Mutinies in the French army, 1917

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Mutinies in the French army almost led to the collapse of the French land forces in 1917, during the First World War . From the end of April to the beginning of June, the majority of all French divisions were affected by mutinies , especially those of the infantry . The information on the scope of the disobedience to orders fluctuates in the literature: almost half to a good two thirds of the army were affected. The French army leadership reacted on the one hand with draconian measures (imposition of hundreds of death sentences ) and reforms on the other. In the following period, she also refrained from further loss-making offensives .

Military background

General Robert Nivelle , who had replaced General Joseph Joffre as Commander-in-Chief of the French Army at the end of 1916 , was responsible for the Battle of the Aisne (also known as the Nivelle Offensive ). After two and a half years of trench warfare, the French military and parts of French politics promised the longed-for breakthrough against the Germans on the western front . The focus of the attack was the Chemin des Dames near Reims .

As the second part of an extensive double battle and after ten days of artillery bombardment of German positions, the advance of the French soldiers began on April 16, 1917. On April 9, British and Canadian troops had moved into the battle of Arras . But Nivelle's operations as the core of the Allied spring offensive collapsed after a few days - the resistance of the Germans was much tougher than expected, the weather and terrain conditions made the attack even more difficult. The resumption of the attacks in early May was also unsuccessful. The high expectations of the campaign - Nivelle had promised the decisive victory within 24 to 48 hours - were in clear contradiction to the failures: The French losses amounted to 147,000 after two weeks and a total of 187,000 after the end of the fighting (end of May) Man, around 32,000 dead. The complete failure led to the removal of Nivelle on May 15, 1917, followed by Philippe Pétain , an "apostle of the defensive".

Mutinies

Since the beginning of the war there have been isolated mutinies in the French army . On average, French military courts passed 20 to 23 death sentences per month, but most of them were commuted to prison terms.

In spring 1917, the riots were a reaction to heavy losses, the dashed hopes in a striking spring offensive on the poor conditions at the front and close to the front stage , to the low pay of the soldiers, as well as a restrictive furlough policy and the many sudden canceling vacations. The acts of collective insubordination began in the last two days of April and lasted until June 10, 1917. It is estimated that between 25,000 and 50,000 men refused to carry out orders.

The most common form of mutiny was the refusal of soldiers to return to their positions in the trenches . They stayed in the stage and demonstrated there for their demands. The soldiers expressed their displeasure with the quality of the food and with the vacation practice at the front. In addition, soldiers complained about the situation of their families and wives, also triggered by false rumors about African soldiers serving in France, who allegedly harassed women at home, for example when they were on strike . Sometimes the soldiers sang songs like Die Internationale and waved red flags. In at least one case, the mutinous soldiers considered marching to Paris . An infantry regiment occupied a village and refused to march. Some units elected soldiers' councils . Their demands also included a call for immediate peace . Apart from individual cases, the mutineers were not directed against officers , but treated them with military respect despite refusing to give orders. The refusals of orders did not result in violent resistance . Refusal to continue fighting could last several hours, sometimes even a few days.

It is unclear whether the extensive mutinies outside the French army could be kept secret. Some representations claim that this was successful. The German historian Gerd Krumeich denies this and emphasizes that the German military leadership was in the picture, but would have shied away from an attack because they feared an "contagion", an encroachment of the mutinies on German troops.

repression

The large number of soldiers involved in the mutiny made it impossible for the commanders to punish everyone. However, punishments appeared to them to be essential in order to demonstrate continued authority . For this reason it was assumed that the mutinies had been initiated by ringleaders . 3,427 soldiers, some of them randomly selected, came before the court martial ; 554 of them were sentenced to death . 49 of these sentences were carried out and the vast majority of death sentences were converted to forced labor camp sentences . Many of the defendants also received long prison terms . Those convicted of forced labor in particular were often pardoned years later.

Reforms

Pétain visited 90 divisions to personally hear the complaints and complaints of the soldiers. As a result, the conditions of a soldier's existence improved through a reformed organization of leave from the front. The quality of meals, medical care and accommodation in rest and regeneration camps also increased.

