11/11/1918 - A tragedy within a tragedy. One minute before the Armistice of WWI takes place ending combat at 11:00 in the morning, Private Henry Nicholas John Gunther of Baltimore, Maryland, is killed rushing a German machine gun position in the French village of Chaumont-devant-Damvillers (near Meuse, in the Lorraine region of the country). The soldier is twenty-three-years-old.
Gunther
On June 6, 1895, in the east portion of Baltimore, Maryland, the children of German immigrants to the United States (26-year-old George Gunther and 29-year-old Lina Roth) are gladdened to greet a son into their family, Henry Nicholas John Gunther (Henry gets a sibling brother in 1899 when Charles Augusta Gunther is born). Growing up in the Highlandtown section of Baltimore (originally called "Snake Hill," the residents change the locale's name to Highland Town in 1870 because of its expansive views of Baltimore, and pronounce their neighborhood "Hollantown," and later because of an influx of mountain migrants from Appalachia, it will also be called "Little Appalachia" ... it will officially become a part of Baltimore in 1919) among other blue-collar German-Americans, Gunther is heavily influenced by the Roman Catholic parish of his parents, the Sacred Heart of Jesus, joining its service order for laymen, the Knights of Columbus, in 1915. Before America becomes a WWI belligerent in April of 1917, Gunther is gainfully employed as a bookkeeper and clerk by the National Bank of Baltimore, while living with his parents in a rowhouse across the street from the city's Patterson Park.
Snake Hill - 1860
Tensions building between Germany and the United States (starting with reports of atrocities during Germany's 1914 summer invasion of Belgium, then moving on to the torpedo sinking of the passenger liner RMS Lusitania killing 128 American citizens in 1915, the restarting of unrestricted submarine warfare by Germany in 1917, and the British Intelligence interception of the Zimmermann telegram in which Germany offers Mexico the territories it lost fighting the United States in the Mexican-American War if Mexico will enter WWI on the side of the German Empire), the declaration of war against Germany by Congress on April 6, 1917 is not popular in Highlandtown where many American families have relatives that aren't distant at all back in Germany and where a huge chunk of the population is suspected of sympathizing with the Empire (Gunther's first-generation American grandmother is accused of being a German spy by a local pharmacist). Leaving a good job not a priority, Gunther declines to volunteer to serve in any of the military services of the United States, but is powerless to avoid it when he is drafted into the Army in September of 1917. One of over two million men drafted under the Selective Service Act of 1917, Gunther becomes a member of the American Expeditionary Forces (AEF) commanded by General John Joseph "Black Jack" Pershing, with an assignment to the Army's 79th Division's 313th Infantry Regiment, Company A, a unit known as "Baltimore's Own," for all the men from the region that fill out the group's membership. Training for deployment at Camp Meade (named after the victor at Gettysburg, Major General George Gordon Meade, the facility is located in Maryland's Anne Arundel County, 18 miles southwest of Baltimore), Gunther is assigned the duties of supply sergeant (responsible for getting the mission necessary equipment and supplies to base and then into the hands of the unit's soldiers) and ships out to France in July of 1918 aboard the troop ship, SS Leviathan (the modified, seized German passenger ship Vaterland of Germany's Hamburg America Line, capable of transporting 14,000 across the Atlantic).
