The armistice ending the First World War was signed at 5:10 AM on November 11, 1918, in a railway carriage in the Forest of Compiègne, north of Paris. It was agreed to take effect at 11 AM — the eleventh hour of the eleventh day of the eleventh month — a time chosen for its symbolic tidiness. The six hours between signature and cessation were not a logistical necessity. The war could have stopped at 5:10.