France and the French in WW II: Setting the record straight

For the record, establishing facts against convenient bigotry perpetuated about the French and France during WWII, published no less than by the

'Information & Education Division' of the US Occupation Forces, published in Paris in 1945

Foreword:

by the original authors/editors

AMERICANS believe in the right to criticize. We defend our right to "beef" or "gripe" or "sound off". We insist upon the right to express our own opinions.

But we also believe in the right of others to express their opinions. For the right to speak involves the duty to listen. The right to criticize involves the responsibility of giving "the other side" a fair chance to make its point. We know that the truth can only be found through open and honest discussion, and that the common good is served through common attempts to reach common understanding. In one way, Democracy is the long and sometimes difficult effort which free men make to understand each other.

This booklet tries to help some of us understand an ally - the French. It is not meant either to "defend" the French or to chastise those Americans who do not like the French. It is intended simply to bring into reasonable focus those irritations, dissatisfactions and misunderstandings which arise because it is often hard for the people of one country to understand the people of another.

The booklet uses the Question-Answer form. It lists the criticisms, misconceptions and ordinary "gripes" which American troops in Europe express most frequently when they talk about the French. Each comment, or question, is followed by an answer -- or discussion. Some of the answers are quite short, because the question is direct and simple. Some of the answers are quite long, because the "questions" are not questions at all, but indictments which contain complicated and sweeping preconceptions.

The purpose of the present publication is to present facts and judgments which even the well-intentioned may tend to overlook.

There may be those who will consider this booklet a catalogue of (( excuses )) or (( justifications )). To them it can only be said that the truth is not denied by giving it a derogatory label.

There may be others who will seize upon the questions with triumph - ignoring the discussions entirely. That kind of reader will ignore the truth anyway - in whatever form it is offered.

This booklet may not convince those who are hopelessly prejudiced, but it may help to keep others from being infected by the same lamentable virus.

oooOooo

"We came to Europe twice in twenty-five years to save the French."

We didn't come to Europe to save the the French, either in 1917 or in 1944. We didn't come to to Europe to do anyone any favors. We came to Europe because we in America were threatened by a hostile, aggressive and very dangerous power.

In this war, France fell in June of 1940. We didn't invade Europe until June of 1944. We didn't even think of "saving the French" through military action until after Pearl Harbor - after the Germans declared war on us. We came to Europe, in two wars, because it was better to fight our enemy in Europe than in America. Would it have been smarter to fight the Battle of the Bulge in Ohio? Would it have been smarter if D-Day had meant a hop across the Atlantic Ocean, instead of the English Channel, in order to get at an enemy sending rocket bombs into our homes? Would it have been smart to wait in America until V bombs, buzz bombs, rocket bombs, and - perhaps - atomic bombs had made shambles of our cities? Even the kids in Germany sang this song: "Today Germany, tomorrow the world." We were a part of that world. We were marked for conquest.

When France fell, our last defense on the Continent was gone. France was the "keystone of freedom" on land from the Mediterranean to the North Sea; it was a bulwark against German aggression. France guarded the Atlantic, and the bases the Germans needed on the Atlantic for submarine and air warfare.

American security and American foreign policy have always rested on this hard fact: we cannot permit a hostile power on the Atlantic Ocean. We can not be secure if we are threatened on the Atlantic. That's why we went to war in 1917; that's why we had to fight in 1944. And that's why, as a matter of common sense and the national interest, President Roosevelt declared (November 11, 1941): "The defense of any territory under the control of the French Volunteer Forces (the Free French) is vital to the defense of the United States."

oooOooo

"We're always pulling the French out of a jam. Did they ever do anything for us?"

They did. They helped us out of one of the greatest jams we were ever in. During the American revolution, when almost the entire world stood by in "non intervention" or was against us, it was France who was our greatest ally and benefactor. France loaned the thirteen states $6,000,000 - and gave us over $3,000,000 more. (That was a lot more money in those days than it is now.)

45,000 Frenchmen volunteered in the army of George Washington. - Thev crossed the Atlantic Ocean in small boats that took two months to make the voyage.

Washington's army had no military engineers; it was French engineers who designed and built our fortifications.

The name of Lafayette is one that Americans will never forget, and the French are as proud of that name as we are.

You can judge the measure and meaning of French aid to our Revolution from the letter George Washington sent on April 9, 1781 to our military envoy in Paris, asking for help from France: "We are at this hour suspended in the balance; not from choice but from hard and absolute necessity... Our troops are fast approaching nakedness... our hospitals are without medicines and our sick without nutrition... in a word, we are at the end of our tether, and... now or never our deliverance must come."

It was France that came to our aid in our darkest hour.

oooOooo

"The French act has if they won the war single-handed."

Those who do are damned fools. The French did not win this war single-handed. Neither did we. Neither did the Russians or the British or the Chinese.

If you want to form your own opinion about how much French did to help win the war, ask yourself these questions: Suppose the French army and navy had joined up with the Germans in 1940 (as Hitler tried to get them to do)? Suppose the French armies which were fighting the Germans or the Italians had been fighting us? Suppose there had been no French underground, no French resistance, no French sabotage of German military production, no French espionage for SHAEF, no French guerrillas behind the German lines, no French Maquis in Central France, no FFI inside France as we fought our way through? How many more American lives do you think we would have lost?

oooOooo

"The French brag a lot about the fighting they did, but you don't hear any Americans passing out bouquets to them."

General Patton cabled General Koenig, the French commander of the FFI, that the spectacular advance of his (Patton's) army across France would have been impossible without the fighting aid of the FFI.

General Patch estimated that from the time of the Mediterranean landings to the arrival of our troops at Dijon, the help given to our operations by the FFI was equivalent to four full divisions.

The Maquis who defended the Massif Central, in the south-central part of France, had two Nazi divisions stymied; they kept those two divisions from fighting against us.

Perhaps some of us don't like to pass out bouquets - to anyone but ourselves. Perhaps we have short memories.

oooOooo

"The French were all collaborationists (sic)."

That's the line Goebbels used. The Germans exerted every propaganda effort to make us think there was no real resistance in France. Nazi censorship and Nazi firing squads tried to stop our hearing about the resistance.

oooOooo

"The French mostly collaborated with the Germans."

The Germans would disagree with that. The Germans tried for four years to get more Frenchmen to collaborate. That s why they killed so many hostages. That's why they destroyed 344 communities for "crimes" not connected with military operations.

The Germans overran France in 1940. For two years they used every promise, trick and pressure to induce the French people to work in Germany for the German war machine. They offered workers better food, clothes, privileges and protection denied them in France under occupation rules. And in all of France, during that entire period, about 75,000 French workers enlisted. The Germans admitted the campaign was a failure.

The LVF (Legion Volontaire Francaise), the French volunteer army that the Germans tried to organize, was a gigantic flop.

oooOooo

"After France fell, the French laid down and let the Germans walk all over them. They just waited for us to liberate them. Why didn't they put up a fight?"

Millions of French men, women and children put up a fight that took immense guts, skill and patience.

The Fighting French never stopped fighting - in the RAF North Africa, Italy, and up through France with the US 7th Army.

