The False Armistice in Britain

On Thursday 7 November 1918, what US Army Intelligence called a “False Report of Signing of Armistice” spread from Paris to other parts of France and other Allied countries, provoking peace celebrations by millions of people four days before the real Monday 11 November Armistice was signed and ended the Great War. Those 7 November events are known as the False Armistice and the date as False Armistice Day, particularly in the United States.

In the small number of rather brief references to it, Britain was hardly affected by the False Armistice because cautious newspapers held back from reporting the 7 November armistice news. For instance, Arthur Hornblow, a former US Army G-2 (SOS) intelligence officer, wrote in a 1921 magazine article that, although it reached London the British papers, “with one unimportant exception”, doubted its credibility and refused to print it. ¹Many years later, historian Stanley Weintraub stated that it “seeped into military camps” in Britain but the London press “prudently sat on it”. ²And, more recently, Nicholas Best observed that it “leaked out” but only “a few people in Britain exulted”. ³Such assessments, however, are mistaken: the false armistice news travelled throughout Britain and caused widespread peace celebrations.

This account of Britain’s False Armistice is drawn largely from newspaper items published (for the most part) between 6–9 November 1918. Little seems to have been written about it in other historical sources, either at the time or later, most likely because the 11 November Armistice completely overshadowed it, leaving it to be quickly forgotten and virtually excluded from the nation’s historical record of the last few days of the Great War. ⁴

THE IMMEDIATE CONTEXT, 6-7 NOVEMBER

German Armistice Delegation News: Fact, Speculation, and Misinformation

During the first week of November 1918 there was growing optimism in Britain that a resounding Allied victory, an armistice with Germany and the end of the war were all close at hand. Two separate announcements about a German armistice delegation, at the end of that week, boosted such hopes.

The first was that the German Government had sent representatives to the Western Front “to conclude an armistice and take up peace negotiations.” It appeared in German papers during the afternoon of Wednesday 6 November, and in Allied and other countries’ papers that same evening and the next day. ⁵

Commenting on the development, many British, French, and American newspapers speculated persuasively that the German Government had probably already received the Allies’ armistice terms. And that, faced with imminent military collapse in the West, Bolshevik-inspired mutiny in the navy, and political upheaval and social disorder at home, had instructed the delegates to accept all the armistice terms and end the war as quickly as possible when they arrived.

The second announcement came from the Daily News House of Commons Lobby correspondent on Wednesday evening and was that the German delegates had approached the front lines (British in some versions, French in others), been allowed to cross and were due to meet Marshal Foch during Thursday morning. This information had apparently been forwarded to Parliament “within a minute or two of . . . being received in official quarters”, and had brought members together “in the Lobby” to discuss this “new and dramatic situation”. ⁶

Some papers printed the news that Wednesday evening, others in their Thursday morning and early afternoon issues. But it was misinformation: the German delegates could not possibly have reached the Western Front (hundreds of miles away) so soon after leaving Berlin on Wednesday afternoon. They were still on their way, had many hours to go before they crossed into France on Thursday evening, and their first meeting with Marshal Foch was during the morning of Friday 8 November.

The misinformation also went to Canada during Wednesday 6th and the United States the same and following day. For instance, the Washington Herald’s 7 November headlines, based on snippets from Montreal and London, declared: “Enemy Emissaries Within British Line; Will Accept Armistice Terms”, while an item from Toronto, under the heading “Armistice Already Signed, Shaughnessy”, announced that Lord Shaughnessy, the Chairman of the Board of Directors of the Canadian Pacific Railway, had “received from London a private unofficial cable that Germany has signed armistice terms”. The German 6 November release about the armistice delegation was also on the front page. ⁷

People in Britain, Canada, and the United States who became aware of these announcements no doubt took them to mean that the armistice with Germany would be concluded very soon and the war would finally be over. The Thursday false armistice news was not, therefore, unanticipated; it was readily and widely accepted, and all-the-more so in Britain because it came from Reuters, the highly regarded “news agency of the British Empire”. As the (London) Evening News observed, the peace announcement “was not a surprise because it was expected. Everyone believed it. . . we may fairly say it was not so much the wish being father to the thought as it was a reasonable anticipation of an event”. ⁸

In other words, the combination of a few published facts about the delegates’ Wednesday afternoon Berlin departure, some convincing suppositions about their instructions and progress, and erroneous information that the delegates were at the front lines on Wednesday evening thus preceded the false armistice news on Thursday 7 November, and helped prepare the British and Allied publics for it.

The Reuters False Armistice Bulletin: Its Release, Spread, and Retraction

Release

The false armistice news came to Britain from France. It arrived at the American Embassy in London sometime before 4 o’clock on Thursday afternoon (from US Navy Headquarters in Paris, Brest, or both). Reuters acquired it, and around 4:00 pm telegraphed it to the Press Association (PA) news agency and some of the London papers. The message was simply: “Reuter’s Agency is informed that according to official American information the armistice with Germany was signed at 2:30.” The PA then circulated it to its mostly provincial subscribers who released it to the public, as did a few London papers. ⁹

Spread

Armistice ‘extras’ and ‘specials’ (mostly already prepared in outline) were on the streets with remarkable speed, and the news was disseminated rapidly thereafter by word-of-mouth, telephone, telegram, and workplace siren alerts. “Multitudes of people were thrilled by the story that the German envoys sent to Marshal Foch had actually signed the armistice terms laid down by the Allies”; even “the most obscure villages” heard it. ¹⁰

Retraction

However, no more than twenty minutes after the peace bulletin went out, Reuters cancelled it in a follow-on to the newspapers, urging them, without explanation, to “suppress” it. A little later, a communiqué from the Foreign Office warned that “up to 3.30” there was no intelligence about the signing of an armistice with Germany, and advised against giving “credence” to the armistice rumours until “an authoritative statement” had been made. ¹¹

The warning did not deny that a German armistice had been signed, only that there was no official confirmation of it. Later in the evening, however, the PA circulated unambiguous official denials which offered insights into the current situation, though not location, of the German delegation: “at 4 o’clock this afternoon the German emissaries had not even reached the French lines”; and “up to five o’clock the German representatives had not even presented themselves to ascertain from Marshal Foch the Allies’ terms”. In other words, the armistice news was definitely “not in accordance with fact”. ¹¹Anyone recalling the earlier report that the armistice delegation had crossed the lines on Wednesday evening would have realised now that it too had been totally untrue.

Neither Reuters’ retraction nor the Foreign Office warnings, however, stopped the spread: “it was absolutely impossible”, the Gloucestershire Echo remarked, “to overtake tidings for which everyone was waiting with so much anxiety”. ¹⁰And by early evening, it was in most parts of Britain .

