The November 11, 1918 Armistice.

 Foch with fellow Allied officers after the execution of the armistice.

It occurred to me that we've been referencing the big November 11, 1918 even that brought an end to the Great War a lot, but we never published it. 

Here, before the century mark on that fateful year passes, is the entire text:

Between MARSHAL FOCH, Commander-in-Chief of the Allied Armies,
acting in the name of the Allied and Associated Powers, with ADMIRAL WEMYSS, First Sea Lord, on the one hand, and HERR ERZBERGER, Secretary of State, President of the German Delegation, COUNT VON OBERNDORFF, Envoy Extraordinary and Minister Plenipotentiary,  MAJOR GENERAL VON WINTERFELDT, CAPTAIN VANSELOW (German Navy),

duly empowered and acting with the concurrence of the German Chancellor on the other hand.
          An Armistice has been concluded on the following conditions:

CONDITIONS OF THE ARMISTICE CONCLUDED
WITH GERMANY.

A. - CLAUSES RELATING TO THE WESTERN FRONT.
          

I. - Cessation of hostilities by land and in the air 6 hours after the signing of the Armistice

II. - Immediate evacuation of the invaded countries - Belgium, France, Luxemburg, as well as Alsace-Lorraine - so ordered as to be completed within 15 days from the signature of the Armistice. German troops which have not left the above-mentioned territories within the period fixed shall be made prisoners of war.     

Occupation by the Allied and United States Forces jointly shall keep pace with the evacuation of these areas.

All movements of evacuation and occupation shall be regulated in accordance with a Note (Annexe1) determined at the time of the signing of the Armistice.
          

III. - Repatriation, beginning at once, to be completed within 15 days, of all inhabitants of the countries above enumerated (including hostages, persons under trial, or condemned).
          

IV. - Surrender in good condition by the German Armies of the following equipment:-
          5,000 guns (2,500 heavy, 2,500 field).
          25,000 machine guns.
          3,000 trench mortars.
        1,700 aeroplanes (fighters, bombers - firstly all D.7's and night-bombing machines).
          

The above to be delivered in situ to the Allied and United States troops in accordance with the detailed conditions laid down in the Note (Annexe 1) determined at the time of the signing of the Armistice.
          

V. - Evacuation by the German Armies of the districts on the left bank of the Rhine. These districts on the left bank of the Rhine shall be administered by the local authorities under the control of the Allied and United States Armies of Occupation.

The occupation of these territories by Allied and United States troops shall be assured by garrisons holding the principal crossings of the Rhine (Mainz, Coblenz, Cologne), together with bridgeheads at these points of a 30-kilometre (about 19 miles) radius on the right bank, and by garrisons similarly holding the strategic points of the area.
          

A neutral zone shall be reserved on the right bank of the Rhine, between the river and a line drawn parallel to the bridgeheads and to the river and 10 kilometres (6¼ miles) distant from them, between the Dutch frontier and the Swiss frontier.
          

The evacuation by the enemy of the Rhine districts (right and left banks) shall be so ordered as to be completed within a further period of 16 days, in all 31 days after the signing of the Armistice.
          

All movements of evacuation and occupation shall be regulated according to the Note (Annexe 1) determined at the time of the signing of the Armistice.
          

VI. - In all territories evacuated by the enemy, evacuation of the inhabitants shall be forbidden; no damage or harm shall be done to the persons or property of the inhabitants.
          

No person shall be prosecuted for having taken part in any military measures previous to the signing of the Armistice.
          

No destruction of any kind to be committed.
          

Military establishments of all kinds shall be delivered intact, as well as military stores, food, munitions and equipment, which shall not have been removed during the periods fixed for evacuation.
          

Stores of food of all kinds for the civil population, cattle, &c., shall be left in situ.
          

No measure of a general character shall be taken, and no official order shall be given which would have as a consequence the depreciation of industrial establishments or a reduction of their personnel.
          

VII. - Roads and means of communications of every kind, railroads, waterways, roads, bridges, telegraphs, telephones, shall be in no manner impaired.
          

All civil and military personnel at present employed on them shall remain.
          

5,000 locomotives and 150,000 wagons, in good working order, with all necessary spare parts and fittings, shall be delivered to the Associated Powers within the period fixed in Annexe No. 2 (not exceeding 31 days in all).
          

5,000 motor lorries are also to be delivered in good condition within 36 days.
          

The railways of Alsace-Lorraine shall be handed over within 31 days, together with all personnel and material belonging to the organization of this system.
          

Further, the necessary working material in the territories on the left bank of the Rhine shall be left in situ.
          

All stores of coal and material for the upkeep of permanent way, signals and repair shops shall be left in situ and kept in an efficient state by Germany, so far as the working of the means of communication on the left bank of the Rhine is concerned.
          

All lighters taken from the Allies shall be restored to them.
 

A couple of comments.

If this seems surprisingly short, there were annexes that provided a great more detail.  These are referenced above, but I haven't included them.

Secondly, there's a certain sort of debate that occurs between historians, amateur and professional, about whether the armistace was as surrender or if we have to wait until the Versailles Treaty to get that.  Certainly that's how the Germans sot of came to view it, but looking at the text, while the armistice wasn't a treaty of peace in the diplomatic sense, it was a surrender.  

The territorial concessions alone would have made it that. But the laying down and surrendering of a designated number of arms effectively gutted the Imperial German Army as a field force capable of waging a resumed war against the Allies (and made it difficult for the same army to suppress the ongoing domestic insurrection, which played into something we'll be seeing shortly.  But the surrender of material items beyond that, which predated any such condition in the Versailles Treaty, made that all the more clear.

The end of wars can be messy, and certainly most are.  We're so used to the concept of total victory, even though we have achieved it only twice in our own history, that we tend to think of it in that fashion.  Most wars end with an armistice with a peace treaty to follow, or more rarely with a peace treaty followed by an armistice.  The November 11, 1918 armistice followed the historic norm.  It was a German surrender.