November 11, 1930: The Arsenal-Racing Armistice Day Game

Racing in the stripes, Arsenal in the all-red shirts.

The famed red shirts with white sleeves did not debut until 1933.

November 11, 1930: It is Armistice Day, the anniversary of the end of "The Great War," sometimes called "The World War" -- though not yet "World War I." To symbolize the alliance between Great Britain and France, a benefit football match (soccer game) is played between the largest teams in each country's capital.

Arsenal F.C., of North London, had just won the FA Cup for the 1st time, and were about to begin a stretch of winning the Football League 5 times in 8 seasons. Racing Club de France, of Paris, so named because they were formed by members of a bicycle-racing club, had won some minor trophies, but had only won the title in France's national league in 1907. Nevertheless, they were the most popular team in Paris.

So the managers of the teams, Herbert Chapman of Arsenal and Jean Bernard Levy of Racing, set up the "friendly" as a benefit for war veterans, on the anniversary, at Racing's home, Stade Olympique Yves-du-Manoir, which had been the main stadium for the 1924 Olympic Games.

In the game, Jack Lambert -- no relation to the later American football linebacker of the same name -- scored 4 goals, as Arsenal won, 7-2. Seeking revenge, Racing invited Arsenal back one year later, and this time, Arsenal again won, but only 3-2.

The matches brought Arsenal international fame, and its first very close link with France. There are stories of the French press giving Arsenal players nicknames such as Le Feu d’Artifice (The Firework) for Cliff Bastin, and La Miracle for Alex James.

The games continued, alternating between the Yves-du-Manoir and the Arsenal Stadium, known as Highbury for its neighborhood, until 1962. In 1935, Racing avoided defeat for the 1st time, drawing with Arsenal, 2-2. It took until 1952 for Racing to emerge victorious, 2-0. In the meantime, Racing won Ligue 1 in 1936, and the Coupe de France in 1936, 1939, 1940, 1945 and 1949.

In the 1960s, French football went through a major financial crisis. At Racing, the creation of a "team of stars" -- what Spanish team Real Madrid would later call "Galactico" -- fell apart in a way that such grand rescue schemes have a habit of doing whenever they turn up in football. Racing tumbled down the divisions of the French league, and by 1970, a new team became the biggest one in the national capital, named Paris Saint-Germain.

Today, having gone through several name changes, the old club is named Racing Club de France Football. They still play at the Stade Olympique Yves-du-Manoir, and are in the Championnat National 2, France's 4th division.

On November 11, 2011, in commemoration of Armistice Day/Veterans Day here, the U.S. and France national teams played a friendly at the Stade de France in Saint-Denis, outside Paris. Unfortunately, and with some irony, it was ruined by a German. Jürgen Klinsmann, once one of the great strikers, was then the manager of the U.S. team, but could not pick a lineup. France won, 1-0. 

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November 11, 1930 was a Tuesday. Baseball was out of season. Football was in midweek. The NBA hadn't been founded yet.

There were 3 games in the NHL that night. The New York Rangers beat the Philadelphia Quakers, 3-0 at the Philadelphia Arena. This was the 1st NHL game played in Philadelphia, and it was a harbinger of things to come, as the Quakers had the worst season in NHL history, and then folded due to the Great Depression. I have a separate entry for this event.

The New York Americans lost to the Boston Bruins, 1-0 at the Boston Garden. And the Ottawa Senators beat the Montreal Maroons, 2-0 at the Ottawa Auditorium. 

November 11, 1920: The Cenotaph Is Unveiled at Whitehall

November 11, 1920: The Cenotaph is unveiled on Whitehall, in London, between Downing Street, residence of the Prime Minister of Great Britain, to the north; and the Westminster Bridge, with the Palace of Westminster, the national capital building, to the south. It is Britain's memorial to its military personnel who died in the Great War, the World War, what will later be known as World War I.

