The Soldiers' Peace

Demobilizing the British Army, 1919

Michael Senior

• Publisher: Pen & Sword Military
• Year: 2018
• ISBN:
  9781526703064
• Topic: History
• Subtopic: World War I
• Index: History

Armistice in 1918 presented the British government with an enormous challenge how could the British army that had been built up on an unprecedented scale during the war be cut back to a peacetime size and how could millions of soldiers be returned to civilian life?In November 1918, the last month of the war, the British army numbered 3.75 million. One year later that number was reduced to 890, 000. This was a remarkable feat of demobilization but, as Michael Senior shows, it was by no means a trouble-free process. He describes in vivid detail how demobilization took place, the acute difficulties that arose, and how they were dealt with.The obstacles that had to be overcome were legion, and urgent, for the task had to be completed rapidly to prevent social unrest. At the same time prisoners of war had to be repatriated, the wounded and maimed had to be cared for and permanent cemeteries had to be laid out for the battlefield dead. In addition, war materiel had to be disposed and the army had to be reorganized into a force suitable for the challenges of 1919.The task was immense, as were the risks, and Michael Senior's study makes fascinating reading.

Chapter 1

Plans for Demobilization, 1914–18

The plans for demobilization developed during the war years were a serious effort to organize an orderly reduction in size of the British Army. They were aimed at minimising the possibility of social and economic disruption and this was to be brought about by a controlled and systematic release of troops in a way that would avoid unemployment and support the regeneration of key sectors of British industry and commerce. The more effective the regeneration, the more opportunities there would be for the returning soldiers to settle back quietly into civilian life. Given the daunting size of the demobilization task, and bearing in mind the disruptions that followed both the Napoleonic Wars and the Boer War, it was a formula that commended itself to politicians and civil servants alike.

In their memorandum of 14 December 1914, Sir Hubert Llewellyn Smith (Secretary of the Board of Trade) and Sir Reginald Brade (Secretary of the War Office) proposed that the ‘the whole question needs as thorough and prolonged study and preparation as the question of mobilisation received from the Military Authorities and the Defence Committee before the war’. Considering the ad hoc and random recruitment pattern of 1914, which had the effect of stripping skilled and urgently required men from industries important to the war effort such as mining and ship building, the comparison was unfortunate. Nevertheless, Llewellyn Smith and Brade were the first to raise the subject of demobilization as an important and pressing issue. In the opinion of Llewellyn Smith it was ‘by no means premature to begin this study at once … I have accordingly conferred on the subject with Sir Reginald Brade and we have provisionally agreed that a scheme shall be prepared at once by the two Departments jointly for consideration by the Government’. Brade was to seek authority from Lord Kitchener, the Secretary of State for War, and Llewellyn Smith requested the President of the Board of Trade to ensure that ‘the Prime Minister [Asquith] … is aware and approves of the course which we propose to follow’.1 On 16 December Llewellyn Smith received a reply from Colonel Hankey, Secretary of the Committee of Imperial Defence, saying that ‘the Prime Minister has approved of the course which you propose to follow’.2

By January 1915 Llewellyn Smith and Brade, with commendable speed, had put together an outline proposal on demobilization and this went before the Cabinet in April 1915.3 The main provisions of the proposal included a furlough (leave) with full pay and allowances; a free travel warrant from the place of demobilization to home; money gratuities for war service; assistance in finding employment; and free insurance against unemployment. It also proposed that the local labour exchanges and the Territorial Force Associations should be used to help soldiers into employment. The provisions were very broad-brush and lacked detail, but they were approved by the Cabinet. And then, ‘in view of the paramount necessity of secrecy’, they were pigeon-holed.4 It was not until mid-1916 that they received further attention.

Britain had entered the war in 1914 essentially to preserve its world position in the face of the threat of German expansionism. All the attacks and all the battles that took place during the four-and-a-quarter years of war were aimed at destroying Germany and its allies. But even before that aim was achieved it was clear that a return simply to 1914 conditions, socially and economically, was just not acceptable. Many millions of men and women, both at home and abroad, had worked hard for victory. Everybody knew somebody who was either killed or wounded in the war. The British government may have entered the war to maintain the international status quo but expectations domestically had risen. Numerically, the greatest contributors to victory had been the ‘lower classes’ who had formed the ranks of the armed forces or who had worked in industry or on the land. They were the mass of the people and, with peace, they awaited their reward. The acquisition of some additional territories to enlarge the Empire was irrelevant to the bulk of the British population. Their hopes for the future were set on improved living and work conditions at home – education, housing, a steady job and good pay. As the 1916 report from J.L. Hammond on ‘the mind of the soldier’ had pointed out: ‘They think that by their hardship in the trenches they have earned a real stake in the country’.5 Lloyd George’s election pledge to build a land fit for heroes had certainly caught the mood of the time, but was he able to make good his promise?