FALSE ARMISTICE DAY IN ENGLAND, SOUTH WALES, AND SCOTLAND

At the time, circumstances in Britain were hardly conducive to spontaneous celebrations in response to Reuters’ armistice bulletin. The ‘Spanish flu’ pandemic was debilitating millions, and killing thousands of the population; in some towns it closed theatres, dance halls, churches, and cinemas, although most public houses and music halls carried on regardless. When the news broke just after 4:00 pm, it was already becoming dark and there was thick November fog in some parts of the country. But under Defence of the Realm Act (DORA) regulations and other wartime restrictions, main roads, streets, and town centres were poorly lit in the late afternoons and evenings. And many activities that usually featured in peace celebrations were prohibited. For example, lighting bonfires, setting off fireworks, ringing church bells and making loud noises had been unlawful since the start of the war, while regulations about the use of lights inside and outside buildings were introduced later.⁵⁰

Public houses and bars in hotels and clubs were closed at the time and, depending upon the local licensing rules, would not be open until 6:00 pm or 6:30 pm, and then for only two or three hours. When they did open, most would have been unheated or under-heated owing to a severe shortage of coal (despite coal-rationing) affecting all parts of the country. Beer and spirits were in short supply because of wartime reductions in output, and their alcoholic strength had been lowered to curb intoxication, while steep increases in duties had raised prices to unprecedented levels. To top it all, customers were not permitted to buy drinks on credit or to treat others to a drink.

And yet there was “jubilation” all over Britain. Ignoring flu advice about avoiding crowds, people filled the gloomy streets and dismal pubs and took risks with DORA to enliven their celebrations. Some papers infringed regulations by disclosing that large numbers of Allied servicemen from local bases joined in the revelries. And even after the official refutations, many people would not go home. Convinced that the armistice news was “only premature” and “hostilities would quickly cease”, they lingered late into the night hoping for confirmation that the war was over. ¹² As the Bristol-based Western Daily Press told its readers, “everybody believed the original story, and no denials, however emphatic, would have killed the belief in it”. ¹³

IN ENGLAND

London and the South East

London was “filled” with “manifestly premature” peace rumours on 7 November, the London Times remarked the day after; rumours, the London correspondent of the Plymouth Western Morning News reported, which had created “great excitement” throughout the capital, with newspaper vendors being “literally stormed” by crowds wanting to learn what was happening. ¹⁴

The news entered Parliament “almost immediately after [question-time in the House of Commons]”, the Westminster Gazette stated, and “for the rest of the day the House was but scantily attended, as members were waiting about to gain confirmation of a story which spread rapidly through London.” On the whole, the MPs reacted “calmly” – “Was it that no one could really accustom himself to thinking that the war was over?”. ¹⁵

“In the streets, hotels, and theatres” it “caused many scenes”. Its arrival “at one West End hotel . . . interrupted tea in the crowded palm lounge, the band played ‘God Save the King,’ the guests, many officers among them, sang it, and the band struck up a victory march”. There were similar scenes “in the theatres”, while in clubs “younger and more frivolous members, in blue and khaki, long before 6.30 endeavoured to persuade the waiters to bring them refreshment, as ‘Germany had surrendered,’ and waitresses were asked for pre-war teas, with plenty of sugar and cream and lots of toast with the butter spread in pre-war fashion”. ⁸

The Derby Daily Telegraph printed this graphic account of scenes in central London that evening:

“The rumour . . . spread through London from lip to lip early last night with amazing rapidity. Vast crowds from the Government offices in Whitehall heard it as they left business, and an unparalleled rush was made for the newspaper ‘pitches’. Within five minutes every paper on sale had been snapped up, and men stood empty-handed until fresh piles arrived. Then a great struggling mob almost fought for copies. The men ladled them out as fast as they could pick them up, giving no change. Supplies had been doubled or trebled, but they were quickly exhausted. Soldiers were conspicuous among the purchasers. A dark, thick November fog almost blotted London out of view, but people gathered round the street lamps to read what was said about the armistice and the story of the German naval mutiny.” ¹⁶

Tension in the capital was “very great”, according to the Manchester Guardian. “Women weeping, men running, and in every stores or office that one went into the whole place seemed suddenly to have become vocal. It was an extraordinary change after the general quietude of these places in the war.” The news was perhaps “too big even for Whitehall”, where “in official quarters” the tension “took the form of silence and waiting, for no one liked to prophesy”. ¹⁷

Later editions of papers provoked even “greater scenes of excitement”; but in these “all there was to read was that the report had been cancelled”. ¹⁸

The London Globe and the Evening News “rushed out special editions which were on the streets in a surprisingly short time and were eagerly snapped up”; but these contained nothing more “than was in the [Reuters] bulletin”. A few minutes later, both called in their ‘specials’. ¹⁹ “Messengers . . . in cars and on cycles [went] to recover [them] – or such of them as had not been sold, at quite uncontrolled prices, to eager buyers”. ¹⁵

The Globe explained in its “Final Night Edition” of 7 November that the armistice story, supposedly based on “official authority”, was no more than a rumour from “a Foreign Embassy in London”. It now pointed out that, “geographically”, the German delegation could not “yet have met Marshal Foch and . . . capitulated”, something it and many other papers had evidently not considered until the Foreign Office issued its warning. The next day, ignoring its effects in London and other parts of Britain, the paper told of “extraordinary demonstrations” in New York City and Washington when the peace news arrived there. ²⁰

London’s False Armistice lasted only a short time; but while it did the “more volatile Southerner” certainly “began to let himself go”, in the words of one Lancashire paper. ²¹And a “moment of excitement” producing “a flash of rejoicing” is how one London resident described it. Obviously disappointing, it nevertheless lifted Londoners’ spirits and boosted their morale: it had the “effect of stirring the sluggish pulse of the people” who now “walk more briskly and exchange light hearted banter as they jostle each other”. ¹⁹

Elsewhere in the South East, personnel celebrated at two aerodromes (at least) – one in the Hounslow area of West London, the other in the Manston area of Kent. In Hounslow, US airmen training at Hounslow Heath Aerodrome created a “hot time” for the local residents. During the afternoon, “through their own official wire”, they learnt about the success of General Pershing’s forces at Sedan, and a short time later about the armistice. A “strong contingent” decided to “wake up the district” – which they “did effectually”. To the “intense entertainment” of the local people – who came out “in force” to witness the spectacle – the “Yankee visitors in khaki” paraded around the town centre with flags, drums, fifes and bugles, playing “all kinds of music”. ²² Meanwhile, servicemen at the Manston RAF aerodrome in Kent were also celebrating. Here, however, the festivities were confined to the camp and became distinctly unruly. Discipline was undermined among the Observer School servicemen there: orders from officers were ignored, beer was stolen from the base canteen and drunk in the huts. Order was not restored until Friday, when the men stopped behaving “like beasts”. ²³

