Mutinies of 1917

In 1917, after three years of a fatal and undecided war of which no one did not foresee the end, lassitude touched the whole of the European armies whose moral one was with lowest.

Context

The failure of the offensive Bubble

Inside the French troops, the failure strapping of the Offensive Bubble on the Way of the Ladies in spring 17, the appalling living conditions in the cold, mud, the flood of shell and the carryforward of the permissions, all these factors were added, causing a rise of the grogne among the men with the face.

The hope raised by the offensive had been enormous the day before on April 16th, 1917: the general Nivelle promised the end of the war and thus, for each soldier, the return to oneself. After the failure of the offensive, at the end of April, disappointment and anger thunder: the soldiers have the impression that the battle had been badly prepared. The staff does not seem to be concerned with losses, his objective is to progress costs which costs.

However at the beginning of May, the order is given to take again the offensive under the same conditions on ground always such a désavantageux for the French. It is one of the leading causes of these refusal to go up in first line.

A Russian influence?

The official story made these mutinies for a long time a simple consequence of the Russian Révolution. If the Russian revolution of 1917 and the rise of the Internationale played a part in this great crisis of indiscipline, it does not seem to be regarded as paramount importance because the primary reason is well in the refusal to take part in repeated, suicidal and useless attacks, which the regiments left often entirely decimated.

Perhaps the French soldiers could be influenced by the example of the Russian soldiers who fought at their sides. Indeed, the survivors of the 20.000 soldiers of two Russian brigades, come on the French face in March 1916, refuse to continue the combat after the Offensive Bubble and of many losses. But it is before all the late advertisement of the Révolution of February in Russia which will justify these troops to claim their repatriation. Prudently, the state French major confines them in a camp with the back where they will celebrate the birthday of May 1st. Then, dispatched in the camp of Felletin in the Hollow one, they decide to return their officers and to be self-managed in particular by electing their representatives. Those Ci will carry out for three months the negotiations with the Russian authorities of the provisional government which refuse their return to the country.

Finally, the attack is given on September 16th by troops Frenchwoman and the Russian contest of artillerists. The engagements made nearly 200 dead among insurrectionists. The Brigades will be dissolved and their stopped leaders. After the Revolution of October and the peace of Brest Litovsk, it was even a less question of repatriating them. One orders to them to integrate companies of work. Those which refuse will be sent in camps diciplinaires in Algeria. The first soldiers will return to Russia only at the end of 1919.

Forms of mutiny

mutinies transfer the day that the replacement of the Nivelle general by Philippe Pétain slowed down by no means. These mutinies which did not cease developing during all of summer 1917 touched, in a more or less sharp dispute, close to the 2/3 of the French regiments. Similar movements developed in same time among the other European armies implied in the conflict, including inside the German army.

English side, a Mutiny which lasted a few days in the camp of Étaples on the French littoral of the Pas-de-Calais, was repressed very hard in 1917. This camp accommodated to 80.000 English soldiers and of the the Commonwealth to prepare them with the rigors of the face. The English armies and Frenchwoman will agree to maintain the secrecy on this business until 2017, date on which the English files should be open.

In the French Army, the mutinies appeared primarily by refusal collectives of several regiments to go up on line. The soldiers agreed to preserve the positions, but obstinately refused to take part in new attacks likely to fail or allowing to gain only a few hundred meters of ground on the adversary. These refusal to obey were accompanied by noisy demonstrations, seldom violent, during which the soldiers expressed their complaints and shouted of multiple slogans of which most widespread is " With bottom the guerre".

To put an end to the mutinies of 1917

The role of Pétain

Philippe Pétain, the new general-in-chief of the armies, will manage to calm these rebellions by adopting a strategy less offensive than its predecessor in order to limit the losses as men. He also took several measurements aiming at improving the fate of the Poilus, concerning inter alia quarterings, food, the turns of permissions… However, the peak of intensity of the mutinies is located between on May 20th and on June 10th, is after the nomination of Pétain (May 15th, 1917). One can thus say only this one " fin" put; with the mutinies. In spite of the legend of very human Pétain, this one set up a fast repression of supposed the mutineers. The objective is to make examples: the military tribunals judge without true proof, the " agitateurs" in fact are indicated by the officers and some graded do not hesitate to make pressure over the members of the courts. At the beginning of June, the staff even managed to obtain that the possibility of call is removed. Pétain has also the possibility of blocking the requests for grace near the president of the Republic Raymond Poincaré. It will use with 7 recoveries this right. It is a justice of exception which is installation in a few days within a democratic State.

The assessment of the mutinies

This great crisis within the French Army of course brought its batch of sanctions against the mutineers. Approximately 3.500 judgments, in connection with these mutinies, were pronounced by the councils of war with a scale of more or less heavy sorrows. There was inter alia 1381 judgments with the forced labors or longsufferings of prison and 554 death sentences of which 49 were effective.

This number was always a subject of controversies because of impossibility of reaching the files freely before 100 years. It also varies according to the period appointed for the mutinies and from the date of the lawsuits, certain mutineers pass in judgment only in 1918 and some lawsuits of 1917 are attached to events of the former years. Moreover, one estimates that 10 to 15% of the military files are definitively lost. At all events, the number of the executions of 1917, often proposed when one speaks about the Fusillés for the example remains relatively weak paid to the number of shot last months of 1914 (nearly 200) or of the year 1915 (approximately 260). One can explain it by the use of the right of reprieve by the president Poincaré: it grâcie 90% to 95% of the cases which are presented to him.

Treatment of the mutinies by the hierarchy (soldiers degraded, shot, sent to an unquestionable death in impossible attacks…) to the psychological after-effects of this war contributed. He questions moreover the democratic operation of the French State during the First World War.

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