THE 1st Battalion had spent the war fighting in what is now Iraq, but was then known as Mesopotamia, part of the Ottoman Turkish Empire, and at the start of November 1918, its men were at the town of Hit, west of Baghdad, on the River Euphrates.

The unit had been reconstituted in 1916 after many of its men were captured by the Turks when British forces were surrounded at the town of Kut.

Many of the places they saw action are familiar to us today, as the scenes of fighting between US forces and Iraqi insurgents since the invasion of 2003.

On November 1, as resistance by the Turkish army crumbled, the Ottoman Empire signed an armistice with the Allies.

The battalion was given three days’ holiday to celebrate the victory.

When news of Germany's capitulation came through, a parade of all the British Imperial troops in the Hit area was arranged on November 12, a salute of 31 guns was fired, the National Anthem was sung and there was “much cheering”, according to the Regimental Chronicle, followed by another three days’ holiday.

The 2nd Battalion was in northern France, on the border with Belgium, after four years’ hard fighting on the Western Front.

Part of the British Expeditionary Force in August 1914, it had taken part in the battles in spring 1918 to halt the last German offensive before counter attacks pushed back the enemy.

On November 9, they were out of the firing line, being deployed to clear and repair roads in an area recently recaptured from the Germans.

On the morning of November 11, the battalion was formed up to march off through the French village of Maresches when a signal arrived from the headquarters of the 2nd Division: “Hostilities will cease at 1100 today, 11th November.

“Troops will stand fast on the line reached at that hour, which will be reported by wire to Corps HQ. Defence precautions will be maintained.”

No Germans were to be allowed to enter British lines and any who did so were to be taken prisoner.

The Regimental Chronicle notes: “There was no excitement or unseemly demonstration such as appears to have occurred elsewhere.”

The next few days were spent on more road repairs, burying dead horses, and talks on arrangements for demobilisation, but there was also time for "a excellent concert".

Chosen to form part of the Army of Occupation in Germany, the 2nd Battalion entered the country from Belgium at Malmedy on December 9.

At a ceremony at the border, “the Band played the Regimental Marches of the 43rd and 52nd (the regiments which were merged to form the Oxfordshire and Buckinghamshire Light Infantry) while the whole regiment passed.”

The 1/4th Territorial Battalion of the regiment had fought in France between 1915 and 1917, but was transferred to support the Italian army against Austria-Hungary in 1917.

It took part in the battle of Vittorio Veneto in late October 1918, which led to the collapse of Austrian resistance and a request for an armistice on October 29.

As peace talks continued, the 1/4th were on the advance.

On November 2, the Chronicle notes “enemy in full retreat, abandoning many guns and much material”.

The next day they set out at 4.30am to advance up the Val d'Assa: “Thousands of Austrian prisoners were met coming back and a car carrying the white flag and two Austrian generals came by. Abandoned guns and material showed with what haste the enemy had retired. Halted at 10am for a meal and at 11am continued the march after detaching A and C companies to guard prisoners. At 3.30pm accepted the surrender of a battalion and a half of Austrians and ‘caged’ them at Caldonazzo, where the Battalion spent the night, after a march of some 25 miles.”

On November 4, the Austrians capitulated, with hostilities formally ending at 3pm.

The 2/4th Territorial Battalion was in the same part of France as the 2nd Battalion, seeing heavy fighting along the Valen-ciennes to Le Quesnoy railway line in the final days of the war.

On November 11, they were carrying out training at Maresches, but still suffered a death, that of Lieutenant VS Wilkins, one of the victims of the Spanish Flu epidemic that killed millions of people around the world in 1918-19. Estimates of the death toll range from 20 million as high as 100 million.

The 7th (Service) Battalion, one of the New Army units formed from men who had signed up in response to Lord Kitchener’s appeal for new recruits after the outbreak of war in 1914, was part of the Allied force sent to protect Salonika in Greece from attack by Bulgaria.

Its men were at the front from August 1918 until September 30, when Bulgaria surrendered.

The news came through at the village of Canakcelli, near Hamzali, now in Macedonia.

Captain CP Ker described the day in the Chronicle: “We were up and ready to move by 6 in the morning, but no orders came until about 7.30 when a breathless mounted orderly arrived with the news that hostilities would cease from noon today, 30th September. Hamilton and I dashed for our horses, and rode round the companies where the news was received with great enthusiasm.

“The utter peace we felt that day is hard to describe, but I do not think that any of us actually realized that, for a time at any rate, we had finished with fighting.”

The unit was then sent to Mustapha Pasha, on the Turkish border, near the city then known as Adrianople, now Edirne, where they arrived in mid-October, to endure three “wretched weeks of cold, damp and influenza”, though that Christmas was spent in the agreeable surroundings of the Bulgarian Black Sea city of Varna.

The 8th (Service) Battalion was also deployed for the Bulgarian campaign.

They were among the forebears of the modern Oxfordshire-based Royal Logistic Corps units.

The pioneer units of the First World War were created to free combat units from work like digging trenches, repairing roads and transporting stores.

The battalion was also in what is now Macedonia, at Dabilja and Petralic, when the Bulgarians capitulated and later also moved on to Mustapha Pasha.