Was there a general ceasefire during the negotiations, it always seemed cruel to me that they waited until 11/11 11:11 to sign the damn treaty, did additional soldiers die because of the delay? Also was it possible for Germany to decline the terms and to start fighting again?
There was no ceasefire. Fighting continued up until the deadline as part of the final Allied 100 days offensive. And yes, Germany COULD have refused. But the Armistice and the Treaty of Versailles are two different things. The Armistice stopped the fighting and part of it included German forces leaving occupied territory and de - mobilizing. Also the blockade stayed in place. If they had disagreed to those terms the fighting wouldn't have stopped to begin with. After that, when presented with the peace treaty, they could have refused to sign and the war would have restarted...but since they were still under blockade and the soldiers had all gone home that wasn't a reasonable response.
My grandfather was an infantryman with the US 7th Infantry Division of the 2nd Army. He died many years before I was born (he died in the mid 1930s) but my father said he hated the army because of the totally unnecessary last offensive before the Armistice that he was involved in.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Second_United_States_Army
My Dad told me that he told him he would kill him (my Dad) before he would let him go into the army.
It was ironic in that my Dad was in the US Army in WWII and eventually made a career out of it.