• Eleventh Month, Eleventh Day, Eleventh Hour

  • Armistice Day, 1918, World War I and Its Violent Climax
  • By: Joseph E. Persico
  • Narrated by: Harry Chase
  • Length: 6 hrs and 12 mins
  • 4.2 out of 5 stars (21 ratings)

Prime logo Prime members: New to Audible?
Get 2 free audiobooks during trial.
Pick 1 audiobook a month from our unmatched collection.
Listen all you want to thousands of included audiobooks, Originals, and podcasts.
Access exclusive sales and deals.
Premium Plus auto-renews for $14.95/mo after 30 days. Cancel anytime.
Eleventh Month, Eleventh Day, Eleventh Hour  By  cover art

Eleventh Month, Eleventh Day, Eleventh Hour

By: Joseph E. Persico
Narrated by: Harry Chase
Try for $0.00

$14.95/month after 30 days. Cancel anytime.

Buy for $19.95

Buy for $19.95

Pay using card ending in
By confirming your purchase, you agree to Audible's Conditions of Use and Amazon's Privacy Notice. Taxes where applicable.

Publisher's summary

November 11, 1918. The final hours pulsate with tension as every man in the trenches hopes to escape the melancholy distinction of being the last to die in World War I. The Allied generals knew the fighting would end precisely at 11:00 a.m., yet in the final hours they flung men against an already beaten Germany. The result? Eleven thousand casualties suffered - more than during the D-Day invasion of Normandy. Why? Allied commanders wanted to punish the enemy to the very last moment and career officers saw a fast-fading chance for glory and promotion.

Joseph E. Persico puts the reader in the trenches with the forgotten and the famous, among the latter, Corporal Adolf Hitler, Captain Harry Truman, and Colonels Douglas MacArthur and George Patton. Mainly, he follows ordinary soldiers' lives, illuminating their fate as the end approaches. Persico sets the last day of the war in historic context with a gripping reprise of all that led up to it, from the 1914 assassination of the Austrian archduke, Franz Ferdinand, which ignited the war, to the raw racism Black doughboys endured except when ordered to advance and die in the war's last hour. Persico recounts the war's bloody climax in a cinematic style that evokes All Quiet on the Western Front, Grand Illusion, and Paths of Glory.

The pointless fighting on the last day of the war is the perfect metaphor for the four years that preceded it, years of senseless slaughter for hollow purposes. This book is sure to become the definitive history of the end of a conflict Winston Churchill called "the hardest, cruelest, and least-rewarded of all the wars that have been fought".

©2004 Joseph E. Persico (P)2004 Random House, Inc. Random House Audio, a division of Random House, Inc.

Critic reviews

"Effectively marshaling his source material, Persico powerfully reconstructs Armistice Day as an emblem of the war." (Booklist)

What listeners say about Eleventh Month, Eleventh Day, Eleventh Hour

Average customer ratings
Overall
  • 4 out of 5 stars
  • 5 Stars
    11
  • 4 Stars
    6
  • 3 Stars
    2
  • 2 Stars
    2
  • 1 Stars
    0
Performance
  • 5 out of 5 stars
  • 5 Stars
    7
  • 4 Stars
    0
  • 3 Stars
    0
  • 2 Stars
    0
  • 1 Stars
    0
Story
  • 5 out of 5 stars
  • 5 Stars
    6
  • 4 Stars
    1
  • 3 Stars
    0
  • 2 Stars
    0
  • 1 Stars
    0

Reviews - Please select the tabs below to change the source of reviews.

Sort by:
Filter by:
  • Overall
    5 out of 5 stars

Exceptional

This book tends gives a general history of the events leading up to the war and eventually to the armistice. Though numerous key events are described in brief detail, the author's purpose is effectively accomplished. For detailed descriptions of battles [X attacks Y's flank, etc.] try Keegan's World War I. But don't pass up this book if you're interested in the affect the war had on the western world's war generation.

Also, the reader's role is very well performed.

Something went wrong. Please try again in a few minutes.

You voted on this review!

You reported this review!

4 people found this helpful

  • Overall
    5 out of 5 stars

Almost Like Being There

Making sense out of WWI is sometimes hard, even for the military history buff. Making sense out of what appears to be the senseless waste of lives in the last days of a war is even harder. This author has done a great job of making sense out of the senseless and doing so in an interesting and intertaining way. This book deserves a place on the must hear or read list of anyone interested in the Great War.

Something went wrong. Please try again in a few minutes.

You voted on this review!

You reported this review!

1 person found this helpful