The French “No Man’s Land Punishment”

[PhilB]

I came across this term in a review of A Very Long Engagement”. It’s described as a device for punishing those who tried to avoid front line service. How did it work? Thanks in advance for enlightening me!

[charlie962]

An old thread here mentions the subject

[PhilB]

Hmm.. the facts seem to be elusive! What exactly does "spending time in no man`s land" mean?

[David Filsell]

It means you're in the sh1t big time.

[phil andrade]

The thing seems to have entered the folklore.

 

Four years ago a remarkable play was staged at a theatre in North London,  It was called PATRIOTIC TRAITORS, and was a story about the relationship between Petain and De Gaulle.  Tom Conti payed Petain and Laurence Fox - he of the anti woke outburst recently- De Gaulle.  Much of the play featured the Great War.  There was a scene dealing with the way Petain dealt with the mutinies of 1917. He was depicted as being a mixture of compassion and ruthlessness : the latter being apparent in his conspiratorial decision to have a significant number of the diehard ringleaders deployed in a perilous place in No Man’s Land where, it was to be ensured, they were to come to a sticky end.

 

I remember this play with clarity : it was compelling, and I saw it on 20 February 2016.  There is a little bar in the theatre where the actors mingle with the audience, and I seized the chance to approach Tom Conti and tell him how much we enjoyed the production, and wasted no time telling him that the following day was going to be the centennial of the start of the Battle of Verdun, an event which featured significantly in the play.  He was impressed, and, I think, genuinely grateful for my revelation !

 

This legend about the fatal dispatch of French soldiers into No Man’s Land is mentioned in AJP Taylor’s engaging  but polemic history The First World War which was published in the early 1960s, and was dedicated by him to Joan Littlewood, in support of her play Oh , it’s a Lovely War !  He goes further and describes the Frenchmen being deliberately  massacred by their own artillery...shades of Paths of Glory.  So we have it on screen, twice, with that and Very Long Engagement, on stage with Patriotic Traitors, and in print by Alan Taylor.

 

Phil

[phil andrade]

More than half a century ago, in one of the wisest things that I ever did in my adolescence, I put my mind and what money I had to collecting the magazine series Purnell's History of the Twentieth Century.

 

Every edition had a section at the back called "20th-Century Scrapbook" which consisted of an array of vignettes and anecdotes to follow on from the more scholarly research that constituted the main articles.

 

Let me write out what I've just found on my shelves : this is from the scrapbook section for one of the magazines covering the first months of the Great War.  Note the striking resemblance to the theme of Kubrick's Paths of Glory …..

 

Sixteen privates and four corporals of the French 336th Infantry Regiment were court-martialled for  disobeying orders and for cowardice on 16th March 1915. They were part of a company that had refused to attack the German trenches in Perthes- les - Hurlus in Champagne. On the face of it there was not much to be said in their defence.

 

But a good lawyer would certainly have made something of the conditions under which the men were fighting and the state of mind of their commanding officer. For days the troops had engaged in suicidal attacks on the enemy machine-gun positions without gaining any ground or inflicting serious losses on the defenders. The stalemate infuriated General Reveilhac , who ordered another assault when it was clear to any observer that the exhausted poilus would be lucky to survive for more than a few seconds in no man's land. When the advance was signalled the 21st Company remained huddled in their trenches.

 

General Reveilhac knew immediately how to deal with such a flagrant breach of military law. He telephoned his divisional artillery commander and ordered him to fire on the mutineers.  The officer refused to act unless the general was prepared to send him written and signed orders. Reveilhac had no time for details and instead of relying on the artillery he instructed the officer in charge of the 21st Company to send four corporals and sixteen men out into no man's land to cut the barbed wire in front of the enemy trenches.

 

It was an impossible order made more ludicrous by the fact that in broad daylight every movement was visible to the German gunners. The unlucky twenty who were selected for the mission flattened themselves on the ground as soon as they were over the parapets.  They could move no farther and when it was dark they fell back into the trenches. Many of them were wounded.

 

But Reveilhac had not finished with his rebellious company.  The men had not cut the wire or allowed themselves to be killed.  They had to be punished to teach others to obey the rules of war.  Court-martial proceedings were indecently hurried , and it was only at the last moment that the privates were let off on the grounds that they had  " not heard any orders to advance."  The corporals were found guilty and condemned to death.

