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**Micawber** · 07-02-2012, 18:52

I'm still hacking my way through Chris 'Leftie' Harman's People's History of the World' and have now reached WW1.

He talks about growing disillusionment with the war among soldiers and the 1917 mutinies among the French and Italian armies.

He then goes on to state flat out, in 1917, '....and five days of bloody rebellion by up to 100,000 soldiers in the British base camp at Etaples, near Boulogne. The British Generals ended the rebellion by making concessions and then executed its leaders, keeping the whole affair secret'.

I'm aware there was a bit of monocled mutineering going on but 'bloody rebellion' '100k soldiers'?

What was all that about then? Is he right about what happened, or wildly innaccurate?

**cloudbuster** · 07-02-2012, 19:00

............rebellion by up to 100,000 soldiers...........

does leave considerable scope for license. The camp population may well have been around that figure, but he provides no evidence to support the contention that they unanimously decided to go on the lash together.

**wm1965** · 07-02-2012, 19:13

This is news to me.

His source appears to be a communist/anarchist website article published in 2006 (albeit with citations):
1917: The Etaples mutiny | libcom.org

The HAC came the the resuce and crushed the uprising, although no mention of 100,000 men.

**detmold_padbrat** · 07-02-2012, 19:20

My tuppence worth.... the first world war is now at the same stage as the Old West was in the sixties... ie just going out of living memory.... thus, it is a golden age of fables, before it, too receedes and becomes "book" history (like the civil war, or medieval England) rather than "I knew a bloke who told me" history.

we only know the past through memory, documents/media, and artifact.... and these means of knowing all have their faults.

**T24D** · 07-02-2012, 19:29

'....and five days of bloody rebellion by up to 100,000 soldiers in the British base camp at Etaples, near Boulogne. The British Generals ended the rebellion by making concessions and then executed its leaders, keeping the whole affair secret'.

Drivel

**4(T)** · 07-02-2012, 19:30

Originally Posted by Micawber

I'm still hacking my way through Chris 'Leftie' Harman's People's History of the World' and have now reached WW1.

He talks about growing disillusionment with the war among soldiers and the 1917 mutinies among the French and Italian armies.

He then goes on to state flat out, in 1917, '....and five days of bloody rebellion by up to 100,000 soldiers in the British base camp at Etaples, near Boulogne. The British Generals ended the rebellion by making concessions and then executed its leaders, keeping the whole affair secret'.

I'm aware there was a bit of monocled mutineering going on but 'bloody rebellion' '100k soldiers'?

What was all that about then? Is he right about what happened, or wildly innaccurate?

Sounds like good old leftie myth-making.

The Etaples Mutiny is well-documented - the basic facts are there on Wikipedia.

However many men were at Etaples, only about 1,000 joined the mob, of which just a few were the ring-leaders.

A crucial point Chris Harman seems to deliberately not mention is that the French/Italian mutinies were to do with refusing to fight the enemy, whilst the Etaples mutiny was simply over local grievances to do with discipline and the training regime at Etaples. There was no great tide of pacifism and/or Bolshevism amongst the British public or armies during WW1 and its immediate aftermath, despite the fond imaginings of the Left's propagandists...

**Micawber** · 07-02-2012, 19:38

It's all news to me as well, though a lot of things are these days.

The book was published in 1999, so pre dates that website, but it looks like he's rounded up the Etaples soldiers disgruntlement with conditions with the striking labour units, and shooting of same, in Boulogne at roughly the same
Time to make it a bloody few days.

Still over-egging it a bit if you ask me.

The book is a great read which I thoroughly recommend, but oooh he does hate the British establishment and in some parts that gets in the way of his history telling.

**wm1965** · 07-02-2012, 19:43

Alternatively, how did they keep 100,000 quiet?

**FORMER_FYRDMAN** · 07-02-2012, 19:51

Originally Posted by wm1965

Alternatively, how did they keep 100,000 quiet?

Because there wasn't a lot to talk about and the blokes that formed the superb fighting force that was the British Army (plus excellent Commonwealth forces) in 1918 probably thought the 1,000 were all cnuts and deserved everything they got. We were much more grounded in those days.