The French Army Mutinies of 1917

In late May and early June of 1917, the French army faced what could have been an existential crisis. After three years of some of the most brutal conflict that the world had ever seen, many soldiers had had enough. Thousands of troops refused to obey orders and refused to go along with the suicidal attacks that were the hallmark of trench warfare. In response, the French turned to one of their greatest heroes to solve the problem. Learn more about the French army mutinies of 1917.

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Listen to Medal of Honor wherever you get your podcast. By May 1917, France was feeling the full toll of the First World War. Estimates are that by May, France had lost a million men out of a total population of 20 million men over the previous three years. And that includes everyone from infants to the elderly. The French had suffered appalling casualties during offenses such as Verdun and the Battle of the Somme, and morale was deteriorating. It wasn't just that there were heavy casualties.

It was that so many of the casualties came from what were ultimately futile offensive operations. Men were ordered to climb out of their trenches where a hail of machine gun bullets awaited them. France certainly wasn't alone in taking massive casualties. However, in May of 1917, several things were all coming to a head at the same time.

The immediate trigger for the mutinies was the catastrophic failure of General Robert Nivelle's spring offensive in April of 1917. Nivelle promised a decisive breakthrough against the German lines on the Chem-de-Dame Ridge. Nivelle assured political and military leaders that his meticulously prepared assault, supported by massive artillery bombardments, would collapse German defenses within 48 hours at minimal cost.

However, the attack began under unfavorable conditions, including incomplete surprise and well-fortified German positions. It quickly stalled, resulting in devastating French casualties. Roughly 120,000 men in the first few days, while failing to achieve its strategic goals. This betray of trust was crucial. Soldiers could endure hardship if they believed it served a purpose, but Nivelle's offensive shattered their faith that their leaders had any viable plan for victory.

Other things were happening that April as well. On April 6, the United States formally entered the war by declaring war in Germany. Many of the frontline French troops were excited by the news that they might be getting some help. fresh units from America that hadn't suffered from three years of war. However, many of the French troops assumed that this meant the Americans would be arriving in a matter of days.

They didn't realize that the United States didn't even have much of a standing army at the time, and that it would take months to recruit, train, and transport all of those soldiers to the Western Front. And there was one other thing as well. In February of 1917, the Russian Revolution overthrew the Tsar. News of the revolution spread rapidly across Europe, reaching French troops and offering a powerful example of how soldiers and workers could force change by challenging authority.

This created anxiety among French commanders, who feared that revolutionary sentiments might take hold in their own ranks as exhaustion and dissatisfaction with leadership already ran deep. While most French soldiers were not seeking a political uprising like what happened in Russia,

The revolutionary fervor in Russia heightened their senses that they had the power to protest. It also contributed to the leadership's response to the munis. The first signs of rebellion appeared in late April, but the crisis exploded in May of 1917.

These weren't chaotic, undisciplined riots. The mutinies were surprisingly organized in focus, revealing the soldiers' underlying military discipline even in the midst of rebellion. The pattern was remarkably consistent across different units. Soldiers would refuse orders to attack, but they continued to defend their positions against German assaults. They weren't abandoning France or helping the enemy. They were essentially going on strike against what they saw as suicidal offensive operations.

Repeated across dozens of French divisions, when ordered to move up to the front for another attack, entire units would simply refuse to march. Officers found themselves powerless as hundreds of men sat down and declared that they would fight defensively, but would no longer participate in futile offenses. Within a few weeks, the problem had become enormous for the French army.

Mutinies affected 68 divisions out of France's total of 110. And this wasn't a localized problem. It was a collapse of military authority that threatened France's ability to continue the war.

The mutineers' demands revealed much about their state of mind and the conditions that drove them into rebellion. Their grievances fell into several categories. First was military concerns. Soldiers demanded an end to poorly planned offenses that wasted lives without achieving meaningful objectives. They wanted competent leadership and realistic military strategies.

The soldiers in the trenches knew what the generals were unable to grasp, that the strategy of heavy artillery bombardment followed by an infantry rush over the trenches simply didn't work. The second concern was living conditions. The men demanded better food, improved medical care, and more regular leave to see their families. After three years of war, basic human needs were starting to be ignored. And the third was fair treatment.

Soldiers protested harsh discipline, inadequate rest periods, and the vast gulf between officer privileges and enlisted men's hardships. It's instructive to note what they didn't demand. They weren't calling for France to surrender or make peace with Germany. They weren't demanding a political revolution or the overthrow of the government. This was a military rebellion focused on military issues. And I should also note that the mutinies were not violent. They didn't attack their officers.

They just refused to move or attack. For example, on June 5th, 1917, when the soldiers of the 74th Regiment were ordered to return to the front, 300 of them adopted a resolution refusing to go back to the trenches. Instead of outright rebellion, they simply marched to a nearby village and staged a sit-down protest on the road. Similarly, when the 1st and 2nd battalions of the 18th Infantry Regiment were told to head back to the front, despite having been previously assured of generous leave,

They declined to comply. However, they made it clear they had no personal animosity towards their commander, even cheering, long live the colonel, as they disobeyed the order. The response of the French government was crucial to resolving the crisis.

