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Mutiny
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Mutiny is a conspiracy among members of a group of similarly-situated individuals (typically members of the military; or the crew of any ship, even if they are civilians) to openly oppose, change or overthrow an existing authority. The term is commonly used for a rebellion among members of the military against their superior officer(s).
During the Age of Discovery, mutiny particularly meant open rebellion against a ship’s captain.
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Encyclopedia
Mutiny is a conspiracy among members of a group of similarly-situated individuals (typically members of the military; or the crew of any ship, even if they are civilians) to openly oppose, change or overthrow an existing authority. The term is commonly used for a rebellion among members of the military against their superior officer(s).
During the Age of Discovery, mutiny particularly meant open rebellion against a ship’s captain. This occurred, for example, during Magellan’s journey, resulting in the killing of one mutineer, the execution of another and the marooning of two others, and on Henry Hudson’s Discovery, resulting in Hudson and others being set adrift in a boat.
Penalty
Most countries still punish mutiny with particularly harsh penalties, sometimes even the death penalty. Mutiny is typically thought of only in a shipboard context, but many countries’ laws make no such distinction, and there have been notable mutinies on land (see below).
Particular countries
United Kingdom
In the United Kingdom, until 1689 mutiny was regulated by Articles of War, instituted by the monarch and effective only in a period of war. In 1689, the first Mutiny Act was passed, passing the responsibility to enforce discipline within the military to Parliament. The Mutiny Act, altered in 1803, and the Articles of War defined the nature and punishment of mutiny, until the latter were replaced by the Army Discipline and Regulation Act in 1879. This, in turn, was replaced by the Army Act in 1881.
Today the Army Act 1955 defines mutiny as follows:
The same definition applies in the Royal Navy and Royal Air Force.
The military law of England in early times existed, like the forces to which it applied, in a period of war only. Troops were raised for a particular service, and were disbanded upon the cessation of hostilities. The crown, by prerogative, made laws known as Articles of War, for the government and discipline of the troops while thus embodied and serving. Except for the punishment of desertion, which was made a felony by statute in the reign of Henry VI, these ordinances or Articles of War remained almost the sole authority for the enforcement of discipline until 1689, when the first Mutiny Act was passed and the military forces of the crown were brought under the direct control of parliament. Even the Parliamentary forces in the time of Charles I and Oliver Cromwell were governed, not by an act of the legislature, but by articles of war similar to those issued by the king and authorized by an ordinance of the Lords and Commons, exercising in that respect the sovereign prerogative. This power of law-making by prerogative was however held to be applicable during a state of actual war only, and attempts to exercise it in time of peace were ineffectual. Subject to this limitation it existed for considerably more than a century after the passing of the first Mutiny Act.
From 1689 to 1803, although in peace time the Mutiny Act was occasionally suffered to expire, a statutory power was given to the crown to make Articles of War to operate in the colonies and elsewhere beyond the seas in the same manner as those made by prerogative operated in time of war.
In 1715, in consequence of the rebellion, this power was created in respect of the forces in the kingdom, but apart from and in no respect affected the principle acknowledged all this time that the crown of its mere prerogative could make laws for the government of the army in foreign countries in time of war.
The Mutiny Act of 1803 effected a great constitutional change in this respect: the power of the crown to make any Articles of War became altogether statutory, and the prerogative merged in the act of parliament. The Mutiny Act 1873 was passed in this manner.
So matters remained till 1879, when the last Mutiny Act was passed and the last Articles of War were promulgated. The Mutiny Act legislated for offenses in respect of which death or penal servitude could be awarded, and the Articles of War, while repeating those provisions of the act, constituted the direct authority for dealing with offenses for which imprisonment was the maximum punishment as well as with many matters relating to trial and procedure.
The act and the articles were found not to harmonize in all respects. Their general arrangement was faulty, and their language sometimes obscure. In 1869 a royal commission recommended that both should be recast in a simple and intelligible shape. In 1878 a committee of the House of Commons endorsed this view and made recommendations as to how the task should be performed. In 1879 passed into law a measure consolidating in one act both the Mutiny Act and the Articles of War, and amending their provisions in certain important respects. This measure was called the Army Discipline and Regulation Act 1879.
After one or two years experience finding room for improvement, it was superseded by the Army Act 1881, which hence formed the foundation and the main portion of the military law of England, containing a proviso saving the right of the crown to make Articles of War, but in such a manner as to render the power in effect a nullity by enacting that no crime made punishable by the act shall be otherwise punishable by such articles. As the punishment of every conceivable offence was provided, any articles made under the act could be no more than an empty formality having no practical effect.
Thus the history of English military law up to 1879 may be divided into three periods, each having a distinct constitutional aspect: (I) prior to 1689, the army, being regarded as so many personal retainers of the sovereign rather than servants of the state, was mainly governed by the will of the sovereign; (2) between 1689 and 1803, the army, being recognized as a permanent force, was governed within the realm by statute and without it by the prerogative of the crown and (3) from 1803 to 1879, it was governed either directly by statute or by the sovereign under an authority derived from and defined and limited by statute. Although in 1879 the power of making Articles of War became in effect inoperative, the sovereign was empowered to make rules of procedure, having the force of law, to regulate the administration of the act in many matters formerly dealt with by the Articles of War. These rules, however, must not be inconsistent with the provisions of the Army Act itself, and must be laid before parliament immediately after they are made. Thus in 1879 the government and discipline of the army became for the first time completely subject either to the direct action or the close supervision of parliament.