 

Less than twenty-four hours later Maupas, Girard, Lefoulen, and Lechat were shot. The firing squad was naturally reluctant to carry out the sentence, and when they had finished their part in the business two of the victims were still alive.  An officer completed the job with two rounds of ammunition.  Seconds later a message arrived from General Reveilhac.  He had had second thoughts.  The execution was to be postponed.

 

How much authenticity and how much hyperbole do we have here ?

 

My pedantic mind notes the word farther instead of further , which suggests American influence in what was supposedly a British publication.

 

editing : apologies to. AJP Taylor... he cited Henri Barbusse ‘s claim that 250 French soldiers were pounded to death by French artillery in the aftermath of the mutiny.

 

Phil

Edited 26 January , 2020 by phil andrade

[charlie962]

Paths of Glory was based on a 1935 novel of the same name by Humphrey Cobb. In turn based on a merging of true events.

 

The French wiki article seems more useful than the English version?

 

Contexte historique

"Les Sentiers de la gloire" s'inspire de plusieurs faits réels. Pendant la Première Guerre mondiale, environ 2 500 soldats français ont été condamnés à mort par les conseils de guerre, dont un peu plus de 600 furent réellement fusillés « pour l'exemple » par l'armée pour des motifs divers (abandon de poste, mutilations volontaires, refus d'obéissance…), les autres ayant vu leur peine commuée en travaux forcés.

 

Le réalisateur Stanley Kubrick s'appuie principalement sur l'affaire des caporaux de Souain où le général Réveilhac aurait fait tirer sur l'un de ses propres régiments (le 336e régiment d'infanterie) dont les hommes refusaient de sortir des tranchées lors d'un assaut suicidaire contre une colline occupée par les Allemands, avant de faire exécuter quatre caporaux le 17 mars 1915. Ces soldats (trois originaires de la Manche : Théophile Maupas, Louis Lefoulon, Louis Girard ; et un d'Ille-et-Vilaine : Lucien Lechat) seront réhabilités en 1934 grâce à l'action de la femme de Théophile Maupas, l'institutrice Blanche Maupas. Un monument est d'ailleurs toujours visible à Sartilly (Manche) commémorant leur réhabilitation, ainsi qu'à Suippes (Marne). Au début de la guerre de 1914-1918, la justice militaire était devenue une justice d'exception depuis des décrets d'août et septembre 1914 : le sursis, le recours en révision, les circonstances atténuantes et le droit de grâce étaient supprimés.
 

L'épisode du soldat sur une civière qu'on ranime pour le fusiller s'inspire lui d'un autre cas, celui du sous-lieutenant Jean-Julien-Marius Chapelant exécuté le 11 octobre 1914 après une parodie de procès. Gravement blessé aux jambes depuis plusieurs jours, incapable de tenir debout, épuisé moralement et physiquement, le sous-lieutenant Chapelant avait alors été ficelé sur son brancard et celui-ci posé le long d'un arbre pour qu'on pût le fusiller. Inhumé au bois des Loges dans une fosse commune, seul son nom figure au cimetière d'Ampuis où il est né. Sa tombe (vide) a été honorée par l'Union des Mutilés et Anciens Combattants qui y ont apposé une plaque de marbre portant l'inscription : « Les anciens combattants à leur frère d'armes Jean Julien Marius Chapelant, martyr des cours martiales ». Jean Julien Marius Chapelant a été « déclaré » et reconnu « mort pour la France » par le ministre délégué aux anciens combattants Kader Arif le 31 octobre 2012 et ce geste a été officialisé à l’occasion des cérémonies du Jour du Souvenir (11 novembre) de la même année2.

Analyse

De prime abord, Les Sentiers de la gloire est un film antimilitariste qui dénonce les comportements de la haute hiérarchie militaire, ainsi que l'animalisation des soldats, considérés comme de simples pions et dont l'état autant physique que psychologique est exécrable. Le film met par ailleurs en évidence la résistance désespérée d'un homme, le colonel Dax.

À la différence du film de guerre classique, l'affrontement n'est pas entre deux camps ennemis mais entre les officiers généraux et les soldats d'un même camp, les uns jouant leur promotion, les autres leur vie. D'ailleurs, on ne voit pas d'Allemands, car le film dénonce en partie la guerre mais surtout la relation entre haut gradés et soldats.

