Under the provisions of the 1907 Hague Convention, Germany, Britain and France agreed that all sick and wounded prisoners of war unable to resume active service were to be considered for exchange to a neutral country. Amputees, the blind, the physically impaired, the mentally ill and men suffering from tuberculosis were all candidates for exchange. Prisoners who felt they might be eligible for internment had a right to go before a panel of Swiss and German physicians for examination. For thousands of wounded and sick prisoners of war attempting to leave Germany, going before the repatriation commission was an exercise filled with anxiety and sometimes disappointment. But the severity of Cull’s wounds meant that he was approved for exchange and on 28 December 1917 he and Lieutenant McQuiggan were among the first wounded Australian prisoners to cross the German border into neutral Switzerland as part of the exchange agreement. Cull had survived his ordeal in German prison camps but lasted just four months interned at the Hotel de l’Europe at Montreux before his health began to deteriorate. He was sent to England in March 1918 and after two weeks of treatment at Millbank Hospital in London, was put on a troopship and repatriated to Australia. He was just 24 when he was discharged from the AIF in his home state of Victoria in October 1918.
Capture had prevented Cull from any further fighting and perhaps spared him from being killed in later actions, but it also stalled any further career in the AIF. Despite his bravery on numerous occasions, Cull was among the very few infantry officers who had served at Gallipoli and the Western Front who ended the war without decoration for leadership or gallantry. Cull claimed he was not a ‘decoration hunter’ but from the letter he received from his commanding officer, Colonel Aubrey Wiltshire, we get in the impression that Cull was recommended for the Military Cross but for one reason or another had missed out—not because his deeds were not gallant enough, but because units possessed a limited number of decorations that could only go to the most outstanding actions. In February 1917, just two weeks before his capture, Cull was recommended for the Italian Silver Medal for Military Valour for ‘conspicuous gallantry in the execution of repeated reconnaissances in No Man’s Land at Fleurbaix and Armentières’ but was captured before the recommendation was approved.30
The following month, the War Office issued instructions that precluded prisoners of war from being considered for an award if the act for which they were recommended was in any way associated with their capture.31 This order prevented Cull from being decorated for his actions in relation to the attack on Malt Trench, although the letter from Colonel Wilshire suggests that Cull was most certainly deserving of one. These instructions were overruled by amendments made in May 1919 so that prisoners of war who made examples of themselves by caring for the sick and wounded or attempting to escape could be considered for decoration.32 Cull was too injured to even think about escaping let alone attempt one, and received no further commendation. In 1923 the Department of Defence issued Cull with the three campaign medals he was entitled to wear—the 1914/15 Star, the British War Medal, and the Victory Medal.
Little is known about William Cull after his repatriation to Australia and how he fared afterwards, but it is beyond doubt that the war and his disability shaped the remainder of his days. Few historical records document Cull’s post-war life, but we know that he became involved in the Returned Soldiers Sailors Imperial League of Australia (RSSILA) in Melbourne and was one of the Victorian representatives of the Repatriation Commission around the same time he became passionate about state politics. Cull was the nationalist candidate for the seat of Albert Park in the Victorian Legislative Assembly by-election in November 1919, but was defeated by the Labour nominee Arthur Wallace by 733 votes.33 There are no further references to Cull’s aspiring political career other than he was forced to retire early due to ill-health. We know that he married Ms Dorris Whitgelaw in 1920, became a father to Elsa the following year, and the Cull family lived at Brighton Beach in Melbourne’s south east. Cull paraded with the 46th Battalion (The Brighton Rifles), Citizens Military Force, until 1928. By the mid-1930s William Cull was working as the managing editor of The Shepparton Advertiser while his family resided at Chelsea, but little is known regarding how the family coped in the years of the Great Depression.34
The ongoing effects of his wounds received in action at Malt Trench in February 1917 dogged Cull for the remainder of his days. On Saturday 20 August 1939, he suffered a massive heart attack at his mother’s 80th birthday party in Preston as he stood up to respond to a toast. Aged just 44, he died before medical attention could be administered. He was buried at a modest service at the family vault at Coburg Cemetery, where a bugler sounded the Last Post.35