was a term used in the British Army and Royal Navy of the 18th, 19th and early 20th centuries to refer to the pay or allowance an officer received when in retirement or not in actual service.
[1] In the English Army the option of half-pay developed during the late 17th and early 18th centuries, at the same time as the system of purchasing commissions and promotions by officers took hold.
[2] During the long period of peace that the reduced British Army experienced after the Napoleonic Wars, the half-pay system became a means by which arduous overseas service could be avoided.
In periods of extended conflict, the half-pay lists became a significant expense for militaries when it was coupled with the selling of half pay-commissions, which was common in the British Army.
[6] Following the Second Bourbon Restoration in 1815, the remnants of the Grande Armée were disbanded; because of wholesale defection to Napoleon upon his return from Elba, the end of the various Coalition Wars since 1792 and the precarious situation of public finances.
[7] The image of the demi-solde as a nostalgic Bonapartist organising conspiracies for the return of his Emperor is an exaggeration, but some of them were actually involved in anti-Bourbon plots.
[8] In the modern US military, the term "half-pay" refers to the punishment of low-level offences by service members in the form of forfeiture of half of pay and entitlements.
[5] The maritime adventure novels of the Horatio Hornblower series, set during the Napoleonic Wars, include numerous references to the fear of the protagonist and his fellow naval officers of being retired and "stranded ashore on half-pay", which they consider as their worst nightmare because even full pay was often barely sufficient to cover the living expenses of an officer and any dependents.
In addition to the permanent retirement of individuals, peacetime cutbacks in the wartime establishments of the army and the navy could mean significant numbers of serving officers being placed on half-pay and awaiting new appointments, which might not occur.