Yet many men found themselves alone in a crowd. Most coped well and against all the odds managed to live reasonably happy and contented lives. Millions of men returned home from the war to their homes, families and girlfriends. He said, 'I'm sorry Mr Dixon, but you've had no experience!' Why, didn't I see red! I got up on my hind legs and said, 'Pardon me, sir! But I've had more experience than anybody in this room, but the thing is it's been the wrong sort! When I joined the army in 1914, I told the recruiting sergeant I couldn't ride a horse and he said, 'We'll bloody soon teach you!' They did and they spared no pains over it! Apparently I could be fitted for war but I can't be fitted for peace! I shall know what to do another time gentlemen! Fred Dixon The old men were in the saddle again and you just didn't stand a chance. I went before a man, he was chairman and a lot of bearded old men round a board. I applied for a job at Whitehall, at the Ministry of Labour as a temporary clerk. In the end everyone seemed to have some reason or other to be dissatisfied within a demobilisation process that appeared to last forever. The system may have been fair enough in principle, but it was inevitable that thousands of individual cases fell through the net. They had joined for the duration of the war and for no longer.
But these men were not ‘natural’ soldiers.
It was not unnatural that men resented their continued service, especially as the army soon returned to its default state: a peacetime regime where ‘spit and polish’ ruled. It wasn't a mutiny – I would call it a disturbance! They managed to disperse them eventually Guardsman Horace Calvert, Second Grenadier Guards There were two or three ringleaders, they were doing all the talking and waving everyone around to come and join them, there was two or three hundred there. They were making a point and it was a forceful point. Chaps said they hadn't been home for four years and it was time they were allowed to go home. I saw staff officers surrounded by a lot of troops and they were telling them they wanted money paid every week, they hadn't been paid for weeks they wanted the right to go into Le Havre they wanted the Military Police easing up a bit on them! The rumour was around that the last of the men to be called up would be the first to be demobilised because they were the key men to get industry going.
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