Here is how the French people inside France fought the Germans after the fall of France:

• They sabotaged production in war plants. They destroyed parts, damaged machinery, slowed down production, changed blue-prints
• They dynamited power plants, warehouses. transmission lines. They wrecked trains. They destroyed bridges. They damaged locomotives.
• They organized armed groups which fought the German police, the Gestapo, the Vichy militia. They executed French collaborationists.
• They acted as a great spy army for SHAEF in London. They transmitted as many as 300 reports a day to SHAEF on German troops' movements, military installations, and the nature and movement of military supplies.
• They got samples of new German weapons and explosive powder to London.
• They ran an elaborate "underground railway" for getting shot-down American and British flyers back to England. They hid, clothed, fed and smuggled out of France over 4,000 American airmen and parachutists (Getting food and clothes isn't easy when you're on a starvation ration yourself. It's risky to forge identification papers). Every American airman rescued meant half a dozen French lives were risked. On an average, one Frenchman was shot every two hours, from 1940 to 1944 by the Germans in an effort to stop French sabotage and assistance to the Allies.

The Germans destroyed 344 communities (62 completely) for "crimes" not connected with military operations.

Perhaps the Germans realized better than we do the relentless fight against them which the French people waged.

An official German report, quoted in the Christian Science Monitor on December 26, 1942, stated sadly: "For systematic inefficiency and criminal carelessness they (the French) are unsurpassed in the history of modern industrial labor".

oooOooo

"We can't rely on these French."

That depends on what you mean by "rely". If you expect the French to react like Americans, you will be disappointed. They are not Americans; they are French. If you expect the French to hurry the way we do, you will be disappointed; the French don't hurry - neither do most of the people in the world outside of America.

But we were able to rely on the French for the most important thing: France fought with us, not against us, twice in the past two decades.

oooOooo

"The French let us down when the fighting got tough. What did they do - as fighters - to help us out?"

Here are a few of the things the French did:

• The French fought in Africa, in Sicily, liberated Corsica, fought in Italy, took part in the invasion of Europe and fought through the battles of France and Germany -- from Normandy to Munich.
• Units from the French navy participated in the invasions of Sicily, Italy, Normandy and South France.
• Units of the French navy and merchant marine took part in convoying operations on the Atlantic and Murmansk routes.
• On June 5, 1944, the day before D-Day, over 5,000 Frenchmen of the resistance dynamited railroads in more than 500 strategic places.
• They delayed strategic German troop movements for an average of 48 hours, according to our military experts. Those 48 hours were tactically priceless ; they saved an untold number of American lives.
• French resistance groups blew up a series of bridges in southern France and delayed one of the Wehrmacht's crack units (Das Reich Panzer Division) for twelve days in getting from Bordeaux to Normandy.
• About 30,000 FF1 troups supported the Third Army's VIII Corps in Brittany: they seized and held key spogs ; they conducted extensive guerrilla operations behind the German lines.
• 25,000 FFI troops protected the south flank of the Third Army in its daring dash across France: the FFI wiped out German bridgeheads north of the Loire River ; they guarded vital lines of communication; they wiped out pockets of German resistance; they held many towns and cities under orders from our commmand.
• When our Third Army was approachiung the area between Dijon and Troyes from the west, and while the Seventh Army was approaching this sector from the South, it was the FFI who stubbornly blocked the Germans from making a stand and prevented a mass retirement of German troops.
• In Paris, as our armies drew close, several hundred thousand French men and women rose up against the Germans. 50,000 armed men of the resistance fought and beat the Nazi garrison, and occupied the main buildings and administrative offices of Paris.

oooOooo

"You wouldn't think they'd even been in the war the way a city like Paris looks."

No, you wouldn't. You can't tell what the war cost France by a stroll down the Champs Elysees, just as you couldn't tell what the war cost America by a walk down the Atlantic City boardwalk.

You can't, in Paris, see the 1,115,000 French men and women and children who died, were wounded, were in concentration camps, or were shot as hostages. You can't see the food and supplies that were taken from France You can't see the 12,551,639,000 man-hours of labor that the Germans took for themselves. You can't see the meagre rations that the French were fed. You can't see the malnutrition that the Germans caused. (70% of the men and 55% of the women in France lost an average of 12% of their weight.)

You can't see the increase (300-400%) in tuberculosis diphtheria, typhoid fever, infantile paralysis. You can't see the number of babies who were born dead because of the food and milk shortages. You don't see rickets on the Champs Elysees.

oooOooo

"We gave the French uniforms, jeeps, trucks, supplies, ammunition - everything."

We didn't give the French these things. We lent them, under Lend-Lease, a 1aw passed by our Congress as "An Act to Promote the Defense of the United States". We lent military equipment and supplies to our ally.

Where else could the French have gotten uniforms, guns, ammunition, supplies ? From the Germans?

A Frenchman aimed with an 03 rifle could kill Germans. It was wiser for us to turn out weapons and uniforms to arm the French than to turn out additional American soldiers.

oooOooo

"We gave the French billions of dollars worth of stuff. They'll never pay it back."

Under Lend-Lease we provided military supplies and equipment to France worth $1,041,000,000.

Under reverse Lend-Lease, the French have already paid back about $450,000,000 - almost half of the amount we lent them in the way of military supplies.

The French paid this $450,000,000 back in the same way that they got it from us - with supplies, materials food, labor, services.

Here are some of the things the French have provided us:

• 131,000 snow capes for the winter campaign of 1944.
• 700 tons of rubber tires, made in France.
• 260,000 signs and posters for road markers during the military campaign.
• Millions of jerricans.
• 150,000 French workmen and civilians, working for the United States Army and paid by the French government. These French men and women work at airfields, railway yards, ports, docks, in offices, etc. They range from stevedores to nurses, mechanics to typists, in France, North Africa, and the French islands in the South Pacific, such as New Caledonia, where American troops are stationed.
• All French telephone and telegraph services were placed at our disposal.
• Lumber, cement, gravel for construction purposes.
• Billets -- all through France, from Brest to Strasbourg, from Paris to Nice or Biarritz.
• Theaters such as the Olympia, the Empire, the Marignan in Paris.
• Restaurants - for American mess halls.
• Food - though the French are very short of it themselves.
• The French supply us with such fresh fruit and vegetables as can be spared.
• Beer - made in France, by the French, for American troops, from ingredients shipped from the United States.
• Printing - Stars and Stripes, Yank, Army Talks, Overseas Woman, I and E pamphlets.

oooOooo

"The French brag a lot about the fighting they did, but you don't hear any Americans passing out bouquets to them."

General Patton cabled General Koenig, the French commander of the FFI, that the spectacular advance of his (Patton's) army across France would have been impossible without the fighting aid of the FFI.

General Patch estimated that from the time of the Mediterranean landings to the arrival of our troops at Dijon, the help given to our operations by the FFI was equivalent to four full divisions.

The Maquis who defended the Massif Central, in the south-central part of France, had two Nazi divisions stymied; they kept those two divisions from fighting against us.

Perhaps some of us don't like to pass out bouquets - to anyone but ourselves. Perhaps we have short memories.

oooOooo

"The French got off pretty easy in the war."

