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French Army Mutinies (1917)
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The French Army Mutinies of 1917 took place in the Champagne section of the Western Front and started just after the conclusion of the disastrous Second Battle of the Aisne.
architect of the Second Battle of the Aisne and the French Commander-in-Chief on the Western Front, General Robert Nivelle, had been sacked on 29 April 1917. He was replaced by General Philippe Pétain. By this time, over one million French fatalities (306,000 in 1914; 334,000 in 1915; 217,000 in 1916; 121,000 in early 1917) out of a male population of twenty million had "deadened the French will to attack".
French armies at Chemin des Dames had suffered a steadily growing number of desertions since the end of April.
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The French Army Mutinies of 1917 took place in the Champagne section of the Western Front and started just after the conclusion of the disastrous Second Battle of the Aisne.
Background
The architect of the Second Battle of the Aisne and the French Commander-in-Chief on the Western Front, General Robert Nivelle, had been sacked on 29 April 1917. He was replaced by General Philippe Pétain. By this time, over one million French fatalities (306,000 in 1914; 334,000 in 1915; 217,000 in 1916; 121,000 in early 1917) out of a male population of twenty million had "deadened the French will to attack".
Mutiny
The French armies at Chemin des Dames had suffered a steadily growing number of desertions since the end of April. On 27 May, those desertions turned to mutiny. Up to 30,000 soldiers left the front line and reserve trenches and returned to the rear. Even in regiments where there was direct confrontation, such as the 74th Infantry Regiment, the men "wished their officers no harm"; they just refused "to return to the trenches". The mutinies "were not a refusal of war" simply "a certain way of waging it".
In the behind-the-lines towns of Soissons, Villers-Cotterets, Fère-en-Tardenois, and Coeuvres, they refused to obey their officers' orders and refused to go to the Front. On 1 June, a French infantry regiment took over the town of Missy-aux-Bois. According to historian Tony Ashworth, the mutinies were "widespread and persistent", and involved more than half the divisions in the French army. On 7 June, General Pétain and Field-Marshal Sir Douglas Haig (the British commander-in-chief in France) had a "private talk": Pétain told Haig that "two French Divisions had refused to go and relieve two Divisions in the front line". Historian John Keegan estimates the true figure was over fifty divisions.
Detailed research in 1983 by academic Guy Pedroncini, based on the French military archives, concludes that altogether 49 infantry divisions were destabilized and experienced repeated episodes of mutiny. This was calculated as: nine infantry divisions were very gravely impacted by mutinous behaviour; fifteen infantry divisions were seriously affected; and twenty five infantry divisions were affected by isolated but repeated instances of mutinous behaviour. As the French Army comprised a total of 113 infantry divisions by the end of 1917, this puts the proportion of destabilized French infantry divisions at 43%. Conversely, only 12 artillery regiments had been affected by the crisis of indiscipline (Pedroncini,1983).
Response
On or about 8 June the military authorities took swift and decisive action: mass arrests were followed by mass trials. Those arrested were selected by their own officers and NCOs, "with the implicit consent of the rank and file". There were 3,427 Conseils de guerre ("courts-martial"), at which 23,385 men were convicted of mutinous behaviours of one sort or another ; 554 men were sentenced to death; 49 men were "actually shot"; and the rest sentenced to penal servitude.. More up to date (1983) archival research by the late French military historian and Sorbonne academic Guy Pedroncini documents 2,878 convictions to hard labour and 629 death penalties. According to Pedroncini, only 43 executions were carried out and can be solidly documented. Incredibly so, the lack of excess in repressing the mutinies provoked adverse reactions among some of the French Army's divisional commanders (Pedroncini,1983). Pétain and French President Poincaré, on the other hand, made it their policy to mend rather than to aggravate the French Army's morale.
According to French historian Denis Rolland, "there would have been about 30 executions. This number has always been controversial because of the difficulty of accessing the files until 100 years have elapsed.".
From time to time, anecdotal accounts have emerged of whole units marched to quiet sectors and then deliberately haché ("cut to pieces") by their own artillery. However there is no evidence that this ever happened. Conversely, it is well documented ( Poitevin,1938) that a rebellious Russian division was encircled by French troops in September 1917 at Camp de La Courtine in central France and then brought to reason by 75mm cannon fire. However only 19 rebels lost their lives. The leaders of the rebellion were shipped off to North Africa in penal servitude while the rest of the Russian troops (about 10,000 men) were demobilized and transferred into labour battalions..
Aftermath
Whatever the figure, along with the stick of military justice, General Pétain offered two carrots: more regular and longer leave; and, for the time-being at least, an end to attacks.
See also
Further reading
- Offenstadt, Nicolas. Les fusillés de la Grande Guerre, Éditions Odile Jacob, Paris, 1999
- Mutineries de 1917
- Soldat fusillé pour l'exemple
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