Having been absorbed into the RDC during the war, the National Reserve was not revived. The RDC continued to guard German prisoners of war into 1919, and was gradually disbanded as the prison camps were closed. It was reconstituted in 1922 as the National Defence Corps, which became Home Defence Battalions on the outbreak of the Second World War, with the same role of guarding vulnerable points as its First World War predecessor. For the VF, drills became optional within a week of the cessation of hostilities in France, and by the end of 1918 most VF battalions had abandoned them. There was some hope within the movement that it would be continued after the war, possibly as a reserve to the Territorial Army, but in September 1919 the War Office announced that all but the motor units, regarded as useful in the event of transport strikes, would be disbanded.