded them to cancel the news. He did not have to go far to do this (the Associated Press offices were in the same building as the Reuters offices at 24 Old Jewry) and the “kill” went out “seven minutes after the message”.
Ending his letter, Collins confided to Elliott that the Embassy “lied like troopers later, and said that they had received nothing of the kind”; he also assured him he did not “give away” his Embassy contacts. The only person to blame for the blunder, he asserted, was the (unnamed) Reuters editor: he “made [the] mistake” when he became “over excited” on hearing the armistice message. Collins did feel “in part responsible for [its] publication” because he passed the Embassy leak on to Reuters; but the “guiltily responsible” person, he insisted, was undoubtedly the Reuters editor (probably S. C. Clements, Reuters ‘manager and secretary’ at the time).14 (The London office of Roy Howard’s United Press news agency at that time was in the Temple Chambers building on Temple Avenue (between Fleet Street and the River Thames Embankment) not far – via St Paul’s Cathedral – from the Associated Press and Reuters offices in Old Jewry. How the London office manager, Ed. L. Keen, reacted to the announcement of the false armistice news in Britain is not known; presumably, he told Roy Howard about it at some point.)
If the full Jackson message of an 11:00 am armistice-signing, a 2:00 pm cessation of hostilities, and the taking of Sedan by the US Army passed through the US Navy’s London Headquarters on the way from Brest to Washington, D.C., then the message must somehow have become mangled along its route to the nearby Embassy, then by telephone to Collins from his contacts in the Embassy, and then to the Reuters editor. Inside the Reuters office, perhaps the message was further distorted during the rush to put together their press bulletin and send it through the “ticker” misreporting that a 2:30 pm German armistice had been signed. On the other hand, if the message Brest sent to Washington, D.C., had omitted some of the Jackson details, the American Embassy leak would have been a misreport of this curtailed version and not of the full Jackson message. Whatever the reason for the erroneous ‘2:30 pm’ detail, the Embassy’s later comment about the false armistice news that “they had received nothing of the kind” might not have been lies, for if they had received the full Jackson armistice message, it was certainly nothing like the version printed in British newspapers. (No evidence of any enquiries made at the time into the Embassy’s receipt and disclosure of the armistice news has been found for this article.)15
The consequences for Reuters and the (British) Press Association, which had assisted in distributing the armistice news, could have been severe. The Official Press Bureau – Britain’s press censors – referred them to the Director of Public Prosecutions for breaching wartime Defence of the Realm Act regulations by spreading false information about the war, the penalties for which were either imprisonment for six months, a £100 fine, or both, and loss of their newspaper equipment. Made aware of serious disruption to wartime production when workers abandoned their jobs to join peace celebrations following the publication of the false news, the Attorney-General rejected Reuters’ and the Press Association’s explanations in mitigation of their actions. But he eventually decided not to proceed with a court case against them. Instead, he instructed the Director of Public Prosecutions to write “stern and peremptory letters” to both organisations about the “enormity of their offence” and “its misleading and costly result” for which they had “narrowly . . . escaped a well merited punishment”.16
False Armistice Signals sent to the British Grand Fleet in Scotland
In Britain, the armistice news also spread to warships of the Grand Fleet deployed in the North Sea to blockade Germany.
Apparently, two armistice signals were sent to warships on 7 November. The first one went out by semaphore (signals made either by signal lamps, flags, or mechanical semaphore arms) rather than by wireless transmission. The message read “Hostilities ceased at 2:00 P.M. to-day” and was followed by “1555” – 3:55 pm. The Royal Navy signal sheet recording it indicates that the “C. in C. G. F.” – the ‘Commander-in-Chief of the Grand Fleet’ – ordered the message to be sent to the warships (he was Admiral David Beatty in November 1918). The second message went out by “System – S. L.” – signal lamp. It ordered “Cancel signal re hostilities ceasing” and is followed by “1650” – 4:50 pm. It came from “Lion”, denoting the British warship HMS Lion, which was the flagship of the Grand Fleet’s battlecruiser force under Vice Admiral Sir William Pakenham. (In November 1918, both Lion and Admiral Beatty’s flagship HMS Queen Elizabeth were stationed at Rosyth in the Firth of Forth on the east coast of Scotland.) Both signal sheets carry the detail “Date 11 7 1918” – the ‘month-day-year’ American style of writing the date. The British style is ‘day-month-year’, which would make it ‘7 11 1918’.17
From the information in these signal sheets, therefore, around four o’clock on 7 November 1918 a message from Admiral Beatty was sent to warships in the Grand Fleet stating that hostilities had ceased at two o’clock that same afternoon (about two hours earlier), with the implication that the fighting against Germany had ended. (There was no mention of a signing of an armistice with Germany or specific instruction for the Grand Fleet to cease hostilities.) And about an hour later, a signal cancelling the ‘hostilities ceased’ message was sent without any explanation.
