By that time, Canadians were retaking Mons in southern Belgium, where soldiers from the British Commonwealth had their very first battle with the Germans in August 1914. The summer after he was drafted, he was part of the surge of victories that seized villages and cities right up to Nov. He was a farm laborer in Saskatchewan when the swirl of history plucked him off the land in October 1917 as the Allies sought ever more manpower for the Western Front. The death of Price, the Canadian, was an utterly senseless loss of life.
Death at literally the 11th hour highlighted the futility of a conflict that had become even more incomprehensible in four years of battle. Hundreds of troops died on the final morning of World War I _ even after an armistice was reached and before it came into force. Henry Gunther's time of death was recorded at 10:59am and was recognized by General John Pershing as the last American to die on the battlefront. 29, 2018, a memorial to US World War I soldier Henry Gunther perched on a hill where he died in Chaumont-devant-Damvillers, France.
Gunther was recognized by Pershing as the last American to die on the battlefield. "His time of death was 10:59 a.m., which is just so haunting," Bennett said. Indications are that the Germans fired one salvo over his head as a warning, knowing the war was almost over. When he emerged from a thick fog in the valley around Chaumont-devant-Damvillers, he and his comrades faced a German machine gun nest on the hillside. There were reports he was still brooding over his demotion right on Nov. battle of the war, the Meuse-Argonne offensive in northeastern France. Soon after, he was thrown into the biggest U.S. He was given the rank of sergeant, but he later was demoted when he wrote a letter home critical of the conditions in the war. Gunther had little choice when he got drafted. "It was not a good time to be German in the United States," said historian Alec Bennett. 10, 1918,' to somewhat ease the mourning of families," said French military historian Nicolas Czubak.Īll three are considered their nations' last men to fall in active combat.Īnti-German sentiment ran high after the United States declared war in April 1917, and Gunther and his family in Baltimore were subjected to the kind of prejudice and suspicion that many of German descent faced at the time.
The use of poison gas came to epitomize the ruthlessness of warfare that the world had never seen.įor the French, who lost up to 1.4 million troops, it was perhaps too poignant - or too shameful - to denote that Trebuchon had been killed on the very last morning, just as victory finally prevailed. One battle, like the Somme in France, could have up to 1 million casualties. Germany came close to a quick, early victory before the war settled into hellish trench fighting. 11, the war had killed 14 million people, including 9 million soldiers, sailors and airmen from 28 countries. on the 11th day of the 11th month in 1918, after a four-year war that had already killed millions. His tiny plot is almost on the front line where the guns finally fell silent at 11 a.m.
30, 2018, the grave marker of French WWI soldier Augustin Trebuchon in Vrigne-Meuse, France.
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