Mutiny at Etaples
Julian Putkowski
The incidents which led to a third British soldier being executed for mutiny occurred almost a year after the Blargies affair. The man, Corporal Robart Jesse Short, 24 Northumberland Fusiliers, was shot for his part in disturbances, which developed at Etaples Base in 1917.
The mutiny, which led to his execution, was initially sketched out by Gill and Dallas, who drew on the Base Commandant's war diary and correspondence with some of those involved in the affair.
Written over two decades ago, their appreciation requires revision though it remains more reliable than the subsequent account by Allison and Fairley. The latter's central claim, that Private Percy Toplis, the "Monocled Mutineer" was the ringleader of the Etaples mutiny might now be dismissed as a journalistic fantasy.
Papers released by the Director of Public Prosecutions confirm Percy Toplis's war service took him overseas, but nowhere near Etaples Base.
The disturbances which are generally referred to as the Etaples mutiny extended over a week and involved thousands of soldiers and began with the arrest of Gunner A.J. Healy, a New Zealander from No.27 Infantry Base Depot.
He and others by- passed the police picquet’s that patrolled the bridges that gave access to a small fishing village, which was out of bounds to troops. His son recalled:
"It was the practice for those who wished to visit the township to walk across the estuary or river mouth at low tide, do their thing and return accordingly. However in my father's case the tide came in, in the interval and to avoid being charged as a deserter, he returned across the bridge and was apprehended as a deserter and was apprehended by the 'Red Caps' and placed in an adjoining cell or lock up. When news of this action reached the NZ garrison, the troops left in a mass and proceeded to the lock up."
Soldiers, probably waiting for the next performance at the nearby camp cinema, also witnessed the incident and "some feeling was shown against the Police". When those inside the cinema left the afternoon performance, the crowd around the Police Hut swelled until at 5.30 pm, a New Zealander who had demanded the release of Gunner Healy, was allowed to inspect the cells in order to verify that the artilleryman had been released.
Simultaneously, the restive crowd threw stones and attempts were made to rush the building. One of the Camp Police, Private Harry Reeve, wrenched a pistol from a soldier and fired at least a couple of rounds over the heads of the crowd before the weapon was snatched away. One shot hit a soldier who was standing on the fringe of the 3-4000 strong crowd. A head wound fatally injured Corporal W.B. Wood, 4 Gordon Highlanders, and a second bullet injured a French woman standing in the Rue de Huguet, Etaples. Thereafter, the police simply fled.
The immediate response of the regular camp staff was to try and persuade the crowd to disperse and round up a mass of men who, taking advantage of absence of the police, had crossed the bridge into Etaples. Thus, at 6.15 pm, the Camp Adjutant, Captain V.C. Guinness witnessed a Staff Captain vainly haranguing the angry mass of soldiers from the parapet of the bridge.
Colonel F.J. Nason, Officer Commanding Reinforcements called out a 50-strong picquet of new Zealand troops, armed with rifles and bayonets but without ammunition. Second Lieutenant Randolph Gray commanded them. He found the huge crowd milling around the Police Hut was "fairly quiet" but around a thousand men had gathered around the Sevigne Cafe in Etaples town:
"The Maoris were making things pretty hot. We found several hundred with a big sprinkling of Scotties clamouring outside a building in which they thought the policemen had sought shelter. Some twenty English officers were guarding the door, and were being badly hustled. A Colonel was trying in a wildly excited manner to calm the mob. I pushed my way in with the intention of telling him I could help with the Maoris. He must have been blind with excitement because he raised his stick to strike me. A big Husky Maori rushed in and grabbed him, and bawled at him "You... hit a New Zealand officer, I... will kill you!" This brought the Colonel to his senses a bit, and he told me to do what I could with our men. Liquor had inflamed them, and as you know, the Maori is an ugly customer when he gets a few in. But they have great respect for their officers, and when the Scotties moved away after the Colonel promised them full justice, our fellows followed. Two redcaps who very foolishly showed themselves were badly hustled, but the excitement soon cooled down."
In the camp three further picquets were deployed, totalling around 220 officers and men from IBD Nos. 18, 19 and 25. Officers were recalled to their depots and a trio from each depot were sent to persuade the crowd at Three Arch Bridge to disperse. Not only did they fail to achieve their objective but men continued to swarm into the village.