The American date-format on these Royal Navy signal sheets implies that an American signals operator on an American warship was using the sheets. As was known at the time, American warships were operating with British warships in the North Sea. In fact, in December 1917, under the command of Rear Admiral Hugh Rodman, Battleship Division Nine of the US Navy’s Atlantic Fleet joined the Grand Fleet to become the latter’s Sixth Battle Squadron. In November 1918, it consisted of the USS Arkansas, Florida, New York, Texas, and Wyoming,which assimilated by adopting the Grand Fleet’s “signals and methods of communication, their plans, policies, manoeuvres and tactics”.
During the afternoon of 7 November, the squadron, “without Texas”, left Rosyth at “1308” (1:08 pm) and returned at “4.55” pm (1655). USS Texas, like HMS Lion, remained at Rosyth the whole day. So, the “hostilities ceased at 2:00 P.M. today” signal went out (just before 4:00 pm) while most of the Sixth Battle Squadron was at sea; and the “cancel signal re hostilities ceasing” message went out (4:50 pm) at practically the same time as the squadron returned to Rosyth. 17
The following extract is from an item in an American newspaper which clearly refers to the false armistice signals in the British Grand Fleet. The paper – the New Britain Daily Herald – was marking the first anniversary of False Armistice Day in the USA. (The paper was an Associated Press member at the time and did not publish Roy Howard’s armistice news on 7 November 1918):
“Where the [false armistice] rumor started will always be a mystery. At the time of the circulation of the report, the writer happened to be at sea with the British Fleet. At some time in the forenoon a radio signal was received from the flagship of the fleet H. M. S. Lion, which in effect read, ‘Cease hostilities at 2:00 o’clock’ and which was signed by a British naval staff officer. There could be but one construction to place on this, and that was that Germany had capitulated. The officers upon the ship were discussing the message, copies of which had been posted in various messes, and debating whether they should open fire upon possible submarines after 2 o’clock, when the question was quickly settled for them by another message cancelling the previous one. The armistice had not been signed, although the two messages are proof that the Admiralty, for a very brief time, thought that it had. The rumor and the cancellation came very close together, so close that, the newspaper men who had taken occasion to check up were disappointed almost at once.” (The times shown on the two signal sheets do not support the writer’s observations that the messages “came very close together” or that they were sent in the “forenoon” – they were afternoon messages.)
This anniversary item was most probably the work of Lewis Ransome Freeman, an American “magazine and book writer” who was given the rank of lieutenant in the Royal Navy Volunteer Reserve and “served . . . for the last twelve months of the War in the Grand Fleet”.
Interestingly, two days after the event the Sun newspaper in New York City, referring briefly to the uncertainty surrounding the origins of the False Armistice news, noted that “Talk was heard along Park Row of the possibility of the American warships having picked up a lie sent broadcast by the Nauen wireless in Germany. But this was pure guessing.” In other words, speculation among Park Row newspapermen linked American warships to a radio interception of the 7 November misinformation. (Park Row, in New York City, was the location of the US daily newspaper industry at that time. The Nauen wireless station, north-west of Berlin, was Germany’s long-range transmitter.)
The 2:00 pm cessation-of-hostilities news in the first signal was presumably from the Jackson armistice message, and its 3:55 pm detail suggests strongly that it was circulating around the same time as the false armistice news arrived at the American Embassy in London. But unfortunately, it is not known how the false armistice news reached the Grand Fleet, who actually ordered the signal about it, or what led up to its subsequent cancellation.
The British Admiralty in London usually provided the Fleet with military intelligence passed on to them or acquired from their own sources – such as wireless telegraph intercepts by the Fleet itself and naval intercept stations around Britain. So, it seems highly improbable that these signals about the end of the war would have gone to the Fleet without any authorization from the Admiralty. However, a search of the British Admiralty records found no information relating to a 2:00 pm cessation of hostilities on 7 November that went from the Admiralty to Admiral Beatty as Commander-in-Chief (C-in-C) of the Grand Fleet. And information found that was sent to him on Thursday 7 November appears to leave no room for any assumption that a cessation of hostilities linked to the signature of a German armistice might be imminent.
