JOHN WILLIAM JONES
202859
LANCE CORPORAL HAMPSHIRE REGIMENT

October -November 1918
Whilst the situation for the German forces seemed critical, the position for the Allies was no more certain. Haig was anxious for the War to be brought to a conclusion in 1918. The American forces, despite their successes, were not fully battle-ready; the French Army was not in a position to launch a decisive offensive and the British forces were exhausted and without reinforcements. With the winter approaching, haig was also worried that the Germans might establish a strong defensive line that would lead to yet another stalemate.

Haig therefore put into operation a plan that saw the British Fourth Army attack the German positions on the River Selle on the 17th October. It was Haig's hope to form a line from the Sambre and Oise Canal to Valenciennes. The Selle was brossed without major setback and the Sambre Canal was reached in three days.

Between the 1st and 3rd of November the American forces broke through the final German defence line thereby cutting the vital Lille-Metz railway. On the 2nd the Canadian forces captured Valenciennes.

On the 4th November 1918, the day that Lance Corporal John William Jones was killed, an attack was made along a 30-mile front from Valenciennes to the Sambre on either side of the Forest of Mormal. On the same day the New Zealand Division stormed the old walled town of Le Quesnoy by scaling the inner and outer walls in a medieval-style assault and forced the surrender of the German garrison. William Jones died close to Frasnoy, a small village just a few miles to the west of the Mormal Forest.

On the previous day, the 3rd Novemebr, Austria-Hungary had signed an armistice along with Turkey. Soldiers of the German High Fleet had mutinied at the end of October and by the start of November the uprising had spread to various parts of the German empire. During the night of the 7-8th November, a German delegation crossed the front lines to negotiate an armistice with the French Marshal Foch.

Whilst negotiations were conducted, the Allied advance continued. The Germans withdrew to the Antwerp-Meuse line and the British Second Army was over 50 miles from Ypres where the War had reached such a stalemate in the previous years. On the 9th November the Kaiser's abdication was announced and a German Republic was proclaimed from the Reichstag. Wilhelm II relinquished the Imperial Throne and slipped into exile in Holland.

At approximately 5 o'clock in the morning of the 11th November 1918 the Armistice was signed in a railway carriage at Rethondes in the Forest of Compiegne. At 11 am, after 1,568 days of war, the roar of the guns ceased and silence finally descended on the Western Front.

It has never been possible to list the exact number of soldiers killed in the Great War, although it is estimated that the British lost 947,023, the Germans 1,808,545 and the French 1, 385,300. The Americans, even despite their late entry into the war lost an estimated 115,660 men. In addition to these figures one must not forget the millions of all sides that were maimed and injured. The effects of the War on individuals often lasted a lifetime and its effect on the world order in general dictated the new Europe for decades before the next great breaking of normality - the Second World War.