THERE was a widespread misapprehension in November 1918 that the war was over. The successive armistices with Bulgaria, the Ottoman Empire, Austria-Hungary, and Germany certainly brought the fighting to an end, and the insistence in all cases that the defeated armies be largely demobilized at once made it clear that the Allies had the victory, and that the fighting was unlikely to be resumed. But an armistice was only that – an end to fighting – not a peace. For the British soldiers who were stationed in northern Syria in 1919, the difference would be clear – that were still substantial numbers of Turkish soldiers in arms, either as soldiers or as gendarmes, or even as bandits in several parts of the region. There was even a complete Turkish army in Arabia which did not surrender until January 1919. There could be no confusion between an armistice and a peace here.

Yet in other, more tranquil, areas the confusion of an armistice with the restoration of peace was understandable, and for soldiers who were a long way from home and who had enlisted in, or been conscripted into, the army for the duration of the war, the time had clearly arrived for them to be returned to their homes, and this was expected with some impatience. This was not the view of their commanders, nor of the politicians who made the rules, and who understood all too clearly that it was going to take some time to organize a proper peace. In order to make the terms which would fasten the peace securely in place, it was necessary that a substantial, indeed an overwhelming, military force be retained.