By and large, the most plausible explanation for the two false armistice British naval signals is the comment by the New Britain Daily Herald journalist that “the Admiralty, for a very brief time, thought that [the armistice] had [been signed]”. Roy Howard’s copies of the signals attest to this, and verify the American journalist’s anniversary story about the signals’ occurrence. For some reason, however, verification of the two signals is missing from the Admiralty’s own historical records. Perhaps after the war the two signals were “considered unimportant” and consequently “removed and destroyed” along with other papers. Or perhaps they were considered to be a mistake far too embarrassing to be retained and recorded in the official archives.17
Roy W. Howard’s Uncensored Armistice Cablegram To New York City
Roy Howard (1883-1964) was thirty-five years old In November 1918 and President of the United Press (UP) news agency. He had travelled to Paris from Argentina a few weeks earlier, at the end of a business trip to South America; he wanted to judge for himself how the UP office in Paris and front-line reporters were handling the war news. He journeyed to Brest (in Brittany) by overnight train on Wednesday 6 November, spent the next three days there (7-9 November), and sent his armistice message to UP’s New York City office from there (it was assumed at the time that Howard was still working from Paris). On Sunday 10th he set sail for the United States, as the man who had scooped the eagerly awaited news that the Great War had ended – four days too soon.
Howard’s armistice message was a ‘cablese’ version of the Jackson armistice message received by Admiral Wilson in Brest, and read:
“[TO] UNIPRESS NEWYORK
URGENT ARMISTICE ALLIES GERMANY SIGNED ELEVEN SMORNING HOSTILITIES CEASED TWO SAFTERNOON SEDAN TAKEN SMORNING BY AMERICANS”18
Transmitted from the Brest Post and Telegraph Office around 4:20 pm, it left without prior clearance from the French cable censors based there because they believed it had arrived in Brest en route to New York City from the UP office in Paris and that the Paris censors in the Bourse had cleared it. In New York City, the American censors also believed it had been sent from Paris and been cleared in Paris. They therefore allowed the UP office on Park Row to forward it “on the leased wires of the service . . . to all parts of the country”. Within a very short time, “the nation was aflame, and started a celebration that was never halted until after the real signing of the armistice”.19
Howard’s false armistice cablegram achieved notoriety in American newspapers outside the United Press syndicate and an unenviable place in the history of American journalism; its impact across the country was remembered for years afterwards.18
The State Department demands explanations
With Roy Howard’s armistice news racing around the United States and into Canada, Secretary of State Lansing demanded to know why Howard’s dispatch not been contained in France. As yet unaware that Howard had sent the news from Brest, he had the following telegram, its text evidently restrained, sent to the American Ambassador in Paris, William Sharp:
“United Press [in New York City] received telegram today before 1 p.m. announcing armistice had been signed. Telegram published at once and greatest excitement and enthusiasm prevails. This Department and War Department have been informed no foundation for story. Please find out why censor passed this report as the incident is most unfortunate.”20
The message was ready for transmission at 4 o’clock that afternoon, as was a similar but longer message from Lansing to Special Representative Edward House. Presuming some sharp practice on the part of the United Press office in Paris, the Secretary of State wanted House, in effect, to make sure Ambassador Sharp acted on his instructions and investigated Howard’s false armistice cablegram:
“United Press [in New York] received telegram this morning which was published at once announcing armistice had been signed. Later information from War Department and from you is that there is no foundation for report. Similar report was received early this morning by War Department from Warburton but not credited. The effect of publication of news naturally has created tremendous excitement. People marching through streets cheering peace. If as you report there is no foundation for report, it would seem a grave error has been made by censor in permitting this message to pass and that the United Press has been guilty of reckless news work. Please have Embassy investigate and report how United Press has made such a serious mistake.”21
Judging from what Lansing reported to President Wilson about Howard’s armistice news, the State and War Departments decided that French and British censors must have been to blame for its arrival in America. For, in a memorandum the same day, he told the President the French and British “had permitted the press telegram to come through” – what he described as “a strange neglect of duty”. He did not say, however, on what evidence he based his assertion.8
The explanations from Sharp and House
Ambassador Sharp’s report to Lansing arrived at the State Department in two parts, during Friday 8 and Saturday 9 November.
In the first part (sent at 4 pm French time on Friday 8), he explained:
“Preliminary investigation shows that the telegram referred to was filed in Brest by Mr. Roy Howard head of the United Press who is now at that Port enroute to the United States. The telegram was passed by the American authorities at Brest. Will cable you when further investigation shows where responsibility lies.” (The State Department received this at 9:34 am local time on Friday 8.)
In the second part (sent at 8 pm French time on Friday 8), he added:
“Paris representative of United Press states that he has been in communication telephone with Mr. Howard at Brest who informs him that Admiral Wilson, having received a telegram from the Naval Attaché at the Embassy that armistice had been signed, gave out the news to the local press at Brest, also to Mr. Howard; the latter accompanied by one of Admiral Wilson’s aides filed the cable to the United States which was passed by the censor.” 22 (The State Department received this at 11:43 am local time on Saturday 9.)
