Chauvel's AIF appointment was terminated on 9 December 1919, and the next day he was appointed Inspector General, the Army's most senior post, which he held until 1930. The office of Inspector General had been created as an auditor who provided annual reports to the Council of Defence. In the event of war, it was intended that the Inspector General would become the Commander in Chief with the Military Board as his general staff. Chauvel's annual reports tended to emphasise the parlous state of the nation's defences. He warned, for example, that if war came, soldiers would "be subject to the unfair handicap and the certainty of increased loss of life which inferiority in armament and shortage of ammunition must inevitability entail". Looking back from the perspective of the Second World War, historian Gavin Long noted that Chauvel's annual reports were "a series of wise and penetrating examinations of Australian military problems of which, however, little notice was taken".