Pack Up Your Troubles 1919 - Facts

 This novel starts in December 1918, a month after the end of the war.

On December there was a general election in the UK, and it was the first time women voted. The 1918 United Kingdom general election was called immediately after the Armistice with Germany which ended the First World War, and was held on Saturday, 14 December 1918. The governing coalition, under Prime Minister David Lloyd George, sent letters of endorsement to candidates who supported the coalition government. These were nicknamed "Coalition Coupons", and led to the election being known as the "coupon election". The result was a massive landslide in favour of the coalition. 

The king, Prince Albert and the Prince of Wales visited France and Belgium, which is when Edward learnt that he is to be part of the Peace Conference. 

The Paris Peace Conference was a set of formal and informal diplomatic meetings in 1919 and 1920 after the end of World War I, in which the victorious Allies set the peace terms for the defeated Central Powers. Dominated by the leaders of Britain, France, the United States and Italy, the conference resulted in five treaties that rearranged the maps of Europe and parts of Asia, Africa and the Pacific Islands, and also imposed financial penalties. 

Winston Churchill was appointed new secretaray of state for war. In 1919, shortly after the end of the war, he was appointed Secretary of State for Air and War. In this role he attended peace talks in Paris in 1919. He was not involved in the peace process itself but took part in discussions about the shape of the post-war world. He held this position until 1921.

The characters talking about Edith Cavell's body being brought back to England and given a state funeral. Cavell's remains were returned to Britain after the war, sailing from Ostend aboard the destroyer HMS Rowena and landing at Admiralty Pier in Dover on 14 May 1919. Cavell's was one of only three sets of British remains repatriated following the end of the War, the others being Charles Fryatt and The Unknown Warrior. From Victoria the body was processed to Westminster Abbey for a state funeral on 15 May, before finally being reburied at the east side of Norwich Cathedral on 19 May, where a graveside service is still held each October.

William's first job after the war is in Brooklands. Brooklands was a motor racing circuit and aerodrome built near Weybridge in Surrey. It opened in 1907 and was the world's first purpose-built 'banked' motor racing circuit as well as one of Britain's first airfields, which also became Britain's largest aircraft manufacturing centre by 1918.

Harry Hawker and Kenneth McKenzie Grieve try to fly across the Atlantic but they fail, and they are rescued by a steamer. The Sopwith Atlantic was an experimental British long-range aircraft of 1919. It was a single-engined biplane that was designed and built to be the first aeroplane to cross the Atlantic Ocean non-stop. It took off on an attempt to cross the Atlantic from Newfoundland on 18 May 1919, but ditched during the flight owing to an overheating engine. Hawker and Grieves finally took off from St John's on 18 May 1919. During the night, however, the aircraft's engine started to overheat. 

The deed was finally achieved by Jack Alcock and Teddie Brown. John Alcock and Arthur Brown were British aviators who, in 1919, made the first non-stop transatlantic flight. They flew a modified First World War Vickers Vimy bomber from St. John's, Newfoundland, to Clifden, County Galway, Ireland. The Secretary of State for Air, Winston Churchill, presented them with the Daily Mail prize of £10,000 for the first crossing of the Atlantic Ocean by aeroplane in "less than 72 consecutive hours".

On 21 June Von Reuter ordered the scuttling of the German fleet. On 21 June 1919, shortly after the end of the First World War, the Imperial German Navy's High Seas Fleet was scuttled by its sailors while held off the harbour of the British Royal Navy base at Scapa Flow, in the Orkney Islands of Scotland. The fleet was interned there under the terms of the Armistice of 11 November 1918 while negotiations took place over its fate. Fearing that either the British would seize the ships unilaterally or the German government at the time might reject the Treaty of Versailles and resume the war effort (in which case the ships could be used against Germany), Admiral Ludwig von Reuter decided to scuttle the fleet.

The Treaty of Versailled ended the war between Germany and the Allies. The Treaty of Versailles was a peace treaty signed on 28 June 1919. As the most important treaty of World War I, it ended the state of war between Germany and most of the Allied Powers. It was signed in the Palace of Versailles, exactly five years after the assassination of Archduke Franz Ferdinand, which led to the war. 

Peace Day was on June 19 and both in Paris and London there were celebrations. Edwyn Luyens built the cenotaph. The British government planned to hold a victory parade in London on 19 July, including soldiers marching to Whitehall, the centre of the British government. The initial design for what would become the Cenotaph was one of a number of temporary structures erected along the parade's route. 

The Hunters move to Eaton Place in Belgravia.

Cook and Ada move to Adelaide. Adelaide is the capital and most populous city of South Australia.