What do you call "pretty easy?" Here is what this war
cost France:

Military casualties:
Killed.....200,000
Wounded....230,000
---------
Total......430,000

Civilian casualties:
Killed in bombings..... 60,000
Killed in Battle of France 1940....  30,000
Killed in other military operations....  20,000
Shot or massacred in France....  40,000

Total civilians killed in France.....  150,000

Deportees killed or died in Germany :
Political prisoner.. 130,000
Laborers.....  20,000
Prisoners of War.. 30,000

Total....  180,000

Total civilians and deportees killed or died....  330,000

Disabled civilians :
In France...  127,000
Deportees (returned from Germany)....  228,000
Total...  335,000

Total military and civilian killed . . .   530,000
Total . military and civilians killed, wounded, disabled 1,115,000


IN MATERIALS


1,785,000 buildings were destroyed.
5,000 bridges were blown up.
Three-fifths of all French railroad stock was either destroyed or taken to Germany by Germans as they
retreated in 1945.
Half of all the livestock in France was lost or stolen.
Three-fourths of all the agricultural equipment was lost.
12,500,000,000 man-hours of labor, which millions of Frenchmen were forced to perform for the Germans,
were lost to France.
The national debt increased 32 billion dollars.

These figures represent a loss to France of half of her national wealth -- or the total earnings of all Frenchmen,
for two years:
Deportees.. 765,000
Forced  workers in France.. 850,000
industrial workers in French plants (working for Germany).. 2,500,000
Agricultural workers growing crops for German conscription.. 780,000

Total......  4,895,000

Hours of work lost to France due to mass deportations.. 7,427,304,000
Hours of work lost to France because of forced labor in France for the Germans..5,124,335,000

Total.. 12,551,639,000

Destruction of buildings, agriculture, Industry, war material etc 2,342,000,000,000
German exchange extortion (setting the franc at 20 francs to the mark,
instead of a the real value - 10 francs to the mark.) 1,832,000,000,000
Pensions to military and civilian dead and disabled 359,000,000
Cash payments to maintain German army of occupation 2,353,480,000,000
Agricultural products taken by Germans or damaged 668,253,000,000
Transport and Communication damaged 1,527,222,000,000
Industry and Commerce requisitioned or damaged 448,474,000,000
Clearing and removal costs 556,580,000,000
War material taken bv Germans or damaged 246,361,000,000
Special charges imposed on France in addition to the direct costs of German occupation...
102,000,000,000

Estimated total money cost to France of the war : 98 billion dollars.
Estimated total cost to U.S. - 300 billion dollars.

France is about one fourteenth the size of the United States.
You can put nearly all of France into Utah and Nevada.

oooOooo

"The French have no courage. Why can't they defend themselves against the Germans ?"

Maybe it would be better to ask, "Why don't the Germans pick on someone their own size ?"

Modern warfare is not simply a matter of courage. A great lightweight can't lick a great heavyweight - even if he has courage to spare.

Hitler threw the manpower and industrial resources of over 80,000,000 Germans against 40,000,000 Frenchmen. The French did not have, and could not have had, the military and industrial power to beat Germany. (For instance, for the past hundred years France has not had enough coal, especially coking coal, to supply her peacetime needs. French iron ore normally flows to Germany's Ruhr valley for smelting, just as the ore of Minnesota goes to the coal and limestone area of Pittsburgh.)

France was beaten by Germany because Germany was enormously superior to France in manpower, equipment, resources, armament, and strategy. Germany had the incalculable advantage of having planned an offensive, Blitzkrieg war - while France, which wanted peace desperately, devoted its energies and training entirely to defensive measures. (That's why they built the Maginot Line.) The few advocates of modern mechanized armies (such as General de Gaulle) were like voices crying out in the wilderness. German propaganda, and "fifth column" activities financed from Berlin, helped to demoralize and confuse a nation that didn't want war in the first place.

The French lost 1,115,000 men and women, military and civilian, in dead, wounded and disabled. That is an enormous loss for a nation of 40 million. (The United States military casualties, up to V-J Day, were about 1,060,000 in dead and wounded.)

oooOooo

"The French don't even have enough men to stand up against the Germans."

True. That, in fact, is one of the things the Germans counted on in 1870, in 1914 and in 1939.

France never fully recovered from the results of World War I. Here is what the French lost from 1914 to 1918:

1,357,800 Killed or died
4,266,000 Wounded
537,000  Prisoners and missing

Total. 6,160,800

The French had mobilized 8,410,000 men. They lost 6,160,800 -- or 73.3% No nation had ever suffered such a staggering loss. No nation had shown a greater record of sheer courage and tenacity. There was scarcely a family in France that did not number one or more of its members among the dead. World War I. left France weak and exhausted - for the second war Germany launched against her within a generation.

The catastrophic effects of the first World War hit France particularly hard because they were added to the serious problem of a declining birth-rate. By 1939, largely because of the losses of World War I, the proportion of the French population under 20 years of age was small - and growing smaller ; the proportion of Frenchmen over 60 years of age was large - and growing larger.

In 1940, after occupation, the Germans tried to cripple France permanently by a policy of deliberate starvation and the segregation of the sexes. The Germans held nearly 2,000,000 French men in German prison and work camps - away from French women. The German policy of malnutrition worked so well that in 1945, when the French government was drafting men to re-create a French army, it was found that 40% of all Frenchmen called up for physical duty were physically unfit.

In 1942, at the height of German occupation, there were 500,000 more deaths than births in France.

oooOooo

"The French didn't put up a real fight against the Germans. They just let the Heinies walk in."

No one - least of all the French themselves - will try do deny the enormity of the defeat and the humiliation France suffered in 1940. French military leadership and strategy was tragically inadequate. But this does not mean that the French did not put up a "real fight".

In the six week Battle of France, from May 10 to June 22, 1940, the French lost, in military personnel alone, 260,000 wounded and 108,000 killed. A total of 368,000 casualties in six weeks is not something to pass off lightly.

Yes, the Germans gave the French a terrible beating. But it took the combined strength of the United States, Great Britain, Soviet Russia, Canada, etc., to beat the Germans. It's asking rather a great deal of France to match such strength against hers.

oooOooo

"The leaders of the French resistance were behind the black market. They all got rich on it."

This is the exact argument used by Dr. Goebbels and the German propaganda machine. The Germans wanted to smash the resistance movement; they constantly smeared the leaders of that movement. Goebbels kept hammering at the idea that those who resisted German rule were simply criminals.

The French resistance used the black market during the four years of German occupati6n. They had to use it, in order to survive.

Since the liberation of France, no group in France has more vigorously fought the black market and demanded that the government stop it than the resistance organizations and the resistance leaders.

oooOooo

"The French cleaned out Stuttgart, we saw lots of stuff going back to France - machinery, goods, cattle, supplies, horses, - long convoys of stuff looted from the Germans."

Where had the Germans gotten the stuff ? From France. The long convoys you saw were not "loot": they were authorized reparations, approved by the United States, Great Britain and Russia. The French had a right, under international law, to take back some of the commodities the Germans had stolen from them.

Here are sample figures on what the Germans took out of France:

Wheat   2,340,000 metric tons           
Oats  2,360,000             
Hay  1,539,000
Straw  1,870,000              
Potatoes 600,000            
Fresh fruits 290,000
Cider apples 210,000
Sugar  180,000
Horses  650,000
Eggs  150,000,000 dozen
Wine  190,000,000 gals
Beer  83,000,000
Champagne 16,000,000
Cognac  3,458,000
(1 metric ton equals 2,205 pounds, approximately equal to 1 long ton of 2,240 lbs.)