"Cenotaph" is a Greek word meaning "empty tomb." There are cenotaphs serving as war memorials elsewhere in Britain, in Southampton, Manchester and Belfast. They serve as memorials elsewhere in the British Commonwealth: In Canada, in Montreal, Ottawa, Regina and Vancouver; in Australia, in Sydney and Hobart; in New Zealand, in Auckland, Dunedin and Wellington; in Hong Kong; and in South Africa, in Cape Town, Durban and Johannesburg. In Southeast Asia, Singapore has one in its namesake capital city; and Malaysia has them in Kuala Lumpur and Penang. And in the United States, there is a cenotaph at the Alamo in San Antonio.

Edwin Luytens, who designed India's new capital of New Dehli, designed first a temporary cenotaph for Whitehall, made of wood and plaster, and erected as part of the Peace Day events of July 19, 1919, at the request of Prime Minister David Lloyd George. At its unveiling, it immediately won the hearts of the public. People spontaneously covered the memorial in wreaths to the dead and the missing from The Great War, and within a week close to a million people made the pilgrimage to pay their respects.

This enthusiasm led to the Cenotaph becoming a permanent and lasting memorial in Portland stone, unveiled on the 2nd Anniversary of the Armistice. It became a central point for all those whose family and friends had died during the war, since so many of their honored dead were buried on the Continent, at the battlefields, and others were still listed as missing, with no known grave.

The structure rises to a height of just over 35 feet, and is about 15 by 9 feet at the base. On its north and south faces, instead of names, the words "THE GLORIOUS DEAD" are inscribed. Above them are the Roman numerals MCMXIX (1919, for the dedication for World War I) and MCMXXXIX (1939, for the start of World War II). Between them are stone wreaths.

The Cenotaph serves as a memorial for all British war dead, including those who have followed in the Korean War, the Falkland Islands War, the Persian Gulf War, and the War On Terror.

Every year, all over the United Kingdom and the British Commonwealth. at the moment of the ending of World War I, the 11th hour of the 11th day of the 11th month, 11:00 AM on November 11 -- known as Remembrance Day there, and Veterans Day here -- "The Last Post" (America's answer is "Taps") is played. Then, two minutes' silence are held, followed by the playing of "The Rouse" (America's answer is "Reveille").

Then, the monarch, or someone appointed to fill in for the monarch such as the heir to the throne, lays a wreath on the Cenotaph.

Queen Elizabeth II, November 11, 2012

And the British take this far more seriously than America does. When a team in England's Premier League plays at home on November 11, or before its last home game before that date, the players gather around the center circle, and they observe the two minutes' silence. They also wear a jersey patch simulating a poppy, a symbol of World War I, unless objecting to it, as some Republic of Ireland players sometimes do. (The Irish War of Independence began in 1916, during that war.) This always turns out to be a nasty controversy.

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November 11, 1920 was a Thursday. Baseball season was over. Football was in midweek. The NBA hadn't been founded yet. And the NHL season was over a month away. So there were no scores on this historic day.

November 11, 1918: The Armistice Ends World War I

November 11, 1918: At the 11th hour of the 11th day of the 11th month, an armistice was declared, ending what was then called "The Great War," or "The World War," and nicknamed "The War to End All Wars."

It wasn't, of course. Over the next 4 years, there would be, or already were, wars of independence going on in Ireland, Poland, Lithuania, Latvia and Estonia; wars fought by Poland against both Russia and Ukraine; and civil wars in Germany, Russia, Finland, Turkey and Ireland.

And then, in 1936, there was the Spanish Civil War, in which Germany and Italy aided their fellow fascists in taking over Spain. And when the fascists weren't stopped, it meant that this war was a warmup: There would be a World War II.

The German Empire, as a country, was on the verge of collapse. The Army was besieged with several mutinies. Civilians were starving. On November 9, Kaiser Wilhelm II abdicated his throne, and fled to the neutral Netherlands. (November 9 has become "Germany's Day of Destiny": In the years to come, on that date would came the Beer Hall Putsch in 1923, Kristallnacht in 1938, and the fall of the Berlin Wall in 1989.)

