ROMAGNE-SOUS-MONTFAUCON, France (AP) — On final morning of World War I, U.S. Gen. John J. Pershing was not eager to stop fighting. After all, if one nation had momentum after the first global war's four years of unprecedented slaughter, it was the United States.
U.S. troops would push forward on several fronts in France until the minute a cease-fire took effect at 11 a.m., six hours after it was negotiated. With more time, the Americans might even have entered Germany soon after, establishing themselves as the world's ascendant military power.
When Pvt. Jose De La Luz Saenz woke up along the front lines of the Meuse-Argonne offensive in northeastern France on Nov. 11, 1918, the pre-dawn instructions were not only about sealing the imminent cease-fire but "continuing the artillery fire with the same intensity" until then.
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