CHAPTER 7
PART 8: For what Men Died
CHAPTER VII
CHAPTER 7Visible text2 paragraphs
The men came home in a queer mood, startling to those who had not watched them "out there," and to those who welcomed peace with flags. Even before their homecoming, which was delayed week after week, month after month, unless they were lucky young miners out for the victory push and back again quickly, strange things began to happen in France and Flanders, Egypt and Palestine. Men who had been long patient became suddenly impatient. Men who had obeyed all discipline broke into disobedience bordering on mutiny. They elected spokesmen to represent their grievances, like trade-unionists. They "answered back" to their officers in such large bodies, with such threatening anger, that it was impossible to give them "Field Punishment Number One," or any other number, especially as their battalion officers sympathized mainly with their point of view. They demanded demobilization according to their terms of service, which was for "the duration of the war. " They protested against the gross inequalities of selection by which men of short service were sent home before those who had been out in 1914, 1915, 1916. They demanded justness, fair play, and denounced red tape and official lies. "We want to go home! " was their shout on parade. A serious business, subversive of discipline.
Similar explosions were happening in England. Bodies of men broke camp at Folkestone and other camps, demonstrated before town halls, demanded to speak with mayors, generals, any old fellows who were in authority, and refused to embark for France until they had definite pledges that they would receive demobilization papers without delay. Whitehall, the sacred portals of the War Office, the holy ground of the Horse Guards' Parade, were invaded by bodies of men who had commandeered ambulances and lorries and had made long journeys from their depots. They, too, demanded demobilization. They refused to be drafted out for service to India, Egypt, Archangel, or anywhere. They had "done their bit," according to their contract. It was for the War Office to fulfil its pledges. "Justice" was the word on their lips, and it was a word which put the wind up (as soldiers say) any staff-officers and officials who had not studied the laws of justice as they concern private soldiers, and who had dealt with them after the armistice and after the peace as they had dealt with them before -- as numbers, counters to be shifted here and there according to the needs of the High Command. What was this strange word "justice" on soldiers' lips? . Red tape squirmed and writhed about the business of demobilization. Orders were made, communicated to the men, canceled even at the railway gates. Promises were made and broken. Conscripts were drafted off to India, Egypt, Mesopotamia, Archangel, against their will and contrary to pledge. Men on far fronts, years absent from their wives and homes, were left to stay there, fever-stricken, yearning for home, despairing. And while the old war was not yet cold in its grave we prepared for a new war against Bolshevik Russia, arranging for the spending of more millions, the sacrifice of more boys of ours, not openly, with the consent of the people, but on the sly, with a fine art of camouflage.