Y34rZer0 t1_j1crtjf wrote
On the final day everybody knew that the war was going to end at 11 am, but some commanders (mostly US) wanted to be the person who won the last victory of the war, and also to have good strategic positions if the armistice collapsed. So they attacked German positions even though they knew the war was ending in a couple of hours.
more soldiers were killed that day then on the D-day landings
paulc899 t1_j1e6lx4 wrote
That’s not true. A quick google search will tell you that ~2700 people died on Nov 11 1918 while the allies alone on DDay had over 4400 confirmed dead
Y34rZer0 t1_j1e84f5 wrote
A quick google search gives misleading numbers on this topic
This is from the official US Army Times site link which covers it fully
American forces weren’t alone in launching assaults on the last day. The British high command, still stinging from its retreat at Mons during the first days of the war in August 1914, judged that nothing could be more appropriate than to retake the city on the war’s final day. British Empire losses on November 11 totaled some twenty-four hundred. The French commander of the 80th Régiment d’Infanterie received two simultaneous orders that morning: one to launch an attack at 9 a.m., the other to cease fire at 11. Total French losses on the final day amounted to an estimated 1,170.
The Germans, in the always-perilous posture of retreat, suffered some 4,120 casualties. Losses on all sides that day approached eleven thousand dead, wounded, and missing.
Indeed, Armistice Day exceeded the ten thousand casualties suffered by all sides on D-Day
note: this doesn’t cover American deaths of about 300
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