The South West

Papers printed the tidings in Gloucestershire, Devon and, most likely, other parts of the region. But the Gloucestershire Echo did not subsequently say how people in Gloucester itself and other urban areas of the county were affected. However, its Friday edition spoke of revelries throughout Thursday night in the market town of Stroud, a few miles south-east of Gloucester in the Cotswold Hills. The celebrating here was mostly the work of Australian Flying Corps servicemen from an aerodrome near to the village of Minchinhampton who travelled down to Stroud. According to the Echo, the townspeople’s “customary equilibrium” had not been disturbed by the arrival of the armistice news in the afternoon; but “wild scenes” occurred later when about two hundred Australians “invaded” with their band. Apart from “several members of the fairer sex”, most of the locals apparently took no part in the celebration, whose “lively din” lasted until early Friday morning. ²⁴

On Saturday 9 November, the weekly Gloucestershire Chronicle – “The County Conservative Organ” – noted that armistice “rumours were current in Gloucester on Thursday afternoon” but had been “quickly blown into thin air” (by the official denials), and congratulated the public for reacting with “wholly admirable calmness”. It is not clear, however, whether “admirable calmness” was here describing specifically the people of Gloucester’s behaviour on 7 November, because this particular Chronicle item seems to be from a wholly inaccurate short statement in the Daily Mail’s Friday 8 November London issue alleging a national “indifference” to Thursday’s armistice confusion. ²⁵

How people in Gloucestershire as a whole reacted is, therefore, unclear. But farther to the south-west, the port of Plymouth’s two sister papers gave quite detailed descriptions of what happened there, in the cathedral city of Exeter, in other parts of Devon, and in parts of Cornwall.

The Western Morning News explained that the excitement began in Exeter not long after 4:00 pm. Large crowds soon gathered in the main streets, “parties of children paraded, singing patriotic airs” and a general “good humour prevailed”. But proposals to ring the cathedral bells were “very discreetly” turned down by “the authorities” until there was “official confirmation [of the armistice]”. The crowds grew as the evening wore on, though they had by then stopped celebrating. Waiting in the dark “for two or three hours”, they were now hoping for some delayed confirmation; and when, eventually, the paper posted the official denial in its windows, people accepted it “in an admirable spirit of patience”. ²⁶

Plymouth, to the south-west of Exeter, witnessed similar scenes: “All classes of the community flocked to the centre of the town in the hope of obtaining confirmation. A huge crowd assembled outside the office of the Western Morning News, both in the afternoon and throughout the evening. Vehicular traffic was almost impossible, but general good humour prevailed, and the attitude was largely one of pleasant anticipation. A further unconfirmed report about 10 o’clock that the armistice had been signed was greeted with great enthusiasm, and the subsequent contradiction was regarded as merely a postponement”. ²⁷

From the town centre, people would have been aware of loud celebrations going on a short distance away in Devonport, the harbour and Royal Navy Dockyard area of Plymouth. Vessels in the harbour set off their sirens and hooters and discharged “rockets”, and those in authority permitted the church bells to be rung, adding to the “general din”. High spirits prevailed, particularly “at the places of amusement” where there was hearty singing of patriotic songs. Warnings that there was no armistice were eventually circulated, but people “openly derided” them. ²⁶How long into the night Devonport and the rest of the town celebrated was not noted.

The Western Evening Herald recounted that rumours had also reached Plymouth that the German High Seas Fleet had surrendered. “The crowds hummed like hives of bees beneath the newspaper windows . . . . The telephones hardly ceased wanting to know for many hours, [with] calls coming from [around Devon and Cornwall] not to speak of local and Service rings. But there was no foundation for what they wanted to hear, and some were inclined to discuss and argue the matter, so certain were they.” ²⁸

The Midlands and North of England

Local papers serving the industrial Midlands and the North of England record that the armistice news was in Birmingham, Blackburn, Derby, Hartlepool, Huddersfield, Hull, Leeds, Liverpool, Nantwich, Newcastle-upon-Tyne, Rochdale, Sheffield, and Stoke-on-Trent. But they said little about what happened in these towns and elsewhere in the regions on 7 November in response to the news.

In the West Midlands, for instance, Birmingham papers offered just brief allusions such as: “the events of yesterday” and “the spread of unofficial reports”; “yesterday rumour had another field day”; and “there was a false alarm yesterday afternoon”. ²⁹How people reacted – whether they left their homes and workplaces to fill the streets and towns, started celebrating, or just carried on as normal – was not covered.

In the East Midlands, the Derby Daily Telegraph recounted that “the great hoax” had “gripped the town and spread like a prairie fire” in a matter of minutes. People clamoured for the papers “as they will probably never clamour for them again”. And later “laughed” when told the war was not over and refused to believe it. For the people of Derby, the newspaper felt the whole affair had been “a very disagreeable . . . very bitter experience”. ³⁰

In the North West of England, Nantwich (in Cheshire) and Liverpool heard the news just as the local papers were putting together their Friday 8 November editions. From Liverpool it went to Prestatyn in North Wales, where “there were rumours about the town on Thursday night that an armistice had been signed, but Friday’s news gave a denial”. The Northern Daily Telegraph, with a 7 November headline “Grand News If True”, cautiously informed Blackburn, in Lancashire, that the war was over if “the News which reaches us this evening is correct”. In Rochdale there was “a sense of intense relief at the thought that the long-drawn-out agony was over”, although the rejoicing that followed was “of a subdued order”. From Carlisle, the northernmost city in England, the Cumberland Evening News announced without demur “FIGHTING OVER. Armistice Signed. GERMANY SURRENDERS. Our Victory Complete”, noting in a separate column the source of the information, Marshal Foch’s instructions about where on the Western Front the German delegation should cross the French lines to ask for an armistice, and Reuters’ earlier announcement of the delegation’s arrival. ³¹

