Few Official False Armistice Recollections

General Henri Mordacq’s articles and books about the 11 November 1918 Armistice (below) are rare instances of a high-ranking Allied official’s recollections of the Great War which offer information about the False Armistice of 7 November 1918.  (Addendum, below).  The American Army G-2 (SOS) Report, and W. G. Sharp’s and Edward House’s reports to the State Department are rare examples of official records relating to the false armistice news that were later made public.  In almost all the other published memoirs and records of American, French, and British authorities, referred to here and in other articles on this website, the False Armistice seems to have been deliberately ignored.

By way of illustration:

Marshal Ferdinand Foch, the Supreme Commander of the Allied Armies, warned his commanders that “in order to deceive us, the enemy might spread rumours that an armistice has been signed.  It has not been signed”.  And told them not to cease hostilities “of any kind without the consent of the Allied Commander-in-Chief.”

The message was forwarded to the Headquarters of General (later Marshal) Pétain, Commander-in-Chief of the French Armies, for circulation.  It is dated “7 novembre” with the time “23 heures”.  Pétain’s Chief of Staff, General Edmond Buat, had it telegraphed to the armies (except the French First Army which had already received “special instructions”).1

In his memoirs, published some years later, Foch noted that he had “warned all the armies against false rumours which the enemy might circulate regarding the conclusion of an armistice”.  From its context here, the warning was issued in anticipation of false rumours, sometime during 4-6 November 1918, rather than at 11:00 pm on 7 November by which time it was clear that the armistice news was indeed false.2  Apart from this reference, Foch ignored the actual false armistice reports and their effects that day, as did General Buat in the rest of his diary entry for 7 November.

American Ambassador W. G. Sharp was instructed at the time to explain to the State Department how the false armistice news had reached New York City from (as it was initially thought) Paris.  In his memoirs, Chapter XV, under the title ‘The Days of the Armistice’, begins in September 1918 with events leading to the armistice Bulgaria signed; and ends with a note about the “impressive scene at the Chamber [of Deputies] on November 11” where he heard “M. Clemenceau announce the signing of the [German] Armistice and read its conditions”.  In between, there is nothing about False Armistice events outside the American Embassy on 7 November, or the Embassy’s part in spreading both the morning and afternoon false peace news that day.3

Similarly, President Wilson’s Special Representative Edward House, who received instructions to report on the false armistice news at the same time as Ambassador Sharp, left no information about it for his archive.  And there is a corresponding omission in Charles Seymour’s ‘narrative arrangement’ of House’s “Intimate Papers” which does not cover Thursday 7 or Friday 8 November events in Paris.4

Captain (later Admiral) R. H. Jackson never publicly spoke about the false armistice telegram that carried his name as authorization.  He was probably asked to comment on it a number of times, but, evidently, he refused.  On one such occasion, prior to an Armistice anniversary radio programme in November 1938, the Columbia Broadcasting System (CBS) asked Jackson for permission to name him in connection with the telegram.  He not only refused, but threatened CBS with legal action if they did name him.  Some of his papers are deposited at Stanford University, but they throw no light on the telegram or his involvement in its transmission.5

Lieutenant Commander Charles O. Maas was Assistant Naval Attaché at the American Embassy, and was put in charge of Captain Jackson ’s office there after Jackson became the attaché but continued working from his base in the US Navy Headquarters nearby.  After the 11 November Armistice, Jackson’s successor as attaché instructed Maas to compile a history, for official records, of the work of the Paris Naval Attachés following the USA’s declaration of war against Germany in April 1917.  Like Ambassador Sharp, Maas made no reference at all to 7 November events in the American Embassy.6  

At the British Embassy in Paris (Hôtel de Charost, 39 Rue du Faubourg Saint-Honoré), the Ambassador (since April 1918), Edward Stanley, the 17th Earl of Derby, spent much of 7 November with high-ranking individuals discussing the anticipated armistice with Germany.  Among them were Raymond Poincaré, the French President, who told him about the first German Spa telegram and Foch’s reply to it; Georges Clemenceau, the French Prime Minister; and Special Representative Edward House.  But they apparently did not talk about the armistice-signed-with-Germany reports and peace celebrations evident in Paris throughout the day.  And it is not known whether Stanley, like the American Ambassador, received the afternoon message from the French Ministry of Foreign Affairs announcing the morning signing of an armistice with Germany and an afternoon cease-fire.  If he did, he may not to have reported it to the Foreign Office in London, for there is nothing about it in the relevant Foreign Office Archive of correspondence from the Paris Embassy.7

