During August 1914, immediately after the outbreak of the World War I, British author and social commentator H. G. Wells published a number of articles in the London newspapers that subsequently appeared as a book entitled The War That Will End War. Wells blamed the Central Powers for the coming of the war, and argued that only the defeat of German militarism could bring about an end to war. Wells used the shorter form, "the war to end war", in In the Fourth Year (1918), where he noted that the phrase had "got into circulation" in the second half of 1914. In fact, it had become one of the most common catchphrases of the war.
Armistice Day (which coincides with Remembrance Day and Veterans Day, public holidays) is commemorated every year on 11 November to mark the armistice signed between the Allies of World War I and Germany at Compiègne, France, for the cessation of hostilities on the Western Front of World War I, which took effect at eleven o'clock in the morning—the "eleventh hour of the eleventh day of the eleventh month" of 1918.
Marshal Ferdinand Foch declared "This is not a peace. It is an armistice for twenty years". His words proved prophetic: the Second World War started twenty years and 65 days later.