some of you guys may be aware of it or
may have heard of it there was a
significant mutiny in the French army
in 1917 and in a way that hasn't really
been repeated many other places in
history we don't normally see it's like
a whole movie of an army and so I
thought the background of that is
interesting and just worth discussing
for a few minutes since we're driving
and you can't get away from me what
basically happened is in 1916 the focus
of World War one for the French was
Verdun this is the battle that they
cannot afford to lose
they throw hundreds of thousands of men
into it and in fact what they do is in
order to prevent the army from
completely collapsing it they're done
they Institute a program of rotation
where units will go into the Verdun
fronts they'll fight for a brief period
and then they'll rotate out the Germans
are much closer to well frankly what
they would do in world war ii as well
where german units kind of go into
Verdun and then they just stay there
until they're all dead not quite to that
extreme but because of the french
rotational system three-quarters of the
french army fought at Verdun top you
know not constantly but of the 340
divisions in the French army 260 some
saw action at Verdun so it really was
this collective experience of the entire
army and by extension the entire nation
now at bite by the fall of 1916 the
French have have won ever done they've
recaptured the major territory those two
forts that we saw yesterday that fell to
the Germans the French recapture them by
the fall of 1917 and one of the guys
who's instrumental in that the commander
in that area is a guy named eval and so
the next thing that has to happen we've
got the you know the height of the
winter where there's not gonna be a
whole lot going on the weather does
permit much real activity but everyone
knows in the spring comes the next
offensive and and you have an
interesting political situation in
France where the government is the
government of France is elected and
they're always they are always
responsive or have to be responsive to
the population and you have a situation
where the Germans occupied France and
this is of course the fault of the
government so if you're in the
opposition party in France you have a
really easy political play it's you
should elect me because I'll kick the
Germans out which the current guys have
not been able to do note that the
Germans are still here so the French
political system has this imperative to
always be working to get the Germans out
of the country there has to be an
offensive and in the aftermath of Verdun
they're trying to figure out how do we
do this
and Nivelle the commander at Verdun the
hero of Verdun he thinks he has figured
out the way to make this happen we came
up with this formula ever done we're
gonna have creeping artillery barrage of
heavy ones small unit tactics that you
know we have the the infantry are
allowed are able to follow closely
behind this continuous artillery they're
able to assault and overwhelm small
German positions and take ground and
this works and it's the formula and he
is supremely confident that he will be
able to use this to exploit to break
through the German lines which has
always been the thing in this war once
it settles into a stalemate we have to
get through the lines and then we'll be
in open terrain and we can move fast and
push the Germans completely out so he is
a serious self-advocate he makes a very
strong case to the French government
that I've done it ever done I know how
this will happen give me control of the
army and we'll make a major offensive in
1917 and we will win once and
and the French government does it the
British government supports him because
the British Prime Minister the new
British Prime Minister Lloyd George
doesn't trust his own generals hey it's
kind of an idiot and in order to the
British Prime Minister doesn't have the
political power to kick out his general
but what he is able to do is like kind
of support the French plan instead and
bypass what Hague wants to do which will
happen later and will of course be
another horrible massacre so if al sets
his offensive it's at a place called
chemin de Dom and this is fairly widely
publicized you know that when the
Germans attacked it Verdun it was a very
secret plan this one's not quite so
secret and it's built up quite a bit in
the fridge populace in the French army
this is the final offensive we're gonna
win and they take off and the problem is
over the winter the Germans have also
learned from Verdun and they've changed
their tactics and now the Germans are
using this strategy of defense in depth
where they'll have multiple trench lines
supporting each other substantial
differences of substantially you know
fart distances apart and we actually saw
this a couple days ago where when the
Americans were taking that hill
right lumps uh-huh
they took positions on the front side of
the hill the first day and thought they
had captured the position well it turns
out the Germans had a line on the front
of the hill and then they had a more
substantial line on the back of the hill
and then they had more guys in the line
behind that well that's what the Germans
have adopted and when the French attack
at chemin de dong they put down they do
what they think is gonna be the winning
strategy it's massive artillery
bombardment on the front on the German
front line well the problem is the
Germans Gina's coming and they simply
move back to their second line and the
French artillery pounds the Jesus out of
the German front line which has zero
German ten and by the time the French
infantry get there the Germans have
and remand all the positions and it's a
horrific massacre so you know this is
one of those things where you hear about
world war one it's like they always seem
to be doing the exact same thing didn't
they ever learn well the problem is they
were both learning simultaneously and
both sides were were trying to change
and improve and so in this case the
Germans improve better than the French
do and that's why this turns into
another incident that's just as bad as
the ones that have been have come before
the bigger problem here is this isn't
1914 or 1915 people are getting really
seriously weary of this war and these
continued with horrible blood baths and
this leads to the mutinies in the French
army they look at this and they say this
is insanity we're being asked to go over
the top and march directly into German
machine-gun fire and it's just suicide
and all the you know that the more you