In the North East, it “obtained wide currency” in Newcastle-upon-Tyne; was released in Hartlepool just before the follow-on cancellation; and confirmed rumours which the Sheffield-based Yorkshire Telegraph and Star claimed had been “flying about very freely in the earlier part of the day”. Ignoring the excitement it must have caused in Huddersfield and its surroundings, the local Daily Examiner labelled it just another “lying jade”. Thick fog in Leeds helps explain the absence of newspaper references to any outdoor gatherings and excitement there. The Hull Daily Mail mentioned it in its late afternoon edition of 7 November but said nothing about its effects on the city and port. It did, however, tell readers how New York City and Washington, DC, had been affected by similar news and urged them to wait for an official Government peace announcement “before permitting themselves to rejoice”. ³²

IN SOUTH WALES

As it “swept over the whole of South Wales” on 7 November, the Reuters bulletin brought with it a “great wave of delirious delight, reminiscent of the Mafficking revelry of the Boer War days”. In Cardiff (not yet Wales’s capital city), a “long-sustained blast at 4.30 p.m.” on the siren of the local Evening Express building suddenly alerted the city, and almost immediately a special edition of the paper, carrying the message in its “Stop Press”, went on sale in the streets. There was “an eager rush” to buy copies. Soon afterwards, “thousands of people poured into the city” from the suburbs, on foot and by tramcar, in an “ever-increasing throng of revellers”. Cheering, singing, waving flags, in noisy processions and parades they soon filled the centre and main streets, while at least two bands played patriotic music and “popular refrains”. Servicemen – “Doughboys, Tommies, and all in naval or military uniforms” – were cheered and “ovated”. The “Yanks” in particular “became prominent among the street revellers” and a number of their officers, driving around in a motorcar, delighted the crowds with renditions of “Oh Johnny” (a popular American song of the time).

It is not clear when the Cardiff papers received the armistice warnings or when they made them known to the crowds. But a meeting of the Trades and Labour Council that evening accepted the news as being “official”. And as “the evening wore on” people continued to throng the streets. Indeed, there were “great crowds” in the city centre “until a late hour”, especially in the vicinity of the Angel Hotel which housed the US Navy Headquarters (renamed for the duration the USS Chatinouka). ³³ By this time, however, the crowds were hanging on mainly in the hope of a confirmation of an armistice with Germany. Even “the most authoritative circles in London”, the Western Mail claimed to have been told, were expecting “good news” and regarded the situation as “hopeful” until quite a “late hour on Thursday evening”.

Similar “peace celebrations” occurred in “all the principal centres in South Wales”. In Abergavenny, ignoring the chief-constable’s threat to prosecute him, the local mayor ordered the church bells to be rung “to proclaim the armistice”. In the Rhondda Valleys, to the sounds of hundreds of “sirens and hooters”, masses of people “jubilating to their hearts’ content” gathered outside and marched around “all the evening through”. In Merthyr Tydfil “detonators” were discharged as cheering crowds awaited the “late paper train”; in Neath, where “huge crowds filled the streets”, rockets were produced and fired into the air and “even a few ancient cannon were discharged”; while in the coal mining area of Ystalyfera, to the north of Neath, someone brought out fireworks and set them off, creating “such excitement” as had not been seen “since the relief of Mafeking”. With huge processions and bands, and “the hostelries [everywhere] well patronised”, Britonferry, Skewen, Llanelly, the Mumbles and “many other places” were “en fete”. ³⁴

The Saturday-weekly Merthyr Express related on 9 November how the armistice news “seemed to fly on the wings of the wind”, causing “great excitement” in Merthyr where “seldom on a fine Thursday afternoon have the streets of the old town been so thronged . . . both old and young in their faces showed that they had big expectations”. And how, at “about 5 o’clock p.m.”, the paper had confirmation by telephone from “the Cardiff [Coal] Exchange” that the “German Parliamentaires had signed the armistice at 2.30 [making] it . . . effectually unconditional capitulation”. Incredibly however, nobody appears to have informed the paper of the official denials that were announced later, for it then affirmed that there is “Peace Once More” and “now we can breathe freely . . . . The multitude’s big expectations have been realised.” And its editorial on a separate page, under “Glad Tidings of Great Joy”, declared that “the last long step towards peace has been taken by Germany. She has signed the armistice proffered by the Allies.” (It is easy to imagine how some readers reacted to this.)

The following week’s edition, with two-pages about Monday 11 November’s Real Armistice, completely ignored the 9 November error. ³⁵

In Swansea, farther west along the coast from Cardiff, there was virtually no celebrating. If the Cambria Daily Leader and the town’s other local paper, the South Wales Evening Post, are to be believed, Swansea was the regional exception: most people there remained calm and kept their “sanity” on 7 November, thanks largely to the two papers’ effective containment of the Reuters news. The Daily Leader became aware of it not long after 4:15 pm, rushed out “a few dozen” sheets announcing it before Reuters’ follow-on telegram, and then promptly halted the distribution. All but seven were eventually retrieved. In a “happy circumstance”, the South Wales Evening Post was able to cancel its impending armistice notification as soon as it received Reuters’ retraction; it circulated the Foreign Office warnings around 5:30 pm. ³⁶

Apparently therefore, the two Swansea papers managed to forestall any widespread dissemination from their own editions. But they were unable to prevent Cardiff papers (presumably the South Wales Echo and Evening Express) doing so “for hours after we knew of the contradiction . . . giving a message we knew to be untrue”. The apparent reason, the Daily Leader suggested dryly, was that for the Cardiff papers “the interval of time between the receipt of the [Reuters] message and the order to stop it was greater [than] with some other journals”. ³⁶ Nevertheless, the “general disposition [of most people] was to remain calm and doubting”: there was “some very mild mafficking on the part of little bodies of juveniles”, but “the elders” showed commendable “restraint”. And on the whole, Swansea avoided the “bitter disappointment” that “other parts of Wales” experienced at having been so “misinformed”. ³⁶

As well as the peace celebrations on 7 November, South Wales papers drew attention to what were considered to be serious economic consequences of the Reuters bulletin. For, people not only left their homes to celebrate but also their workplaces. In “scores of shops, factories, and works of all descriptions” they “downed tools”, disrupting whatever productive activities they were engaged in.

At the Dowlais iron and steel works, close to the docks in Cardiff, “the furnaces were allowed to go out”, reducing output there “for some days”. In “the several works” at Neath, “labour was immediately suspended”; in Newport “the workmen at Messrs Lysaghts [steelworks] knocked off work at six o’clock for the night to celebrate ‘the event’”; and night shifts “in many industrial concerns” elsewhere were cancelled. On Friday, miners from “the Main and other collieries around Skewen and Neath Abbey” stayed at home and works in Britonferry were “still idle”. The effect on coal production was “particularly serious”, in the opinion of the Daily Leader, “in view of the already grave [national] shortage of coal”. The Ministry of Shipping agreed, and blamed the Reuters armistice announcement “in certain Cardiff newspapers” for the loss of “about 50,000 tons of coal” for export shipment at a time of “serious arrears on all coal programmes”.³⁷

It is highly likely that similar disruption and losses also occurred in England and Scotland. But newspapers in the industrial Midlands and the North (as noted), and those in Scotland (below) contain little about industrial-production interruptions on 7 November due to the False Armistice. However, reported or not, the economic consequences were a major reason why Reuters and the Press Association subsequently faced prosecution for releasing the false armistice bulletin to the papers.