The Germans also "requisitioned" or damaged: 668,253,000,000 Francs worth of agricultural products ; 448,474,000,000 Francs worth of industrial and commercial products; 246,361,000,000 Francs worth of war material.

oooOooo

"In Paris you see hundreds of young Frenchmen, our age, in civilian clothes. Why aren't they all in the Army?"

Many of them are, even though they are in civilian clothes. Reason? In most French commands (including the Paris area), enlisted men are permitted to wear civilian clothes when they are on pass or off duty. French officers in all commands are permitted to wear civilian clothes when off duty.

It is. also worth remembering that in the 1945 draft, the French had to reject 40% of the men called up as physically unfit for military duty (and the standards used were lower than those used in our army.) Why were so many young Frenchmen unfit physically? Because they were underfed by the Germans during the occupation. Because tuberculosis and other diseases spread, during the four years of German occupation. Because of the effects of World War I. Because the best French youth were killed, wounded, disabled, or taken as slave laborers into Germany.

oooOooo

"The French are sloppy-looking soldiers. One look at them and you know they're not good fighters."

You don't tell how an army fights by the way it looks. The Greek soldiers wore funny white skirts -- but they licked the pants off the dashingly dressed Italians, and they put up an amazing fight against the might of the Wehrmacht, the Panzers, and the Luftwaffe.

German officers called American GIs "sloppy," "careless," "undisciplined" soldiers - but it was the Germans who got the shellacking.

The army of George Washington often looked like a ragged mob. Their fighting record is another story.

The French under General Le Clerc fought their war from the heart of Africa to Lake Chad and up to North Africa in an astonishing campaign. No one sneered at their uniforms then.

It might be helpful to remember that many French soldiers had been guerrilla fighters (in the FFI, the Maquis, the resistance). They still dress, act and carry themselves like guerrillas.

oooOooo

"Why don't they get to work and rebuild their country?"

The French Minister of Finance recently reported that France's industries are beginning to operate at 70% of capacity. The rebuilding of France is a tremendous job which will take a long time. Shortages of coal, gasoline, electricity, power, transport, and manpower have made a more rapid recovery impossible.

In 1944, after liberation, France found that of its pre-war transportation, the following were left:

35% of the locomotives,
37% of the freight cars,
38% of the trucks and automobiles,
33% of the merchant marine.

The most important single factor which is holding up French production is the shortage of coal. On February 3, 1945, our Office of War Information analyzed economic conditions in France and pointed out how the coal crisis has plunged France into a vicious circle. Mines could not operate without timber pit props to shore up the ceilings of tunnels in coal veins as they were expanded. But the transportation needed to bring in the timber also needed coal with which to operate.

Coal shortages have caused as many shut-downs of French factories as have the grave shortages of other essential raw materials.

And never forget the loss to France of 1,115,000 people (killed, wounded or disabled) out of a population estimated at around forty million in 1940. This is a staggering blow to the manpower needed for rebuilding.

oooOooo

"The French didn't put up a real fight against the Germans. They just let the Heinies walk in."

No one - least of all the French themselves - will try do deny the enormity of the defeat and the humiliation France suffered in 1940. French military leadership and strategy was tragically inadequate. But this does not mean that the French did not put up a "real fight".

In the six week Battle of France, from May 10 to June 22, 1940, the French lost, in military personnel alone, 260,000 wounded and 108,000 killed. A total of 368,000 casualties in six weeks is not something to pass off lightly.

Yes, the Germans gave the French a terrible beating. But it took the combined strength of the United States, Great Britain, Soviet Russia, Canada, etc., to beat the Germans. It's asking rather a great deal of France to match such strength against hers.

oooOooo

"Why bother about the French? They won't throw any weight in the post-war world."

Apart from reasons of honor and simple decency (Americans are not in the habit of letting their friends down), it is poor politics and worse diplomacy to "write off" a nation of 40 million allies. You may need their help some day.

France still stands as a bastion on the Atlantic, from the Mediterranean to the North Sea. France will still be a strong factor in world political organization. The island bases of France, and her colonies, will still be stra- tegic areas in the world structure of peace. And in the age of the atomic bomb, the physical size and population of a country may be no index of her strengh and potentialities.

Why bother about France? It is not our job to "bother about" France. But it is our job to be seriously concerned about the peace and the political problems of the world. France is very much a part of that world.

David Low, the English cartoonist, once drew a famous cartoon showing the nations in a large rowboat. The European nations were at one end of the boat, which was foundering in the water; Uncle Sam sat in the other end, high and dry and out of the water. And Uncle Sam was saying, "Why should I worry? The leak isn't in my end of the boat" We have paid a terrible price for believing that a leak "at the other end of the boat" does not affect our destiny.

SOURCE: 'Information & Education Division' of the US Occupation Forces, published in Paris in 1945

Gibbons Burke's compilation of nautical expressions in the vernacular

Nautical Expressions in the Vernacular by Gibbons Burke

Myriad expressions in everyday English have nautical origins. Author Patrick O'Brian has an interesting way of using these expressions in a way that allows the reader to make the connection between a familiar phrase in everyday language with its marine heritage. This web page lists expressions and definitions mentioned by listswains, members of the Patrick O'Brian Mailing List, also known as the Gunroom, the origins of which are made clear by passages from O'Brian's writing in which his characters' usage explains the provenance of the phrase.
¤

A rich and interesting repository of etymologies and sources of nautical words ultimately destined for the Oxford English Dictionary can be found at the Maritime History Citations for the OED site at the University of Minnesota at Duluth.

Expressions with explanations
¤

the cat is out of the bag
"Vowles drew the cat from its red baize bag, phlegmatically took up his stance, and as the ship reached the height of her roll he laid on the first stroke. 'Oh my God,' cried Weightman, enormously loud." [Patrick O'Brian, The Truelove, p. 198]

As I understand it, the cat 'o nine tails was normally kept in a cloth bag, and was only pulled out immediately prior to flogging, hence the phrase signifying that one has crossed some bright line of misconduct, etc. I also have a vague recollection of reading somewhere that the bag was sometimes brandished in front of a potential miscreant to warn him, somewhat like brandishing the mace before an unruly member of a legislature. [JRMcE@aol.com]

Brewer's has a different explanation. Scrubs would sell a suckling pig to someone, presenting them with a squirming sack, or "poke". The unfortunate would then have bought a pig in a poke. When the poke was opened, he would find not a nice edible pig, but a cat; thus, letting the cat out of the bag reveals the deception. This seems to jibe with usage a little better. [Walt Mazur (w_mazur@primenet.com)]

no room to swing a cat
During punishment all hands were called on deck to bear witness. In the case of a ship with a full complement on board this could make for a very crowded deck. In fact the deck could be so crowded that a cat o' nine tails could not be used without hitting the observers so that there was no room to swing a cat. [Bill Strauss (wstrauss@frbchi.org)]

three sheets to the wind
On a small boat there are three sheets that control the sails. The Main Sheet controls the mainsail, and two sheets that control the headsail the Windward Sheet and the Leeward Sheet. So a person that has three sheets to the wind means that the sheets are flying with the wind i.e. you do not have control of the boat. Much like someone who has three sheets to the wind does not have control over themselves. [Ibid.]

splice the mainbrace
take a drink [alfanso@roadrunner.com (Charles Keller)]