General Philippe Petain replaced Neville as commander-in-chief, and his approach was markedly different from his predecessor. But before I get into the specifics of his response, I should note that Philippe Petain has appeared in several different episodes of this podcast.

Most importantly, he was the titular head of Vichy France during the German occupation in World War II. However, at this point in the story, he's still a hero of France. So if you ever wanted an example from history that provides proof of what Harvey Dent said in The Dark Knight,

that either you die a hero or you live long enough to see yourself become a villain, it would have to be Philippe Batin. Batin understood that the army's problems required both punishment and reform. In other words, carrot and stick. On one hand, from a military discipline standpoint, he couldn't just ignore the fact that thousands of troops were disobeying orders. On June 8th, there were mass arrests. He court-martialed over 3,400 soldiers, with 554 receiving death sentences.

although only 26 had the death sentence carried out. This demonstrated that the mutiny had consequences, however the number of arrests and sentences were tiny compared to the number of men and units that had refused to follow orders. On the other hand, Bataan implemented sweeping reforms that addressed the soldiers' legitimate grievances.

He improved food quality and quantity, established more regular leave schedules, upgraded medical facilities, and most crucially, adopted a defensive strategy that avoided costly offensive until American reinforcements could tip the balance. Many of the reforms were undertaken explicitly to avoid a revolutionary spiral like the one that occurred in Russia. And just as a side note to this,

Believe it or not, there were a small number of Russian troops who were stationed in France during the war. The Russian expeditionary force in France was sent to France at the request of the French government at the start of the conflict. There were a bit under 9,000 Russian troops stationed on the Western Front. On April 16, 1917, the Russian forces elected their own Soviet to represent them and replace their officers.

It actually took them until April to even find out about the February Revolution. After this, fearing that Russian soldiers might start a revolution that could spread to France, any Russian who didn't express loyalty to the Russian provisional government was relocated from the front lines to central France.

The Russian soldiers who expressed a loyalty to the revolution eventually mutinied and were surrounded and attacked by loyalist Russians on September 14th, killing nine and wounding 49. The mutineer Russians were then arrested and sent to penal camps in North Africa.

By the end of June 1917, the mutinies had largely subsided. Patin's reforms and promises of improved conditions gradually restored morale and discipline. The French army became more cautious and major offensive operations were paused until mid-1918.

The mutinies had a profound impact on French strategy for the remainder of the war. In addition to adopting a more defensive posture until the Americans arrived, politically the crisis led to a heightened sense of accountability in both military and civilian leadership.

To fully appreciate the significance of these mutinies, consider what else was happening in 1917. The Russian army was collapsing entirely, leading to the Russian Revolution and their exit from the war. The Italian army would suffer catastrophic defeats at Caporetto later that year.

and Germany was implementing unrestricted submarine warfare, hoping to starve Britain into submission. France's ability to resolve this military crisis while maintaining the war effort was crucial to the Allied cause. The mutinies could have ended France's participation in the entire war, which would likely have resulted in a German victory. At the time, however, almost nobody knew this was happening.

The French government suppressed news of the mutiny so the Germans couldn't take advantage of them and to prevent it from harming French morale on the home front. In fact, the reason why so few people are aware of these incidents is that the French covered up what had happened for decades afterwards. It wasn't until 1967, 50 years after the mutiny, that the records were unsealed.

It was then that historian Guy Pedrosini published his book, The Mutineers of 1917. Although the mutinies of 1917 were largely kept quiet, they had a profound impact on the French army and the strategy for the remainder of the war. The crisis revealed the importance of maintaining the connection between military leadership and the soldiers they command. Generals who treated their men as expendable resources discovered that those resources could refuse to be expended.

Perhaps most significantly, the mutiny showed that patriotism and military rebellion weren't necessarily contradictory. The French soldiers weren't abandoning their country. They were demanding that their sacrifice be meaningful rather than wasteful. The 1917 French Army mutinies represent a fascinating case study in the limits of military authority, the psychology of soldiers under extreme stress, and the delicate balance between discipline and morale that determines an army's effectiveness.

And they remind us that behind the grand strategies and political decisions of war lie individual human beings whose endurance, while remarkable, is not unlimited. The executive producer of Everything Everywhere Daily is Charles Daniel. The associate producers are Austin Oakton and Cameron Kiefer. I want to thank everyone who supports the show over on Patreon. Your support helps make this podcast possible.

I'd also like to thank all the members of the Everything Everywhere community who are active on the Facebook group and the Discord server. If you'd like to join in the discussion, there are links to both in the show notes. And as always, if you leave a review or send me a boostagram, you too can have it right on the show.