IN SCOTLAND

In Scotland’s capital, the Reuters bulletin produced “a tremendous sensation” and the Edinburgh Evening News lost “not a moment in publishing it”. But as elsewhere, almost as soon as it was received, “instructions arrived to cancel [it]”. Whether there were peace celebrations in the city, neither it nor the Scotsman – also Edinburgh-based – said; but both described the 7 November celebrations in the United States. ³⁸

The town of Falkirk, about thirty miles north-west of Edinburgh, was gripped “very badly” by the “peace-declared fever”. The evening papers failed to “kill the canard”, the rumour persisted and “an air of expectancy” kept many people in the poorly lit streets waiting in vain for an official confirmation. But any celebrations that occurred there are not mentioned. In Motherwell, south-west of the capital and a few miles south-east of Glasgow, the local weekly paper noted, without any elaboration, that the peace news came just as workmen were finishing for the day and “was received everywhere with the greatest enthusiasm”. ³⁹

Across the Firth of Forth, the “absurd rumour” continued late into the night in Kirkcaldy and Burntisland, and the “curious went to bed wondering if [the morning] newspapers would contain anything substantial”. While – unreported at the time – it also spread to warships of the Grand Fleet stationed at Rosyth. ⁴⁰

In Aberdeen, on the coast far to the north-east of Edinburgh and Glasgow, the local paper rushed out a special edition and the news went around “the whole city” before it printed the Foreign Office warning about it. By then, people had “entered enthusiastically into rejoicings over [the] end of hostilities”, though there was also “a certain disappointment” that the Germans would escape “the horrors of invasion and the terrifying air warfare” a prolongation of the war would mean for them. The general excitement “ran high” well into the evening as people “thronged” the streets and crowded around the newspaper offices in Broad Street waiting to hear more. “Shortly after nine o’clock”, they learnt that the German armistice delegation was not yet at the Front. But even then some waited “until close on midnight . . . on the off-chance of hearing later news”, and before finally accepting things “philosophically”. ⁴¹

In Glasgow, about forty-seven miles south-west of Edinburgh, the city’s Daily Record and Mail said very little about how people reacted on 7 November, only that neither the Reuters message nor its “rectification” provoked “any appreciable demonstration in the large centres of population”. It concluded that most people viewed it not as “perverted”, but as being “premature”: an “intelligent anticipation” of “the inevitable and triumphant end” just a few days away. All of which, it concluded, provided yet another “proof” of “our national phlegm”. ⁴²

Several papers promoted the idea of the False Armistice as a rehearsal for what they anticipated was a rapidly approaching genuine one. But many others complained that the British public had been needlessly misled, their expectations and spirits raised one minute only to be dashed the next, that publication of the armistice misinformation was a “piece of very bad work” about which people had every “right to be affronted”. ⁴³ And they were quick to name who they assumed was to blame for what had happened.

BLAME FOR THE FALSE ARMISTICE IN BRITAIN

At the time, when the US Army was fully engaged in the Allied offensive forcing the Germans back along the whole Western Front, any explicit public criticism of the Americans over the False Armistice would have been unthinkable. Indeed, regardless of circumstances, adverse comments about the actions of any of Britain’s Allies would have been deemed disloyal. They would presumably also have displeased the press censors.

Editors therefore refrained from asking probing questions about the source of the news; many avoided mentioning it. A few made brief remarks such as “the report emanated from the American Embassy in London”; “the original statement was inaccurate and was due to a mistake at the Embassies”; “[it] was a misunderstanding of a message in high American quarters [in London]”; and “how the alleged ‘official’ American message got out remains for the present a mystery”. ⁴⁴

Reuters’ part in the False Armistice surprised many papers. As two Scottish ones put it, “the most reliable foreign news agency in the world” had been associated with “an erroneous message on a matter of such momentous concern”. ⁴⁵ But they did not criticize it for releasing the American information. Rather, Reuters’ sound reputation, affirmed by many papers, served for some to justify their own readiness to rush the bulletin into print. As the Yorkshire Telegraph and Star explained, the bulletin “seemed to us, and to anyone familiar with dealing with news, to be absolutely reliable, and on the strength of this [we published it]. We regret that any of our readers should have been misinformed through us, but really this was not our fault.” ⁴⁶

Moreover, it was assumed that the fault lay, not with Reuters, but with the Official Press Bureau in London, the country’s wartime censors. The “false alarm yesterday afternoon,” asserted the Birmingham Daily Gazette and the Nottingham Journal and Express, “is blameable to the stupidity of the Press Bureau.” Their “ineptness”, the Western Times implied, was the reason the supposed “official American message” had been “put on the wire” in the first place. ⁴⁷ Taking it for granted that the message had “passed the official censorship”, they concluded that the Bureau must have approved it without bothering to confirm it with the Foreign Office or War Office. ⁴⁸

The censors, however, had not blundered. As a matter of fact, they did not see the armistice bulletin before Reuters telegraphed it to the Press Association: entirely legitimately under the wartime ‘voluntary press [self-]censorship’, Reuters had issued it without first submitting it to the censors for approval.

Nevertheless, if the established procedures had been followed on 7 November the bulletin would have been submitted to the censors for approval. These would have checked its details, found them to be wrong, blocked it, and thereby spared Britain its False Armistice Day. Because, under the cable censorship regulations, telegrams specifically about the war, sent within the country from one newspaper to another, had to be diverted by Post Office Telegraph Service clerks to the cable censors at the Official Press Bureau.

The telegram from Reuters to the PA was clearly about the war. It should therefore have been diverted to the censors. But it was not. Clerks at the Central Telegraph Office in London immediately transmitted it, and Reuters’ armistice misinformation thus bypassed the Official Press Bureau.

Had the bulletin been true, Reuters and the PA would have enjoyed a memorable scoop over their rivals; as it was, by circulating what turned out to be false war news they contravened DORA Regulation 27 prohibiting the publication of “false reports” or “false statements”. This, and the adverse effects on industrial production attributable to it, led the directors of the Press Bureau to refer the two agencies to the Director of Public Prosecutions (DPP). He in turn referred them to the Attorney-General. But it was eventually decided not to take the agencies to court, and Reuters and the PA were thus spared prosecution. Instead, the DPP formally rebuked both of them for what they had done.