If internal enquiries were made by staff of the American Embassy in London about the receipt there of the 7 November false armistice news and its subsequent release to the British press, they were either not reported to the State Department or (if they were reported) not recorded in the Department’s archives, which have nothing from the Embassy about these events.8

Roy Howard acquired copies of the false armistice signals sent out to British and American warships of the Grand Fleet in Scotland, and an American journalist (most likely L. R. Freeman) wrote about them in an item for an American newspaper in November 1919.  But the archives of both the British Admiralty and the US Navy Department are silent about these signals and, with one exception, no one else who knew about them appears to have acknowledged them publicly.9 

Because of Roy Howard’s cablegram from Brest to New York City, carrying the afternoon false armistice news from Paris, Howard and his United Press news agency were responsible for many more people, in more countries, celebrating the 7 November peace news than would otherwise have been so if that news had stayed in France.  After the war, and dogged by his foremost role in spreading the news, Howard tried to find confidential information about the False Armistice which he believed American authorities were hiding from the general public.  But he only acquired evidence relating to the same Jackson afternoon false armistice announcement which he had forwarded to New York City.  And none of it suggests why Allied officials should want to withhold information after the war about events on 7 November 1918.9

Based on pertinent information in the False Armistice website articles, the reason posited here is that references to the False Armistice were omitted from post-war memoirs and official records because the subject was too much of an Allied embarrassment: too embarrassing for it to be acknowledged publicly that French and American authorities were largely to blame for the 7 November armistice reports and their spread; and too embarrassing to be included as a feature of the final days of the Great War that might mar the triumphant story of the Allies’ final victory.

ADDENDUM

General Henri Mordacq’s 7 November 1918 Retrospections

In November 1918, General Henri Mordacq was Head of the Military Cabinet of Georges Clemenceau, the French Prime Minister and Minister of War.  Clemenceau resided at the War Ministry, which was in the Hôtel de Brienne building at 14 rue Saint-Dominique, not far from the Assemblée Nationale and Quay d’Orsay.  General Mordacq’s offices, as his Military Cabinet Chief, were also located there.  During the inter-war period, the General wrote five articles and two books about the 11 November 1918 Armistice, which focus on events during 8-11 November but also contain some information about the False Armistice of 7 November.10

The articles were published by an American newspaper in 1928, not long before his first Armistice book in 1929.   Under the heading “Explains Erroneous Report”, the fourth article details what Mordacq claimed to know about events on 7 November 1918, what actions he took over the false armistice news, and his belief in the German spy theory about its origins.

His explanation begins with Roy Howard’s “famous telegram” from Brest carrying the Jackson armistice message to New York City – “Urgent. Armistice with Germany signed this morning, 11 o’clock. Hostilities ceased 2 in afternoon” – and its “enormous repercussions” in the USA.  He remembered “very well” that “during the evening of 7 November” he received “dozens of telephone calls from the American embassy asking if it were true the armistice had been signed”, and replying that it was not true because the German Armistice Delegates had not yet reached the front lines.

Regarding the Jackson armistice message, Mordacq stated that the actual message received was: “the officer of liaison between the French ministry of war and the American embassy informs you that the armistice has been signed”; that it was taken initially by “one of the telephonists of [Jackson’s] staff”; and that a “subsequent investigation revealed that . . . [it arrived at the American Embassy] by telephone from somebody in official relation with the French war office”.  He remarked that Captain Jackson failed to trace “that mysterious telephone call . . . back from the embassy”; that he himself “did [his] best to trace [it]” and “called in” the telephone operators on his own staff, the various liaison officers attached to his staff, and the French Army Second Bureau (military intelligence) liaison officers at the War Ministry.  “But none of them had sent the message”.