Lieutenant Charles Miller, assisting a more senior officer, was ordered to take charge of a picket of fifty men guarding the Iron Bridge, recalled:
"The only bright spot about it was that we did not carry ammunition. When we arrived at the bridge soldiers were passing across it in twos and threes so we threw the picket across and stopped further passage for a short time. But it didn't last for long - the mutineers (if one can call them so) were perfectly good tempered about it, but they meant to go into Etaples and have a drink, so they merely assembled a body several times our strength, and then charged us roaring with laughter in a compact mass like a Rugby scrum. The picket was brushed aside, many of us rolling down the embankment and Thomas Atkins went off to his drink. They did that several times till all who wanted to go into Etaples had found their way there. The heroic picket then guarded an empty bridge till midnight and then marched back."
Miss M.I. Leard, the APM's WAAC Driver recalled the scene outside the Women's Hostel:
"A large number of men collected around our camp later on in the evening and made a great deal of noise and threatened to raid it if we did not come out! During this time all of us, about five hundred altogether, were locked in the recreation hut with instructions to sing hymns, which we did with our tongues in our cheeks, but with just a little sprinkling of fear in our hearts. The WAAC officer and the Red Cross nurse attached to the camp went out and spoke to the men who eventually dispersed, after which we were allowed to stop singing and go to bed."
By 9.00 pm the town was reported clear and half an hour later the camp was quiet.
Aside from the bloodshed and ill-discipline, this disturbance was potentially very serious. It threatened to disrupt the routine functioning of the biggest and arguably the most important troop transit base in Northern France. Its huts and tents, aside from regular camp staff, could accommodate over 12000 reinforcements.
The training camp areas at the northern extremity of the Base, collectively known by the generic term "Bullring", staffed by reputedly sadistic instructors ("Canaries") provided weapons training and punitive "toughening up" programme for recently drafted reinforcements and men returning from convalescence or leave. The six hospitals treated thousands of sick and wounded men who survived the slaughter at the front. Hundreds of thousands of men passed through the camp, some arriving and departing by road but most via the strategically vital railway that traversed the length of western side of the camp.
The threat such disruption posed to an important nodal point on the BEF's lines of communication would also have threatened the supply reinforcements scheduled to participate in battle of Menin Road.
In itself this was enough to prompt the arrival on 10 September of Lieutenant General Asser, the General Officer Commanding Lines of Communication and two staff officers. He ordered a Board of Enquiry to establish what had caused the outbreak, visited Etaples and ordered Major Henderson, the Officer Commanding No. 25 Infantry Base Depot to take charge of the town and impose control over exits from the Base.
A further picquet of two officers and 100 other ranks, from the Lewis Gun School at nearby Le Touquet, were ordered to patrol Paris Plage, where there was a seaside promenade and beach. Officers, who were billeted separately from the depots they commanded, were ordered to remain in their depots from 5.30 pm-10.00 pm.
These preparations anticipated that the men in the camp, incensed over the killing of Wood, would again attempt to break out of the Base in the direction of the town and possibly go on to Paris Plage.
At 4 pm crowds of soldiers broke through Major Henderson's picquets and were reported to have held noisy meetings in the town and were intending to resume their hunt for the police. There being no police in the town at 6.30 pm, a body of 200-300 men began to move northwards, away from the town and towards the Detention Camp where it was suspected their quarry might be located.
They were intercepted en route by the Brigadier A. Graham Thomson, the Etaple Base commandant; Major G.D. White, Deputy Assistant Quartermaster General; Captain E.F. Strachan, Assistant Provost Marshal and Major J. Dugdale, the APM, Lines of |Communication (who had arrived with Lieutenant General Asser).
They appear to have been unaccompanied by any escort and the composition of the party ensured that all the key BEF administrative and disciplinary branches were represented.
They witnessed Thomson address the crowd and persuade the men to return to their quarters. He successfully repeated the exercise with a crowd of 1,000 men who had gathered at Brick Bridge and they also dispersed. Thomson was also successful around 8 p.m., when he persuaded a smaller group of around 100 men who were trying to break into the Field Punishment that there were no Camp Police hidden there.