For its Telegraph Service clerks’ crucially important failure to divert the Reuters armistice telegram for censorship on 7 November, the Press Bureau directors made an official complaint to the Post Office authorities.

To the editors of papers that had published its bulletin on 7 November, Reuters’ manager wrote a “strictly private & confidential” letter in December setting out what had happened. He assured them that the agency had “acted in entire good faith” but, he confided, it had been “misled” by “American authorities [who] were in the same position”. ⁴⁹

ENDNOTES

1. Arthur Hornblow, ‘The Amazing Armistice. Inside Story of the Premature Peace Report.’ Century Magazine, November 1921, p15. (USA). Hornblow was stationed in Brest (France) in November 1918.

2. Stanley Weintraub, A Stillness Heard Round the World. The End of the Great War: November 1918, p38. (USA 1985). His treatment of the False Armistice in the opening chapter of his book is the first by a professional historian. It deals with various aspects of the subject, drawing extensively on a range of sources.

3. Nicholas Best, The Greatest Day in History. How the Great War Really Ended, p71. (London. 2008).

4. Unless stated otherwise, the digitised newspaper pages cited below were accessed through the British Newspaper Archive (BNA). http://www.britishnewspaperarchive.co.uk

The exceptions, separately referenced, were accessed from: the National Library of Wales (NLW) online newspaper collection (Welsh Newspapers Online ). http://www.newspapers.library.wales

Gale Cengage Learning websites (Gale) http://www.gale.com

A list of copyright statements for the newspapers cited follows these ENDNOTES.

5. For example, the South Wales Daily Post Final Edition of 6 November 1918 announced in its front page Stop Press: “GERMAN PEACE DELEGATION LEAVES FOR THE FRONT. A P.A. [Press Association] REUTER’S AMSTERDAM MESSAGE SAYS THAT ACCORDING TO A BERLIN TELEGRAM A GERMAN DELEGATION TO CONCLUDE AN ARMISTICE AND TAKE UP PEACE NEGOTIATIONS HAS LEFT BERLIN FOR THE WESTERN FRONT.” And the front page headline of the Nottingham Evening Post, Wednesday, November 6, 1918, declared “HUN DELEGATES LEAVE FOR WESTERN LINES”.

6. The Western Mail (Cardiff), 7 November 1918, p2, under ‘LONDON LETTER’; and p3 under ‘ARMISTICE DELEGATES CROSS THE ALLIED LINES’. The South Wales Daily Post, Thursday, November 7, 1918, p3, under “SEVENTY-EIGHT HOURS TO DECIDE”. The South Wales News, Thursday, November 7, 1918, p5 under “TRUCE ENVOYS IN OUR LINES”. The Daily News (London and Manchester), 7 November 1918, front page under ‘GERMAN ARMISTICE ENVOYS’. The Staffordshire Sentinel, Thursday, November 7, 1918, under ‘LONDON, Thursday [7], 11 45 a.m.’, p3. Daily Express, London, Thursday, November 7, 1918, front page, under “ARMISTICE DELEGATES IN THE ALLIED LINES”. The Lincolnshire Echo, Thursday, November 7, 1918, p3, under “THE WHITE FLAG PARTY. GERMAN DELEGATES IN BRITISH LINES”. The British Parliamentary Archives appear not to hold any records of the receipt of the Wednesday evening report or its discussion in the Lobbies (result of an enquiry by the writer in March 2017).

7. The Washington Herald, Thursday, November 7, 1918, front page. Available online through the US Library of Congress Chronicling America portal. (Copyright statement: “The Library of Congress believes that the newspapers in Chronicling America are in the public domain or have no known copyright restrictions. Newspapers published in the United States more than 95 years ago are in the public domain in their entirety.”)

8. The Evening News (London), Friday, November 8, 1918, page 2, under‘OFFICIAL RUMOUR’, and ‘DIARY OF A MAN ABOUT TOWN’, ‘The Armistice Rumour’ and ‘Puzzling the Wives’. By November 1918, like some other foodstuffs, milk, sugar, tea, jam, butter, margarine, cheese, and lard were all rationed.

9. For more about how Reuters obtained the news, see A False Armistice Cablegram to the American Embassy in Britain in the website article ‘False Armistice Cablegrams from France’.

10. The Bristol Times and Mirror, 8 November 1918, p2 under ‘ARMISTICE OR REVOLUTION?’; The Gloucestershire Echo, 8 November 1918, p4 under ‘PREMATURE ANNOUNCEMENT CAUSES WILD EXCITEMENT’.

11. The Evening Express (Aberdeen), 7 November 1918, p3 under ‘STOP PRESS NEWS’; and 8 November, p3 under ‘REUTER EXPLAINS’. For a more detailed coverage, see James Smith, ‘Reuters and the False Armistice of 7 November 1918’, in The Baron, Archives. 6 April 2017.

http://www.thebaron.info/archives/reuters-and-the-false-armistice-of-7-november-1918

12. The Northampton Mercury, 8 November 1918, p5 under ‘CLOSE TO THE END’.

13. The Western Daily Press, 8 November 1918, p3 under ‘LONDON LETTER’.

14. The (London) Times, 8 November 1918, p7 under ‘Suspense’; and the Western Morning News, 8 November 1918, p4 under ‘OUR LONDON CORRESPONDENT’.

15. The Westminster Gazette, 8 November 1918, p3 under ‘Our London Letter’.

16. The Derby Daily Telegraph, 8 November 1918, p3 under ‘Scenes in the Street’.

17. The Huddersfield Daily Examiner, 8 November 1918, p2 under ‘DAILY JOTTINGS’.

18. The Western Morning News, 8 November 1918, p4 under ‘OUR LONDON CORRESPONDENT’.

19. Alice Z. Snyder and Milton V. Snyder, Paris Days and London Nights. ‘Letter CLXXII, London, November 7, 1918’, pp367-368. (New York. 1921)

20. The Globe, 7 November 1918, p1 under ‘NO SURRENDER YET’; and 8 November 1918, p4 under ‘A LITTLE TOO SOON’.

21. The Rochdale Observer, 9 November 1918, p4 under ‘NOTES AND COMMENTS’.

22. The Middlesex Chronicle, 9 November 1918, p7 under ‘VICTORY CAKE-WALK’. The newspaper did not divulge that the Americans were airmen from a local aerodrome.

