Military Quotes

songtsen said:

No wonder French armies had so many mutinies in history.

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Sigh...

Well, I'm off...

It's the internet. It makes you stupid. Lay off it.

No ,
Nivelle was discarded to some post ,
Magin was later recalled to lead offensive in late 1918
Foch was glorified and his name given to streets and avenue

the mutineers were purely defensive , the soldiers held the line but refused the orders to attack ,
a few were shot ,
the rest were slowly quietened down by the introduction of furlough
improvement in their food and living conditions which went from atrocious to merely bad
there was also an unofficial ban on those local pointless attacks whose whole purpose was getting some general a medal


the subject remained taboo for fifty years ,

also I think general officers made it a point to visit the front more often. lots of rear echelon leadership part of the problem, I think.


not to drift topic but has there ever been a similar 'strike' by non-French military?

IIRC the RN had a similar episode. some of the mutineers were hanged but most of the reforms were implemented.

US military in WWII obsessed wi keeping GI Joe happy. home front politics had a lot to do with this.

Cant find the name of the author now, and its not exactly a military quote although it was prompted it seems by the author (a british diplomat) observing the behavior of Frederick and remarking (at a time when Borneo was difficult to reach and considered not a very nice place)

I'd rather be a monkey in the Island of Borneo than a Prussian Minister

sailorsam said:

not to drift topic but has there ever been a similar 'strike' by non-French military?

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Russia in WW1 seems like the prima facia example. Plenty of Roman examples too I believe.

Bismarck's answer in to the effectiveness of the British Army intervening in Denmark: "If Lord Palmerston sends the British army to Germany, I shall have the police arrest them."

sailorsam said:

not to drift topic but has there ever been a similar 'strike' by non-French military?

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There hadn't really been an army of enfranchised, free citizens like the French in WWI before.

Really, what was at stake with the 1917 mutinies was that the troops decided that they were first and foremost citizens of France, thus had rights as human beings, thus had a right to directly confront the military chain of command. It ran headlong counter straight into most things the French army, as interpreted by the senior command, thought the French army way.

Which was why the French command tasked with dealing with the citizen-soldiery having seriously discovered their citizen side — after all 40% of all French men ended up in the army in WWI — ABSOLUTELY flat out refused to even begin to countenance the enormity of the position of the troops. They bent over backwards to explain the whole basis of these actions by the troops as a matter of "Bolshevik agitators" "stirring the men up".

The French officers class was largely made of ex-nobles ferociously anti republic
they were reactionary to a man
they resented being under the civilian control and claimed that they and they alone were the guardians of France "glory"

they were bastards

sparky said:

The French officers class was largely made of ex-nobles ferociously anti republic
they were reactionary to a man
they resented being under the civilian control and claimed that they and they alone were the guardians of France "glory"

they were bastards

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There were also refugees from French republicanism triumphant.

Curiously the French army officer corps was more or less the last refuge for non-conformists and dissenters. Which was why it became the hold-out for all manner of devout Catholics, monarchists etc. It also helped that the French officer corps was grown very large, because the French conscript army was very large.

There were pre-war government campaigns – republican – to try to sniff-out the dissenters and promote good republicans. The officer corps resisted on the grounds that personal views should be left alone and merit govern promotion.

Philippe Pétain's answer, when interviewed in the hope he would consent to rat out his fellow officers re who was Catholic, is a case in point. He was asked precisely which devout Catholic fellow officers he know attended mass? Pétain answered: "I don't know. I always kneel right up by the altar and so I don't see who else is there." Of course, there is zero indication Pétain attended mass.(During the war he occasionally had to be located in the apartment of one of his mistresses in times of crisis rather.) Apparently he just found the idea of grassing on his fellow officers odious.

Politics always lurked very near the surface, one way or another, when the French army was concerned.