An Armistice Ended Fighting in World War I a Century Ago. Real Peace Took Longer

The following is adapted from the LIFE special edition World War I: The Great War and the American Century

From where he stood at the moment the Armistice began, Harry Truman could see a German machine gunner. At 11 a.m., the man took off his helmet, bowed, and walked away. Truman wrote that “a great cheer arose all along the line.” When he tried to go to bed that night, “members of the French Battery insisted on marching around my cot and shaking hands.