“Whoever telephoned the message”, the General added, “was careful enough to avoid saying whether he was a French or American liaison officer, of whom there were many”, and admitted that he was “convinced” the man was “a German agent”.  Echoing Arthur Hornblow’s theory,  “it is not difficult”, he reasoned “to see the advantage” for the Germans of the desired effects of their disinformation “upon the masses of France, America and England”.  For “they could then say to the allied officers who were dictating the terms of the armistice, ‘You see, your people want peace as badly as Germany does.’”  He noted that “many Americans” also believed German agents in France were responsible for the false armistice news, but pointed out that “no proof” for this explanation “has been brought forward so far”.11   

Mordacq’s two books were published in 1929 and 1937, respectively as La Vérité sur l ‘Armistice (The Truth about the Armistice), and L’Armistice du 11 Novembre 1918.  Récit d’un Témoin (The Armistice of 11 November 1918.  A Witness’s Story).  His five Evening Star articles are tantamount to a condensed, pre-publication English translation of the 1929 book, which was released in Paris a few months later.  Under the heading “Urgent”, the books contain identical accounts of the False Armistice news, but these are much shorter than the above account from the General’s fourth newspaper article.

Included in the books is what his article says about an enquiry finding that the false armistice news travelled to Captain Jackson by telephone from an official at the French War Ministry; his comment about telephone calls to him from the American embassy asking whether the armistice news was true; and speculation about the German spy theory (but now without the admission of his belief in it).

Omitted is the ‘actual’ message a telephone operator at the Embassy is said to have received from the War Ministry and forwarded to Jackson; and the information about the steps Mordacq said he took to ascertain whether it had been sent by any of the telephone operators or liaison officers on his own staff or by the French Military Intelligence liaison officers at the War Ministry.12 

Why these details are not included in the Armistice books is open to speculation.

Perhaps they were considered to be of little interest to the mostly French readers of the books, and unnecessary to the retained German spy explanation of the origin of the false armistice message (first mentioned publicly in Arthur Hornblow’s November 1921 Amazing Armistice article, eight years before Mordacq’s first Armistice book).    

But the main reason may be that that there is a contradiction between what Mordacq said was the message Captain Jackson received from the American telephone operator who took the call from the War Ministry – “the officer of liaison between the French ministry of war and the American embassy informs you that the armistice has been signed” – and the Roy Howard false armistice cablegram message to New York City quoted as the one Jackson sent to Admiral Wilson in Brest – “Urgent.  Armistice with Germany signed this morning, 11 o’clock.  Hostilities ceased 2 in afternoon.”  A contradiction which raises the obvious question: who changed the message Jackson supposedly received to the one sent to Admiral Wilson in Brest?

No one did.  The message Mordacq claimed the American Embassy operator received from the War Ministry resembles the morning false armistice message which the US Military Attaché Major Warburton received and sent to the American War Department in Washington, DC.  But Mordacq does not mention any morning false armistice messages in the War Ministry or, therefore, what was said at the time about the Ministry’s circulation of them.  Indeed, his explanation gives the impression that he did not realize the false armistice news associated with Captain Jackson was mid-afternoon news sent to the American Embassy from the French Foreign Ministry (according to information acquired by Roy Howard).  And, therefore, that he confused it with the morning false armistice news reportedly released by the French War Ministry and received and circulated by the American Embassy.13

Unfortunately, the General did not say where he was on 7 November when he took the telephone calls from the American Embassy asking about the armistice news (at the War Ministry presumably); did not shed any light on what else occurred that day inside the Ministry in relation to the armistice rumours; offer clarifying details about the American official inquiries he mentioned, or say whether other French authorities carried out inquiries of their own.

© James Smith.  (Reviewed and re-organised, February 2025.)

