Listen to the moment the guns fell silent ending World War I

[hprotagonist]

So this book is a sidewalk strewn with junk, trash which I throw over my shoulders as I travel in time back to November eleventh, nineteen hundred and twenty-two.

It was during that minute in nineteen hundred and eighteen, that millions upon millions of human beings stopped butchering one another. I have talked to old men who were on battlefields during that minute. They have told me in one way or another that the sudden silence was the Voice of God. So we still have among us some men who can remember when God spoke clearly to mankind.

Vonnegut, "Breakfast of Champions"

[goldcd]

"There was no fresh Basil and I got reprimanded for trying to put my Pringles on the end of the belt before a compatriot had finished bagging"

GoldCD, "Dinners under Corona"

[billziss]

Like others I found the recording profound at first. The birds at the end cheapened the experience for me because they made me question the authenticity of the sounds heard and whether this was leaning closer to an actual representation or an artistic interpretation. Perhaps somewhere in between.

Assuming that this is leaning closer to an actual representation of the sounds heard on that morning (with the dubious addition of some birds for "dramatic effect") one thing that I found particularly interesting is the noise/buzz that can be heard immediately after the guns are silenced. Could it be that this noise represents the people cheering for the end of war captured by the crude recording device of oil drums + film?

[Sophistifunk]

I can't imagine there was much cheering from those actually at the front. It's just too big. Cheering is for spectators.

[ninju]

> The birds at the end cheapened the experience for me...

I agree. There is no way that the microphone were that sensitive. I understand what the artists were trying to "say" but yes it did distract from the power of the quiet

[jtbayly]

I didn't find the audio on that page, but a link to it here: https://codatocoda.bandcamp.com/album/iwm-ww1-armistice-inte...

I want to know if the birds were actually recorded at the end, or if it was added for dramatic presentation.

[m-i-l]

My first thought was that perhaps some of these last minute explosions were like celebratory gunfire[0]. But no, it seems that people were still desperately trying to kill each other knowing full well they only had hours, minutes or even seconds left to do so: "the cease-fire would not come into effect for a further six hours - at 11am ... the final day of WWI would produce nearly 11,000 casualties, more than those killed, wounded or missing on D-Day ... Just minutes before 11am, to the north around Mons, the 25-year-old Canadian Private George Lawrence Price was on the trail of retreating German soldiers ... But Pte Price's death at 10.58 was not the last. Further south in the Argonne region of France, US soldier Henry Gunther was involved in a final charge against astonished German troops who knew the Armistice was about to occur. What could they do? He too was shot ... It was 10.59."[0] Madness.

[0] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Celebratory_gunfire

[1] http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/magazine/7696021.stm

[cryptonector]

The sounds of guns were recreated. The sounds of birds chirping were clearly added for dramatic effect, and was completely unnecessary -- just silence would have sufficed.

[Invictus0]

The birds were added at the end; the article specifies that there was no actual audio recorded and this is a reconstruction based on a series of proto-seismograph records.

[AndrewOMartin]

For a seasoned gamer that reconstruction just sounds like a collection of stock EXPLOD01.WAV files.

[BurningFrog]

It's hard to imagine any birds were hanging around such a noisy and dangerous area.

[andai]

Listen to a recreation of the moment the guns fell silent ending World War I.

[lmilcin]

Spoiler alert! It is fake. It is "interpretation".

[bassdigit]

Birds sing seconds after ear-blasting gun shots. Really?

[GaryNumanVevo]

It's an interpretation of audio recorded to film

[wideasleep1]

"Look mommy...there's an airplane up in the sky..."

[g105b]

Did you see the frightened ones?

[cabernal]

I understand that this is an interpretation, but fascinating nonetheless. Are there other examples (or archives) of this type of historical recordings?

[ainiriand]

Not only it is a recreation, but also an exposition conducted almost 2 years ago, in commemoration of the end of WWI.

[lokl]

As long as we're discussing fictional works about WWI, two great movies are La Grande Illusion and Paths of Glory.

[handojin]

Knock-kneed, coughing like hags, we cursed through sludge, Till on the haunting flares we turned our backs, And towards our distant rest began to trudge. Men marched asleep. Many had lost their boots, But limped on, blood-shod. All went lame; all blind; Drunk with fatigue; deaf even to the hoots Of gas-shells dropping softly behind.

Gas! GAS! Quick, boys!—An ecstasy of fumbling Fitting the clumsy helmets just in time, But someone still was yelling out and stumbling And flound’ring like a man in fire or lime.— Dim through the misty panes and thick green light, As under a green sea, I saw him drowning.

In all my dreams before my helpless sight, He plunges at me, guttering, choking, drowning.

If in some smothering dreams, you too could pace Behind the wagon that we flung him in, And watch the white eyes writhing in his face, His hanging face, like a devil’s sick of sin; If you could hear, at every jolt, the blood Come gargling from the froth-corrupted lungs, Obscene as cancer, bitter as the cud Of vile, incurable sores on innocent tongues,— My friend, you would not tell with such high zest To children ardent for some desperate glory, The old Lie: Dulce et decorum est Pro patria mori.