Talk:Mutiny

out of date by a century
question: wikipedia wasn't around a century ago. how and why is a section of this article that out of date? this a sad and pitiful state of affairs. Saganatsu 22:20, 12 June 2006 (UTC)


 * User:Fastifex copied the Britannica article on military law into this article. That’s how. The Britannica text was written in or before 1911. That’s why. I think the 1911 text might as well be deleted, but Fastifex seems to disagree. Any ideas? —xyzzyn 22:41, 12 June 2006 (UTC)


 * Updated. Richard75 21:46, 10 July 2007 (UTC)

I agree the text under the United Kingdom section is very painful to read and seems horribly out of context. I mean this is supposed to be a concise article for laypeople not a darn law school book. I think this section should be cut down to a few paragraphs. —Preceding unsigned comment added by 24.56.25.30 (talk) 20:07, 26 August 2009 (UTC)

What is it called...
when a soldier disobeys commands? Please reply to my userpage (yes, not talk page, I will get an annoying yellow bar for the next day). 76.16.191.46 (talk) 04:47, 25 July 2008 (UTC)

Mutiny on the HMS De Zeven Provincien
please, also mention the famous mutiny on the Zeven Provincien in the 1930s. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/HNLMS_De_Zeven_Provinci%C3%ABn_(1909) Henkberg55 (talk) 13:38, 1 May 2009 (UTC)

Mutiny's are typically conducted by organized groups.
I put "organized" into the header.

Originally the header said: Mutiny is a conspiracy among a group of individuals

I changed it to: Mutiny is a conspiracy among a organized group of individuals 84.215.50.140 (talk) 23:11, 8 January 2014 (UTC)

Curragh - Incident or mutiny?
Interesting point, but granted that the officers only threatened to resign, where is the authoritative source that an officer is actually permitted to resign their commission - or threaten to, after receiving orders to move against a threat? Is that not generally known as desertion? In that case an awful lot of soldiers were shot at dawn for "resigning" in WWI. Straw Cat (talk) 12:25, 26 August 2014 (UTC)


 * Different rules applied on active service in wartime, and at any time to enlisted men (who enlist for a fixed term). The officers had not “deserted”. Neither had they yet received any orders, merely been told of “hypothetical contingencies”. It is open to question whether there was a “threat” (the Ulster Unionists had pledged their loyalty to King and Country, whereas Churchill and Seely may well have been hoping for or even trying to provoke an Ulster uprising which could then be crushed).


 * It is also open to question whether the government’s plans were lawful – the situation was absolutely febrile because the government were railroading through major constitutional change without any UK-wide electoral mandate. It was said at the time that "the constitution was in abeyance" as the Lords - supposedly the "watchdog of the constitution" whose right and duty was to veto major constitutional change until the government had obtained a clear mandate for it - had been stripped of their veto but consensus had not yet been reached on a new constitutional settlement (indeed, it never was). It had reached the point where the King had taken legal advice that he would be within his rights vetoing the legislation, although he (or Stamfordham or whoever was advising him) had sensibly decided that that would have exacerbated the situation further and made it look as though the Monarch was taking sides in politics. Even if they were technically lawful, in the sense that the UK has no written constitution so Parliament can pass any law it pleases, the government’s actions were certainly on the borderline of legislation which was unlikely to obeyed.


 * I wrote a fair bit on this, and on the biographies of some of the officers involved, last year. Richard Holmes (French’s best biographer) and Anthony Farrar-Hockley (Gough’s biographer) were both British officers. Farrar-Hockley discusses how Seely’s advice to senior generals, that soldiers were not obligated to obey “outrageous” orders (Seely used the example of opening fire on an peaceful demonstration of Orangemen) is, although sometimes held up to ridicule, a fair statement of military law. It seems reasonable to suppose that if Gough and his officers – Gough later insisted that he would have obeyed a direct order – had been in breach of the letter of the law, then Holmes, Farrar-Hockley, or any of the other historians who have written on this would have said so.


 * The resignations would not have been accepted – they would have been dismissed, been portrayed as patriotic martyrs, and would, one supposes, have been compensated and/or reinstated by the next Tory government.Paulturtle (talk) 00:06, 27 August 2014 (UTC)


 * These are valid points. But if one relies on the technical legal argument of there being no mutiny as no direct order had been given and disobeyed, it is slightly inconsistent to ignore the equally technical point of orders being about to be despatched to the Curragh to move against imminent armed rebellion in Ulster against the crown, orders validly issued by the elected government, and a sufficiently large organized group of British officers announcing that they would leave their posts rather than obey. A more resolute PM than Asquith, supported by a more resolute Irish leader than Redmond (of the calibre of Parnell, perhaps) would have faced them down, court-martialled any that resigned, and possibly prevented another 100 years of more or less sporadic bloody carnage in Ireland and Britain.Straw Cat (talk) 12:40, 27 August 2014 (UTC)

if one relies on the technical legal argument of there being no mutiny as no direct order had been given and disobeyed, it is slightly inconsistent to ignore the equally technical point of orders being about to be despatched


 * There is no inconsistency. Either orders have been issued, or they haven’t. On this occasion, they hadn’t. Most legal arguments come down to where the law draws the line.

to move against imminent armed rebellion in Ulster against the crown


 * They were refusing to accept rule from a devolved assembly in Dublin, not rebelling against the Crown. Indeed, they professed their loyalty to the Crown, albeit rather in the manner of medieaval rebels claiming to rescue the King from his evil counsellors.

orders validly issued by the elected government


 * As per discussion above, it was by no means universally accepted that the government’s actions – attempting to use military force against self-proclaimed loyal British subjects - were legitimate. Field Marshal Roberts thought them “dastardly”, a view widely shared.

A more resolute PM than Asquith, supported by a more resolute Irish leader than Redmond (of the calibre of Parnell, perhaps) would have faced them down, court-martialled any that resigned
 * He would have needed to come up with grounds for court martial, and clearly he and other Cabinet Ministers felt that moving swiftly on was the best option. The Incident was spreading to the mainland – with Gough’s brother Johnnie being one of the ringleaders at Aldershot – with more threats of mass resignations if action was taken against Hubert Gough.


 * As for Redmond, one could just as easily argue that his intransigence (or weakness in not giving such a lead to his own followers) in refusing to allow any special treatment for Protestant Ulster was a large part of the problem.

and possibly prevented another 100 years of more or less sporadic bloody carnage in Ireland and Britain


 * This seems unlikely, not least as the Ulster Protestants would not have taken kindly to being crushed. Sometimes it is said that the outbreak of war in August prevented civil war in Ireland – but just as likely it prevented some kind of political settlement being agreed, most likely the Irish Nats being forced to concede a permanent opt-out for the Six Counties … and then over the next few years the southern Irish political situation moved on.Paulturtle (talk) 01:41, 28 August 2014 (UTC)

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La Amistad
I have a bit of trouble with the La Amistad entry. The slaves hardly owned any loyalty to the ship's master and crew. If I get no objection here, I will add a qualifier to this effect, comparing the slaves to kidnapping victims. thestor (talk) 13:30, 13 October 2019 (UTC)