A further notable change took place at the same time. The Mutiny Act had been brought into force on each occasion for one year only, in compliance with the constitutional theory:
that the maintenance of a standing army in time of peace, unless with the consent of parliament, is against law. Each session therefore the text of the act had to be passed through both Houses clause by clause and line by line. The Army Act, on the other hand, is a fixed permanent code. But constitutional traditions are fully respected by the insertion in it of a section providing that it shall come into force only by virtue of an annual act of parliament. This annual act recites the illegality of a standing army in time of peace unless with the consent of parliament, and the necessity nevertheless of maintaining a certain number of land forces (exclusive of those serving in India) and a body of royal marine forces on shore, and of keeping them in exact discipline, and it brings into force the Army Act for one year.
Sentence
Until 1998 mutiny, and another offence of failing to suppress or report a mutiny, were each punishable with death. Section 21(5) of the Human Rights Act 1998 completely abolished the death penalty in the United Kingdom. (Prior to this, the death penalty had already been abolished for murder, but it had remained in force for certain military offences and treason, although no executions had been carried out for several decades.) This provision was not required by the European Convention on Human Rights, since Protocol 6 of the Convention permitted the death penalty in time of war, and Protocol 13, which prohibits the death penalty for all circumstances, did not then exist. The UK government introduced section 21(5) as a late amendment in response to parliamentary pressure.
United States
The United States’ Uniform Code of Military Justice defines mutiny thus:
- Art. 94. (§ 894.) 2004 Mutiny or Sedition.
Any person subject to this code (chapter) who—
- with intent to usurp or override lawful military authority, refuses, in concert with any other person, to obey orders or otherwise do his duty or creates any violence or disturbance is guilty of mutiny;
- with intent to cause the overthrow or destruction of lawful civil authority, creates, in concert with any other person, revolt, violence, or other disturbance against that authority is guilty of sedition;
- fails to do his utmost to prevent and suppress a mutiny or sedition being committed in his presence, or fails to take all reasonable means to inform his superior commissioned officer or commanding officer of a mutiny or sedition which he knows or has reason to believe is taking place, is guilty of a failure to suppress or report a mutiny or sedition.
A person who is found guilty of attempted mutiny, mutiny, sedition, or failure to suppress or report a mutiny or sedition shall be punished by death or such other punishment as a court-martial may direct.
U.S. military law requires obedience only to lawful orders. Disobedience to unlawful orders is the obligation of every member of the U.S. armed forces, a principle established by the Nuremberg trials and reaffirmed in the aftermath of the My Lai Massacre. However, a U.S. soldier who disobeys an order after deeming it unlawful will almost certainly be court-martialed to determine whether the disobedience was proper. In addition, simple refusal to obey is not mutiny, which requires collaboration or conspiracy to disobedience.
Famous mutinies
17th century
18th century
19th century
- The Indian rebellion of 1857 was a period of armed uprising in India against British colonial power, and was popularly remembered in Britain as the Indian Mutiny. It is remembered in India as the Sepoy Mutiny.
- The USS Sharon, a New England whaler, was subject to multiple mass desertions, mutinies, and the murder and dismemberment of a cruel (and from the record, sociopathic) captain by four Polynesians who had been pressed into service on the Sharon.
- The brig USS Somers had a mutiny plotted onboard on her first voyage. Three men were accused of conspiring to commit mutiny, and were hanged.
20th century
- Mutiny aboard the Russian battleship Potemkin, a rebellion of the crew against their officers in June 1905 during the Russian Revolution of 1905. It was made famous by the film The Battleship Potemkin.
- Curragh Incident of July 20, 1914 occurred in the Curragh, Ireland, where British soldiers protested against enforcement of the Home Rule Act 1914.
- French Army mutinies in 1917. The failure of the Nivelle Offensive in April and May 1917 resulted in widespread mutiny in many units of the French Army.
- Wilhelmshaven mutiny broke out in the German High Seas Fleet on 29 October 1918. The mutiny was one of the factors leading to the end of the First World War, to the collapse of the Monarchy and to the establishment of the Weimar Republic.
- Black Sea mutiny (1919) by crews aboard the French dreadnoughts - Jean Bart and France - sent to assist the White Russians in the Russian Civil War. The ringleaders (including André Marty and Charles Tillon) received long prison sentences.
- Kronstadt rebellion was an unsuccessful uprising of Soviet sailors, led by Stepan Petrichenko, against the government of the early Russian SFSR in the first weeks of March in 1921. It proved to be the last major rebellion against Bolshevik rule.
- Invergordon Mutiny was an industrial action by around a thousand sailors in the British Atlantic Fleet, that took place on 15-16 September 1931. For two days, ships of the Royal Navy at Invergordon were in open mutiny, in one of the few military strikes in British history.
- Cocos Islands Mutiny was a failed mutiny by Sri Lankan servicemen on the then-British Cocos (Keeling) Islands during the Second World War.
- Port Chicago mutiny on August 9 1944, three weeks after the Port Chicago disaster, 258 out of the 320 African-American sailors in the ordnance battalion refused to load any ammunition.
- Sonderborg Denmark mutiny on May 5, 1945 German sailors took over German minesweeper the day before; arrested and 11 executed. See .
After World War II
See also
Sources and External links
- - a collection of short histories
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- Leonard F. Guttridge, Mutiny: A History of Naval Insurrection, United States Naval Institute Press, 1992, ISBN 0-87021-281-8
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