Sat 15th Oct, 2016 2:30
pm to 5:30 pm
Ringleaders and Reds
in Khaki - British Army mutinies during the First World War
Julian
Putkowsk is a college lecturer, broadcaster and writer with an established interest in military discipline and dissent in the British Army. With Julian Sykes he co-authored Shot at Dawn(1989); he actively supported the ensuing campaign to secure exoneration for soldiers executed by the British Army and the Blair government’s response in both Murderous Tommies (2011), co-authored with Mark Dunning and Three Uneasy Pieces (2014). Julian’s research about rebels in khaki was reflected in British Army Mutineers 1914-1922 (1998) and his views about military ‘collective bargaining’ can be accessed online here.
Drawing on forty years research, this talk
will air and invite debate about the social interpretation, political
significance and leadership of the mutinous outbreaks that convulsed the
British Army during the First World War.
"British Military historians and assorted
flag-wavers celebrate the enthusiastic rush to the colours; the ensuing blood
sacrifice of British Tommies, White Dominion troops and (belatedly) colonial
formations and even military labourers. The stereotype of soldiers dutifully
marching to their deaths was always a conservative mirage but only a handful of
books have drawn attention to the hundreds of thousands of soldiers and
military auxiliaries who rebelled, mutinied and challenged their commanders and
political masters during the First World War. The ‘Unknown Army’, the
pioneering study by Douglas Gill and Gloden Dallas produced in the late 1960’s
chronicled the incidence of mutinies in Northern France and the UK; Andrew
Rothstein’s brave claim that the mutineers were unconscious or perhaps
semi-conscious Marxist Leninists, and David Englander’s promising exploration
of khaki collective bargaining all challenge the dominant deferential
stereotype.
Though
there have been a few TV commemorations referencing indiscipline and dissent,
the absence of substantive research has left the field open to sensationalism
and fantasy, and for the most part public understanding has long been skewed by
‘The Monocled Mutineer’, book and TV drama. Notwithstanding twaddle about Percy
Toplis, the declassification of soldiers’ service records admits identification
of ringleaders who were punished for mutiny but the personalities who
successfully organised, represented and negotiated deals with generals and
politicians remain largely anonymous. The latter escaped being
court-martialled, they were intelligent, literate, and politically savvy
individuals and their names were certainly unknown to more than a handful of
mutineers..."
And there's a walk this weekend:
 |
| Contents page of Mutinies: 1917-1920 by Dave Lamb.(Solidarity Pamphlet). |
Sun 2nd Oct, 2016 11:00
am
Resisting the War:
Deserters, Conchies and Mutineers
Meet
at Bristol Temple Meads station forecourt.
"Well over 50 people turned up when
we put on this walk in July. It was so popular we’re doing it again."
[…] Geoff Woolfe
[…] Geoff Woolfe