Special Representative House replied on Friday 8 November, at 7 pm French time. Stating that his information “coincides” with the Embassy’s, he explained:
“Most of the officials in Paris and practically every non-official person here believed yesterday that the armistice had been signed. Captain Jackson, Naval Attaché at the Embassy, sent Admiral Wilson at Brest a wire to that effect. Wilson showed wire to Roy Howard at Brest and sent an aide with him to cable censor so that Howard would be permitted to send through a dispatch stating that the armistice had been signed. It is perfectly clear that United Press was not at fault in this matter and that the fault if any, lies with Jackson or the French official who started the rumor.” 23 (The State Department received this the same day at 5:10 pm local time.)
Focusing specifically on Roy Howard’s false armistice cablegram, as instructed, these Sharp and House reports are the earliest official references to the alleged help Admiral Wilson gave to Roy Howard with his cablegram’s transmission from Brest. (Their information about the alleged help most likely came from the United Press office in Paris.) House mentioned the widespread belief in Paris that an armistice had been signed on 7 November (as had Warburton), announced that some French official was to blame for starting the armistice rumour, and suggested that Captain Jackson might be to blame in some way. On the other hand, Secretary of State Lansing’s assumptions about “reckless news work” by United Press are not borne out by Sharp’s and House’s explanations: they absolve United Press and Roy Howard of any wrongdoing, have nothing to say about British censors, but implicate both the French censors in Brest and the American authorities there in Howard’s cablegram’s transmission.
(There is another report on the false armistice news which the American Army’s G-2 (SOS) Intelligence Service in Paris made after conducting its own investigation into it during 7-9 November. The report’s findings were far more detailed than those in the Warburton, Sharp and House reports to the War and State Departments.24)
The Navy Department demands an explanation from Admiral Wilson
On 8 November, the Secretary of the Navy, Josephus Daniels, telegraphed Admiral Wilson in Brest wanting to know whether he was responsible for releasing the false armistice news the previous day. Wilson admitted he had announced the news, which he assumed to be official as it was from the Naval Attaché in Paris, and had handed a copy of it to Roy Howard. But he said he was not aware at the time that Howard intended to send the news home to be published and insisted that, had he realized it “was to be sent to America . . . by reason of information received from [him]”, he would certainly not have authorized it.
In other words, Admiral Wilson denied giving Howard permission to send the armistice news to the United States and, by implication, denied the allegations that he assisted him with its transmission which Ambassador Sharp and Special Representative House made in their (above) reports to Secretary of State Lansing; allegations which Roy Howard also made in his account of 7 November events in Brest.13
Unverified False Armistice Cablegrams Sent To The United States
After the war, Roy Howard acquired a number of documents relating to the False Armistice, one of which is a letter containing details about four false armistice cablegrams sent to Washington, D.C. Two of the cablegrams are to the State Department from Edward House in Paris, and two are from Admiral Wilson in Brest to the Navy Department. However, attempts to locate the cablegrams in the State Department and Navy Department archives have been unsuccessful – hence their ‘unverified’ designation here.
The unverified cablegrams from Edward House to the State Department
The letter, which Howard had acquired by December 1918, claimed that on 7 November 1918 the State Department received a cablegram at 12:30 pm from Edward House declaring “Armistice signed congratulations”; and that this was followed ten minutes later, at 12:40 pm, by another which cancelled the previous one with the note “Error but will [communicate] later full report follows House”.17 Their transmission-times from Paris are not given, but to reach the State Department at 12:30 pm and 12:40 pm EST both must have left Paris before 5:40 pm French time at the very latest.
Putting these unverified cablegrams from House in context, by the time they had both arrived at the State Department before 12:40 pm, Major Warburton’s “Armistice signed” cablegram had arrived at the War Office; Secretary of State Lansing’s request to House to confirm or deny Warburton’s armistice news had left soon after 11:00 am and arrived in Paris soon after 4:10 pm French time; Roy Howard’s armistice news had begun spreading across America; and Major Warburton’s cancellation of his armistice-news had arrived in the War Department at 12:25 pm – just five minutes before House’s unverified “Armistice signed congratulations” message and fifteen minutes before his unverified “Error” message cancelling it.
House’s “Armistice has not yet been signed” officially recorded reply to Lansing’s 11:00 am request for a confirmation or denial of Warburton’s morning armistice news did not arrive until 2:04 pm – an hour and twenty-four minutes after his unverified cancellation of the armistice news.
If House’s unverified cablegrams were authentic then it might be that his “Armistice signed congratulations” message was his first reply to Lansing’s request for confirmation or denial of Warburton’s morning armistice news. A reply sent in the mistaken belief that the afternoon armistice news now circulating in Paris was confirmation of Warburton’s morning news. Further, it is conceivable that, to cover House’s embarrassing error, his two unverified cablegrams were later excluded from State Department records to leave only his verified “Armistice has not yet been signed” message as his reply to Lansing’s 11:00 am request concerning the Warburton news.
