page_title: 1917 French Army mutinies
section_title: Repression
hierarchical_section_title: 1917 French Army mutinies / Repression
caption_attribution_description: Français&#160;: Cette photo a été reprise par différents médias écrits français, car il s'agit probablement de la seule photo montrant une exécution pendant la Première Guerre mondiale[1]. Elle est souvent décrite comme une exécution pour désertion effectuée en 1917, mais une raison milite contre cette date. L'habillement des soldats français sur la photographie date du début de la Première Guerre mondiale, en 1914 ou en 1915, pas plus tard[1]. À cette époque par ailleurs, les exécutions pour désertion, du côté français, étaient souvent faites devant de nombreux soldats pour démontrer ce qui leur arriverait s'ils désertaient. Sur cette photo, l'exécution est faite en groupe restreint, il est donc peu probable qu'il s'agisse d'une exécution pour désertion. Il est plus probable qu'il s'agisse de l'exécution d'un espion, ou d'un «&#160;mouchard&#160;»[1]. English: 1917 - Execution at Verdun at the time of the mutinies
context_page_description: The 1917 French Army mutinies took place amongst French Army troops on the Western Front in Northern France during World War I. They started just after the unsuccessful and costly Second Battle of the Aisne, the main action in the Nivelle Offensive in April 1917. General Robert Nivelle had promised a decisive war-ending victory over the Germans in 48 hours; the men were euphoric on entering the battle. The shock of failure soured their mood overnight.
  The mutinies and associated disruptions involved, to various degrees, nearly half of the French infantry divisions stationed on the Western Front. The term "mutiny" does not accurately describe events: soldiers remained in trenches and were willing to defend but rejected attack orders. The new commander, General Philippe Pétain, restored morale by talking to the men, promising no more suicidal attacks, providing rest for exhausted units, home leave, and moderate discipline. He held 3,400 courts martial; 554 mutineers were sentenced to death but only 26 were actually executed.
context_section_description: From 8 June, the military authorities took swift and decisive action: mass arrests were followed by mass trials. Those arrested were selected by their own officers and NCOs, with the implicit consent of the rank and file. There were 3,427 conseils de guerre (courts-martial). In 1967, research by Pedroncini found 2,878 sentences of hard labour and 629 death sentences, but only 49 executions were carried out. The relative lack of rigour in repressing the mutinies provoked adverse reactions among some of the French Army's divisional commanders.
  Pétain and French President Raymond Poincaré, on the other hand, made it their policy to mend the French Army's morale and to avoid acting in a way that could aggravate the morale.
  Activists in some Russian units in France had been spreading word of the revolution underway in Russia and encouraging other Russians and Frenchmen to join them. The rebellious First Russian Brigade was encircled by loyal Russian troops in September 1917 at Camp de La Courtine and bombarded with cannon, killing 8 men and wounding 28. That episode became the basis of widespread false rumours that the French had bombarded French units.  The troops (about 10,000 men) were demobilised and transferred into labor battalions, and the ringleaders were sent to North Africa in penal servitude.
  Along with the deterrent of military justice, Pétain offered two incentives: more regular and longer leave and an end to grand offensives "until the arrival of tanks and Americans on the front". Pétain launched only limited attacks with massed artillery against German strongholds, like Fort La Malmaison. They were taken with minimal French casualties.
  As to the mutinous soldiers, they were motivated by despair, not by politics or pacifism. They feared that infantry offensives could never prevail over the fire of machine guns and artillery. Pétain restored morale by a combination of rest periods, frequent rotations of the front-line units and regular home furloughs.
caption: Possible execution at Verdun at the time of the mutinies in 1917. The original French text accompanying the photograph notes, however, that the uniforms are those of 1914/15 and that the execution may be that of a spy at the beginning of the war.