P.O.S.H.
Port Outward, Starboard Home - when traveling to India from Britain and back - keeps your cabin on the shady side of the ship. [This well-known explanation is refuted in the alt.usage.english FAQ.] [Scott Bayes (bayes@fortnet.org); c.f. alt.usage.english FAQ ]

the devil to pay
"'Why, the devil, do you see,' said Jack, 'is the seam between the deck-planking and the timbers, and we call it the devil, because it is the devil for the caulkers to come at: in full we say the devil to pay and no pitch hot; and what we mean is, that there is something hell-fire difficult to be done - must be done - and nothing to do it with. It is a figure.'" [Patrick O'Brian, The Mauritius Command, p. 280, per Michael Krugman (myriad@panix.com)]

Aboard wooden sailing ships. the devil was the neame given to the seam formed at the juncture where the covering board that capped the ships sides met the deck planking. The seam was particularly difficult to caulk because of its length, because there was so little space in which to perform the awkward task, and because there was so little standing room between the devil and the sea. [From the latest International Marine catalog announcing the publication of When a Loose Cannon Flogs a Dead Horse There's the Devil to Pay: Seafaring Words in Everyday Speech by Olivia A. Isil]

between the devil and the deep blue sea
[c.f. the devil to pay, above] I vaguely recall that this has also been explained as an anglicism of the Homeric passage about Scylla (the rocks off Sicily) and the whirlpool Charybdis. I also think it impacts upon between a rock and a hard place. [JRMcE@aol.com; Spencer K. Whetstone (spencer@dgandf.com) assist]

by and large
"Captain Harris was already explaining by and large. With a piece of fresh Gibraltar bread and arrows drawn with wine he showed the ship lying as close as possible to the breeze: '. . . and this is sailing by the wind, or as sailors say in their jargon, on a bowline; whereas large is when it blows not indeed quite from behind but say over the quarter, like this.'
"'Far enough abaft the beam that the studdingsails will set,' said Whiting."
"'So as you see,' continued Harris, 'it is quite impossible to sail both by and large at the same time. It is a contradiction in terms. . .'
"'We do say by and large,' said Jack. 'We say a ship sails well by and large when she will both lie close when the wind is scant and run fast when it is free.'" [The Ionian Mission, pp. 84-5, per Judith Franke (jfrankemlstg@aol.com)]

the whole nine yards
If you look at a "typical square-rigger" (see the picture in the front pages of any of the O'Brian books you will see that there are three masts with three yards on each mast. So if you had all of the square sails a flying on board you would have the whole nine yards in operation. ie. everything. [Bill Strauss (wstrauss@frbchi.org)]

Other suggestions have included: Volume in a concrete mixer, coal truck, or a wealthy person's grave; amount of cloth in a man's custom-made (i.e., "bespoke") suit, sports games, funeral shroud, kilt, in a bolt of cloth, square area in a ship's sails, and volume in a soldier's pack. [Folklore FAQ and and English Usage FAQ per Denis McKeon (dmckeon@swcp.com)]
minding your Ps and Qs.

...amongst the several explanations I have seen (pints and quarts, etc. etc.) is the feeble suggestion that sailors used to be told to watch their "Pea" jackets and pig-tails [queues, laden with pre-mousse tar, so that their jackets would not become tarred.]. [Stephen Cole (76570.2534@compuserve.com); c.f. alt.usage.english FAQ]

slush fund
from the "slush" saved (and eventually sold) by the ship's cook. [Ken Kapson (amscrap@mail.suba.com)]

son of a gun
"...both had been bred to the sea from their earliest years - Bonden, indeed, had been born between two of the Indefatigable's lower-deck guns..." [Patrick O'Brian, Desolation Island, p. 7, per Alison Fitts (af@gorge.net)]

If paternity was uncertain the child was entered in the log as "son of a gun". [ Brewer's Dictionary of Phrase and Fable, per Walt Mazur (w_mazur@primenet.com)]

to be pooped
"...even worse, she lost some of her way at the bottom, whereas she needed all her speed to outrun the following seas, for if they were to overtake her she would be pooped, smothered in a mass of breaking water. Then ten to one she would slew round and broach to, presenting her broadside to the wind, so that the next sea would overwhelm her." [Patrick O'Brian, Desolation Island, p. 228, per Alison Fitts (af@gorge.net)]

to be taken aback
To be astounded, taken by surprise. From the sailing-ship term aback, when the sails press against the mast and progress is suddenly stayed. [Brewer's Dictionary of Phrase and Fable, per Jill Dillon (J_Dillon@msn.com)]

to back and fill
A nautical phrase, denoting a mode of tacking when the tide is with the vessel and the wind is against it. Metaphorically, to be irresolute. [Ibid.]

to go by the board
To go for good, to be completely destroyed or finished with, thrown overboard. When a ship's mast is carried away it is said "to go by the board", board here meaning the ship's side. [Ibid.]

to make headway
To get on, to struggle effectively against something, as a ship makes headway against a tide or current... [Ibid.]

in the offing
Said of a ship visible at sea off the land. Such a ship is often approaching port, hence the phrase is used figuratively to mean 'about to happen'... [Ibid.]

to batten down the hatches
"'Tell me, Jack, just how would you explain the term battened down?'
"A piercing look showed Jack that although this was almost past believing he was not in fact being made game of, and he replied 'First I should say that we talk very loosely about hatches, often meaning hatchways and even ladderways - "he came up the fore hatch" - which of course ain't hatches at all. The real hatches are the things that cover the hatchways: gratings and close-hatches. Now as you know very well, when a great deal of water comes aboard either from the sea of the sky or both, we cover those real hatches with tarpaulins.'
"'I believe I have seen it done,' said Stephen.
"'Not above five thousand times,' said Jack inwardly, and aloud 'And if it also comes on to blow and rain uncommon hard, we take battens, stout laths of wood, that fit against the coaming, the raised rim of the hatchway, and so pin the tarpaulin down drum tight. Some people do it by nailing the batten to the deck, but it is a sad, sloppy, unseamanlike way of carrying on, and we have cleats.'" [Patrick O'Brian, The Truelove, or, Clarissa Oakes, pp.124-5]

jury rig
"assembled in a makeshift manner", is attested since 1788. It comes from "jury mast", a nautical term attested since 1616 for a temporary mast made from any available spar when the mast has broken or been lost overboard. The OED dubiously recorded a suggestion that this was short for "injury mast", but recent dictionaries say that is probably from Old French ajurie="help or relief", from Latin adiutare="to aid" (the source of the English word "adjutant"). [alt.usage.english FAQ]

at loggerheads
"...They had been sparring, in a spirit of fun, with loggerheads, those massy iron balls with long handles to be carried red-hot from the fire and plunged into buckets of tar or pitch so that the substance might be melted with no risk of flame. 'They are sober now, sir; and penitent, the creatures.'" [Patrick O'Brian, The Commodore, p.12; per James Gell (gellj@mary.iia.org)]

crew cut
Crew cut refers to the monthly (at least) haircuts that would be offered. [USS Constitution docent, per Scott Rosenthal (scott79@ix.netcom.com)]

