Demobilization Chaos

Five million Frenchmen under arms needed rapid demobilization. The process, poorly planned, created chaos. Men desperate to return home faced bureaucratic delays. Train stations became camps of waiting soldiers. Discipline collapsed as men saw no reason to obey officers in peacetime. Mutinies erupted in rear areas as soldiers demanded immediate release.

The government, fearing revolutionary contagion from Russia and Germany, prioritized releasing older men and those with industrial skills. This created resentment among younger soldiers who had served longest. Colonial troops faced particular difficulties—ships to return them home were scarce, and French authorities feared armed colonial veterans returning to subjugated territories.

Economic demobilization proved equally chaotic. War industries employed 1.7 million workers who faced sudden unemployment. The Citroën plant, producing 10,000 shells daily, had no peacetime orders. Women workers, praised as heroines during war, were dismissed en masse to make room for returning men. Marguerite Durand protested: "They called us saviors of France when they needed shells. Now they call us job thieves and send us back to kitchens."

Rural demobilization created different problems. Soldiers returning to farms found them transformed. Wives had managed alone for four years, making decisions, handling money, and dealing with authorities. Many women resented husbands expecting to resume prewar authority. Divorce rates tripled in 1919-1920 as couples discovered they had become strangers.