The politicians were well aware that the generality of the population expected an improved standard of living once the war had ended. They were also aware that countless significant problems would arise in industry and commerce as the country moved from war to peace. It was with these matters in mind that on 18 March 1916 the then Prime Minister, Herbert Asquith, announced the creation ‘of a body for the organisation of British post-war reconstruction’. The announcement read: ‘In accordance with the decision of the Cabinet, I propose to set up, on the analogy of the Committee of Imperial Defence, a Committee over which I will preside, to consider the advice, with the aid of Sub-Committees, upon the problems which will arise on the conclusion of peace ,..’.6 Apart from Asquith himself, this Reconstruction Committee was made up of seven members of the Cabinet: Andrew Bonar Law (Colonial Secretary), Arthur Anderson (President of the Board of Education), Austen Chamberlain (Secretary for India), Lord Crewe (Lord President of the Council), Edwin Montagu (Chancellor of the Duchy of Lancaster), Lord Selbourne (President of the Board of Agriculture) and Walter Runciman (President of the Board of Trade).

While this was the first national body to consider post-war problems, certain government departments had of their own volition started to discuss and make plans on issues relevant to them. It was because of this that Asquith, in his minute constituting the Reconstruction Committee, specifically referred to ‘the aim of co-ordinating the work … done by the Departments in this direction’. And it was clear, at the first meeting of the Committee on 24 March, that much work had indeed already taken place.7 Runciman ‘made a statement of the Committees appointed by the Board of Trade to deal with post-war problems’. Apart from the Llewellyn Smith-Brade Committee on Demobilization and the Labour Market there were committees dealing with Trade Relations, Commercial Intelligence, and ‘the position of certain important British industries after the war’ including iron, steel and shipbuilding and textiles. In response to a question concerning the terms of reference of this last group of committees, Runciman replied that the terms were ‘to consider the position of the Industries after the war, especially in relation to international competition, and to report what measures, if any, are necessary or desirable in order to safeguard that position’.

The discussion that followed Runciman’s statement at this first meeting illustrated some of the concerns held by certain members of the Reconstruction Committee. A major issue was whether the committees should remain secret. Montagu considered that the names of the committee members and their reports should not be publicized. Bonar Law agreed that the reports should not be publicized, but that the composition of the committees should be made public. Such were Montagu’s feelings on this subject that he later wrote:

I would submit … that the existence of, the terms of reference of, and the personnel of the different sub- Committees should be secret. This is essential. It will not do to let the public or the enemy know what the Government is considering. On the other hand, I think it will be desirable that the Prime Minister should announce that he has appointed and is chairman of a Reconstruction Committee which is appointing sub-Committees … The announcement should state that the sub-Committees are secret because it is not desirable in all cases, and therefore not desirable in any, to say what we are considering, but that the public may be assured that nothing will be forgotten and that the sub-Committees contain among their members not only politicians and officials but men and women drawn from the widest possible sources.8

This policy was adopted by Asquith who, on 10 July, responded to a question in Parliament: ‘The Reconstruction Committee is a Committee of the Cabinet, and, as my hon. friend [a Mr Whitehouse] is probably aware, it is not the practice to give the names of the members of such Committees’. On the same day Asquith, in a reply to a question from an MP, Mr MacCallum Scott, stated:

I do not think that it would be convenient at the present stage to make any announcement as to the character of the inquiries which are being undertaken by the Reconstruction Committee. The Government are making every effort to deal with the whole range of questions which in their judgement will call for immediate treatment at the close of the war9

An article in The Times of 30 June repeated the government policy: ‘It is not expedient in the public interest to specify the nature of many of the inquiries which are being undertaken, and no announcements will be made concerning them; but it is hoped that the entire range of subjects which will call for immediate treatment at the close of the war may be covered …’.10

Another major issue concerned the confidentiality of information and the role of employee representatives. Lord Crewe thought that ‘the employers were very nervous about letting the details of their business be known to everyone concerned, including the representatives of labour’. Runciman ‘did not see how a Committee could possibly include representatives of labour owing to the number of different classes and trade unions of operatives concerned’. Chamberlain thought that ‘the workmen were more inclined to co-operate with employers at the present time than they were before the war’. Asquith intervened saying that ‘Mr Runciman might communicate with the Board of Trade Committees, expressing the view that Committees should include representatives of labour’.

