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1918 :
German forces released from the Eastern Front launched a major offensive on the Western Front in the spring of 1918. Despite some minor initial successes, by July the Germans had failed to break the Allied lines and, in effect, this meant that the war was reaching its endgame. Allied counter-offensives at the Marne and at Amiens (August) were successful and in the early autumn a 'hundred days' of semi-mobile warfare forced the Germans back beyond the Hindenburg line and freed much of occupied France and Belgium. On 11 November, at 11am in the Forest of Compiègne, an armistice between the Allied forces and Germany was signed and fighting stopped. Other Central powers sued for peace but across the world, millions of young men were dead - 947,000 of them from the British Empire.
At home in Britain, victory was greeted with celebrations and a return to something like normality. So many things had changed, however, and in a General Election held in December (where the coalition government were returned with a massive majority), women over 30 were allowed the vote for the first time. Although an armistice was agreed in November 1918, it was not until 28 June 1919 that the Treaty of Versailles was signed between the Allied powers and Germany, thus officially ending the war 'to end all wars'. Further treaties with the other defeated Central powers followed through 1919 and, in the victorious countries, public celebrations marked the end of hostilities.
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