Armistice Day
Armistice Day officially falls on Wednesday 11th November 2026.
In order to allow schools to attend the Armistice Day Ceremony, the Ceremony will start at 10:50am at the Cricket Green War Memorial, a Two-Minute silence will take place at 11am.
What is Armistice Day?
Also known as Remembrance Day, Armistice Day on the 11th of November is a day for remembering the millions upon millions of soldiers and civilians killed during the First World War.
The First World War began in 1914, with the assassination of the Austro-Hungarian heir to the throne, Archduke Franz Ferdinand. His assassin was the Serbian extremist Gavrilo Princip, and took place in Sarajevo, Bosnia and Herzegovina. This assassination led Serbia to declare war on Bosnia and Herzegovina, and, because each nation had multiple interlocking alliances with other European nations, it wasn’t long before Europe was divided in two.
On one side, there was the Triple Entente: France, the Russian Empire, and the British Empire. On the other, there was the Triple Alliance: the German Empire, Austria-Hungary, and the Ottoman Empire. As the war progressed, many more nations would join on either side of the conflict, and for four long years, war would rage across the world.
In 1918, after four brutal years of trench warfare in across France and Belgium, Allied soldiers pushed the German troops back, and the German emperor, Kaiser Wilhelm, abdicated the throne. The German Empire was the last of the Triple Alliance to agree to end the fighting. In November 1918, shortly after the Kaiser stepped down, Germany signed an armistice which ended the war completely.
The Armistice, an agreement to end the fighting of the First World War as a prelude to peace negotiations, began at 11am on 11 November 1918.
Armistice is Latin for to stand (still) arms.
To this day we mark Armistice Day around the United Kingdom with a Two Minute Silence at 11am on the 11th day of the 11th month.
