# Armistice is Signed



## david.hopcroft (Jun 29, 2005)

Some of this I have posted before but it is a fitting reminder at this time. The original signal and some photographs are in an archive file bequeathed to Mablethorpe Library by the son of SGR whose initials you see on the 'Sent By' box on the signal. I rang the library to ask if they were having any kind of centenary memorial. and to remind them what they had in their archive. No, they didn't know. Details of the trawlers are thanks to Hugh Maclean. 

After next week sadly it will all go back to obscurity, and most unlikely to be seen again by anyone. It is a pdf file so I hope you can read it.

David
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## sparks69 (Dec 18, 2005)

This might be of interest.

https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/av/uk-en.../grimsby-s-lost-fishing-trawlers-of-wwi-found


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## Duncan112 (Dec 28, 2006)

Thanks David,

Co-incidentally on Antiques Roadshow on Sunday there was a similar signal sent to land forces - as is usual in these cases the experts declined to value it.

This, copied from a friend's Facebook post may be of Interest (My Friend is obviously a friend of Mr Lustig-Prean)

Duncan Lustig-Prean
11 November at 00:10 · 
100 years ago today in the early hours, my great-grandfather, General Heinrich Lustig-Prean, surveyed the deep snow and dug-outs in which his exhausted men sheltered thousands of feet up in the mountains of the Italian Tyrol. The guns were silent.

Earlier in the year he led Austria’s last advance deeper into Italy across the alps. Now lack of supplies had stalled the campaign and the attrition rates were high for both sides.

He had received his orders for the Armistice commencing at 1200 local time. But instead he ordered an immediate ceasefire. His guns were checked at 0100 local.

He sent his aide-de-camp forward under a flag of truce with a note for his Italian opposite number.

“Further bloodshed pointless. Ceasefire with immediate effect. My medical officer will remain to assist your wounded.”

Heinrich was a professional soldier unlike the other Archdukes. He had been on the front line since the war started. By all accounts he was well-respected by his men among whom he insisted on living. When in 1917 the Emperor offered him the post of Minister of War he sent him back a curt note:

“I am a soldier not a politician”.

Keeping sufficient supplies for the long march back down into Austria, Heinrich ordered that the men be fed well. It was their best meal in weeks. He asked them to write letters home telling their families that they were safe. Then he sent his messenger with that mail, together with the condolence letters he always sent to each family in addition to those of their own commanding officers, down the mountains to Austria.

(These were not his last condolence letters. Thousands more suc***bed to their injuries or did not survive the deprivations of their imprisonment in Italy ravaged by Spanish flu.)

He waited talking to his men in the eerie silence as the wind blew and the snow fell; a gun-free silence not heard for four bloody years.

I visited the regimental museum and saw the tens of thousands of ordinary Austrian men listed in the books of remembrance.

They had left their mountain farms, villages and towns to serve their country in the alpine regiments never to return; so many families left without sons.

Their regimental chapel is above Innsbruck. There is no stained glass. Behind the altar is a vast window. As you honour the fallen, you see the mountains upon which they gave their lives.

But my great-grandfather had two further acts of bravery to come.

As soon as the armistice started, Italian troops advanced breaking it. Heinrich ordered his men not to fire. He stood up and alone walked towards them. They were captured and imprisoned in Italy.

When the Italians realised that not only had they captured a general but a Habsburg they offered Heinrich immediate repatriation.

My great-grandfather refused. His men were poorly fed, cruelly treated and lacked shelter.

Fearing that conditions would only get worse without him, he told the Italians that he would not leave without his troops. Thus his return to Austria did not happen until late in 1919.

His final act of bravery was throughout the period 1926 until his death in 1932.

He had become Field Marshall and Commander of the forces Austria was allowed to retain to defend its new borders.

As the power of the NAZI party grew, their influence spread to a broken and wounded Austria. The Allies had not recognised that winning the peace is as vital as victory. Their punishment of both former Empires led to huge internal problems and great suffering for the people.

The battle between socialism, marxism and fascism began. It was clear that fascism would be the winner.

Heinrich took the Austrian army onto the streets of Vienna peacefully marching to protest the growth of fascism. He used the rest of his life to prevent their rise to power.

He failed.

He failed because the Allies had not recognised that to grind a defeated nation into the dust and then to rub its nose into that dirt would unleash forces which ultimately would destroy our world a second time.

He failed because a despairing people saw fascism as the only way to recover their economy and national pride.

He failed because the power of propaganda and progressive dehumanisation of a race rapidly and inexorably leads to genocide.

The ‘war to end all wars’ led to another horrific war.

But still we did not learn.

More wars followed. More men, women and children die.

We have learned nothing from history.

Today as I reflect upon the sacrifice of ordinary people, I see the same signs that led to WW2. I hear the same language which dehumanises people.

I look at our world today and know too well that unless we act right now and resist those evil forces there is a bleak inevitability for mankind’s future.

And if we fail then we fail in our duty to honour those who gave their all that we might live in that ‘war to end all wars’.


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## seaman38 (Mar 16, 2016)

Thank you David for the post and thank you Hugh for the photos, they brought back memories as my first trip to sea was on a 1914 built trawler 'Swanland' H402, alas I have never been able to find a photograph of her. The only one missing from my portfolio

Just as an aside the first ten ships I sailed on from four different companies all began with the letter 'S'


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## Samsette (Sep 3, 2005)

Thank you Duncan112 for that account of a real nobleman, in every sense of the word. Are we so bereft of such men today or, are there some great ones awaiting their turn on the world's stage.


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