The final incident of the day involved Major Cruickshank, Rail Transport Officer, witnessing a crowd of 100 soldiers who were intent on breaking into Etaples Town Station in their hunt to find policemen. However, they were also persuaded to abandon their efforts and return to camp.
During the afternoon and evening a few cars had been damaged but the angry crowds of soldiers displayed no hostility towards the officers and the camp was quiet after 9 pm.
On the morning of 11 September, Henderson convened a meeting with the officers commanding the Infantry Base Depots, where the reinforcements were quartered. The agenda has not been recorded but Brigadier General William Horwood, the Provost Marshal, who had arrived at Etaples with Colonel Wroughton and Major Dugdale, was strongly urged to provide additional forces. The Adjutant General, GHQ agreed to provide 700-800 soldiers to quell the unrest but refused to authorise the use of cavalry.
Given that there were literally tens of thousands of troops in the camp, the reason for Thomson's request was not because the disruptions was supported by all the men at Etaples Base but evidently because he felt that picquets composed of men from the IBD’s were ineffectual. This opinion was expressed in his report of events that occurred in the late afternoon:
"About 4 p.m. men again broke through the picquets on the bridge, went through ETAPLES, broke through the picquet on the River CANCHE Bridge, and went on to PARIS PLAGE. None of the picquets made any determined effort to prevent these men. This mob of about 100 men were seen near PARIS PLAGE about 5.30 p.m. by Major Cruickshank, R.T.O., who spoke to them and brought them back to camp. En route they were joined by other men, and reached the camp some 300 strong, where they dispersed quietly. In the meantime the Lewis Gun School had turned out a picquet for PARIS PLAGE, but in view of Major Cruickshank's action the picquet was not required."
Thomson's criticism of the picquets was also echoed during the trial for mutiny of one of five men arrested later that night, Corporal Jesse Robart Short. Captain E.F. Wilkinson 1/8 West Yorkshires, who had been commanding a picquet made up of men from his own regiment, Canadians and Manchester’s on the most northerly of the bridges over the River Canche. He recalled:
"The picket was armed as regards 150 & the remainder were unarmed. At about 9.10 pm a lot of men, about 70 or 80 with notice boards torn away from the camps and waving flags which were handkerchiefs of all colours including red attached to sticks approached me. These men pushed through, the picket practically standing on one side... officers who stood out were also pushed aside. The picquet was absolutely unreliable at that moment so I called the officers together & made them fall their men in by Regts. I then addressed the picket & whilst doing so ...[Short]... came back from the crowd of men who had just broken through & told the men they were not to listen to men. 'What you want to do to the Bugger is to put a stone round his neck & throw him into the river'... he told the men to fall out & join the mob who had just broken through."
A few minutes later Wilkinson managed to arrest Short and by 10 p.m. the town and camps were quiet.
Aside from the vandalism inferred by Wilkinson and some attempts to damage motor vehicles, no other material damage was reported. However, one man was run over and injured when he allegedly lay in front of a moving car and others had been bruised in what Lieutenant Miller referred to as a, "Pretty nasty rough house".
However, it might have been worse had the picquet been issued with ammunition for their firearms. Miller recalled:
"The third night I was aghast to hear that the picket was to take ball ammunition. The officer commanding the picket then asked for an interview with the Colonel commanding the base depot, and suggested that he (the Colonel) should address the picket, in order to be sure that there was not a tendency on the part of the men to sympathise with the mutineers.
The way the moth-eaten old fool did it was to parade us, and then order any man 'who did not wish to take part in picket duty on the bridge' to step forward. After a little hesitation two men stepped forward and when the old man furiously demanded their reasons, it merely appeared that they had taken him quite literally, so they were put under arrest... Fortunately at the very last moment the order to take ball ammunition was cancelled."
On 12 September a more resolute effort was mounted to contain the disorderly troops. All reinforcements, when not undergoing training, were confined to camp. General Asser arrived to witness the reorganisation and reinforcement of the counterforce and prepared, yet again, to try to break the pattern of unrest. Captain Longridge, APM arrived and replaced Captain Strachan, APM Etaples, who departed for GHQ Troops. Lieutenant Colonel Cooper of the Honourable Artillery Company (HAC) replaced Major Henderson, whose picquets had failed to contain the disorder. However, three hours before 366 men from the latter's battalion arrived by road from Montreuil, a thousand soldiers broke out of Etaples Base. The Base Commandant recording that the event occurred at about 3 pm, complained, "Picquets once more failing to stop them."
