"To conclude the armistice in November 1918, a discreet site was sought. The Armistice clearing could accommodate two trains, that of the Germans and that of Marshal Foch.
Car 24 19D was requisitioned to become the lounge car for the armistice, signed on November 11, 1918, between 5:10 a.m. and 5:20 a.m. This wagon continued to be used for various negotiations, then was installed on April 27, 1919 in the Cour des Invalides, in Paris.
The clearing was developed: creation of a 250 meter alley which ends in a roundabout 100 meters in diameter (development carried out according to plans by the architect Magès).
A monument was built and inaugurated at the same time as the Armistice roundabout, on November 11, 1922; it is composed of a central slab (plans by the architect Binet-Valmer, 1922) bearing an inscription To the heroic soldiers of France, defenders of the homeland and of law, glorious liberators of Alsace and Lorraine (monument of the Alsaciens-Lorraines built in 1922 by the architect Edgar Brandt).
This monument, dismantled by the Germans in 1940, was put back in place between the end of 1944 and 1950; on either side of the monument are the locations symbolizing the two armistice wagons. The real wagon was taken to Germany after the armistice of June 22, 1940 and its shelter destroyed.
A wagon of the same model was installed after the war and the shelter rebuilt and inaugurated in 1950. The statue of Marshal Foch was inaugurated in 1937. This Armistice clearing attracts 100,000 visitors per year."