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Remembered Today:

Official Decimation of French Unit by Execution


PhilB

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I haven`t seen reference on forum to French executions. Do they have known graves? In particular, are these men commemorated? Anyone know how they were chosen? Smacks of the film Paths of Glory.

France.

It is reported that some 600 French soldiers were put to death. It is not widely known but the French Decimation ( the shooting of every tenth person in a unit ) of the 10e Compagnie of 8 Battalion of the Regiment Mixte de Tirailleurs Algeriens. During the retreat at the beginning of WW1 these French-African soldiers refused an order to attack. They were shot on the 15t. of December 1914, near Zillebeeke in Flanders.

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In the early twenties, the French government " rehabilitated" those soldiers known to have been executed. I have not got access to the docs at the moment but essentially they were pardoned. I believe, excluding those executed for crimes like looting. There were ceremonies involving the families etc. The sentences were anulled and so on. This did throw up a problem which still lingers. Especially in the early days, soldiers were shot more or less out of hand with little or no process of law. The majority of these were, of course, not recorded. There is no exact figure for them and they cannot all be identified. Needless to say they were buried in unmarked graves if at all. It is not obvious how any exact data could be gathered on these men. At the height of the mutinies in 1917, there is anecdotal evidence that men were again shot out of hand. Those sentenced by Petain were done so in courts martial and are recorded but again, the on the spot shootings are hard to get hard data on. The numbers are nothing like the amount spoken of in The Battles of the Frontiers in 1914. The book which throws most light on this is by Pedroncini but is only available in French. Another is by R.M. Watt, " Dare call it treason". Both concentrate on 191`7 but cover other years as well, especially Pedroncini.

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Thanks, Tom. The following is from a Wikipedia page about the film Paths of Glory:-

"The movie was based on a 1935 novel by Humphrey Cobb, a novel that was a minor success at the time. A film adaptation was never made until 1957 when Stanley Kubrick decided to adapt it to the screen, after he remembered reading the book in his childhood. Kubrick and his partners purchased the film rights from Cobb's widow for $10,000.

The novel was about the French execution of innocent men to frighten others in their resolve to fight. The French Army did certainly carry out military executions for cowardice as did all the other major participants. However the central plank of the film is the practice of selecting individuals at random and executing them as a punishment for the sins of the whole group. This is similar to Decimation, and while it was employed by the Romans, it was rarely used by the French Army in World War I. Little known is the French decimation (the shooting of every tenth person in a unit) of the 10e Compagnie of 8 Battalion of the Régiment Mixte de Tirailleurs Algériens."

This does give the impression that the French occasionally, on occasions other than that of the Algerians, shot men chosen at random from poorly performing units. Is there any evidence for this?

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Next sunday-evening, there is a documentary film, called ' Mutinies in the French Army ' on the dutch TV (NL 2, 21.10 hr dutch time).

A very related subject. I wonder if it will give an answer to the above question.

Gilbert Deraedt

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Sardinian Brigade by Emilio Lusso is one of the best WW1 books, it is based on fact but is not an historical account. He states it happened in the Italian Army.

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Not all have been pardoned.

Those who were executed were mainly buried in war cemeteries but did not have the right to have 'mort pour la France' on their grave markers, just 'décédé.'

See this piece which appeared in a French newspaper in June

http://www.liberation.fr/actualite/societe/264402.FR.php

Last paragraph refers to a 'decimation' case, more of which in English here:

http://www.webmatters.net/france/ww1_soissons_vingre.htm

cheers Martin B

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Hello,

I have just been reading 'Pyrrhic Victory – French Strategy and Operations in the Great War by R.A.Doughty. The book is fully cross referenced to the official French Great War records. A fascinating read! My note on the French mutiny following Nivelle's Chemin des Dames offensive is below:

Apr 16 – May 15 26 incidents of collective indiscipline*

May 16 – May 31 46 incidents

June 1 – 6 more violent incidents

To end June fewer incidents

• Refusal to enter trenches, above all to attack, probable causes exhaustion and dissatisfaction with conduct of war

3,427 soldiers tried by CM were selected from the units involved, 554 sentenced to death, 55 executed (some 600 during whole war)

My rather rusty French seem to indicate that there is a move in France to have those sentences reviewed.

Old Tom

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... there is a move in France to have those sentences reviewed ...

Old Tom

I do think that there was a pardon under Jospin and under Chirac.

Gilbert Deraedt

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The French High command were extremely secretive about the 1917 mutinies. At first, this was to stop the Germans from finding out how bad it was and later, because the whole thing, Chemin des Dames and mutinies, reflected badly on the Franch Army and its leadership. One of the steps taken was to never use the word mutiny. All sorts of circumlocutions were employed. Acts of collective disobedience being one which was used at the time and in later references. Guy Pedroncini was the first outsider to be given access to the archives dealing with that period and, with a few reservations, was allowed to publish a book on it. Haig was in on the secret, but he was informed verbally and sworn to secrecy. Nothing was written down. He does not even mention it in his diary entries. It is quite ironic in a way, that Nivelle's plans of attack were spoken of openly weeks before they happened and yet when it concerned their amour propre, the French High command were able to keep the mutinies a closely guarded secret for months and factual details were not divulged for several decades with another war in between. The Paths of Glory movie is based on strong allegations that a French General turned his artillery on his own men when they refused to leave the trench for one more futile attack. Of course, like summary executions these things are not going to be documented except in a third person anecdotal manner. In a private diary or something like that. Plenty of that sort of thing exists if you read French. The French had as a doctrine, that the only thing that mattered was will to victory. That morale could, literally, overcome any deficiencies in numbers or material. So bad was the wastage due to this madness in the early months of the war, that Joffre had to make several communications to his field commanders telling them to temper that idea with realism. Incidentally, prewar, the main protagonist of this idea was Foch when he was an instructor at the Military Academy.

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