Pershing
313th Barracks - Camp Meade
Aboard The SS Leviathan
Arriving in the French port of Brest, Gunther and company continue their journey to the fighting by boarding a troop train of 40 & 8 boxcars (called such because they each could carry 40 soldiers and 8 horses). Arriving at the front on Thursday, September 12, 1918, Gunther takes a few moments to write home to a friend in Baltimore about his service thus far, and describes the terrible conditions and the prejudice his background has caused, closing by urging his pal not to enlist in the Army. While the the missive might be true to Gunther, it is nonetheless a horrible mistake by the sergeant. Letters checked by military censors, Gunther is called to the carpet for his words and busted down to the rank of private (and along with losing his rank, he also loses his fiancée who decides he is not the man for her when she hears of his demotion). It is a sad turning point in the German-American's life, and with his unit participating in the war's climatic Meuse-Argonne Offensive (so named for the region where the battle takes place along the Meuse River and the Argonne Forest ... a clash involving over 1,600,000 Allied and German soldiers, it will be the AEF's biggest battle of the war <more American ammunition will be fired during the struggle than in the entire Civil War> and cost American forces over 122,000 casualties, including 26,277 dead), to prove his merit as a United States soldier and that the Army has made a mistake taking his rank away, Private Gunther begins volunteering for hazardous duties. Caught up in the 79th Division's assaults on the critical position of Montfaucon Hill (a site that has already cost the French 300,000 casualties), Gunther volunteers to run messages between regimental and battalion headquarters, dangerous duty that exposes him repeatedly to German sniper fire. Risking his life over and over running messages up and down the line for over a week, the private is wounded in the hand but successfully survives the experience (the Bible he carries into battle also takes a bullet hit). Refusing to leave the fighting to take time off for his wound, Gunther is among the Americans that clear 4.3 miles of enemy territory, take Montfaucon, and then advance roughly a mile north towards the Meuse River (Gunther's regiment, the 313th, will lose 45 officers and 1,200 enlisted men during the offensive).
Advancing Through An Artillery Blighted Landscape
Firing On Retreating Germans From Montfaucon
German resolve to continue fighting beginning to break in the autumn of 1918, the German Supreme Army Command, in the form of it's twin powers, Generalfeldmarschall Paul Ludwig Hans Anton von Beneckendorff und von Hindenburg and First Quartermaster General Erich Friedrich Wilhelm Ludendorff advise Kaiser Wilhelm II and the Imperial Chancellor, Count Georg von Hertling that the military situation Germany is facing is hopeless and that the country should accept an armistice incorporating U.S. President Woodrow Wilson's "Fourteen Points" plan for peace as soon as possible. Secret negotiations going on between the belligerent countries, a German delegation led by Matthias Erzberger arrive in France and begin final deliberations with Allied representatives aboard the private command train of Allied Supreme Commander French Marshal Ferdinand Foch, parked on a railroad siding in the Forest of Compiegne (21 years later, on June 22, 1940, rubbing humiliating salt into the hearts of the French, Adolf Hitler will use the same train and location when France surrenders to Germany at the beginning of WWII). The next day, removing himself as one of the obstacles to peace, the Kaiser abdicates his empire and goes into exile in the neutral Netherlands on the 10th (a broken man, he will die there of a pulmonary embolism in June of 1941 at the age of 82). On November 11th, at 5:00 in the morning, the cease fire ending the fighting is agreed to and between 5:12 a.m. and 5:20 a.m., the armistice is signed by six men ... Marshal Foch, Britain's First Sea Lord Admiral Rosslyn Wemyss, Erzberger, Count Alfred von Oberndorff of the German Foreign Ministry, Captain Ernst Vanselow of the German Navy, and Major General Detlof von Winterfeldt of the Imperial Army. All guns are scheduled to go silent at 11:00 a.m., Paris time (the Germans had wished for an immediate cessation of hostilities with the signing of the armistice).
