– How do soldiers know that a war is over?

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When countries decide that a war is over how do all of the soldiers in remote areas find out?

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Anonymous 0 Comments

That depends on what time period you want to know about and how the military is organized, but in general, this information has to get passed down the chain of command the same way any other information does. In World War 1 for instance, the information was sent out giving the time that fighting would cease and often instructions to not operate beyond the front line while waiting for that time (since there was no more point sending out patrols or planes). Beyond signal communications, the word would have been carried by foot or horseback like other messages.

Particularly remote groups might not hear the orders for some time. There are a number of reports of so-called “holdouts” in World War 2, Japanese units on remote islands that were out of contact with their chain of command, did not realize the war had ended, and emerged from hiding months or even years after the war was over. This would be pretty unlikely nowadays given that, at least in organized militaries, people would normally be in wireless contact.

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