Pétain changed the military strategy and refrained from large-scale offensives following the failed spring offensive of 1917 and the mutinies. Instead, advances should be limited. He also waited for American troops to arrive in France - the United States had entered the war on April 6, 1917, alongside the Entente . He also had hopes for new weapon technology - tanks .

Artistic references and commemoration

The experiences of war and mutiny were artistically processed in the Chanson de Craonne , sung to the melody of the Chanson Bonsoir m'amour (1913). The anonymously created text of the Chanson de Craonne contained passages that directed the soldiers' anger against those who profited from the war . It was banned in France until 1974.

Although Humphrey Cobb does not directly mention the mutinies of 1917, they form an important historical and moral background for his novel Paths of Glory, first published in 1935 (German edition: ways to fame , 1959). Stanley Kubrick took the novel as a template for his film of the same name from 1957 with Kirk Douglas in the leading role. The film could not be shown in France until 1975 because it was viewed as an inadmissible criticism of the French military.

The mutinies also play a role as a historical backdrop in William Faulkner's work A Fable , which appeared in 1954 (German edition: Eine Legende , 1955) and was awarded the Pulitzer Prize for Fiction a year later .

At the end of 1998 there was a controversy in France between the French President Jacques Chirac and the French Prime Minister Lionel Jospin . The occasion was a short section in a speech by Jospin on the 80th anniversary of the end of the First World War, given on November 5, 1998 in Craonne on Chemin des Dames. Jospin demanded that the mutineers who were shot in 1917 be commemorated. Chirac expressed irritation at the speech, not because he categorically opposed such a commemoration, but because, in his opinion, it fell within the competence of the President as Commander in Chief of the French Armed Forces.

Interpretation and Research

The French high command and French conservatives interpreted the mutinies as the result of pacifist and socialist agitation . The February Revolution in Russia as well as strikes and demonstrations in French civil life inspired this interpretation. The military leadership also found it difficult to grasp the events conceptually: They spoke of collective acts of lack of discipline instead of mutiny, possibly also because there was a lack of criticism and violence by the teams against their immediate superiors.

Fifty years after the end of the war, the French historian Guy Pedroncini presented the first study on the mutinies to be drawn from the sources (Les Mutineries de 1917) . It is considered to be groundbreaking.

More recent research now interprets the mutinies as an attack strike: the French soldiers were no longer ready to attack German positions, but they were willing to repel German offensives. The historian Leonard V. Smith interprets the mutinies as a success of the French "citizen-soldiers", he had contributed to remobilize the capacities of France . In this context, the German political scientist Herfried Münkler draws attention to the fact that Pétain was able to meet the demands of the "citizen soldiers" because powerful weapons (tanks) and American soldiers were in prospect.

literature

  • Jean-Jacques Becker, Mutinies in the French Army 1917. In: Gerhard Hirschfeld , Gerd Krumeich, Irina Renz, Markus Pöhlmann (eds.): Encyclopedia First World War. Ferdinand Schöningh, Paderborn 2003, ISBN 3-506-73913-1 , p. 710 f.
  • Guy Pedroncini: Les Mutineries de 1917. Presses Universitaires de France, Paris 1967.
  • Leonard V. Smith: Remobilizing the citizen-soldier through the French army mutinies of 1917. In: John Horne (Ed.): State, Society and Mobilization in Europe during the First World War. Cambridge University Press, Cambridge et al. 1997, ISBN 0-521-56112-4 , pp. 144-159 and pp. 269-271.

