[3] After speaking to the ineffective camp commandant and sizing up the situation, Trenchard marched out onto the docks and personally issued a loud summons for the men to assemble.
Leaving the scene in some disorder, he decided force would be needed,[4] and arranged for 250 soldiers, including military policemen, to be sent to the docks.
[5] After the security detachment arrived at the docks, Trenchard spoke to his men, explaining his plan and issuing them with extra ammunition, and ordering them to fix bayonets.
The majority were prepared to return to France and Trenchard granted such men a conditional discharge from charges of insurrection in military law that they were liable to.
They had been on leave in the UK when they refused to board a ship at Southampton to sail to France, where they feared they would be outfitted for battle in the Allied intervention in the Russian Civil War.