Thanks to Mustaches of the Nineteenth Century (The one-stop blog spot for your Nineteenth Century Mustache needs) I can confirm that it was only in 1916 that the British Army revoked the standing order that all military men were required to maintain a mustache. To be a bit more accurate the army didn't actually require a mustache it just forbade shaving of the upper lip....The Oxford Companion to Military History relates the story of the end of the mustache era:
An officer was successfully court-martialled for shaving in 1916. When the sentence passed through the hands of Lt Gen Macready, adjutant-general of the British Expeditionary Force (BEF), on its way to the C-in-C for confirmation, Macready recognized the absurdity of the regulation and had it revoked.
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