Demobilisation begins

The British chronology of the war records briefly under 4 December 1918: the demobilisation of the British Army began. In reality it was a process spread over several stages, with no single clear starting date. An Army Order of 3 December created a new Class Z reserve, to which discharged soldiers were to be transferred, so that they could be quickly recalled if fighting resumed. The first dispersal stations, that is the camps through which soldiers returned to civilian life, began to take in men a few days later: according to the lists of the Long, Long Trail, the station on Wimbledon Common near London on 9 December, and the stations at Ripon, Chisledon, Shorncliffe near Folkestone and Duddingston near Edinburgh on 10 December. At the time of the armistice nearly 3.8 million soldiers of the British Army were under arms.

A plan written with the economy in mind

The first principles of demobilisation had been drawn up as early as 1915, and were then refined by government committees and the War Office. The procedure was rehearsed several times, most recently in May 1918 at Wimbledon, where 2,000 men were “dispersed” as a trial. Its main principle was that soldiers were to be released according to civilian, not military, needs. Whole units were therefore not disbanded; instead, from each unit, reduced to a skeleton cadre, successive groups of men selected by occupation were sent home. First went the so-called demobilisers, needed to carry out the demobilisation itself, and the “pivotal men”, on whom the reopening of workplaces and the employment of others depended. They were followed by the “slip men”: every soldier filled in a form with the name of his former employer, and when the employment exchange confirmed that a job was waiting for him, a slip torn off the form went back to his unit as grounds for his release. From the beginning of December employers could also send contracts to their pre-war employees themselves. Miners in particular were given priority, because the country needed coal.

At the station the discharged soldier handed in his rifle and equipment and received an advance on his pay, a railway ticket home and 28 days’ paid leave, and as a civilian he was entitled to unemployment benefit for a year. He could keep his uniform, and anyone who had brought a steel helmet back from France could keep it.

Anger in the trenches

The system, sensible on paper, caused a sense of injustice in practice. Slips and contracts were most often held by those who had joined the army late, having only recently left their workplaces, while the volunteers of 1914 and 1915, who had been through the whole war, waited their turn. Many soldiers were released while on leave at home, while their comrades in France stayed. The question of demobilisation immediately entered the campaign for the general election set for 14 December. The press, especially the Daily Mail, criticised the delays and red tape every day. The pace increased slowly. At the end of December about 10,000 men a day were being released, and by 8 January 1919 about 300,000 had returned home.

The discontent erupted at the beginning of January. On 3 January 1919 thousands of soldiers who were due to return from leave to the Continent at Folkestone refused to embark and marched to the town hall. Similar demonstrations took place in other towns, and at the end of the month a strike of rear-service soldiers paralysed the camps at Calais. The new Secretary of State for War, Winston Churchill, who took office on 10 January, wrote to the prime minister that under the existing system “the discipline of the whole army is breaking down”, and within a few weeks pushed through a new one. From then on the order of release was decided by age, length of service and wounds received, and those who had joined the army in 1914 and 1915 were to go home first. Younger men were kept in service in the armies of occupation, for higher pay. Demobilisation accelerated, and by mid-March 1919 more than 2 million men had been released.