France to clear names of executed World War I soldiers

France is set to clear the names of hundreds of soldiers executed by their own side during World War I. An official report recognises that most were "good soldiers" who suffered a "moment of weakness" because of the intolerable conditions in the trenches.

The French 87th regiment at Verdun, 1916 Public domain

About 600-650 French soldiers were executed for insubordination, mostly in the years 1914 and 1915, as the bloody conflict dragged on in eastern France.

Most were shot in front of their comrades "as an example" to discourage the rest of the troops from disobeying orders as the French and their allies tried to stop the German advance, often capturing and losing the same small piece of ground several times.

The report, commissioned to prepare for the centenary of the start of World War I next year, cites the example of four soldiers, exhausted after a series of vain assaults, executed in 1915 for refusing to attack the enemy.

Today's consensus is that such men were not cowards but "cracked" because of the because of the "horrifying conditions" and did not deserve to be killed, it says, pointing out that both Socialist former prime minister Lionel Jospin and right-wing former president

Nicolas Sarkozy have indicated that they were unjustly treated.

In 1917 mutinies broke out in the French army involving 40-80,000 soldiers but only about 30 were executed, the report says, contrasting that with the heavier death toll at the beginning of the war.

Rejecting the idea that everyone executed during the war, including notorious spy Mata Hari, should be rehabilitated, the report favours an official declaration that many were killed in "rushed, sometimes arbitrary", conditions and "after a certain fashion, died for France".