Three days before Roy Howard’s armistice message from France was published across the United States, a Washington, D.C., newspaper, prompted by a ‘phone call made from the State Department, printed a news ‘extra’ announcing that Germany had signed an armistice.
Not long after 9:00 pm on Monday 4 November 1918, the Washington Herald rushed “several hundred” extra editions onto the streets with news that the Germans had signed an armistice and the war was finally over. ENDNOTE 1
In spite of the late hour the news spread quickly and large numbers of people began to fill the streets hoping to obtain a confirmation of it. Another D.C. paper – the Evening Star – told readers the following day that “fully 10,000 persons besieged [its] office”, and “for more than two hours . . . crowded the lobby . . . eager to find out just what was what in the war situation”. As “soldiers, civilians, women and children flowed into the lobby “they were told by an “official of The Star” that the war had not yet ended. At the same time, hundreds more were “telephoning The Star for the facts, and these calls continued until midnight”. 2 (No premature peace celebrations were reported.)
The next morning the Herald printed an apology for the false news and a brief explanation of what had happened:
“Early in the evening we received an apparently reliable report that the armistice between the allies and Germany had been signed and that the official statement would be made at 9 o’clock. The Herald had reporters at the State Department and at the Committee on Public Information with telephone wires open to The Herald office ready to release the [extra] edition as soon as word was received. A few minutes after 9 o’clock a reporter phoned to The Herald to release the edition. The presses were started and newsboys were already on the street before the complete statement which showed only an agreement between the allies themselves had been read. The Herald blames no one and takes this means of making apologies for a blunder.” 1
The background to the “blunder” was the 4 November meeting in Paris at which American, British, French, and Italian representatives finally agreed on the terms they would demand when the Germans asked for an armistice – which they were expecting them to do in the next few days. The Germans had already made it known that they wanted to stop fighting. Their military leaders knew they had lost the war and Bolshevik-inspired naval mutinies and political upheaval were spreading throughout the Reich. Moreover, by now all of Germany’s allies (Austria-Hungary, the Ottoman Empire, and Bulgaria) had signed their own armistices and withdrawn from the war.
The Paris meeting ended early in the afternoon (French time). Secretary of State Robert Lansing was informed later by cablegram, “You may announce to newspapers that the terms of the armistice to be offered Germany have been agreed to and signed by the Inter-Allied Conference unanimously. Diplomatic unity completely achieved under conditions of utmost harmony. Do not permit this report to be cabled back to Europe or out of the United States.” 3 (The armistice terms themselves were not disclosed.)
The cablegram arrived in the State Department at 3:52 p.m. local time (five hours behind French time); 3 and at 7:00 pm “word went out from the Department that an important statement would be forthcoming at 9pm”. 4 Lansing himself read the statement to reporters; it was very brief: “Terms upon which Germany may obtain an immediate armistice, and end the war, were completed and signed today in Paris . . . . Complete diplomatic harmony has been achieved by the Allied and American conferees at Versailles.” 5
So, paraphrasing the Washington Herald’s 5 November explanation (above), they had received an “apparently reliable report that the armistice between the allies and Germany had been signed and that the official statement would be made at 9 o’clock”; a few minutes after 9:00 pm, their man at the scene telephoned their office to confirm the earlier “apparently reliable” armistice report, and thereby caused hundreds of ‘extras’ to be printed and sold on the streets. The reporter had not waited until the “complete statement . . . had been read”; had he done so, he would have realized that it “showed only an agreement between the allies themselves” and not Germany’s agreement to the armistice terms.
If the explanation is to be believed, the reporter must have misunderstood the first of the two sentences in Lansing’s announcement to mean that the war was over, and then left to telephone the Washington Herald office before Lansing had finished speaking. It is more likely, however, that he did not hear any of Lansing’s announcement. Expecting the Secretary of State to officially declare that the war with Germany had ended, the reporter was probably already waiting by the open telephone line to confirm the anticipated peace news as soon as Lansing started speaking.
(The Associated Press news agency made this interesting comment about the 4 November armistice news blunder: “So strong is the impression here that Germany will accept [the armistice terms] that when word came that a statement was to be issued by the State Department . . . a Washington newspaper put out an extra saying the war was over and Germany had surrendered.” Adding laconically, “It caused no excitement.” 6)
It may be assumed that the Herald’s armistice news spread beyond Washington, D.C., since people there would inevitably have passed it on – by telephone and telegram – to people living elsewhere. It certainly reached New York City, as this transcript of the telegram below it attests:
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United States Naval Communication Service Third Naval District, New York City, N. Y. DISPATCH Gov’t Recd 11:30 PM Nov. 4th 1918 HERALD WAR IS OVER GERMANY SIGNS ARMISTICE TERMS OF THE ALLIES FORCING HER TO SURRENDER UNCONDITIONALLY AND REDUCING EMPIRE TO MILITARY IMPOTENCY. THE GREAT WORLD WAR IS ENDED. GERMANY HAS SURRENDERED UNCONDITIONALLY. THE ARMISTICE TERMS IMPOSED BY THE ALLIES AND HANDED THIS AFTERNOON BY MARSHAL FOCH’S EMISSARY TO THE GENERAL COMMANDING THE GERMAN ARMIES ON THE WESTERN FRONT HAVE BEEN SIGNED. THIS FACT HAS JUST BEEN TRANSMITTED TO WASHINGTON AND HAS BEEN OFFICIALLY ANNOUNCED. THE TERMS SIGNED BY GERMANY REDUCE HER TO MILITARY IMPOTENCY. HOSTILITIES ON THE WESTERN FRONT ARE TO STOP IMMEDIATELY. THIS WAS THE LAST ACTIVE FRONT AFTER THE CAPITULATION OF AUSTRIA. COMPLETE TERMS OF ARMISTICE SIGNED BY GERMANY WILL APPEAR IN LATER EDITIONS OF THE WASHINGTON HERALD.