Hidenburg, Wilhelm & Ludendorff
Erzberger
At The Train
Not stopping the fighting immediately with the signing of the armistice proves to be yet another tragedy in a war full of them and though word goes out to the troops in the front lines, there will be several more hours of pointless murder as the Allies try to improve their positions just in case the war breaks out again, and Allied artillery pieces shot off their ammunition so they will not have the arduous duty of hauling their spare supplies of shells and rockets away. As a result of the delay, the last few hours of the war will see 10,944 more casualties take place, of which 2,738 are deaths. Lost among the chaos that takes place for the losing German Army is the name and time of the last soldier they lose, but the victors keep much better records. At 9:30 a.m., while on patrol in a woodland area near Mons, Belgium, the British suffer their last KIA (Killed In Action) when 40-year-old Private George Edwin Ellison of the 5th Royal Irish Lancers is shot by a sniper. The French lose twice-wounded 40-year-old Private First Class Augustin-Joseph Victorin Trebuchon of the 163rd Infantry Division when a German machine gun catches him out in the open taking a message to forward troops near the Meuse River that there will be a victory celebration featuring hot soup at 11:30 a.m., missing surviving the war by a mere fifteen minutes (the death so embarrasses the French that they briefly cover it up by moving the private's death back a full 24-hours). Also missing survival by a brief fifteen minutes is a three-year Belgian veteran of the Western Front trenches, 24-year-old Corporal Marcel Toussaint Louis Joseph Terfve of Liege. Terfve is killed when a German machine gun bullet pierces his lung while he is moving forward with two other men at the Ghent-Terneuzen Canal near Kluizen, Belgium. The final Canadian to be killed in combat takes place outside the Belgium village Ville-sur-Haine only two minutes before the cease-fire takes effect. Worried about his exposed position on an open canal bank, 25-year-old Falmouth-born Private George Lawrence Price of the CEF's 28th Infantry Battalion (Northwest) is shot in the chest by a German sniper and perishes leading five volunteers on a patrol clearing houses on the other side of the canal.
Still under orders of Brigadier General William Nicholson to take the village of Chaumont-devant-Damvillers as part of the continuing Meuse-Argonne Offensive, ten miles north of the abattoir of Verdun, the men of Company "A" of the 313th Infantry Regiment wake up on the last day of the war to find their objective wreathed in a cold fog. Unable to see what lies ahead of their lines, the men go to ground and remain in their positions as German shells and machine gun bursts fly through the damp morning air. At 10:44 in the morning a regimental runner reaches the area with news that a ceasefire is going into effect in sixteen minutes and that 313th is to hold in place, neither advancing or retreating. With the new information, the men stay where they are with a single exception, Private Gunther. For some unknown reason, whether still trying to prove his meddle, win back his stripes, be seen as a hero, or to prove he is as American as any other soldier in the United States Army, Gunther fixes his bayonet to his rifle. suddenly leaps up, and charges down the road leading into the village despite orders and his friend, Sergeant Ernest Powell, commanding him to get down. Firing forward as he runs toward the two machine gun German roadblock blocking entrance to the village, the position's defenders wave and scream in broken English at the soldier heading their way, knowing the war is only a few heartbeats away from soon ending. Ignoring entreaties to stop from both sides, Gunther finally gets so close to the Germans that they are forced to defend themselves and a short burst of bullets is sent at the private and he is hit in the forehead and dies instantly, just sixty seconds away from surviving being drafted into the Army. A conflict so bloody it's battles will claim 8,042,189 lives (and an unknown number of men who will perish later as a result of never healed physical and psychic wounds over the years following the war), 53,402 of which are American dead, Gunther is accorded the dubious honor of officially being considered to be the very last combat death of the misnamed "War to End All Wars," WWI.
Celebrating The End
World Wide Headlines
The site of the private's death marked with a cross by his comrades, Gunther is at first buried in France, but is exhumed in 1923 and returned to the United States to be buried in Baltimore's Most Holy Redeemer Cemetery. The last to die in combat during WWI, as 11/11 becomes the Federal holiday of Veterans Day in the United States, Gunther's charge and death seem to wipe away all that came before during his service in the Army, and posthumously he is returned to the rank of sergeant and awarded a Purple Heart, a Distinguished Service Cross, and receives a Divisional Citation for Gallantry in Action along with having a VFW post, number 1858 (it no longer exists), named in his honor in East Baltimore. On November 11, 2008, a memorial is dedicated near the spot where he died in France, and two years later, on 11/11/2010, a memorial plaque that reads "HIGHLY DECORATED FOR EXCEPTIONAL BRAVERY AND HEROIC ACTION THAT RESULTED IN HIS DEATH ONE MINUTE BEFORE THE ARMISTICE," paid for by the German Society of Maryland, is unveiled at 10:59 in the morning. Rest in Peace, Sergeant!
French Memorial
Grave & Plaque