In other words, there were possibly three false armistice news cablegrams to the State Department during the afternoon of 7 November showing House’s name – the two unverified ones and his published response to Lansing’s confirmation or denial request. But only the latter was included in the official records.
(But see below ‘Unverified false armistice cablegrams from Ambassador William Sharp to the State Department’)
The unverified cablegrams from Admiral Wilson to the Navy Department
According to the information Roy Howard acquired, Admiral Wilson’s first unverified false armistice message read “Headquarters [in Paris] reports armistice signed Wilson”. Its dispatch-time is not given, but it arrived at the Navy Department at 12:10 pm, which means it left Brest sometime before 5:10 pm French time. This was around the same time that Roy Howard’s false armistice cablegram arrived in New York City, having been transmitted from Brest not long before 4:30 pm French time (the Jackson Armistice Telegram had reached Brest just before 4:00 pm French time, 11:00 am EST), and twenty minutes before House’s first unverified cablegram reached the State department. An hour elapsed before the arrival at 1:10 pm of Wilson’s second unverified cablegram, which cancelled the first one with the message “Headquarters [in Paris] report error in signature Wilson”. Again, the dispatch-time is not given, but it must have left Brest sometime before 6:10 pm French time. (It had reached the Navy Department half an hour later than House’s unverified cancellation reached the State Department.) 17
As noted above, attempts to locate Admiral Wilson’s (and House’s) unverified cablegrams have been unsuccessful. It would have been highly irregular for Wilson not to have reported both the armistice news, which he believed was authentic, and its later cancellation. Indeed, there is evidence that his headquarters did report Jackson’s armistice news around 4:00 pm French time (11am EST)25, while Wilson’s own archive records that Captain Jackson himself sent him a cancellation message in code “two hours” later – that is, around 6:00 pm French time (2pm EST) – but not that he actually reported it to the Navy Department.13
Wilson’s two unverified false armistice cablegrams, therefore, were probably authentic and Roy Howard’s information about them was accurate – their unverified local arrival times at the Navy Department allow for their transmission from Brest at the equivalent French times. If this is so, the reason they have been excluded from the US Navy Department archives is not known, after all, at the time Admiral Wilson acknowledged his responsibility for releasing the false armistice news in Brest, and American newspapers reported the story. His errors in the matter thus became widely known. Edward House, William Sharp, and the G-2 (SOS) Report drew official attention to his actions (for many years unpublished), so it can hardly be said that excluding his false armistice cablegrams from the official records has concealed those errors and any embarrassment they caused the Admiral.
Two unverified cablegrams from Ambassador William Sharp to the State Department
In November 1951, thirty-three years later, Roy Howard told David Lawrence, a Washington Evening Star journalist, that Special Representative Edward House and Secretary of War Newton D. Baker had disclosed to him that Ambassador Sharp and Embassy staff members Military Attaché Major Warburton and Naval Attaché Captain Jackson had, respectively, sent “messages virtually identical to the one received by Admiral Wilson” to Secretary of State Lansing, Secretary of War Baker, and Navy Secretary Josephus Daniels. (Actually, Warburton’s officially recorded message to War Secretary Baker – “Armistice signed” – was not “virtually identical to the one received by Admiral Wilson” i.e., the Jackson armistice message.)
Howard explained that “Colonel House told me that as soon as he learned of [these armistice] messages . . . he got in touch with Ambassador Sharp and told him that the information was erroneous and that as a result the messages sent to State, War and Navy were promptly killed from Paris. Captain Jackson also wired a kill to Admiral Wilson.”26 He did not say when House and Baker had given him this information, but it must have been sometime after the Armistice.