The soldiers forced their way past the ineffectual picquets, and marched to Paris Plage before returning back to their camps. An anonymous officer later recalled the technique used by the men to breach the armed cordon:
"The men picked for this duty grumbled quietly as we distributed ball ammunition, for these was much sympathy with the mutineers, though these now consisted of the riff-raff of the camp... The guard for the bridge that carried the main road to Le Touquet was put under the command of a major. The other guard, a small one for the railway bridge over the river was put under... a young officer from the Border Regiment. With bayonets fixed the two guards were marched off... The bridge over the railway was unguarded, so Etaples was open to those who ignored the order that all leave was stopped, and a number of men had left the camp. When this crowd of rioters... had pushed through Etaples they reached the main road bridge in impetuous mood and swept along towards the guard.
The major ordered his men into two ranks, with the front rank kneeling, with rifles loaded and bayonets at the ready and then walked out to remonstrate with the mob. The ringleaders pressed on arguing with him and pushing him back till the men had to put up their bayonets to avoid wounding him. The rioters pushed aside their rifles and went through the guard."
This foray was embarrassing for Thomson because it came soon after he had assured the French authorities that the disturbances would immediately cease. Though the men had committed no damage who had been engaged in the foray to Paris Plage and only few cars were reported to have been "interfered with", the company-strength picquets were unequal to the task of halting the forays.
During the following twenty-four hours a massive counterforce was assembled and officers from General Headquarters personally supervised the annihilation of the disturbances.
Asser again reappeared on the scene during the morning and ordered Captain Longridge to take over APM responsibilities from Strachan. All guards and picquets were placed under the command of Major Dugdale and all ammunition in the camps was collected and sent to Ordnance.
Dugdale had to cope with two breakouts. The first, at some unspecified time in the afternoon, involved about 100 troops getting into Etaples. The second occurred in the evening, after a party of 200 troops were blocked as they tried to force their way across Three Arch Bridge. Thwarted by a determined picquet of HAC wielding entrenching tool handles that injured two reputed "ringleaders", the men found an alternative route into the town.
On 14 September the authorities mustered a massive counterforce. It was made up of 2,000 infantry, including the 1 Royal Welsh Fusiliers and 22 Manchester’s, supplemented by 120 Military Foot Police and three intelligence personnel.
The Military Police took over guard and picqueting duties from the Etaples force, who were transferred to other stations. A company of the HAC controlled the streets of the town and a company of the Royal Welsh Fusiliers mounted guard at the Detention Camp. In reserve were another company of the HAC and 22 Manchester’s. The 9 Cavalry Brigade were alerted but the situation did not require the use of mounted picquets.
The three remaining companies of 1 Royal Welsh Fusiliers, including Pte. W.R. Thomas, were "stood to" from 5.00 pm onwards. Thomas's personal diary records:
"We were detailed off to hold each corner of the training ground... Lewis gun teams and riflemen were mounted in strategic points around the parade ground and as the troops in transit came up from their various hutments around about the usual time in the morning 7.30 to 8.30 they were lectured to by the various NCOs and or Warrant Officers in charge, i.e. instructors, the yellow band instructors in the big Infantry Base Camp and they were told in no uncertain terms what would happen to them if there was any more funny business.
We heard the W/O tell their sections that if they did not behave the line troops surrounding the base would fire on them when commanded to do so. This [sic] seem to cool everybody down and although we were there for four days nothing untoward happened after this."
The Base Commandant's war diary recorded a final, abortive act of defiance by the men stationed at his Base, "50-60 men broke out of camp, but were arrested in Etaples."
When General Asser visited Etaples the following day, it was all over. The men of the counterforce relaxed and went swimming while others patrolled the town which troops from the camp were free to visit. The pattern of unrest had been broken and the counterforce remained on hand for a further two days in case of any further trouble. There was none.
This summary of the events that dislocated Etaples Base for a week is not as dramatic as the eyewitness account of events by Sir Philip Christison or the lurid testimony of Allison and Fairley.
However, it generally tallies with Gill and Dallas seminal account and affirms that the mutiny was neither the work of a group of conspirators nor a charismatic ringleader.