The hair, beard, and mustache must be worn neatly trimmed. The face must be kept clean shaved, except a mustache or beard and mustache may be worn at discretion. No eccentricities in the manner of wearing the hair, beard or mustache are allowed. [The Bluejackets' Manual, The United States Naval Institute, 1943]

skyscraper
A triangular sail set above the skysail to maximize the advantage of a light favorable wind. A triangular moonsail. [Dean King, et. al., A Sea of Words, p. 338]

On the clipper ships and perhaps in Jack's time, they had sails which would go above the royals. I cannot quite remember the order, but it went some thing like skyscrapers, moonrakers, angel's foot stools and finally star gazers which were only set in dead calms and as I read in one book, the crew were not even allowed to sneeze. ... the skyscrapers would come from this, being the highest 'used' sail on a ship. The others were mostly for show as they could not bear out a strong wind without being carried over the side. [Anthony Vogl (abv@keene.edu)]

skylarking
Yet the Surprise, lying there in the road, had three midshipmen aboard, and what they lacked in intelligence they made up for in physical activity. R_____, having but one arm, could no longer go skylarking, hurling himself about the upper rigging regardless of gravity, but his messmates N_____ and W_____ would hoist him by an easy purchase to astonishing heights, and from these, having still one powerful hand and legs that could twist around any rope, he would plunge with infinite satisfaction. He was at the masthead, negligently holding the starboard main topgallant shrouds with the intention of sliding straight down the whole length of the topgallant backstay, well over a hundred feet, when his eye, wandering towards San Lorenzo, caught the odd spectacle of a very small boat trying to tow a much larger one... [Patrick O'Brian, The Wine-Dark Sea, pp.190-1]

toe the line
"[Amos Dray] ...shaded his mouth with his hand and in a deep rumble whispered, 'Toe the line, my dears.'
"The two little pudding-faced twin girls in clean pinafores stepped forward to a particular mark on the carpet, and together, piping high and shrill, they cried, 'Good morning, sir.'" [Patrick O'Brian, Desolation Island, p. 8, per Alison Fitts (af@gorge.net)]

freeze the balls of off a brass monkey
{This explanation has no basis in fact. Ed. } It is not what you think. On ships, cannon balls were sometimes stacked in what was called a monkey, usually made from brass. When it got really cold the monkey would contract forcing some of the cannon balls to fall off. [Steve Rose (rose@rtl.ENET.dec.com)]

scuttlebutt
'What are you a-thinking of, sir?' cried his steward? 'Don't you see he is bleeding like a pig from under his bandage?' Killick whipped into the quarter-gallery for a towel and thrust it under Dutuord's head. 'Now I must take all them covers off and soak them this directly minute in fresh cold water and there ain't no cold fresh water, which the scuttle-butt is empty till Chips comes back and shifts the hand-pump.' [Patrick O'Brian, The Wine-Dark Sea, p. 37]

Scuttle is a fairly old term for a small rectangular hole cut into the deck or side of a ship for light, ventilation, and sometimes communication between decks. A butt was simple a wooden cask for provisions. Traditionally, a butt of water was to last for two days. The problem was, how to keep the crew from drinking the whole cask in one day. Eventually, someone thought to scuttle a butt (put a hole in it halfway up), attach it to the upper deck, and have the water ration poured in each day up to the hole. Before long, the place to get a drink became known as the scuttled butt, and eventually, the scuttlebutt. The term came to be applied to rumors passed around while waiting to get a drink. [Rich Benedict (dick@dragonsys.com)]

Smyth's Sailor's Word-Book (1867) gives: "SCUTTLE or SCUTTLED BUTT. A cask having a square piece sawn out of its bilge, and lashed in a convenient place to hold water for present use." However, I don't recall ever hearing the term during my wartime service in the Royal Navy ....and am fairly sure that the sense of 'office rumor picked up at the water-cooler' is American rather than British. [John Harland (ylwm0161@cyberstore.ca)]

Scuttle. - To make holes in a ship's bottom to sink her. A round or square opening in the deck. [The Bluejackets' Manual, The United States Naval Institute, 1943]

More from The Bluejackets' Manual:
dismantle To unrig a vessel and discharge all stores.
field day Day for cleaning up all parts of a ship.
forging ahead Going ahead slowly.
overhaul To take apart, thoroughly examine, and repar; to overtake.
pipe down A boatswain's call denoting the completion of an all hands evolution, and that you can go below. This expression is also used to mean "Keep quiet."
water-logged When a vessel is so full of water as to be heavy and unmanageable.
windfall A rush of wind from the high land; a stroke of good luck.
up-take The enclosed trunk connecting a boiler or a group of boilers to the smokestack.
the bitter end
"Meanwhile the bosun and his mates, together with the most experienced forecastle hands and tierers, roused out the best cable the Diane possessed, the most nearly new and unfrayed, a seventeen-inch cable that they turned end for end - no small undertaking in that confined space, since it weighed three and a half tons - and bent it to the best bower anchor by the wholly unworn end that had always been abaft the bitts: the bitter end. There was thought to be good luck attached to the bitter end, as well as greater strength." [Patrick O'Brian, The Thirteen Gun Salute, p. 299, per David Peck (dpeck@world.std.com)]

Other everyday expressions with nautical origin:
aloof
bail out
bear up (down, off)
catch my drift
chock-a-block (chock full)
clear the deck
close quarters
cross the line
cruiser
deadwood
dog's body
down the hatch
fend off
first rate
from stem to stern
give leeway
go overboard
great guns
groggy
halcyon days
haul up short
hit the deck
hulk
in the doldrums
junk (chunk)
learn the ropes
logging on (disputed nautical origin)
loose cannon
lower the boom
main stay (as in "he was the mainstay of our team")
make a clean sweep
on an even keel
on another tack
plain sailing
run afoul of
shake a leg (or) show a leg
show your true colors
snub
sound out
standoff
stranded
take someone down a peg
take the wind out of his sails
weather a storm

Gibbons Burke's acknowledgement to the following Contributors:
Ace Brown (ABrown6864@aol.com)
Alison Fitts (af@gorge.net)
Anthony Vogl (abv@keene.edu)
Bill Strauss (wstrauss@frbchi.org)
Charles Keller (alfanso@roadrunner.com)
David P. Cooke (COOKED@mtomp001.allied.com)
David Peck (dpeck@world.std.com)
Denis McKeon (dmckeon@swcp.com)
Hope (IgClydus@aol.com)
James Gell (gellj@mary.iia.org)
Jill Dillon" (J_Dillon@msn.com)
JRMcE@aol.com (eponymous)
Kevin Masten (kevin@tyrell.net)
Michael Krugman (myriad@panix.com)
Rich Benedict (dick@dragonsys.com)
Scott Bayes (bayes@fortnet.org)
Scott Rosenthal (scott79@ix.netcom.com)
Spencer K. Whetstone (spencer@dgandf.com)
Stephen Cole (76570.2534@compuserve.com)
Steve Rose (rose@rtl.ENET.dec.com)
Sue Ruff (SueRuff@aol.com)
Walt Mazur (w_mazur@primenet.com)
Judith Franke (jfrankemlstg@aol.com)

The Articles of War - 1749

The Articles of War - 1749 by Gibbons Burke

The Articles of War on board a Royal Navy ship assumed the proportions and gravity of holy writ. It served as the law and axis mundi of the secular religion practiced upon His Majesty's Ships otherwise known as the Service. It was read at least once a month, usually when church was rigged on Sunday, and when punishment was inflicted.

