Disappearing troops

Guys I have a huge problem: many of my troops disappeared. I moved my general into the Save the Christmas adventure (with approx. 80 recruits, 80 cavalry and approx. 40 longbowmen - the overall was 200). I forgot about the first enemy camp (the one with the lance riders) hence, without attacking, I moved my general back into the city to change the army composition. The problem is that when he got back the cavalry and the longbowmen were missing. Could somebody please look into this because this is a huge resource + settlers + trainig time loss for me. I'm pretty sure that they're still in the database because I have the same number of working settlers as before -501- hence they are still taken into consideration. I've also tried to log-in from a different browser (hoping that it was only a cache problem) but the same result: 0 cavalry in my garrison and 23 longbowmens (I left those at home).

edit: I remembered something that might have caused this: when I sent my army back to the city the game was opened (by mistake) in two tabs -one with the default view (it was amongst the tabs that opened with the browser) and another one (that I was using) in the adventure map.

You'll get them back in about 2 hours from the moment you finish the adventure.

I got them back before that, I'm still doing that adventure. I don't know exactly when, because it was after I logged off for the night. There's some known way to bypass this disappearing troops problem? Because today I'm missing about 90 militia :(.
P.S.: Having the game opened simultaneously in two tabs wasn't the cause, because today, when the militia disappeared, it was opened in only one tab.

EDIT: I just returned to the island and my militia reappeared (I guess my general left in a hurry and has forgot them there :). Apparently this could be the solution for the guys experiencing the same problem: just go back to the island and they will reappear in you garrison.

Will your general and troops re-appear if you finish an adventure and return home without sending them home first??

yes MommC