018 marked the 100th anniversary of Armistice Day, 11 November 1918. Ironically, “the war that would end all wars” turned out to be a war whose end was long anticipated but “that failed to end” nevertheless.1 For some, the end of the war was already in sight in 1917: the Russian revolution, the American entry into the war, the Brest-Litovsk Treaty (signed in March 1918 between Germany and Russia) had the potential to turn the tide. Nonetheless, new complexities extended the war by another year. While the conflict was still ongoing and the final offensive came into view, reconstruction was prematurely on the agenda. Concrete initiatives, such as the rebuilding of the first of the burned homes in the “martyred city” of Leuven, anticipated large-scale post-war reconstruction initiatives. At the same time the rhetoric of responsibility, sacrifice, gratitude and economic compensation – that would reach its height in Versailles in 1919 – was already a common trope across the media and civil societies.