The allegations now that Ambassador Sharp had also cabled the State Department announcing the signing of a German armistice on 7 November, and that Edward House intervened to have it cancelled, if true, contradict the information Howard had acquired by December 1918 about House’s own unverified false armistice cablegrams to the State Department (above). The other information, that the Jackson armistice message (as well as being sent to Admiral Wilson in Brest) was also cabled from Paris to Navy Secretary Josephus Daniels, echoes information Howard had acquired in December 1918 from Emmett King.17
Howard gave these and other details to David Lawrence in November 1951 for an item the journalist wrote which repeated Howard’s old allegation that the Navy Department censors delayed the release of his 7 November 1918 cablegram cancelling his initial Jackson armistice news cablegram to the UP New York City office and thereby allowed the false armistice news and premature peace celebrations to spread – an allegation that transferred the blame from him to the Navy Department for False Armistice Day in the United States (and in Canada, Australia and New Zealand).27
This new information cannot be verified for the same reason Howard’s December 1918 acquired information cannot be verified – there is nothing in the 1933 published wartime State Department papers about Ambassador Sharp sending false armistice news to Secretary of State Lansing or about House intervening to have it cancelled. But in light of the G-2 (SOS) Report’s implicating the American Embassy in spreading the false armistice news on 7 November, and of a few details Fred Ferguson, of the UP Paris office, sent to Howard about that involvement, it is plausible that Sharp did send an armistice-signed cablegram which, like the four unverified ones discussed above, was excluded from the official records. Fred Ferguson informed Howard that his “friends” in Edward House’s entourage had told him that “[in] response query [concerning an armistice with Germany]” House had advised Secretary of State Lansing “otherwise safternoon” (House’s verified cablegram to Lansing). And, tellingly, that House himself had told him: “they tried [to] make me believe it [the armistice news]” – ‘they’ being American Embassy officials; Ferguson ended with “embassy in very bad will write details”.28
If Howard had accurately recalled the details of the 1951 information he gave to David Lawrence, then it may be that Edward House not only sent to the State Department the two unverified false armistice cablegrams discussed above, but had convinced Ambassador Sharp that the armistice news was false after he himself had been told later by his own staff that it was so.
ADDENDUM
Vice Admiral Frédéric Paul Moreau’s “Order” concerning an Armistice with Germany
Vice-Admiral Moreau (1858-1929) was the Maritime Prefect, Commander-in-Chief, and Governor of Brest in November 1918. The following is an English translation of an “Order” from him which was to be issued only after he had officially announced that an armistice had been signed with Germany. It confirms the armistice news to French personnel under his command and tells them to be guarded and restrained in their reactions to it until further information and orders have been received. It is undated but its content gives the impression of having been prepared either before or not long after the 6 November press announcement of the German Armistice Delegation’s departure for the Western Front (rather than after 7 November and the false armistice events in Brest).
The translation is from “a scrapbook album of photographs and documents” about General George H. Harries, who commanded the US Army Base in Brest at the time and evidently retained it as a memento.29 Whether a copy of Moreau’s Order was sent to Harries and other Allied Commanders in Brest to advise them of how the French authorities intended to deal with official news of a German armistice, is not known. No copy of it is in US Admiral H. B. Wilson’s public archive, although there may be one in what he refers to as “his scrap books kept during the War”, from which some of his public archive papers were taken.30 And the whereabouts of the original French version is unknown here.
There is no evidence that Admiral Wilson sent the armistice message he received from Paris to General Harries or Vice Admiral Moreau before announcing it to US navy personnel and local civilians – and thereby setting off the premature peace celebrations in Brest. He visited the Vice Admiral the following day at the Maritime Prefect’s Headquarters in Siam Street, having heard that he was “a bit upset by the turn of events” on 7 November. Appearing “very serious”, Moreau complained at length about the disruption the Admiral’s release of the false armistice news had caused throughout Brest. He had been kept awake most of the night by the revellers’ noise, by men from the Arsenal factory gathering outside his residence calling for their war-work shifts to be cancelled, and by representatives from bars and restaurants wanting him to cancel the wartime 9:00 pm closing-time. His repeated denials that an armistice had been signed were rejected with shouts of “Admiral Wilson says the war is over”.31
When General Harries heard that Admiral Wilson had announced that an armistice had been signed and hostilities had ended, he refused to allow any US army personnel in Brest to join in the celebrations until G-2 (SOS) authorities in Paris or General Pershing’s Headquarters in Chaumont had confirmed the news – which of course did not happen. During the late afternoon, Vice Admiral Moreau’s Headquarters informed Colonel Maurice Laureau, Head of the French Mission to the US Army Base, that the news, although from an official French source, was “fake”. Laureau immediately informed General Harris who gave instructions for US authorities in Paris to be asked for details about the latest developments. A reply finally arrived around 9:00 pm and confirmed Laureau’s information that no armistice had been signed.32
General Harries, like Vice Admiral Moreau, was upset by what Admiral Wilson did on 7 November. He complained to the local Brest newspaper, La Dépêche, about an editorial remark that the false armistice news had been received “in all the towns where there were American headquarters”. Feeling that this wrongly associated the American Army with the American Navy in the release and spread of the news, the General insisted that the editor make it clear that “the American Army had been totally uninvolved in, and unconnected with, the dissemination of the false news.”31
The matter was brought to a close a few days later by Admiral Wilson. On Monday 11 November (the day of the actual Armistice), Wilson wrote a letter to La Dépêche which was published the following day. It was not an apology for what had happened the previous Thursday, but an explanation that “the premature announcement of the armistice” was from a source which “heretofore had proved most reliable”, and that only later in the day did he receive information that “the report was not correct”. This “happily closes the little incident that arose last Thursday”, the newspaper concluded, and increases – if this is possible – the respect and affection of the people of Brest for their great friend”.31
© James Smith (July 2018; reviews and new material, May 2022-May 2025.)
