THE FRENCH ARMY MUTINIES, 1917 Term paper

By 1917 France had been at war for three years and had suffered 3 million casualties. Marshal Joseph Joffre, who led France through the first two years of World War I, was replaced late in 1916 by General Georges Nivelle. Brimming with confidence, Nivelle assured the Allied Powers (France, Great Britain, Italy, and Russia) that he could defeat the Central Powers (Germany, Austria-Hungary, Bulgaria, and Turkey) in a 1917 spring offensive aimed at the Chemin-des-Dames salient of the Siegfried/Hindenburg line. Nivelle’s plan called for a massive artillery barrage to pulverize the German trenches, followed by a quick, violent infantry assault. On 16 April 1917, some 120,000 French soldiers opened the offensive by advancing on an eighty-mile front. However, General Erich von Ludendorff, the German commander, had learned of Nivelle’s plans and taken countermeasures. Immediately German aircraft and artillery targeted French artillery communication, thereby nullifying the accuracy of the artillery barrages. After crossing 1.5 miles of no man’s land, the French infantry found the German outer defenses abandoned. Instead, Ludendorff had prepared hundreds of fortified machine-guns deployed to direct the French into “killing zones” where prepositioned German gunners inflicted murderous fire. By 25 April the French had suffered 100,000 casualties. When Nivelle mercifully halted the offensive on 9 May, 30,000 French soldiers had been killed and more than 100,000 wounded. Starting on 17 April, “collective disorders” had broken out in rear echelon assembly areas. Initially, elements of the French 6th Army refused to follow their officers. Within days these “collective disorders” had spread to other units; by May more than 30,000 soldiers were refusing to follow orders. Shaken by the extent of these mutinies, the government fired Nivelle and on 15 May named General Philippe Pétain commander-in-chief. Immediately Pétain assured his officers that there would be no more Nivelle-style offensives. The mutinies, which lasted until 14 July 1917, were the most serious threat to France since the German invasion of 1914. Military courts convicted 3,427 mutineers; 554 men received the death penalty, and 49 were executed. Official records of the mutinies were subsequently closed to the public for nearly fifty years.
Suggestions for Term Papers
1. As a defense attorney for one of the mutineers at a French courtmartial, how would you argue the defense of your client?
2. View episode 5 of The Great War and the Shaping of the Twentieth Century (see Suggested Sources) and write a paper explaining the significance of the mutinies.
3. Compare the mutinies in the Russian army in 1917 with those in the French army and explain why the French mutinies failed to result in political upheaval. 4. Investigate General Philippe Pétain’s policies for improving the morale of the French army after the mutinies and assess Pétain’s role in stopping the mutinies.
5. The British and the German armies also experienced problems in 1917, although not on the same scale as the French and the Russian armies. Review the situation in either the British or the German army and discuss reasons why their difficulties were not as severe as those of the French or the Russians.
6. General Pétain emerged from World War I as a great hero for the French. In the terrible defeat of 1940 in World War II, France again turned to Maréchal Pétain. Evaluate his efforts during the war in the government of Vichy France.

Research Suggestions

In addition to the boldfaced items, look under the entries for “The Battle of the Somme, 1916” (#7), “The Home Front in World War I, 1914–1918” (#9), and “The 1917 Russian Revolution” (#10).

SUGGESTED SOURCES

Primary Sources

Cru, Jean Norton. War Books: A Study in Historical Criticism. Translated by Stanley J. Pincetl. San Diego: San Diego State University Press, 1988. A good collection of French soldiers’ eyewitness accounts of the fighting on the Western Front, particularly in 1917.

Pedroncini, Guy. Les Mutineries de 1917. Paris: Presses Universitaires de France, 1967. Although this is a secondary account, the author includes extensive quotes from heretofore sealed French archives. He also includes a helpful set of maps showing the outbreaks of the mutinies.

Spears, Edward. Two Men Who Saved France: Pétain and de Gaulle.New York: Stein and Day, 1966. In 1926 General Pétain gave Spears his recollections of the mutinies. These have been translated and are printed here as “A Crisis of Morale in the French Nation at War by General Pétain.”

Secondary Sources

Atkin, Nicholas. Pétain. London: Longman, 1997. A reliable biography with helpful bibliographical leads.
The Great War and the Shaping of the Twentieth Century. [videorecording] A KCET/BBC co-production in association with the Imperial War Museum. Distributed by PBS Video, 1996. Excellent contemporary footage of the Verdun sector together with insightful comments by British, American, and French historians.

Keegan, John. The First World War. New York: Alfred L. Knopf, 1999. A comprehensive and well written account of World War I.

Smith, Leonard V. Between Mutiny and Obedience: The Case of the French Fifth Infantry Division During World War I. Princeton: Princeton University Press, 1994. The most authoritative English language account, incorporating Pedroncini’s arguments as well as the author’s important research from the French Army Archives.

Szaluta, Jacques. “Marshall Pétain and the French Army Mutiny of 1917: A Study in Military Leadership and Political Personality.” Third Republic/Troisième République 6 (1978): 181–210. A good overview of the mutinies stressing Pétain’s calming influence in the summer of 1917.

Watt, Richard. Dare Call It Treason. New York: Simon and Schuster, 1963. A well-written though dated account that could not incorporate the research of Guy Pedroncini’s Les Mutineries de 1917 (1967).

World Wide Web

“The Second Battle of the Marne River.” http://perso.club-internet.fr/batmarn2. Good links to other sites.

“World War I: Trenches on the Web.” http.//www.worldwar1.com. Battlefield maps are one of the strengths of this site, and there are good photographs of the trenches.