The Articles were originally established in the 1650s, amended in 1749 (by an act of Parliament) and again in 1757. It is an amazing document to ponder, especially the number and degree of offenses which were punishable by death.

All commanders, captains, and officers, in or belonging to any of His Majesty's ships or vessels of war, shall cause the public worship of Almighty God, according to the liturgy of the Church of England established by law, to be solemnly, orderly and reverently performed in their respective ships; and shall take care that prayers and preaching, by the chaplains in holy orders of the respective ships, be performed diligently; and that the Lord's day be observed according to law.

All flag officers, and all persons in or belonging to His Majesty's ships or vessels of war, being guilty of profane oaths, cursings, execrations, drunkenness, uncleanness, or other scandalous actions, in derogation of God's honour, and corruption of good manners, shall incur such punishment as a court martial shall think fit to impose, and as the nature and degree of their offence shall deserve.

If any officer, mariner, soldier, or other person of the fleet, shall give, hold, or entertain intelligence to or with any enemy or rebel, without leave from the king's majesty, or the lord high admiral, or the commissioners for executing the office of lord high admiral, commander in chief, or his commanding officer, every such person so offending, and being thereof convicted by the sentence of a court martial, shall be punished with death.

If any letter of message from any enemy or rebel, be conveyed to any officer, mariner, or soldier or other in the fleet, and the said officer, mariner, or soldier, or other as aforesaid, shall not, within twelve hours, having opportunity so to do, acquaint his superior or a commanding officer, or if any superior officer being acquainted therewith, shall not in convenient time reveal the same to the commander in chief of the squadron, every such person so offending, and being convicted thereof by the sentence of the court martial, shall be punished with death, or such other punishment as the nature and degree of the offense shall deserve, and the court martial shall impose.

All spies, and all persons whatsoever, who shall come, or be found, in the nature of spies, to bring or deliver any seducing letters or messages from any enemy or rebel, or endeavor to corrupt any captain, officer, mariner, or other in the fleet, to betray his trust, being convicted of any such offense by the sentence of the court martial, shall be punished with death, or such other punishment, as the nature and degree of the offence shall deserve, and the court martial shall impose.

No person in the fleet shall receive an enemy or rebel with money, victuals, powder, shot, arms, ammunition, or any other supplies whatsoever, directly or indirectly, upon pain of death, or such other punishment as the court martial shall think fit to impose, and as the nature and degree of the crime shall deserve.

All the papers, charter parties, bills of lading, passports, and other writings whatsoever, that shall be taken, seized, or found aboard any ship or ships which shall be surprized or taken as prize, shall be duly preserved, and the very originals shall by the commanding officer of the ship which shall take such prize, be sent entirely, and without fraud, to the court of the admiralty, or such other court of commissioners, as shall be authorized to determine whether such prize be lawful capture, there to be viewed, made use of, and proceeded upon according to law, upon pain that every person offending herein, shall forfeit and lose his share of the capture, and shall suffer such further punishment, as the nature and degree of his offense shall be found to deserve, and the court martial shall impose.

No person in or belonging to the fleet shall take out of any prize, or ship seized for prize, any money, plate, or goods, unless it shall be necessary for the better securing thereof, or for the necessary use and service of any of His Majesty's ships or vessels of war, before the same be adjudged lawful prize in some admiralty court; but the full and entire account of the whole, without embezzlement, shall be brought in, and judgement passed entirely upon the whole without fraud, upon pain that every person offending hemin shall forfeit and lose his share of the capture, and suffer such further punishment as shall be imposed by a court martial, or such court of admiralty, according to the nature and degree of the offense.

If any ship or vessel be taken as prize, none of the officers, mariners, or other persons on board her, shall be stripped of their clothes, or in any sort pillaged, beaten, or evil-intreated, upon the pain that the person or persons so offending, shall be liable to such punishment as a court martial shall think fit to inflict.

Every flag officer, captain and commander in the fleet, who, upon signal or order of fight, or sight of any ship or ships which it may be his duty to engage, or who, upon likelihood of engagement, shall not make the necessary preparations for fight, and shall not in his own person, and according to his place, encourage the inferior officers and men to fight courageously, shall suffer death, or such other punishment, as from the nature and degree of the offence a court martial shall deem him to deserve; and if any person in the fleet shall treacherously or cowardly yield or cry for quarter, every person so offending, and being convicted thereof by the sentence of a court martial, shall suffer death.

Every person in the fleet, who shall not duly observe the orders of the admiral, flag officer, commander of any squadron or division, or other his superior officer, for assailing, joining battle with, or making defense against any fleet, squadron, or ship, or shall not obey the orders of his superior officer as aforesaid in the time of action, to the best of his power, or shall not use all possible endeavours to put the same effectually into execution, every person so offending, and being convicted thereof by the sentence of the court martial, shall suffer death, or such other punishment, as from the nature and degree of the offence a court martial shall deem him to deserve.

Every person in the fleet, who through cowardice, negligence, or disaffection, shall in time of action withdraw or keep back, or not come into the fight or engagement, or shall not do his utmost to take or destroy every ship which it shall be his duty to engage, and to assist and relieve all and every of His Majesty's ships, or those of his allies, which it shall be his duty to assist and relieve, every such person so offending, and being convicted thereof by the sentence of a court martial, shall suffer death.

Every person in the fleet, who though cowardice, negligence, or disaffection, shall forbear to pursue the chase of any enemy, pirate or rebel, beaten or flying; or shall not relieve or assist a known friend in view to the utmost of his power; being convicted of any such offense by the sentence of a court martial, shall suffer death.

If when action, or any service shall be commanded, any person in the fleet shall presume or to delay or discourage the said action or service, upon pretence of arrears of wages, or upon any pretence whatsoever, every person so offending, being convicted thereof by the sentence of the court martial, shall suffer death, or such other punishment, as from the nature and degree of the offense a court martial shall deem him to deserve.

Every person in or belonging to the fleet, who shall desert to the enemy, pirate, or rebel, or run away with any of His Majesty's ships or vessels of war, or any ordnance, ammunition, stores, or provision belonging thereto, to the weakening of the service, or yield up the same cowardly or treacherously to the enemy, pirate, or rebel, being convicted of any such offence by the sentence of the court martial, shall suffer death.

Every person in or belonging to the fleet, who shall desert or entice others so to do, shall suffer death, or such other punishment as the circumstances of the offense shall deserve, and a court martial shall judge fit: and if any commanding officer of any of His Majesty's ships or vessels of war shall receive or entertain a deserter from any other of His Majesty's ships or vessels, after discovering him to be such deserter, and shall not with all convenient speed give notice to the captain of the ship or vessel to which such deserter belongs; or if the said ships or vessels are at any considerable distance from each other, to the secretary of the admiralty, or to the commander in chief; every person so offending, and being convicted thereof by the sentence of the court martial, shall be cashiered.