Yet it is possible to identify soldiers whom the army held to be ringleaders and derive further information about the mutineers from the relevant entries in the JAG registers. Though some later cases may have been delayed, possibly while injured defendants recovered, it is reasonable to assume that all men apprehended during the disturbances were tried within a week, i.e. by 22 September.
Of the grand total of 53, 37 were British infantrymen, of whom 18 served with Scots and two with Irish battalions. Of the colonial troops, most of whom were also infantrymen, 10 were Canadians, one was an Australian machine-gunner and one was a New Zealander. The remaining four soldiers were from units without particular geographical affiliations and may well have been attached to the Etaples Base staff.
Analysed by division, they embraced half of BEF, with the largest number (5) drawn from all brigades of 15 Division, four from 9 Division and three from 35 Division. By this stage in the war, men's battalions were not always a secure guide to ethnicity but the high proportion of men from Scots units is understandable, given that Corporal Wood was Gordon Highlander. The extent to which conscripts may have participated in the disturbances cannot be confirmed from either war diaries or JAG records.
Many men were charged with several offences, the most common of which was breaking camp (19), followed by drunkenness (11); conduct to the prejudice of good order (9); disobedience (6); desertion or absence (5); threatening behaviour/striking a superior (3); resisting arrest/escaping confinement (4) and a handful of other offences.
Only four men, Pte’s. MacIntosh (Scottish Rifles); Pte J.F. Davies (8 Australian Machine Gun Company) and Trooper G.H. Flint (Canadian Light Horse) including Short, were charged with mutiny and sentenced to ten years' penal servitude. The sentences passed on the remainder involved ten soldiers being jailed for up to a year's imprisonment with hard labour; 33 were sentenced to between seven and ninety days' Field Punishment (mostly No.1) and a few were either fined or demoted.
As a guide to the gravity with which the authorities viewed the affair, the courts-martial verdicts need to be interpreted with care. For example, Pte. Carl Oson, a Canadian arrested and tried at the same time and by the same court-martial as Short, pleaded guilty to breaking out of camp and being drunk. His offence was described thus:
"[Oson] came out of a house near the [River] bridge. He entered into an argument with some of the picquet and the officer in charge of the picquet noticed him and found him to be drunk."
Whereas Short was executed for similar behaviour, Oson was punished with 6 months' imprisonment with hard labour. Nevertheless, the week's disturbances may not be dismissed as a fitful drunken brawl.
The initial confrontation between the Camp Police and the New Zealanders was sparked off by Healy's arrest. The New Zealanders did not feature in any trouble after the Monday evening. In fact Lieutenant Gray's diary makes it clear that three days after Woods' death, the New Zealanders were annoyed because they were confined to camp due to continued disturbances by other reinforcements. Nothing, according to Gray, would induce the New Zealanders to participate further.
References in numerous accounts to Australian soldiers taking part in these disturbances are simply wrong. The Australians were moved from Etaples to Le Havre in May 1917 and their IBD was occupied by Canadian troops. The staff of the Canadian IBD took no appreciable part in breaching the picquet lines and actually drafted men to block forays from the camp. However, Canadian troops were involved in breaching the picquet lines, as the courts-martial registers confirm.
Later accounts, giving prominence to the role played by rebellious Scottish troops in hounding the Camp Police may be accounted for by Wood's regimental affiliation. However, by 11 September, the avenging hunters' zeal seems to have waned after they failed to discover any victims.
The breaching of picquet lines thereafter seems to have been prompted by reinforcements' boredom and a search for recreation after the day's parades and training had ended. There is otherwise no plausible way of reconciling the absence of major confrontations occurring until the afternoon and explains why the tired soldiery returned to camp every night.
In fact soldiers continued to attend evening parades and few were inclined to desert. From rolls called on the evening of 13 September, it was calculated that only 23 soldiers were absent from parade.
Nor was the violence either universal or indiscriminate. No confrontations were reported anywhere other than around Etaples or the southwestern side of the base. Skirmishes developed principally where picquets tried to prevent the free movement of men out of the camp, i.e. at the bridges that gave access to Etaples or the northerly river Canche Bridge to Paris Plage.
When the pickets judiciously allowed soldiers to pass through the cordon there was no fighting. At most a tacit understanding appears to have matured between picquets and the roving bands but nothing that could be regarded as active solidarity. For example, none of the picquets were reported to have defected and joined the forays to Paris Plage.