Ce thème sera repris dans les films Les Hommes contre (1970), Un long dimanche de fiançailles (2004), Joyeux Noël (2005) ou bien encore dans le téléfilm Le Pantalon (1997). Le film britannique Pour l'exemple (1964) traite du même sujet dans l'armée britannique.

 

 

Charlie

 

 

 

[PhilB]

I struggled there with my GCE French   Mais, merci!

[charlie962]

Deepl struggles a bit but:

 

Historical Context

"Paths to Glory" is based on several real facts. During the First World War, about 2,500 French soldiers were sentenced to death by the war councils, of which a little over 600 were actually shot "for example" by the army for various reasons (abandonment of post, voluntary mutilation, refusal to obey...), the others having had their sentences commuted to forced labour.

 

The director Stanley Kubrick relies mainly on the affair of the Souain corporals, in which General Réveilhac allegedly had one of his own regiments (the 336th infantry regiment) fired on, whose men refused to leave the trenches during a suicidal assault on a German-occupied hill, before having four corporals executed on 17 March 1915. These soldiers (three from La Manche: Théophile Maupas, Louis Lefoulon, Louis Girard; and one from Ille-et-Vilaine: Lucien Lechat) were rehabilitated in 1934 thanks to the action of Théophile Maupas' wife, the schoolteacher Blanche Maupas. A monument is still visible in Sartilly (Manche) commemorating their rehabilitation, as well as in Suippes (Marne). At the beginning of the 1914-1918 war, military justice had become exceptional justice since the decrees of August and September 1914: the reprieve, appeal for review, extenuating circumstances and the right of pardon were abolished.
 

The episode of the soldier on a stretcher being revived to shoot him was inspired by another case, that of Second Lieutenant Jean-Julien-Marius Chapelant, who was executed on 11 October 1914 after a mock trial. Seriously wounded in the legs for several days, unable to stand, morally and physically exhausted, Second Lieutenant Chapelant was then tied to his stretcher, which was placed along a tree so that he could be shot. Buried in the woods of the Lodges in a mass grave, only his name appears in the Ampuis cemetery where he was born. His grave (empty) was honoured by the Union of the Mutilated and Veterans who placed a marble plaque on it bearing the inscription: "The veterans to their brother-in-arms Jean Julien Marius Chapelant, martyr of the courts martial". Jean Julien Marius Chapelant was "declared" and recognized as "dead for France" by Minister Delegate for Veterans Affairs Kader Arif on October 31, 2012, and this gesture was made official on the occasion of the Remembrance Day ceremonies (November 11) of the same year2.

Analysis

At first glance, Paths to Glory is an anti-militaristic film that denounces the behaviour of the high military hierarchy, as well as the animalisation of soldiers, considered as mere pawns and whose physical and psychological state is as much atrocious. The film also highlights the desperate resistance of one man, Colonel Dax.

Unlike the classic war film, the confrontation is not between two enemy camps but between general officers and soldiers of the same camp, some playing for their promotion, others for their lives. Moreover, we don't see any Germans, because the film partly denounces the war but mainly the relationship between high-ranking officers and soldiers.

This theme will be taken up again in the films Men Against (1970), A Long Engagement Sunday (2004), Merry Christmas (2005) or even in the TV film The Pants (1997). The British film Pour l'exemple (1964) deals with the same subject in the British army.

Translated with www.DeepL.com/Translator (free version)

[PhilB]

Prior to this thread, I had the impression that the No Man`s Land Punishment was an extreme form of jankers or Field Punishment - a part of the French disciplinary system. I`m coming to the conclusion now that it probably didn`t exist as such and may refer to some poilus who were shelled by their own artillery, possibly by design. Or maybe a punishment by being given attacking orders which amounted to a death sentence?

[BIFFO]

in the English Civil War,if you had disgraced your unit-regiment I think only for officers,you were sent out on the front line ,with every  chance you would be killed,being a forlorn hope,if you died at least your name would not be"blackened" if you were lucky enough to live your slate would be wiped clean,

in fact when I "fought"in the sealed knot,I along with others awarded the forlorn hope,difference being we ran a beer tent at Windsor 77 

[PhilB]

Wasn’t the forlorn hope the first wave into the breach of a fortress?

[BIFFO]

Yes as in the "Steel backs"attacking at Talavera,but could also be used if man dishonoured his regiment,he would be in the first wave of anything,in the hope he would sort himself out one way or another?

Edited 27 January , 2020 by BIFFO