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In Photos Unpublished for 100 Years, the Joy of War’s End on Armistice Day

As crowds gathered in New York, Paris and London, photographers captured the public’s jubilant mood.

By Alexis Clark
Nov. 9, 2018

The Great War was over. One hundred years ago — just before 3 a.m. on Nov. 11, 1918 — The New York Times received the first bulletin of the Armistice, which had been signed aboard a rail car in a small village in Northern France. A searchlight on the tower of the Times building, previously used to announce election results, gleamed rays across the city until daylight broke.

After more than four years of fighting, 8.5 million soldiers had been killed, including more than 100,000 Americans, and 7 million civilians were dead. In that time, modern warfare was born, and the trenches of Western Europe became a charnel house.

As news spread of the war’s end, people gathered in parks, streets and town squares, overwhelmed with jubilation on what is now officially celebrated as Armistice Day. In pictures from New York, Paris and London, The Times chronicled the ecstatic celebrations. (The dramatic images ran mostly in the Mid-Week Pictorial, a picture-driven publication started by The Times in 1914, in part to bring readers images of the war. The original captions are quoted with each photo here, along with the date of publication.)

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https://www.nytimes.com/2018/11/09/world/europe/armistice-day-100th-anniversary-photos.html?action=click&module=Top%20Stories&pgtype=Homepage