Armistice Day is observed in Britain every 11 November to mark the agreement signed between the Allies and Germany that brought an end to the First World War and to remember the soldiers who gave their lives during that savage conflict, as well as those killed in subsequent wars defending democratic freedoms.
The armistice – an agreement to down weapons as a prelude to the peace negotiations that would finally be completed with the signing of the Treaty of Versailles the following June – was signed in the railway carriage of French Marshal Ferdinand Foch, supreme commander of the Allied forces, deep in the forests of Compiegne in Picardy, France.