REFERENCES
DOCUMENT SOURCES
A) United States Army in the World War, 1917-1919.Volume 10. Part 1.The Armistice Agreement and Related Documents. Center Of Military History, United States Army. (Washington, DC, 1948; 1991) [Online]
B) Records of the War Department General and Special Staffs. Military Intelligence Division. Security Classified Correspondence and Reports, 1917-1941. Record Group 165, United States National Archives at College Park, Maryland.
C) Papers Relating to the Foreign Relations of the United States, 1918. Supplement 1,The World War, Volume I. Part 1:The Continuation and Conclusion of the War – Participation of the United States. Editor: Joseph V. Fuller. (US Government Printing Office. Washington, DC. 1933.) [Online]
D) Papers Relating to the Foreign Relations of the United States: The Lansing Papers, 1914-1920. Volume II. ‘Memorandum by the Secretary of State. November 7, 1918.’ Document 126. Editors: Cyril Wynne; E. Wilder Spaulding; E. R. Perkins. (US Government Printing Office. Washington, DC. 1940.) [Online]
E) Department of State Records, Record Group 84, United States National Archives and Records Administration, College Park, Maryland.
NOTES
1. The literal meaning of armistice is ‘a halt to, or stopping of, the use of arms’ (as in weapons of war).
2. Wikipedia, Barclay Harding Warburton I; and Register of the Department of State, December 23 1918, Washington Government Printing Office 1919, p173.
3a. Warburton to War Department. Paris. November 7, 1918.No. 628. File #2169-38. Document Sources B). Referred to as Document No 398 in Document Sources C) and in the Lansing Memorandum in Document Sources D). The 8:55 am arrival time at the War Department is recorded on the telegram.
3b. G-2 (SOS) Report, Section 3. Document Sources A). See on this website, the ‘American Army G-2 (SOS) Report on the False Armistice News’.
4. The “war-time system of quick communication” is mentioned in a 1928 article, about the Major Warburton and Roy Howard false armistice cablegrams, published by the Madera Daily Tribune and Madera Mercury (California), 7 November 1928, p3, under ‘World War Officials Give Story of How False Report Started’. There are two separate articles on the page but paragraphs from each article evidently became mixed-up, causing some confusion in the narrative.
5a. Lansing Memorandum, Document Sources D); and Secretary of State to the Special Representative (House). Washington, November 7, 1918, 11 a.m. Document No 398, Document Sources C). House is usually referred to as ‘Colonel’ House, but he had no military service record or official military rank.
5b. House to Secretary of State. Paris, November 7, 1918, 6 p.m. Document 399. Document Sources C). And Lansing Memorandum. Document Sources D).
6. The Madera Daily Tribune and Madera Mercury (California), 7 November 1928, p3. See note 4.
7. Warburton to War Department. No. 629. Dated November 7, 1918. Received November 7, 12:25 p.m. File #2169-39. Document Sources B).
8. Lansing Memorandum. Document Sources D).
9. Churchill to Military Attache, Paris. November 8, 1918.File #2169-40. Document Sources B). No ‘time sent’ indicated.
10. Warburton to War Department. No. 642, Paris. November 8, 1918. Received Nov. 8, 10:40 p.m. File #2169-41. Document Sources B). Warburton’s false armistice cablegram was made known in 1933, when the State Department Papers, cited in Document Sources C), were published. The 7 November 1928 article in the Madera Daily Tribune (note 4) declared it was revealing “for the first time the fact that the U.S. military attache communicated . . . word that the armistice had been signed”. But it does not name Warburton. Roy Howard named him in his 1936 chapter in Webb Miller where he described Warburton’s message – erroneously – as a “verbatim duplicate” of Captain Jackson’s to Admiral Wilson. (Webb Miller, I Found No Peace. The Journal of a Foreign Correspondent. Chapter IV ‘Premature Armistice’, p87. (Camelot Press, London. Book Club Special Edition. 1937.)
11. For more about Colonel Cabot Ward and Major Warburton, see ‘The American Army G-2 (SOS) Report on the False Armistice News’ on this website.
