Although the agreement signed several days later, over the protests of the shaken German delegates, was called the Armistice, in reality it was a German surrender. It was a most unprecedented one, however, for the surrendering army, despite being severely bloodied, remained well armed, several million strong—and almost entirely on the territory of its enemies. But with a near-starving Germany in turmoil behind it, and rear-area troops deserting, it could not fight on, even though only a few months earlier, almost at the gates of Paris, it had seemed poised to win the war. Triumphal German
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