A wide range of topics was discussed at this first meeting of the Reconstruction Committee. Apart from industrial and commercial matters, these included fiscal policy, imperial trade and the role of the Dominions. Asquith took the opportunity to summarize the purpose of his Reconstruction Committee which was: ‘to deal with post-war commercial and industrial policy, with reference not merely to the penalisation of the enemy, but also to the recovery of markets, the maintenance of former industries, finding new markets, the establishment of key industries, etc.’ It was at this point that Colonel Hankey, attending in his capacity as Secretary of the Committee of Imperial Defence, made a significant observation: ‘nearly all the discussion had been concerned with the period of peace and very little with the transitional period or on demobilisation’. Hankey was immediately supported by Montagu who considered that ‘there ought to be a special sub-Committee to deal with demobilisation. This was a question for the Reconstruction Committee’. When a summary of the matters agreed at the meeting was circulated to the members of the Committee there was no mention of a Demobilization sub-Committee and this caused Montagu to write to the Secretary, Vaughan Nash: ‘I thought that the Committee was with me when I suggested we wanted at once a Demobilisation Committee.’ It was therefore as a result of Hankey’s telling intervention and Montagu’s support that a sub-Committee on Demobilization was established and Montagu became its chairman.11

The membership of the sub-Committee was published on 21 August with the terms of reference: ‘To consider and report upon the arrangements for the return to civil employment of officers and men serving in the land forces of the Crown at the end of the war’. Apart from the chairman, Montagu, the Committee had thirteen members with representatives from the Board of Trade, the Treasury, the War Office, the Board of Agriculture and Fisheries, and the National Health Insurance Commission. Among the members were Hankey, Brade and Llewellyn Smith.12

When the Reconstruction Committee was set up on 18 March, Asquith referred to the work that had ‘already been done by the Departments in this direction’. Vaughan Nash, the Secretary of the Reconstruction Committee, followed up this point and on 28 March sent a circular letter to all government departments: ‘You will favour me as soon as may be convenient with particulars of the work falling within the terms of the Committee’s reference which has already been done by your Department, is in progress, or is contemplated, together with copies of any relevant documents such as reports of Committees, draft Acts of Parliament, etc., which may have been prepared.’ Vaughan Nash, apart from being the Secretary of the Reconstruction Committee, was also the Secretary of the Demobilization sub-Committee and when that Committee began its deliberations in May 1916 it had access to the April 1915 proposals of Llewellyn Smith and Brade.

The Demobilization sub-Committee met on five occasions between May and September 1916 and its First (Interim) Report to Asquith’s Reconstruction Committee was published on 9 October of that year. The Report focused on the terms under which the soldiers would be demobilized and the arrangements to help ex-soldiers find employment. As the minutes of the various meetings indicate, the members of the sub-Committee often disagreed as to how these issues should be dealt with.

Two of the Llewellyn Smith-Brade 1915 provisions for demobilized soldiers were accepted without debate. Each soldier ‘released from service with the colours at the termination of the war’ would receive ‘a working furlough … on full pay and allowances for a period of about four weeks’ and also ‘ a travelling warrant for his railway fare from his place of his disbandment to his home district’. Three other matters were not so easily dealt with. They were, first, the provision of free unemployment insurance for those demobilized soldiers who were unable to find work

- a matter that Llewellyn Smith and Brade had referred to in their 1914 memorandum as something that might only ‘possibly’ happen; second, the granting of service gratuities to those who had been involved in the war; and, third, the arrangements for finding work.13

During the discussions of the 1916 Montagu sub-Committee, the two issues of gratuities and unemployment insurance became inter-related. A member of the sub-Committee, Mr H.P. Blackett of the Treasury, took the view that the amount of money available to the government for the payment of gratuities and insurance would inevitably be finite. Therefore, the ‘good’ soldier, i.e. the soldier who was in employment, would receive a lesser gratuity since he would ‘have to pay out of his own pocket (for this is what it comes to) considerable sums for insuring his less worthy or less fortunate fellow …’. Blackett considered that the solution to the problem:

will be found in dropping the notion of insurance. Let the ex-soldier be granted a bounty of 100x, of which he will be paid 50x on disbanding, and the remainder either in two quarterly instalments of 25x (or in ten monthly instalments of 5x), with the right when unemployed, but not otherwise, to draw weekly in advance at the rate of (say) 2x.

Not only would all soldiers be treated alike, argued Blackett, but the ‘expense to the State will be defined instead of indefinite … and with insurance against unemployment out of the way, the State can concentrate on what is, after all, the vital point, viz., the provision of work for the soldier’.14

Blackett’s views were discussed at the August meeting of the sub-Committee. The ch...