We were all tired in body and mind, fresh from the tragic fields of battle, and this momentous announcement was too vast in its consequences to be appreciated or accepted with wild excitement. Stokes of the New Zealand Field Artillery recalled. It was ‘a cheerless, dismal, cold misty day’ in the Forêt de Mormal on the Franco-Belgian border, Gunner B.O. They may have lost the war, but they were presumably as relieved as the victors that it had finally ended. It was therefore not until three hours later that they began their long route march through Belgium to Cologne, where the defeated German people surprised Allingham by their friendliness. The revelling of his fellows took its toll and the following morning few of the ranks were ready to move out at 8 a.m. A lot of men, some who’d been right through the war, didn’t make it through the night.’ Others merely got very drunk, while Allingham himself went to bed and enjoyed the unaccustomed luxury of a good night’s sleep. They let off stray shells, Very lights and whatnot. Ninety years later he recalled that his fellow servicemen ‘grabbed hold of anything that would make a lot of noise – to celebrate, you see.
Of those who survived, Air Mechanic Henry Allingham of the Royal Air Force was still in Belgium on the morning of 11 November.
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