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Front Page of the Nottingham Evening Post for Monday the 11th November 1918

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THE ARMISTICE TERMS

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ALL U BOATS TO BE HANDED OVER

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DISARMAMENT OF 74 OTHER WAR VESSELS

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EVACUATION OF WESTERN GERMANY

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Immediately on the Speaker taking the chair in the House of Commons this afternoon, Mr. Lloyd George, who received a remarkable ovation from the crowded Chamber, said the armistice which had already been announced in the Press was signed this morning at five o’clock, after discussion which was prolonged all night.

The Premier then read the terms of the armistice, as follows.

• Immediate evacuation of Belgium, Alsace-Lorraine, and Luxemburg.
• Evacuation by the enemy of Rhineland completed within 16 days.
• Railways of Alsace-Lorraine to be handed over.
• Immediate repatriation, without repatriation of Germans, of Allied and United States prisoners.
• All German troops in Russia, Armenia, and elsewhere to be withdrawn.
• Complete abandonment of treaties of Bucharest and Brest-Litovsk.
• Immediate cessation of all hostilities at sea.
• The handing over to the Allies and U.S. Of all submarines.
• The following to be disarmed: Six battle cruisers, 10 battle-ships, 8 light cruisers, 50 destroyers and other services.
• Allies reserve the right to occupy Heligoland to enable them to enforce the terms of the armistice.
• The duration of the armistice to be 36 days.
• The surrender of 5,000 locomotives, 5,000 guns (2,500 heavy and 2,500 field), and 30,000 machine guns, with 2,000 aeroplanes (fighters, bombers, and night-bombing machines).
• The occupation of evacuated territory by Allied and U.S. Troops would keep pace with the evacuation.
• Repatriation of all inhabitants of evacuated countries to be completed within 14 days.
• Allied garrisons to hold the main crossing of the Rhine-Maine, Coblenz, and Cologne together with a bridgehead of 30 kilometres radius on the right bank.
• A neutral zone is also to be set up on the right bank of the Rhine.
• Military food stores and ammunition not to be removed from evacuated territory.
• Means of communication not to be impaired.
• The German Command to reveal all mines and delaying action, and to assist in their destruction.
• The German command to reveal all destructive measures such as the poisoning of wells etc.

He moved that the House should immediately adjourn and proceed to St. Margaret’s Church to give humble and reverent thanks for deliverance from the war.

[The stipulations regarding Alsace-Lorraine, and Rhineland no doubt mean the evacuation, temporary or otherwise, of the whole of that part of Germany west of the Rhine, extending from the Dutch frontier down to the Swiss border.]

The armistice initially expired after a period of 36 days and had to be extended several times. A formal peace agreement was reached only when the Treaty of Versailles was signed the following year.