One Bermudian war veteran left a first-hand battlefield account of the Armistice that ended the fighting between Germany and the Allied powers on November 11, 1918.

Enlisting with the Bermuda Volunteer Rifle Corps as a private soldier in 1914, Allan Livingstone Cooper was one of 16 Bermudians in that unit who was promoted to an officer during the course of the First World War (1914 — 1918).

Serving on the 450-mile long Western Front in France — which extended from the Swiss frontier to the English Channel like a livid wound — he belonged to a generation of men who had never struck a child or kicked a dog before becoming embroiled in the mass carnage of a conflict which claimed the lives of an estimated 10 million military personnel and about seven million civilians.

He recorded the reaction of troops on the Western Front when the Armistice between the Allies and Germany came into effect at “the 11th hour of the 11th day of the 11th month” in 1918 in accordance with the Armistice signed by representatives of Germany and the Allied powers between 5.12 and 5.20 that morning.

“There was a sort of tension in all ranks as rumours of an early peace were in the air: Bermuda didn’t feel too far away at this point,” Mr Cooper wrote in his journal.

“Finally the rumours were a concrete fact — an Armistice was to be signed at 11am. The tension was eased and we paraded as usual as if nothing had happened.

“Whereas the world was celebrating the joyous event, we were taking it in our stride. Inwardly we felt a great calm that the bloody thing was over.”