The officers and seamen of all ships appointed for convoy and guard of merchant ships, or of any other, shall diligently attend upon that charge, without delay, according to their instructions in that behalf; and whosoever shall be faulty therein, and shall not faithfully perform their duty, and defend the ships and goods in their convoy, without either diverting to other parts or occasions, or refusing or neglecting to fight in their defence, if they be assailed, or running away cowardly, and submitting the ships in their convoy to peril and hazard; or shall demand or exact any money or other reward from any merchant or master for convoying any ships or vessels entrusted to their care, or shall misuse the masters or mariners thereof; shall be condemned to make reparation of the damage to the merchants, owners, and others, as the court of admiralty shall adjudge, and also be punished criminally according to the quality of their offences, be it by pains of death, or other punishment, according as shall be adjudged fit by the court martial.

If any captain, commander, or other officer of any of His Majesty's ships or vessels, shall receive on board, or permit to be received on board such ship or vessel, any goods or merchandizes whatsoever, other than for the sole use of the ship or vessel, except gold, silver, or jewels, and except the goods and merchandizes belonging to any merchant, or other ship or vessel which may be shipwrecked, or in imminent danger of being shipwrecked, either on the high seas, or in any port, creek, or harbour, in order to the preserving them for their proper owners, and except such goods or merchandizes as he shall at any time be ordered to take or receive on board by order of the lord high admiral of Great Britain, or the commissioners for executing the office of lord high admiral for the time being; every person so offending, being convicted thereof by the sentence of the court martial shall be cashiered, and be for ever afterwards rendered incapable to serve in any place or office in the naval service of His Majesty, his heirs and successors.

If any person in or belonging to the fleet shall make or endeavor to make any mutinous assembly upon any pretence whatsoever, every person offending herein, and being convicted thereof by the sentence of the court martial, shall suffer death: and if any person in or belonging to the fleet shall utter any words of sedition or mutiny, he shall suffer death, or such other punishment as a court martial shall deem him to deserve: and if any officer, mariner, or soldier on or belonging to the fleet, shall behave himself with contempt to his superior officer, being in the execution of his office, he shall be punished according to the nature of his offence by the judgement of a court martial.

If any person in the fleet shall conceal any traiterous or mutinous practice or design, being convicted thereof by the sentence of a court martial, he shall suffer death, or any other punishment as a court martial shall think fit; and if any person, in or belonging to the fleet, shall conceal any traiterous or mutinous words spoken by any, to the prejudice of His Majesty or government, or any words, practice, or design, tending to the hindrance of the service, and shall not forthwith reveal the same to the commanding officer, or being present at any mutiny or sedition, shall not use his utmost endeavours to suppress the same, he shall be punished as a court martial shall think he deserves.

If any person in the fleet shall find cause of complaint of the unwholesomeness of the victual, or upon other just ground, he shall quietly make the same known to his superior, or captain, or commander in chief, as the occasion may deserve, that such present remedy may be had as the matter may require; and the said superior, captain, or commander in chief, shall, as far as he is able, cause the same to be presently remedied; and no person in the fleet, upon any such or other pretence, shall attempt to stir up any disturbance, upon pain of such punishment, as a court martial shall think fit to inflict, according to the degree of the offence.

If any officer, mariner, soldier or other person in the fleet, shall strike any of his superior officers, or draw, or offer to draw, or lift up any weapon against him, being in the execution of his office, on any pretence whatsoever, every such person being convicted of any such offense, by the sentence of a court martial, shall suffer death; and if any officer, mariner, soldier or other person in the fleet, shall presume to quarrel with any of his superior officers, being in the execution of his office, or shall disobey any lawful command of any of his superior officers; every such person being convicted of any such offence, by the sentence of a court martial, shall suffer death, or such other punishment, as shall, according to the nature and degree of his offence, be inflicted upon him by the sentence of a court martial.

If any person in the fleet shall quarrel or fight with any other person in the fleet, or use reproachful or provoking speeches or gestures, tending to make any quarrel or disturbance, he shall, upon being convicted thereof, suffer such punishment as the offence shall deserve, and a court martial shall impose.

There shall be no wasteful expence of any powder, shot, ammunition, or other stores in the fleet, nor any embezzlement thereof, but the stores and provisions shall be careful preserved , upon pain of such punishment to be inflicted upon the offenders, abettors, buyers and receivers (being persons subject to naval discipline) as shall be by a court martial found just in that behalf.
¤

Every person in the fleet, who shall unlawfully burn or set fire to any magazine or store of powder, or ship, boat, ketch, hoy or vessel, or tackle or furniture thereunto belonging, not then appertaining to an enemy, pirate, or rebel, being convicted of any such offence, by the sentence of a court martial, shall suffer death.

Care shall be taken in the conducting and steering of any of His Majesty's ships, that through wilfulness, negligence, or other defaults, no ship be stranded, or run upon any rocks or sands, or split or hazarded, upon pain, that such as shall be found guilty therein, be punished by death, or such other punishment, as the offence by a court martial shall be judged to deserve.

No person in or belonging to the fleet shall sleep upon his watch, or negligently perform the duty imposed on him, or forsake his station, upon pain of death, or such other punishment as a court martial shall think fit to impose, and as the circumstances of the case shall require.
¤

All murders committed by any person in the fleet, shall be punished with death by the sentence of a court martial.

If any person in the fleet shall commit the unnatural and detestable sin of buggery and sodomy with man or beast, he shall be punished with death by the sentence of a court martial.
¤

All robbery committed by any person in the fleet, shall be punished with death, or otherwise, as a court martial, upon consideration of the circumstances, shall find meet.

Every officer or other person in the fleet, who shall knowingly make or sign a false muster or muster book, or who shall command, counsel, or procure the making or signing thereof, or who shall aid or abet any other person in the making or signing thereof, shall, upon proof of any such offence being made before a court martial, be cashiered, and rendered incapable of further employment in His Majesty's naval service.

No provost martial belonging to the fleet shall refuse to apprehend any criminal, whom he shall be authorized by legal warrant to apprehend, or to receive or keep any prisoner committed to his charge, or wilfully suffer him to escape, being once in his custody, or dismiss him without lawful order, upon pain of such punishment as a court martial shall deem him fit to deserve; and all captains, officers, and others in the fleet, shall do their endeavour to detect, apprehend, and bring to punishment all offenders, and shall assist the officers appointed for that purpose therein, upon pain of being proceeded against, and punished by a court martial, according to the nature and degree of the offence.

If any flag officer, captain, or commander, or lieutenant belonging to the fleet, shall be convicted before a court martial of behaving in a scandalous, infamous, cruel, oppressive, or fraudulent manner, unbecoming the character of an officer, he shall be dismissed from His Majesty's service.

Every person being in actual service and full pay, and part of the crew in or belonging to any of His Majesty's ships or vessels of war, who shall be guilty of mutiny, desertion, or disobedience to any lawful command, in any part of His Majesty's dominions on shore, when in actual service relative to the fleet, shall be liable to be tried by a court martial, and suffer the like punishment for every such offence, as if the same had been committed at sea on board any of His Majesty's ships or vessels of war.

If any person who shall be in the actual service and full pay of His Majesty' ships and vessels of war, shall commit upon the shore, in any place or places out of His Majesty's dominions, any of the crimes punishable by these articles and orders, the person so offending shall be liable to be tried and punished for the same, in like manner, to all intents and purposes, as if the same crimes had been committed at sea, on board any of His Majesty's ships or vessels of war.

All other crimes not capital committed by any person or persons in the fleet, which are not mentioned in this act, or for which no punishment is hereby directed to be inflicted, shall be punished by the laws and customs in such cases used at sea.