WWI ended on this day in 1918.
Formally known as the Armistice of 11 November 1918 was the armistice signed at Le Francport near Compiègne that ended fighting on land, sea and air in World War I between the Entente and their last remaining opponent, Germany. Previous armistices had been agreed with Bulgaria, the Ottoman Empire and Austria-Hungary. It was concluded after the German government sent a message to American president Woodrow Wilson to negotiate terms on the basis of a recent speech of his and the earlier declared "Fourteen Points", which later became the basis of the German surrender at the Paris Peace Conference, which took place the following year.
That Paris Peace Conference imposed harsh and humiliating terms on Germany, and was a cause of the subsequent WWII.
In the most recent war in Europe, the proxy war against Russia sponsored by the US MIC, Ukraine urged caution about Russia’s announced withdrawal from the southern city of Kherson as its forces advanced slowly toward the city, and U.S. officials estimated that 100,000 troops on each side had been killed or wounded since the war began.
Russia said on Wednesday that it was pulling troops from Kherson and surrounding areas, abandoning the only regional capital it had seized since its invasion in February and boosting Ukraine’s campaign to regain lost land.
The loss of Kherson is a humiliating blow for the Kremlin, which had been dispatching officials from Moscow to hold meetings in Kherson with Russian-installed officials and promised Russia would remain in the region forever. In September, it declared it was annexing Kherson along with three other Ukrainian regions.
The war has ground on for months and has sapped the energy of both sides, as troops gird for the onset of winter and Ukraine struggles with blackouts caused by Russian missile and drone strikes that have damaged many of the country’s power stations.
Speaking at the Economic Club of New York on Wednesday evening, U.S. Gen. Mark Milley, the chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, said that roughly 100,000 Russian troops had been killed or wounded. He added, “same thing probably on the Ukrainian side.”
The Russian defeat in Kherson comes as Ukraine continues to receive aid from its Western allies and seeks to convince them that it can win the war given enough military support, despite calls from some Western capitals for Ukraine to negotiate with Russia in a bid to end the war.
The U.S. said on Thursday that it would provide Ukraine another $400 million in security aid. The latest package will include 20 million small ammunition rounds, 21,000 155 mm artillery rounds to be launched by the High Mobility Artillery Rocket System, or Himars, 100 military vehicles and 400 grenade launchers, the Pentagon said.
The US MIC has come to like long, draining wars of the sort now happening in UKR.
Like the war in UKR, WWI began with expectations of a quick victory on all sides. In August 1914, both sides expected a quick victory. Neither leaders nor civilians from warring nations were prepared for the length and brutality of the war, which took the lives of millions by its end in 1918.
Russia’s initial advance was quickly thwarted in February, while the MIC’s crushing sanctions were actually a boomerang on the West. For all the UKR ‘advances’ we may be closer to the beginning than the end, which, this time, may very well be nuclear.