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Ensign Reginald Loomis Carter was the duty senior officer in the N.Y.C. Third Naval District Communication Office when the telegram arrived there at 11:30 pm, some two and a half hours after the Washington Herald had printed its armistice extra edition. A few days later, he wrote this note about it:
Transcript:
This message was received over the air on the night of Nov 4th – 5th 1918 while I was senior officer of the Communication Office of the 3rd Naval District at 44 Whitehall St. N.Y.C.
The radio operator could not trace the source. After a great deal of thought and with much trembling I called up Admiral Usher – Commandant of the 3rd Naval District and delivered by phone this message about 12 30 AM Nov 5th. He was quite at a loss also and eventually said “Probably has no official meaning.” Two days later the “False Armistice” was celebrated. This is probably one of the first rumors that started the “False Armistice
Reginald L. Carter
Ensign U.S.N.R.F.
There is no plausible reason why the Washington Herald’s armistice news should have been transmitted to the New York City Naval Communication Office: it is unlikely that any Government Department in Washington, D.C., would have sent it there or anywhere else. On the other hand, if the radio operator in the Communication Office had been listening in to general wireless traffic that evening (a common practice among military radio operators at the time) he probably ‘caught’ this telegram en route to wherever it was going, rather than received it as one addressed specifically to the Third Naval District – which may also explain why he could not trace its transmission-source.
As for its contents, it is conceivable that the telegram’s text was copied from one of the Washington Herald’s ‘extras’ released after 9:00 pm that evening. And that the word ‘Herald’ at the beginning of the text signifies that it was on its way to the New York Herald newspaper for the information of its news editor. (The two papers were independent of each other). 7
The descendants of Ensign Carter (known as Rex) have kept the 4 November false armistice telegram and his explanatory note among their family memorabilia, from which the following personal details about Rex, recorded by his son, are also taken:
“My father (REX) was born in 1889, the thirteenth child of Samuel T Carter, a Presbyterian minister with a parish in Huntington, Long Island. His life, that of his father Robert Carter (a well known publisher in NYC), and my great great grandfather Samuel Thomson (a famous NYC builder) are well documented in family books.
My grandfather’s (Samuel Carter) family was a close, loving family and my father had a happy childhood amongst his many older siblings. Five of his brothers went to Princeton, as did my father (REX), Class of 1911.
After college he spent a year in California, and then returned to go to work for The Guaranteed Mortgage Company in NYC. He enlisted in the Navy as an ensign in 1916, the same year that my parents were married. He was stationed at the Brooklyn Navy Yard during WW1 and after the war he returned to the Guaranteed Mortgage Co. where he did extremely well financially, only to lose all his money in the crash of 1929. He spent a good deal of the Great Depression job hunting, finally landing a good job in the Real Estate Department of an insurance company in NYC. Unfortunately his health had started to fail so that he had to retire at the start of WW11. During WW11 he was active in the Red Cross in Englewood when his health allowed.
He died on Dec 17, 1950, of a heart attack at age 61. Following in his father’s footsteps, he was a devoted Presbyterian all his life.”
The information about Ensign Carter, this photograph of him during his Naval Reserve Force service, the 4 November false armistice telegram and explanatory note, are all included here with the permission of Rex’s grandson, Geoff Carter, who contacted me through this website and drew my attention to the 4 November false armistice event and his grandfather’s remarkable experience of it. (James Smith)
© James Smith and Geoff Carter. March 2023.
ENDNOTES
- The Washington Herald, Washington, D.C., Tuesday, November 5, 1918, front page under ‘AN APOLOGY’. Available through the Library of Congress Chronicling America Historic American Newspapers portal. It merged with the Washington Times in 1939 to become the Washington Times-Herald.
- The Washington Star, Tuesday, November 5, 1918, p14 under ‘THE STAR BESIEGED FOR TRUE WAR NEWS’. Available through the Library of Congress Chronicling America Historic American Newspapers portal.
- The Special Representative(House) to the Secretary of State. Telegram 45. File No. 763.72119/9054. In: Papers Relating to the Foreign Relations of the United States, 1918, Supplement 1, the World War, Volume 1. Available online.
- Associated Press, Washington, D.C., Bureau News Dispatches, Night Local 29, 4 November 1918. Box 50, 1918, November 1-15, p197/839.
Available through The Library of Congress > Researchers > Search Finding Aids > Associated Press News Dispatches, 1915-1930.
- The New York Tribune, Tuesday, November 5, 1918, front page, under ‘Lansing’s Statement Tells of Unity at Versailles Council’. (The omissions are superfluous to the statement.) Available through the Library of Congress Chronicling America Historic American Newspapers portal.
- Associated Press, Washington, D.C., Bureau News Dispatches, Night Local 27, 4 November 1918. Box 50, 1918, November 1-15, p196/839.
Available through The Library of Congress > Researchers > Search Finding Aids > Associated Press News Dispatches, 1915-1930.
- New York Herald newspapers from 1880 to early 1920 seem to be unavailable in archives.
The False Armistice, 7 November 1918 