12. See on this website, ‘The Jackson Armistice Telegram’ and ‘The False Armistice in Britain’. And the article ‘Reuters and the False Armistice of 7 November 1918’, by James Smith, in The Baron Archives, 6 April 2017, at
www.thebaron.info/archives/reuters-and-the-false-armistice-of-7-november-1918
13. See ‘Admiral H. B. Wilson and Roy Howard’s Armistice Cablegram’ on this website.
Admiral Wilson remarked in a letter to Navy Secretary Josephus Daniels that “our own messages went out [to the Navy Department] over our own direct lines to the U.S. Naval Headquarters in London.” This and his denial of the allegations against him are in the website article under ‘Rebuttal of Roy Howard’s Claims, [Note]’.
14. Associated Press Letter: R. M. Collins to Jackson S. Elliott, December 12, 1918. Associated Press Corporate Archives, AP02A.03A, Subject Files, Box 27, Folder 6.
15. A search carried out for the author in the State Department archives found no references to the London Embassy’s receipt of a false armistice message on 7 November 1918.
16. See ‘The False Armistice in Britain’ article on this website. And James Smith, ‘The Press Censors and the Reuter Armistice Bulletin of 7 November 1918’ at www.thebaron.info/archives/the-press-censors-and-the-reuter-armistice-bulletin-of-7-november-1918
This was published in The Baron magazine before the Associated Press information about the US Embassy in London became available to the author, and so is not included there.
17. For sources details, see ‘Roy Howard’s Search for Information about the False Armistice’ on this website.
18. See on this website, ‘Roy W. Howard in Brest’ Parts One and Two, for an examination of what happened there during 7-9 November 1918; and ‘Media Reminders of the False Armistice, 1919-1945’.
19. Madera Daily Tribune, Wednesday, November 7, 1928, p2. (See note 4.)
20. Lansing to Sharp. Washington, November 7, 1918, 4 p.m. Document 400 Document Sources C)
21. Lansing to House. Washington. November 7, 1918. 4 p.m. Quoted from File #763.72119/9101a, Document Sources E). Not in Document Sources C).
22. Sharp to Lansing. Paris. November 8, 1918, 4 p.m. File #763.72119/2514; and Sharp to Lansing. Paris. November 8, 1918, 8 P.M. File #763.72119/2543. Document Sources E). The latter, part two, is also in the published Document Sources C), as Document 409.
23. House to Lansing. Paris. November 8, 1918, 7 p.m. Recd. 5:10 p.m. File #763.72119/9100. Document Sources E). Also in Document Sources C), as Document 404.
24. See ‘The American Army G-2 (SOS) Report on the False Armistice News’ on this website.
25. See ‘Arthur Hornblow’s Information about the Jackson Armistice Telegram’ on this website.
26. R. W. Howard to David Lawrence, November 30, 1951. The letter concerns a comment President Truman made during a Korean War press conference about Howard’s “fake” armistice cablegram. Quoted by Lawrence in his feature ‘Roy Howard Recounts ’18 Story’ for the (Washington, D.C.) Evening Star, December 8, 1951, p13. Available online through the Library of Congress Chronicling America portal. Note: Major Warburton’s armistice message to the War Department on 7 November 1918 was not identical to the Jackson armistice message. His stated simply “Armistice signed”.
27. See ‘Roy W. Howard in Brest Part Two: 8-9 November 1918, ADDENDUM: HOWARD’S 7 NOVEMBER CABLEGRAMS AND EVENING MEETING WITH ADMIRAL WILSON’ on this website; and the David Lawrence newspaper feature. (Note 26)
28. Telegram, Ferguson to Howard “about 11 PM Thursday”. And Telegram, Ferguson to Howard “Friday Nov 8, 1918 3:15”. See ‘Roy Howard’s Search for Information about the False Armistice’ on this website.
In Ambassador Sharp’s memoirs there is nothing about False Armistice events inside the Paris Embassy or anywhere else. Indeed, there is no coverage of any events occurring during the first week of November 1918. (Warrington Dawson (Ed), The War Memoirs of William Graves Sharp, American Ambassador to France 1914-1919, published in 1931.)
The Embassy’s documents held in the State Department archives hold no information about 7 November false armistice messages, while the relevant State Department Weekly Report contains no references either. (Searches of the Paris Embassy documents in the State Department archives, undertaken for the author, came across no information about 7 November 1918 false armistice messages.)
29. Tennessee Virtual Archive, Digital Collection Over Here, Over There, ‘Armistice Announcement’, ID# GWfran067. Attempts to locate the General’s “scrapbook album” have been unsuccessful.
30. Papers of Henry B. Wilson, Archives Branch, Naval History and Heritage Command, Washington, D.C., p14 in the collection, under ‘Odds and Ends’.
31. See ‘The False Armistice in France’ on this website.
32. See ‘Roy W. Howard in Brest: Part One, 7 November 1918’ on this website.
The False Armistice, 7 November 1918 