TRUMAN HOPES THE HUN SIGNS THE PEACE
Western Front, France (JFK+50) One hundred years ago, November 10, 1918, on the eve of the armistice, Captain Harry S Truman wrote in a letter to Bess Wallace...
"The Hun* is yelling for peace like a stuck hog and I hope old daddy Foch** makes him yell louder. A complete and thorough thrashing is all they've got coming..."
November 10th was a Sunday in the last year of the Great War and Truman described that day in France as sunny and "as warm as summer."
The Captain wrote that he was "still holding a place in a quiet sector" and spending his time censoring letters from his soldiers to their loved ones. Truman wrote...
"I had no idea that there were so many accomplished liars in any organization as I have in mine."
*Reference to Attila the Hun by Kaiser Wilhelm in his speech of 1900 bidding farewell to German troops on their way to China.
**Marshal Ferdinand Jean Marie Foch (1851-1929) was born in Tarbes, France & served in the French army 1870 to 1923. FF was Supreme Allied Commander in WWI & was not pleased with the Versailles Treaty at the war's end. He said: "This is not a peace. It is an armistice for 20 years."
SOURCE
"World War I Letter from Harry to Bess, November 10, 1918", Harry S Truman Library and Museum, www.trumanlibrary.org/
Harry S Truman
France 1918
Truman Library Photo
NARA Image
