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General Pétain's Order Number 9 reporting the success of the French soldiers on April 9, 1916, in holding the line against the attacking Germans. © 2015 John M. Shea
A French officer charging into battle in a watercolor by Fernand Rigouts. The original watercolor on deckle-edged watercolor paper is signed F. R. 1917, and addressed to Mademoiselle Henriette Dangon.
Watercolor of Royal Navy motor launch ML148, by LHS, 1918. The motor launch was a small vessel designed for harbor defense and anti-submarine work. The Elco company built 580 between 1915 and 1918 in three series of different lengths: 1 to 50 (75 ft.), 51 to 550 (86 ft.), and 551 to 580 (80 ft.). The original armament of a 13 pound cannon was later replaced by three depth charges. Signed: L.H.S. 18
Western Front: Aisne & Oise. French folding postcard map of the Aisne and Oise, number 3 from the series Les Cartes du Front. The map includes the Champagne front from Compiègne in the west to Chalons-sur-Marne in the east including Soissons, Chemin des Dammes, Laon, Reims, and Château Thierry.
A woman munitions worker carrying a shell apparently drops another one on the foot of a frightened man who clearly does not realize, as she does, that they are not in danger. No doubt his foot hurt.
"On May 30 [1917], just before the period of the most extreme incidents, Pétain's staff offered an explanation of the causes of the mutinies. After acknowledging that 'indiscipline in the army comes from a variety of sources of which the relative importance cannot be ascertained,' the report broke the causes down into two categories: 'those which come from the conditions on the front, [and] those which are the result of external influences on this life.' Among the causes associated with life on the front were weakness of the military justice system, inadequate number of leaves, lack of rest between battles, and drunkenness. Among the external causes were pacifist propaganda, unfavorable orientation of the press, and ideas about peace stemming from the Russian revolution." ((1), more)
"They judged it prudent to separate the three battalions of the 296th Regiment from one another, and they billeted us fairly far apart. Our battalion was quartered in barracks four kilometers from Sainte-Menehould. It was only when we got there that we learned that the other battalions were elsewhere.The next day [May 31], at 7 p.m., they assembled us for departure to the trenches. Noisy demonstrations resulted: cries, songs, shouts, whistling; of course, the 'Internationale' was heard. I truly believe that, if the officers had made one provocative gesture, said one word against the uproar, they would have been massacred without pity, so great was the agitation." ((2), more)
"The French and Italians had by far the preponderance in capital ships, but the real action in the Mediterranean by this date was the antisubmarine war, and here the balance had quietly swung decisively toward the British. In May 1917 the total of patrol vessels of all sorts in the Mediterranean, from destroyers to sloops, from trawlers to small torpedo boats, was: British, 429; French, 302; Italian, 119; and Japanese, 8. The British had really learned that the Mediterranean was too important to be left to the French. British interests, whether they were shipping or overseas expeditions, were extensive, and they could not rely on others who, with the best will in the world, were apt to lack the resources to do the job. The British were forced to assume the leading part in the antisubmarine war." ((3), more)
"One of the largest of these mutinies took place on June 2 [1917] outside Cœuvres, a modest town about eight miles southeast of Soissons and situated on the edge of the Forest of Vollers-Cotterêts. . . .On June 2 the 310th received orders to leave Cœuvres and march to Bucy-le-Long, a town northwest of Soissons. The troops knew what this meant—a return to the trenches. They would not go. Colonel Dussange, the regimental commander, reported later, 'About three in the afternoon, one company refused to pack its gear. No acts of violence occurred, just a determined obstinacy. Immediately another company mutinied. The regiment refused to listen to me.'Pushing past their protesting colonel, the troops made their way into the woods on the south of the town. It was useless for Dussange to attempt to block the road. 'The troops passed right by me on either side, without insults or pushing. Some of them saluted me.' The colonel reported that his men 'intended to march on Paris. Other regiments were waiting for them in the Forest of Compiègne.'" ((4), more)
"The strikes of the trade unions had also become an increasing problem to the harassed government. The day before, Poincaré himself witnessed a strike demonstration by several thousand women armament workers. In a mob they marched down the Champs Élysée, turned off on the Avenue Alexandre III and demonstrated outside the Élysée Palace. 'Their clamors rose up for more than two hours,' he wrote in his diary. . . . Vastly more important than strikes, pacifism or the growing agitation by the left-wing political parties, however, was the menace of the mutinies. The night before, the government had received a report from Colonel Herbillon, its military-liaison officer, that fresh mutinies were breaking out in the XXIst Corps—'the troops refuse to go into the trenches.'" ((5), more)
(1) After the failure of French commander in chief Robert Nivelle's 1917 spring offensive — the Second Battle of the Aisne, begun on April 16 — an offensive that Nivelle had asserted would provide the breakthrough of the German line that would lead to victory, mutinous incidents broke out in the French army, particularly among the troops that had suffered the highest rates of casualties in the offensive. The mutinies were of greater or lesser severity, beginning in April, with the most serious incidents in May and June. Nivelle, whom soldiers and politicians had both lost faith in, was replaced by General Henri Phillippe Pétain. The Russian Revolution of March provided a model for some soldiers.