However, had the Camp Police not been removed to Le Touquet and replaced by Provost Staff, there is little doubt they would have been battered or possibly killed by vengeful Scots troops. Nor was the Base Commandant's bland insistence that hostility was directed solely against the Camp Police wholly correct.
For example, Captain Guinness remembered stones being hurled at officers who worked at Colonel Nason's office as they made their way back to their billets on 9 September. As for the detested Canaries, whose brutal treatment of men in the Bullring features in many soldiers' accounts, there is nothing to suggest that reinforcements did anything other than carry on with their training routine throughout the week.
Who else was there who could be physically assaulted? The women in the camp? Not according to Driver Leard. Perhaps civilians? Except for the woman wounded by Reeve, nobody else was injured, though French officials were clearly concerned that the disruption should cease.
As for material damage, there is nothing in the very full records of the Royal Engineers to suggest that any large-scale damage was caused to camp buildings. Stories about burning down or otherwise destroying the Police Hut at Three Arch Bridge are thereby wholly unverified.
Damage to motor vehicles was mostly minor and may be accounted for as attempts to hijack vehicles for joyriding purposes. Damage to civilian property, particularly the Sevigne Cafe, may have generated claims for compensation from their owners but there are otherwise absolutely no references to attacks on buildings in the town or nearby Paris Plage.
In spite of rumours to the contrary, not attempt was made to interfere with trains that carried wounded men from the front. Medical transportation continued uninterrupted. More surprisingly, perhaps, given the purported radicalism of the reinforcements, not attempt was made to stop drafts from the IBD’s entraining for the front.
But what of the great discrepancies in eyewitness recollections? Some contemporary references insist that the disturbances were minor, trivial affairs. Numerous others depict bloody mayhem and slaughter. They may partially be reconciled by simply acknowledging that eyewitness accounts were informed by where the authors were, what they saw and what they did.
Their interpretation of events, often clouded by passing years, remained coloured by contemporary rumours they heard and subsequently chose to believe.
For example, soldiers who bludgeoned their way through the picquet on Three Arch Bridge on 9 September would have recalled events in a different way to Vera Brittain, who worked as a nurse in one of the camp hospitals during the fracas.
Aside from the troops' anger at the callousness and brutality of the Etaples police and desire to escape from the joyless reinforcement camps, little more may be invested in speculating about the politics that informed the men's action at Etaples.
Even the red flags may have simply signified that their bearers had pilfered them from a railway signal hut and the bunting could have been decorative frippery from a restaurant or canteen.
By virtue of being the only soldier sentenced to death, Short may be considered to have been the leading conspirator of four men subsequently charged with mutiny. Yet on the basis of his trial he emerges as a scapegoat rather than a ringleader. A reinforcement, he defended himself on the day following his arrest, vainly apologising:
"I had a drop too much to drink and did not know what I was doing or saying. I have been in the army for eight years and been in France for twenty-two months. I am a married man with two children and I am very sorry for what I have done."
General Fowke, the Adjutant General, relayed the witnesses’ testimonies at Short’s trial, presumably reflecting the findings of an earlier court of enquiry, to the Commander in Chief. Haig noted:
"The AG reported some disturbances had occurred at Etaples due to some men of new drafts with revolutionary ideas who had produced red flags and refused to obey orders. The ringleaders have been arrested and others sent to their units at the front."
Nor was Haig's interpretation of the political element that lay behind the mutiny significantly modified after order had been restored:
"Drafts there got out of hand due to having 50,000 new drafts there without sufficient officers to control them. Some men with Republican ideas got amongst them, raised red flags, and made a disturbance. I decided to carry out training in future at Corps Schools of which we have 17 for 20 Corps. This will help to keep drafts away from dockers at the bases. These are said to be very Republican."
The link with "Republican" dockers is curious, for Etaples was a small fishing port and the nearest major docks used by the British Army were at Boulogne. Was this a connection concluded by Captain F.D.H. Joy of the Intelligence Corps in his report about the Etaples Mutiny? If so, then it goes a good way towards explaining why hapless Corporal Jesse Short's sentence was confirmed by Haig on 30 September and possibly why he was executed at Boulogne (as opposed to Etaples) on 4 October.