The Armistice was signed in a train car in Compiègne, France. The site is now known as the Glade of the Armistice. When the Nazis conquered France's Third Republic in World War II, which the Second Reich couldn't do in World War I, Adolf Hitler had the original train car found, brought back from Paris to the same location, and had the surrender signed in it. Then it was brought back to Berlin, put on display in a museum, and later destroyed in an Allied air raid. A replica now stands in the Glade.

The Republic of Poland was also founded on the day of the Armistice, with Russia having withdrawn, and the Germans having retreated from their formerly occupied territories. For the first time since the Third Partition in 1795, there was a country named Poland, not just a "Duchy of Poland" or a "Congress Poland." I have a separate entry for this event.

My father served in the U.S. Army during the Vietnam War, though not in Vietnam itself. Both of my grandfathers served in World War II, one in the Aleutian Islands of Alaska, the other with George S. Patton's 3rd Army in North Africa and Italy. I have no information about any of my 4 great-grandfathers in World War I, but I do know that, while all 4 were already in America at the time that it broke out on August 1, 1914, only 1 of them was both American-born and then of draft age. (Another was of draft age but not a U.S. citizen, and the other 2 were too old to be drafted.)

The last surviving American veteran of World War I was Army Corporal Frank Buckles of Walker, Missouri, who ended up serving in World War II, and becoming a prisoner of war. He lived until February 27, 2011, at age 110.

The last surviving veteran of any country was Florence Green of North London, a nurse in the Women's Royal Air Force, who lived until February 4, 2012, 95 years after the war's end.

Ever since the Armistice, every 11th of November, at 11:00 AM, London time, the British monarch, or another member of the royal family, has laid a wreath at the Cenotaph, near the Houses of Parliament in Westminster.

Every British soccer team, in their home game nearest but not after November 11, holds a minute's silence before kickoff. And everyone in the stadium honors it. Every player wears an emblem of a red poppy on their shirt, although some -- particularly players from Ireland, whose homeland was fighting a separate war for independence against their British colonizers at the time -- have controversially refused.

For many years, North London's Arsenal traveled to France, hit harder by the war than Britain was, and played a "friendly" against Racing Club Paris, which is no longer a major team. On November 11, 2011, the U.S. national team played France at the Stade de France in Paris, and lost 1-0.

In America, the tradition is for the President of the United States to lay a wreath at the Tomb of the Unknown Soldier at Arlington National Cemetery in Virginia, across the Potomac River from Washington, D.C. Unless, of course, there is an anniversary commemoration in Paris, in which case, the President of France invites him to come and participate.

In Flanders fields the poppies blow
Between the crosses, row on row,
That mark our place; and in the sky
The larks, still bravely singing, fly
Scarce heard amid the guns below.

We are the Dead. Short days ago
We lived, felt dawn, saw sunset glow,
Loved and were loved, and now we lie
In Flanders fields.

Take up our quarrel with the foe:
To you from failing hands we throw
The torch; be yours to hold it high.
If ye break faith with us who die
We shall not sleep, though poppies grow
In Flanders fields.

-- Lieutenant Colonel John McCrae, Canadian Expeditionary Force, M.D., May 3, 1915. He died -- not from combat injuries, but from meningitis, caught from one of his patients -- on January 28, 1918, 10 months before the war's end, at Boulogne-sur-Mer, France. He was 45 years old.

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November 11, 1918 was a Monday. Baseball season was over. There was no NBA yet. The NHL season wouldn't start for another month. And there was no Monday Night Football, or even an NFL, back then. So there were no scores on this historic day.

The prominent people born on this day include comedian Stubby Kaye; Alabama politician and civil rights attorney Richmond Flowers; and Louise Tobin, a jazz singer, known for singing with the Benny Goodman Orchestra. Her hits included "I Didn't Know What Time It Was" and "There'll Be Some Changes Made." Once married to another bandleader, Harry James, she turns 104 on November 11, 2022. (UPDATE: She died on November 26, 2022.)