23. Stanley Weintraub, A Stillness Heard Round the World, p24. (New York. 1985). The information is from a letter, dated 8 March 1978, written by E. E. Seeder to Alan Haydock “of the BBC”. ‘Chapter Notes’, p 427.

24. The Gloucestershire Echo, 7 November 1918, p4 under ‘REPORTED SIGNING OF ARMISTICE’; and 8 November 1918, p4 under ‘ARMISTICE CELEBRATION AT STROUD’. The Australians were airmen from the nearby Minchinhampton airbase. For context: ‘Minchinhampton Aerodrome in 1918 and Curzon Felix Hamel’ at https://community.stroud.gov.uk

25. The Gloucestershire Chronicle, 9 November 1918, p4 under ‘CITY & COUNTY NOTES’; and the Daily Mail, 8 November 1918, p2 under ’THE WHITE FLAG PARTY’.

26. The Western Morning News, 8 November 1918, p5 under ‘RUMOURS NOT CONFIRMED. EXETER AND PLYMOUTH SCENES’.

27. Same. It is possible the “10 o‘clock” error arose from another confusion arising from confirmed news that the German delegation had finally crossed the French lines during the late evening.

28. The Western Evening Herald, Friday November 8, 1918, p3 under ‘Notes of the day’.

29. The Birmingham Mail, 8 November 1918, p2 under ‘Waiting Patiently’; the Birmingham Post, 8 November 1918, p4 under ‘Waiting for the End’; and the Birmingham Gazette, 8 November 1918, p2 under ‘WAITING FOR THE EVENT’.

30. The Derby Daily Telegraph, 8 November 1918, p2 under ‘NOTES ON CURRENT EVENTS. The Great Hoax’.

31. The (Nantwich) Guardian, 8 November 1918, p4 under ‘THE FINAL PHASE’; Liverpool Daily Post And Mercury, 8 November 1918, p4 under ‘The Armistice Rumour’; the Prestatyn Weekly, Saturday, November 9, 1928, front page under ‘IS IT PEACE?’; the Northern Daily Telegraph, 7 November 1918, cited here from ‘How Blackburn Celebrated Armistice Day 1918’, cottontown.org. Blackburn with Darwen Borough Council digitisation project; the Rochdale Observer, 9 November 1918, p.4 under ‘NOTES AND COMMENTS’; the Cumberland Evening News, 7 November, 1918, p2.

32. The Newcastle Daily Journal, 8 November 1918, p4 under ‘GERMANY’S FATEFUL HOUR’; the Northern Daily Mail (Hartlepool), 7 November 1918, p4 under ‘LATEST NEWS. THE ARMISTICE’; and the Yorkshire Telegraph and Star (Sheffield), 8 November 1918, p2 under ‘By the Way’. The Huddersfield Daily Examiner, 8 November 1918, p2 under ‘GERMANY IN EXTREMIS’. Fog in Leeds is mentioned in the Yorkshire Evening Post, 8 November 1918, p5 under ‘Leeds Tram Tragedy in the Fog’. The Daily Mail (Kingston upon Hull), 7 November 1918, p4 under ‘ARMISTICE REPORTED SIGNED’; and 8 November 1918, p2 under ‘THE DELEGATES ARRIVE’, and p4 under ‘A Premature Rejoicing’.

33. See ‘Cardiff Time Line’ http://www.cardiffians.co.uk And the report in the South Wales News, Friday November 8, p3 under ‘SOUTH WALES “CELEBRATIONS”’.

34. From the (Cardiff) Western Mail of 8 November 1918, p5 under ‘SOUTH WALES SCENES’, and 14 November 1918, p5 under ‘ABERGAVENNY BELLS’; the Cambria Daily Leader (Swansea), 8 November 1918, p2 under ‘SCENES IN THE DISTRICTS’; and Labour Voice Llais Llafur, 16 November 1918, p2 under ‘YSTALYFERA NOTES’.

35. The Merthyr Express, 9 November 1918, pp6-7; and 16 November 1918, pp7-8. (British Newspaper Archive)

36. The Cambria Daily Leader (Swansea), 8 November 1918, p2 under ‘THE CONTRADICTION’ and ‘FEELING AT SWANSEA’.

37. As reported in the Western Mail (Cardiff), 8 November 1918, p5 under ‘PEACE CELEBRATIONS IN ALL PARTS’; the Cambria Daily Leader (Swansea), 8 November 1918, p2 under ‘SCENES IN THE DISTRICTS’ and ‘THE CONSEQUENCES’; and the South Wales News, Friday November 8, p3 under ‘SOUTH WALES “CELEBRATIONS”’. The Ministry of Shipping comments are quoted here from: The National Archives, HO [Home Office] 139-37-156 [021], letter dated 8 November 1918.

38. The Edinburgh Evening News, 8 November 1918, p4 under ‘THE REPORT IN EDINBURGH’ and ‘AMERICA AND THE RUMOUR’; and the Scotsman, 8 November 1918, p3 under ‘EXTRAORDINARY DEMONSTRATIONS IN NEW YORK’.

39. The Falkirk Herald, 9 November 1918, p2 under ‘JOTTINGS OF THE WEEK’; and the Motherwell Times, 8 November 1918, p5 under ‘Armistice Signed Yesterday’.

40. The (weekly) Fifeshire Advertiser, 9 November 1918, p3 under ‘BURNTISLAND NOTES AND NEWS’ and p4 under ‘THE END’ On the Grand Fleet’s false armistice news – Two British Naval Signals and Addendum in the website article ‘Roy Howard’s Search for Information about the False Armistice’.

41. From virtually identical items in the Aberdeen Daily Journal, 8 November 1918, p2 under ‘THE ARMISTICE RUMOUR’ and ‘Scenes in Aberdeen’; and the (Aberdeen) Evening Express, 8 November 1918, p2 under ‘Great Excitement in City Streets’.

42. The Daily Record and Mail (Glasgow), (“The All-Scotland Newspaper”), 8 November 1918, p4 under ‘THE OUTLOOK. PREMATURE’; and p5 under ‘ARMISTICE AT HAND’.

43. The Yorkshire Telegraph and Star (Sheffield), 8 November 1918, p2 under “By the Way”; and the Derby Daily Telegraph, 8 November 1918, p2 under ‘NOTES ON CURRENT EVENTS’.

44. The Edinburgh Evening News, 8 November 1918, p4 under ’YESTERDAY’S CURIOUS MUDDLE’; the Evening Despatch (Birmingham), 8 November 1918, p4 under ‘A MISTAKEN REPORT’; the Staffordshire Sentinel, 8 November 1918, p3 under ‘LAST NIGHT’S UNFOUNDED REPORT’ (quoting the Manchester Guardian’s London correspondent); and the Cambria Daily Leader(Swansea), 8 November 1918, p2 under ‘A MYSTERY MESSAGE’.