James Cullen, a post-war fascist, who had been a private in the Argyll and Sutherland Highlanders at Etaples, claimed a similar political association. Cullen revealed:
"I was approached by a prominent Communist agitator, who asked me what part I would take in getting the troops to mutiny. There was a small council of action set up and we set about doing everything possible to get a general rising... the councils of action, of which I was one, were giving instructions through under channels. The revolt lasted three days, at the end of which a truce was come to between the General Officer Commanding and the rebel troops. I was one who refused point blank to recognise the truce and carried on with a small band of irresponsibles. Eventually we tried to rush the guard one night, but were repulsed. I was captured and made a prisoner."
The five days of disruption at Etaples Base were no echoes of Bolshevism but Haig's scribbling and for that matter; Cullen's yarn has a common thread - a fear of socialism contaminating the rank and file.
Cullen's concoction was written a decade later and appears to have been inspired by contemporary Communist agitation in the British Army.
Haig was writing in the aftermath, successively, of the Russian February Revolution and the mutinies that fractured the French Army in 1917.
Since April, detailed reports of the disintegration of the Czarist Army had been filed from Petrograd and Haig had learned of the French Army's bloody suppression of the revolt of around 10,000 Russian troops at La Courtine barely a month before the Etaples incident.
However, what happened at Etaples Base was hardly of a similar order and less than fifty men were court-martialled for offences committed during and immediately after the disturbances. Yet even though Haig was an enthusiastic believer in executions as a prophylactic against indiscipline, his decision to confirm the sentence against Short, who had a clean disciplinary record (unlike Lewis and Braithwaite), was unprecedented.
The scale and duration of events at Etaples were greater than the mutiny at Blargies North Military prison, but both share the conventions of military collective bargaining, involving negotiation as well as confrontation.
In fact it may be maintained that the disturbances at Etaples arose from Reeve's precipitate action interrupting negotiations intended to secure Healty's release from custody. The use of firearms was much threatened but not used, other than by Reeve.
The disinclination of the mutineers (even drunken ones) to use firearms, at least prior to the withdrawal of ammunition to magazines, suggests a high degree of self-control. It also confirms that firearms were unnecessary for them to achieve their apparent objectives.
The key to the mutineers' power lay in their ability to mobilise a mass of reinforcements to capture policemen and cross bridges. The ritualistic battles on the bridges entailed little organisation and were probably undermined as much by the continuing turnover of reinforcements as by the authorities strategy of containment, involving the deployment of a large counterforce and intimidation. Thereafter, all that was needed to coerce the mutineers was a large counterforce and the threat of being shot.
The motives of the mutineers, where the may be deduced, were not shared by all the rank and file at Etaples and had news of the disturbances gained wider circulation in the BEF, there is little reason why troops in the trenches would have been moved to engage in active support for the mutineers.
The latter may have been working class brothers in arms with a shared detestation of military police and the proverbially brutal camp training instructors. However, self-preservation suggests it is most unlikely they would have supported actions that would have jeopardised the supply of reinforcements, leave trains or the evacuation and treatment of the wounded.
As far as any prospect of support at home was concerned, wartime censorship prevented news of the affair being aired further afield and only a couple of references featured in the wartime British press.
However, the impact wrought by the mutineers at Etaples was significantly greater than that achieved by the Blargies mutineers and there are grounds for maintaining that the affair did wring a measure of accommodation from the authorities.
For example, in spite of sanctioning the use of live ammunition, physical coercion and exemplary punishments, the Camp Commandant and senior staff officers had engaged in negotiations to persuade troops to return to camp on 10 September, the original camp police were replaced and on 15 September restrictions on access to Etaples were lifted.
These concessions amounted to a measure of recognition of the legitimate nature of the mutineers' grievances. It might also be argued that the mutineers' determination exposed Thomson's inability to control the situation to such an extent that a minor disturbance in October ensured his removal as commandant of Etaples base. However, his removal and the wholesale dispersal of infantry to corps training centres by 21 October were not the outcome of any demands recorded as having been made by the mutineers.
For an example of wartime collective bargaining that created a greater impact than the Etaples mutiny it is necessary to examine the turbulence created by the Egyptians and other non-Europeans of the Labour Corps.
