 As a result, he refused to return to Oxford to complete his degree, saying the university would never be the same; in later years he joked that he had been "sent down by the Kaiser".Owing to the impending contraction of the Army after the war, a regular commission in the Grenadiers was out of the question.However, at the end of 1918 Macmillan joined the Guards Reserve Battalion at Chelsea Barracks for "light duties".