pipe up the the hope of this new
offensive the more of a crushing blow to
morale it's going to be when it fails
utterly and by the beginning of May 1917
well may 3rd 1917 there is the first
serious incident of mutiny but they've
been told what they call collective and
discipline and it is an entire division
that is ordered to go over-the-top and
attack and they the soldiers kind of get
together and they confer and then they
approach the their officers and they say
no we're not doing it it's stupid we're
not doing it the officer corps responds
fairly quickly they round up the leaders
they have a few of them executed they
throw a bunch of them in prison two days
later the division does in fact go over
the top and they're in fact from
slaughter
over the course of May and June of 1917
there would be a total of about 250 of
these incidents of collective
indiscipline ranging from small units to
fairly large ones but in general what's
happening is troops are willing to
defend they're not leaving the lines but
they're saying we're not going to
participate in these insane suicidal
marches into machine-gun fire we're just
not doing it now there are a few of them
that become a little more serious there
are at least one or two of smaller units
like company size units 100 200 guys who
decide to try and like grab some trucks
and raid the armory and and launch it
set up their own government's in little
areas set up little communes attack the
headquarters there's a lot less of that
the primary most of the mutiny our
troops who are simply refusing to attack
they will hold they're not fans of the
Germans but they're also not fans of
needless sacrifice and the French
overall commander recognizes he he's a
smart enough guy that he understands
kind of what's going on you recognize
that this is a serious morale problem
and and he has to actually identify with
the troops and show them that look the
High Command is not just a bunch of
aristocrats sitting in the Chateau
throwing men into German guns and this
had kind of been the set up of the
French army there was a permanent
officer corps that was in aristocratic
elite and then the French army itself is
a huge conscript force and the two
didn't really trust each other there
were good substantial social and
cultural differences between the two but
what the army does in response to these
movies they arrest a lot of guys they
execute only a few I believe those 55
men were actually executed in total out
of 35,000 who participated in one way or
another in the muties and the French
army responds so like that's the stick
that they respond with is if you don't
do what we tell you we're going to put
you in prison or execute you as an
example but they also respond with
carrots and so the generals tore the
line folks specifically they improved
the food and the rations for the French
soldiers they improve the living
conditions in the trenches throughout
the war the Germans always pretty much
have better trenches the Germans are on
the defensive so the Germans have met a
lot of their goals they're here in
France it's enemy territory and they've
captured it and all they have to do to
win is stay here and so the Germans tend
to build fairly elaborate fortifications
they plan on staying here they're gonna
be dig deep bunkers they're gonna run
electricity they're gonna have some
creature comforts for the troops who are
expected to stay here the French kind of
do the opposite the French it's not good
enough for the French to stay in their
trenches they have to move forward they
have to clear Germans out of France and
so they kind of keep this general
attitude of we're not going to be in
these trenches long don't let them
come comfortable or maybe the troops
will stay so life in the trenches sucks
everywhere it really sucks in the French
trenches and that's something that's
addressed in the aftermath in the spring
and summer of the summer of 1917 the
food gets better the living conditions
get better they Institute the program of
leave for the soldiers so they can
actually take a week at a time and go
home and visit their families and the
military legal system is somewhat
reformed they're given legitimate very
real assurances and reforms that you
want if you are charged with important
called a court-martial offense you will
actually be given a trial you'll
actually be able to prevent present your
own defense in ways that maybe hadn't
been the case before there won't be you
know just rough justice someone said
that you disobeyed an officer so you're
up against the wall Pam you're shot ya
know you'll now be able to present a
defense you'll get a fair hearing and
most importantly probably will stop
making these attacks and I think part of
that was the Americans have joined the
war as of April and we're talking May
June July here you know what maybe we
can just
I suspect the subtext was we'll let the
Americans march into the German
machine-gun and we'll go clean up after
I no I'm not aware of them actually
really saying that but I suspect it was
we're yeah yeah if I was in that
position apps that's what I'd be like
all right I've done this now it's now
it's someone else's turn that's some
fresh legs yeah and so by July the
mutinies were over like I said they're a
total of about 250 individual incidents
it scared the [ __ ] out of the French
High Command because there was no
centralized coordinated leadership of
this movement
it really was a grassroots morale
problem and it would pop up
unpredictably some units it would pop up
in a fairly mundane way some would be
fairly extreme the concern of course was
that this was going to turn into a
communist revolution like it happened or
was happening in Russia and the army
would simply completely revolt and that
never happened it is interesting that
when the Germans got wind of this first
off the Germans the French were able to
keep it under wraps well enough that the
Germans never found out in a way that
they were able to use it to their
advantage and like attack in some sector
where the French troops were mutiny when
the Germans did find out their response
was to institute like an hour a day of
patriotic lecture
patriotic training basically their
response wasn't let's take advantage of
this and attack their response was oh
[ __ ] I wonder if this is gonna happen to
us too because our Army's really not
very far from being in the same place
we've been doing all the same things
to the best of my knowledge it never did
happen in the German army but their
response was like oh let's let's put it
let's wash this before it starts