Pyrrhic Victory; French Strategy and Operations in the Great War by Robert A. Doughty, page 362, copyright © 2005 by the President and Fellows of Harvard College, publisher: Harvard University Press, publication date: 2005
(2) Excerpt from the notebooks of French Infantry Corporal Louis Barthas of the 296th Regiment. After the failure of French commander in chief Robert Nivelle's 1917 spring offensive — the Second Battle of the Aisne, begun on April 16 — an offensive that Nivelle had asserted would provide the breakthrough of the German line that would lead to victory, mutinous incidents broke out in the French army, particularly among the troops that had suffered the highest rates of casualties in the offensive. The mutinies were of greater or lesser severity, beginning in April, with the most serious incidents in May and June. Some soldiers took the Russian Revolution as their model. Barthas was asked on May 30 to take the lead role in a soviet that would assume command of his company. He declined, but wrote a manifesto on behalf of the company protesting the delay in leaves after Nivelle's disaster. The 'Internationale' is a Socialist anthem from the late nineteenth century.
Poilu: The World War I Notebooks of Corporal Louis Barthas, Barrelmaker, 1914-1918 by Louis Barthas, page 328, copyright © 2014 by Yale University, publisher: Yale University Press, publication date: 2014
(3) Pre-war planning had called for France to move its fleet to the Mediterranean Sea to protect shipping while Great Britain protected France's Atlantic coast. After Italy entered the war in 1915, France, Britain, and Italy struggled to coordinate coverage of the Mediterranean. Britain's empire required maintaining passage through the Suez Canal to transport oil from Persia, and to support the war effort in Palestine and Mesopotamia.
A Naval History of World War I by Paul G. Halpern, pp. 392–393, copyright © 1994 by the United States Naval Institute, publisher: UCL Press, publication date: 1994
(4) After the failure of French commander in chief Robert Nivelle's 1917 spring offensive — the Second Battle of the Aisne, begun on April 16 — an offensive that Nivelle had asserted would provide the breakthrough of the German line that would lead to victory, mutinous incidents broke out in the French army, particularly among the troops that had suffered the highest rates of casualties in the offensive. The mutinies were of greater or lesser severity, beginning in April, with increasingly disruptive incidents in May, and the most violent and serious in the first weeks of June. The Russian Revolution of March provided a model for some soldiers including those in the 310th who established their own camp and elected their own leaders.
Dare Call it Treason by Richard M. Watt, pp. 202, 203, copyright © 1963 by Richard M. Watt, publisher: Simon and Schuster, publication date: 1963
(5) After the failure of French commander in chief Robert Nivelle's 1917 spring offensive — the Second Battle of the Aisne — mutinous incidents broke out in the French army beginning in April. As the mutinies worsened in May, as many as 100,000 workers also went on strike. The strikes continued into June, and the most violent and serious of the mutinies occurred in the first weeks of the month. Women workers struck for the 'semaine anglaise,' an English work week, one that ended at noon on Saturday. The French were becoming sick of the war, of the government's refusal to consider a peace other than victory, of soldiers being denied leave, of soldiers being thrown into barbed wire and machine gun fire. Raymond Poincaré was President of France throughout the war; the Élysée Palace is the official residence of the nation's president.
Dare Call it Treason by Richard M. Watt, page 201, copyright © 1963 by Richard M. Watt, publisher: Simon and Schuster, publication date: 1963
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