The process of dissolution began within the hour in which the news of peace came to Washington. It happened that November 11 was the first of five days during which the Army planned to absorb 250,000 soldiers inducted into service under the terms of the Selective Service Act. Although it was evident that an armistice was at hand, the Railroad Administration went ahead with preparations for the transportation of these men to the training camps, and even dispatched the draft trains on the morning of November 11 to pick up the selectives, although the morning newspapers had announced that the armistice was indisputably to begin at eleven o’clock in France. The only preparation looking toward demobilization had been to set up telephone and telegraph circuits over which the officials in Washington could stop and turn back the troop trains in a minimum of time. Immediately after receiving General Pershing’s message announcing the start of the armistice, the Secretary of War notified the Troop-Movement Section of the Railroad Administration to stop the draft trains. This was done within an hour, although the trains were then in operation in every section of the United States. Some thousands of young men who had taken the oath of allegiance that morning, and who at the approach of noon were on troop trains proceeding to military camps, found themselves back at home, civilians once more, before the embers of the celebrating bonfires had died out that night. Hard on their heels came the hundreds of thousands of soldiers who made up the combat divisions in training in the United States. These were the men last to don the uniform--men who were only partially trained, and who could be of no service to the War Department in the activities of demobilization. Their disbandment was not a difficult undertaking. They had been in the service so short a time that there were no complications of back pay and incomplete records to hinder their discharge. Moreover, they were geographically homogeneous--_i.e._, their homes were generally in the regions surrounding the training camps--and therefore their demobilization brought about no problem in transportation. As a rule they were paid off and discharged at their training camps and allowed to make their way to their homes. Quite apart from the divisional troops, there was another great body of soldiers in the United States on the day of the armistice. These were men undergoing training in special camps, such as those of the Air Service and the Quartermaster Corps, and also the troops engaged in maintaining the great war establishment in the United States. The demobilization of these men was more difficult. It was for them in the first place that the War Department set up the demobilization system which was to be seen in the perfection of operation later on when the A. E. F. began reaching the United States _en masse_.