The first major group the ‘’National Association of Discharged Sailors and Soldiers’’ was founded in 1916 and aligned with the Labour Party. The following year the Liberal Party set up the rival ‘’National Federation of Discharged and Demobilised Sailors and Soldiers’’. This alarmed the Government who had a nervous eye on the role of disaffected ex-soldiers in the 1917 Russian revolution, so they in turn set up the more paternalistic 'Comrades of the Great War'. In 1918 there were three separate attempts by outsiders to merge the three groups, all rejected because of their mutual antagonism.

However the plight of former officers was also serious -- if there was little official support for returning soldiers there was none at all for officers – and in 1919 Earl Haig succeeded in creating the 'Officers Association' from a number of small officers' groups, with immediate benefits in profile and fund-raising.

Thomas F Lister, president of the Federation and a working-class soldier discharged because of wounds while still in the ranks, saw the lesson immediately. A skilled negotiator, he steered the main organisations into a Unity Committee and ultimately to a conference on 14 May 1921 at the Queens Hall in Langham Place. Next day the seven hundred delegates marched to the Cenotaph where four representatives laid laurel wreaths while a bugler played the Last Post - a small, simple ceremony that sealed the creation of 'the British Legion'

Haig, who had refused to lead any organisation until they united – and eschewed party politics – became the first President, while Lister became Chairman; a fascinating double-act from opposite ends of the social and military hierarchies.