International Encyclopedia of Military History

(Note: Sample material is taken from uncorrected proofs. Changes may be made prior to publication.)

MUTINY, the forceful defiance of authority or the deliberate attack upon the immediate leadership of a military unit, occurred throughout history and undoubtedly influenced the organizations and institutions of armed forces to the present day. Mutiny does not normally include the rebellion of military forces in a coup d'etat, rebellion or revolt, such as the actions of a Roman praetorian guard to install a new emperor, or the revolt of certain elements of the Spanish army against the II Republic in 1936. However, in the latter case, which precipitated the Spanish Civil War, the rising of the crews of Spanish ships against their officers, who intended to support the army revolt, was a mutiny, and a particularly violent one. The absence of force by the unit in question, such as in a strike or a refusal to follow the military schedule, but in other ways obeying their superiors, may not be construed as a mutiny, owing to the lack of violence or threat of the same.

Mutinies occur when the subordinates in a unit lose confidence in the ability of their superior officers to satisfy their grievances, order legal actions, avoid the unnecessary risk or sacrifice of their lives, or when the leaders otherwise present a hazard to their condition or well-being. Thus soldiers and sailors often mutinied in past epochs over the lack of pay, or the proper provisioning of food and shelter. In face of danger, the sensing in the unit that they were better off without their leaders than with them also produced mutinies, frequently including the killing or incapacitating of the leaders. The hazards of operating ships at sea, and the isolation of their small crews in pre-modern days from contact with the rest of the world made mutiny a real and present danger to the captain and his few officers. Thus, navies invoked supreme disciplinary powers to a captain at sea, and provided masters at arms and marines as ships' police to guard against crew risings. The famous American novel, The Caine Mutiny, places these circumstances in a more modern setting. The resort to murder of a unit's leaders by their troops may indicate unusual dissatisfaction with their use of discipline, or the fear that their aggressiveness in combat might place them in undue risk. The incidence of "fraggings" and other suspicious deaths in the Vietnam War and other conflicts has indicated other mutinous activities.

Military organizations and institutions responded to mutiny or its latent threat by requiring positive leadership and responsibility from its commissioned officers and by better enforcement of lawful regulations regarding the handling of subordinates, especially by the non-commissioned officers, the sergeants, who could frequently cause or avert outbreaks of indiscipline. Mutinies were more common in the premodern era when pay and support of troops was irregular, as in the case of Spanish units serving in the Netherlands in the late sixteenth century. The refinement of military administration served to correct problems of pay and provisions, provided greater comforts in garrison and on board ships as technology and social cohesion improved. In fact, the technical challenges of modern weaponry, ships and aircraft forced a wholesale change in the manner by which persons were recruited, trained and indoctrinated for military service. No longer could a ship be crewed by landlubbers seized ashore by ships' press gangs and forced to labor as seamen under iron discipline and the enforcement of marines and masters at arms. The seaman in the age of steam and steel had become an artificer, carefully recruited and trained for skilled tasks for which he was paid, led and cared for in a way uncommon to the age of sail.

Mutinies typically have tragic immediate results, but at times have inspired reforms. The Somers Incident in the U.S. Navy contributed to the founding of its Naval Academy in 1846 as an alternative to at-sea apprenticeship for the training of midshipmen. The U.S. Navy race riots on board four different ships in the mid-1970s shook the naval leadership out of its backward and lethargic approach to social problems in the service. The French Army Mutiny of 1917 brought the senseless offensive tactics of that service to a halt. The German Navy Mutiny of 1918 halted a suicidal sortie of the High Seas Fleet and presaged the end of the increasingly moribund II Reich. More often, however, they have proven futile and even monumentally ill-timed. The Royal Navy mutinies at Nore and Spithead (1797) and at Invergordon (1931) brought some reforms but invited doubts about the loyalty of the sailors. Spain saw a tradition of garrison pronunciamientos evolve by the 19th century that included officers as ringleaders and frequently broached political as well as military grievances. The Kronstadt Mutiny (1921) opposing the Bolsheviks was crushed in a bloody manner, as was the precursor Potemkin Mutiny (1905) which resulted in no reform of the Tsarist navy. The Sepoy Mutiny (1857) began as a garrison rising, but evolved into a political revolution, with dire results for the soldiers and native Indians as well.

During the modern era mutinies were most common during World War I, especially 1917-19. In addition to the aforementioned German Navy mutiny, the Russian army mutinied (February 1917) and the French (May-June 1917); Italian troops feigned collapse at Caporetto (November 1917) as did British troops in March 1918. World War I mutinies frequently saw politicization by the radical left, which organized soldiers and sailors "soviets" on the Bolshevik model to fan the flames of revolution.

Modern management, communications and leadership practices and the power of the modern state have brought a halt to the occurrence of mutiny in all but the most backward nations. This is one reason perhaps why air forces have mutinied so little, as they are more creations of the post-industrial era than armies and navies in their respective heydays. The fact that no stalemate developed during World War II like in the previous war also contributed to the lack of mutinies.

Kenneth W. Estes

See also Caporetto; Fragging; Russian Revolution Western Fronts.

Bibliography

Dugan, James. The Great Mutiny. London, 1965.

Ereir, Alan. The Invergordon Mutiny. London, 1981.

Gill, Conrad. The Naval Mutinies of 1797. Manchester, 1913.

Guttridge. Leonard F. Mutiny: A History of Naval Insurrection. Annapolis, 1992.

Fullerer Edmund. Mutiny! Being Accounts of Insurrections, Famous and Infamous, on Land and Sea, from the Days of the Caesars to Modern Times. New York, 1953.

Hibbert, Christopher. The Great Mutiny: India, 1857. Harmondsworth, England, 1978.

James, Lawrence. Mutiny in the British and Commonwealth forces, 1797-1956. London, 1987.)

Weatt, Richard. Dare Call it Treason. London, 1964.