Web links

Individual evidence

  1. ^ A b Leonard V. Smith: Remobilizing the citizen-soldier. P. 144.
  2. ↑ a b c d e f Jean-Jacques Becker: Mutinies. P. 710.
  3. ^ Yves Le Maner: The failure of the French offensive on the Chemin des Dames. at: www.wegedererinnerung-nordfrankreich.com ( accessed on February 12, 2014).
  4. ↑ Michael S. Neiberg: Fighting the Great War. A global history. Harvard University Press, Cambridge (Mass.) 2005, ISBN 0-674-01696-3 , p. 232.
  5. ^ Spencer C. Tucker (Ed.): A Global Chronology of Conflict. From the Ancient World to the Modern Middle East. ABC-Clio, Santa Barbara 2010, ISBN 978-1-85109-667-1 , p. 1641.
  6. ^ David R. Woodward: Field Marshal Sir William Robertson. Chief of the Imperial General Staff in the Great War. Praeger, Westport 1998, ISBN 0-275-95422-6 , p. 107.
  7. ^ A b Leonard V. Smith: France. In: John Horne (Ed.): A companion to World War I. Wiley-Blackwell, Malden, Mass. et al. 2010, ISBN 978-1-4051-2386-0 , p. 425.
  8. ↑ a b c d e f Stephen Pope, Elizabeth-Anne Wheal: The Macmillan dictionary of the First World War. Macmillan, London 1995, ISBN 0-333-68909-7 , p. 176.
  9. ^ Leonard V. Smith: France. In: John Horne (Ed.): A companion to World War I. Wiley-Blackwell, Malden, Mass. et al. 2010, p. 426.
  10. ↑ Adam Hochschild : To end all wars. How the First World War divided Britain. Macmillan, London et al. 2011, ISBN 978-0-230-01396-4 , p. 276.
  11. ↑ Gerd Krumeich: The 101 most important questions - The First World War. Beck, Munich 2014, ISBN 978-3-406-65941-6 , p. 88.
  12. ^ On this, Leonard V. Smith: Remobilizing the citizen-soldier. P. 149; Herfried Münkler: The Great War. The world from 1914 to 1918 . Rowohlt Verlag, Berlin 2013, ISBN 978-3-87134-720-7 , p. 602.
  13. ^ Leonard V. Smith: Remobilizing the citizen-soldier. P. 148; Jean-Jacques Becker: Mutinies. P. 710 f.
  14. ^ A b Jean-Jacques Becker: Mutinies. P. 711.
  15. ↑ On the chanson Regina M. Sweeney: Singing our way to victory. French cultural politics and music during the Great War. Wesleyan University Press, Middletown (Conn.) 2001, ISBN 0-8195-6454-0 , pp. 232-234.
  16. ↑ Bart van Loo: Chanson. A divorced from Frankrijk. De Bezige Bij, Antwerp 2011, ISBN 978-90-8542-301-0 , p. 1881.
  17. ↑ James H. Meredith: Introduction. In: Humphrey Cobb: Paths of Glory. Penguin Books, New York, NY et al. 2010, ISBN 978-0-14-310611-1 , pp. Xiii – xxviii, here pp. Xiii f.
  18. ↑ Information about the film ( Memento of the original from March 18, 2014 in the Internet Archive ) Info: The archive link was inserted automatically and has not yet been checked. Please check the original and archive link according to the instructions and then remove this notice. on the Arte website . @1@ 2Template: Webachiv / IABot / www.arte.tv
  19. ↑ On this Cleanth Brooks: William Faulkner. Toward Yoknapatawpha and beyond. Yale University Press, New Haven et al. 1978, ISBN 0-300-02204-2 , pp. 414-416; James H. Meredith: Introduction. In: Humphrey Cobb: Paths of Glory. New York, NY et al. 2010, p. Xv f.
  20. ↑ Jochen Hehn: Dispute about the mutineers of 1917. In: Die Welt . November 10, 1998; Oliver Benjamin Hemmerle: Mutiny and Republic: The Jospin-Chirac controversy over the year 1917. In: Arbeitskreis Militaergeschichte eV, Newsletter No. 10 (October 1999), RTF file ( Memento from March 15, 2014 in the Internet Archive )
  21. ^ Leonard V. Smith: Remobilizing the citizen-soldier. P. 146.
  22. ↑ On Pedroncini see Claude Carlier, Jean-Claude Allain: In memoriam Guy Pedroncini. In: Guerres mondiales et conflits contemporains. 4/2006 (n ° 224), pp. 3-5.
  23. ↑ Smith speaks of a “landmark study”, see Leonard V. Smith: Remobilizing the citizen-soldier. P. 144.
  24. ↑ Herfried Münkler: The Great War. The world from 1914 to 1918 . P. 602.
  25. ↑ Information on Smith on the Oberlin College website .
  26. ^ Leonard V. Smith: Remobilizing the citizen-soldier .
  27. ↑ Herfried Münkler: The Great War. The world from 1914 to 1918 . P. 603.