REFERENCES

  1. Général Edmond Buat, Journal, 1914-1923. (France, 2015.) Kindle Edition used here.  A copy of the order is also in United States Army in the World War, 1917-1919. Volume 10, Part 1, The Armistice Agreement and Related Documents. G-3, GHQ, AEF: Fldr. 1203: Telegram. Stuart Heintzelman. Brig. General U.S.A. Chief of  Staff. Second Army:  ‘Order Forbidding Cessation of Hostilities’.  “C-in-C. French Armies. To: Staffs PICARDIE CHAMPAGNE MIRECOURT CONDE LAHEYCOURT. GENERAL HEADQUARTERS, FRENCH ARMIES OF THE EAST, November 7. 1918.” [No time of day indicated.]
  2. The Memoirs of Marshal Foch, Book II, Chapter XIV, ‘The Armistice’, p465. New York, 1931. Translated by Col. T. Bentley Mott.  And p289 in Maréchal Foch, Mémoires pour servir à l’histoire de la guerre de 1914-1918.  Tome Second. (Paris, 1931).  Available online through BnF Gallica website.  (It was not until 8:15 pm on Friday 8 November that the A.E.F. 33rd Division, in the Troyon-sur-Meuse sector (a few miles south of Verdun), received the Marshal’s message – F. L. Huidekoper, The History of the 33rd Division A.E.F., p198.  (Volume 1 of Illinois in the World War, Illinois, 1921.)
  3. Warrington Dawson (Ed), The War Memoirs of William Graves Sharp, American Ambassador to France 1914-1919. (London, 1931).
  4. Edward Mandell House Papers, Call Number MS 466, Yale University Archives. And The Intimate Papers of Colonel House, Volume 4, The Ending of the War. Chapter V, ‘Germany Surrenders’. Arranged as a Narrative by Charles Seymour. (1928)
  5. See the article ‘Arthur Hornblow’s Information About The Jackson Armistice Telegram’ on this website. The Richard Harrison Jackson Papers, 1917-1930 are in the Hoover Institution Library and Archives of Stanford University.
  6. Lieutenant Commander Charles O. Maas, A History of the Office of the United States Naval Attaché, American Embassy, Paris, France, during the period embraced by the participation of the United States in the war of 1914-1918, compiled for the US Navy’s Historical Section.  Its unbound typewritten pages are held by the US National Archives and Records Service, Washington, D.C. (File Unit, E-9-a, 12302. NAID, 196039947 and 196039948, Container ID 745, Record Group 38.  The separate typewritten pages were put together as a Print Book in 1977.  Maas died in France on 21 July 1919, what must have been a short time after he completed the history.
  7. David Dutton (Ed.), Paris 1918. The War Diary of the 17th Earl of Derby. ‘November 1918. Thursday, 7th November’, pp326-329. (Liverpool University Press. 2001). And result of searches carried out for the author during February-March 2016.
  8. Result of searches carried out for the author during January 2018.
  9. See the article ‘Roy Howard’s Search For Information About The False Armistice on this website’.
  10. General Henri Mordacq was born 12 January 1868; his body was pulled from the River Seine on 12 April 1943, his death declared to be suicide. He is buried in Montparnasse Cemetery in Paris.
  11. The Evening Star, Wednesday, November 14, 1928, p22, under ‘The World War Armistice: Day-by-Day Negotiations Ten Years Ago’.  Available through the Library of Congress, Chronicling America Historic American Newspapers portal.  The five articles appeared in the Washington, DC, Evening Star over the five days from 11 to 15 November 1928.  It is not known for certain, but it is highly likely that C. F. Cook (Fred Cook) played a part in acquiring Mordacq’s material for the articles.  In 1918, Cook was an American Army Major in Brest who, like Arthur Hornblow, had spent some time with Roy Howard on 7 November.  For many years after the war, he worked for the Evening Star and wrote his own recollections of False Armistice events in Brest for the paper’s Armistice anniversary features in 1924 and 1925.  (See the article ‘Roy W. Howard in Brest, Part One, 7 November 1918’ on this website.
  12. Général Henri Mordacq, La Vérité sur l ‘Armistice(The Truth about the Armistice), Chapitre III, ‘Les journées des 10 et 11 novembre’, pp46-48. Editions Jules Tallandier. (Paris. 1929.) And L’ARMISTICE DU 11 NOVEMBRE 1918. RÉCIT D’UN TÉMOIN (The 11 November 1918 Armistice. A Witness’s Story. ‘Les fausses nouvelles’, pp107-109.Librairie Plon. (Paris. 1937.)  Extracts translated by the writer of this article.
  13. See the articles ‘False Armistice Cablegrams From France’ and ‘The American Army G-2 Report On The False Armistice News’ on this website.