Previously unpublished details of how Reuters obtained the news are in A False Armistice Cablegram to the American Embassy in Britain in the website article ‘False Armistice Cablegrams from France’.

45. The Evening Express (Aberdeen), 8 November 1918, p2 under ‘ARMISTICE REPORTS’; and the Edinburgh Evening News, 8 November 1918, p4 under ‘THE REPORT IN EDINBURGH’.

46. The Yorkshire Telegraph and Star, 8 November 1918, p2 under ‘By the Way’.

47. The Birmingham Daily Gazette, 8 November 1918, p2 under ‘WAITING FOR THE EVENT’; and the Western Times (Exeter), 8 November 1918, p12 under ‘ARMISTICE RUMOUR’.

48. The Edinburgh Evening News, 8 November 1918, p4 under ‘YESTERDAY’S CURIOUS MUDDLE’; the Birmingham Daily Gazette, 8 November 1918, p2 under ‘WAITING FOR THE EVENT’; the Nottingham Journal and Express, Friday, 8 November, 1918, p2, under “WAITING FOR THE EVENT”; and the Derby Daily Telegraph, 8 November 1918, p2 under ‘The Great Hoax’.

49. James Smith, ‘The Press Censors and the Reuters Armistice Bulletin of 7 November 1918’, in The Baron, Archives, 10 July 2017. http://www.thebaron.info/archives/the-press-censors-and-the-reuter-armistice-bulletin-of-7-november-1918 has more about this aspect.

50. The Rev. Edgar Reeves, vicar of Little Walsingham (North Norfolk), appeared at the local Petty Sessions court of law on Monday 4 November to face two charges under the Defence of the Realm Act: first, that he allowed the lights in his church to show through “unscreened” windows and an “unshaded” light to be outside on the church steps; and second, that he allowed the church bells to be rung during the evening, and the church clock to strike “throughout the night”. The offences were committed on Sunday 13 October. The church lights would obviously have been visible to German aviators; and the sound of the bells and clock could have been “audible at such a distance [and] capable of serving as a guide for hostile aircraft”. The local postmistress had given the vicar the news that Germany had accepted President Woodrow Wilson’s conditions for peace (the Fourteen Points), which he thought signified that the war was over and DORA Regulations no longer applied. The court fined him a total of 28 shillings – £1 and 8 shillings, the equivalent of around £68 in 2025 values (Bank of England Inflation Calculator). From the Norfolk Chronicle, Friday, November 8, 1918, p3, under ‘PREMATURE PEACE REJOICINGS. NORFOLK VICAR FINED’. The vicar’s case is in the Eastern Daily Press of 10 November 2018, under “‘People poured into the streets decked with flags’: From Beccles to Thetford – how your town celebrated the 1918 armistice.” (Available online.)

Image Copyright Statements of Newspapers Cited

1. British Newspaper Archive. http://www.britishnewspaperarchive.co.uk

The Daily News, 7 November 1918. The Fifeshire Advertiser, 9 November 1918. The Globe, 7 & 8 November 1918. The Guardian (Nantwich), 8 November 1918. The Prestatyn Weekly, 9 November 1918.

The South Wales Daily Post 6 & 7 November 1918. The South Wales News, 8 November, 1918. The Staffordshire Sentinel, 7 & 8 November 1918. Bristol Times And Mirror, 8 November 1918. Western Evening Herald, 8 November 1918. Birmingham Mail, 8 November 1918. Liverpool Daily Post and Mercury, 8 November 1918. The Nottingham Evening Post, Wednesday, November 6, 1918. The Nottingham Journal and Express, Friday, 8 November, 1918. The Lincolnshire Echo, Thursday, November 7, 1918.

The Western Mail (Cardiff), 7, 8, & 14 November 1918. Daily Record and Mail, 8 November 1918. Huddersfield Daily Examiner, 8 November 1918. Rochdale Observer, 9 November 1918. Middlesex Chronicle, 9 November 1918. Birmingham Daily Gazette, 8 November 1918. Birmingham Post, 8 November 1918. Birmingham Gazette, 8 November 1918. Rochdale Observer, 9 November 1918. Newcastle Daily Journal, 8 November 1918. The Daily Mail (Kingston upon Hull), 7 & 8 November 1918. The Merthyr Express, 9 & 16 November 1918. The (Glasgow) Daily Record and Mail, 8 November 1918. The Evening Despatch (Birmingham), 8 November 1918.

The Echo (Gloucestershire), 8 November 1918. Western Daily Press, 8 November 1918. Western Morning News, 8 November 1918. The Derby Daily Telegraph, 8 November 1918. Western Morning News, 8 November 1918. Gloucestershire Echo, 7 & 8 November 1918. Gloucestershire Chronicle, 9 November 1918. The Western Times (Exeter), 8 November 1918.

Evening News (London), 8 November 1918. The Westminster Gazette, 8 November 1918. Northern Daily Mail (Hartlepool), 7 November 1918. Yorkshire Telegraph and Star (Sheffield), 8 November 1918. The Norfolk Chronicle, 8 November 1918. The Cumberland Evening News, 7 November, 1918

Evening Express (Aberdeen), 7 & 8 November 1918. Aberdeen Daily Journal, 8 November 1918.

The Northampton Mercury, 8 November 1918. Yorkshire Evening Post, 8 November 1918. Edinburgh Evening News, 8 November 1918. The Scotsman, 8 November 1918. Motherwell Times, 8 November 1918. Falkirk Herald, 9 November 1918.

2. The National Library of Wales (NLW) online newspaper collection (Welsh Newspapers Online ). http://www.newspapers.library.wales

The Cambria Daily Leader (Swansea), 8 November 1918. (NLW accompanying information: Copyright unknown. Later merged with the ‘South Wales Daily Post’ and ‘South Wales Evening Post‘.)

Labour Voice Llais Llafur, 16 November 1918. (Copyright unknown.)

3. Gale Cengage Learning. http://www.gale.com

The Daily Mail, 8 November 1918. (Daily Mail Historical Archive, 1898–2004).

The (London) Times, 8 November 1918. (The Times Digital Archive, 1785-2014).

Website copyright statement: “Gale Cengage’s historical newspaper archives, like British Library Newspapers and The Times Digital Archive, are generally under copyright, requiring permission for non-personal reproductions, but small quotations with proper attribution . . . are often permissible.”

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