France : Les fusillés de la Grande Guerre ont désormais un nom

Screenshot from "The Paths of Glory" (Les Sentiers de la Gloire), by
Stanley Kubrick, with Kirk Douglas, Ralph Meeker (1957)

Ce livre confirme les travaux entamés dès 1995 par André Bach sur les fusillés après jugement d'un conseil de guerre. Un sujet ressorti de l'oubli dans les années 90 et qui divise encore les Français sur la nécessité ou non d'une réhabilitation individuelle ou collective de ces 740 fusillés. Le nom de 220 d'entre eux est gravé sur un monument aux morts de France.

Passionné par la Première Guerre mondiale, Frédéric Mathieu, un normalien de 42 ans, est l'auteur du site "Ders des ders" consacré aux tout derniers survivants de tous les pays de la Grande Guerre. Pour "14-18, les fusillés", il s'est plongé, a-t-il expliqué à l'AFP, dans les dossiers des conseils de guerre conservés au Service historique de la Défense à Vincennes, en les recoupant avec d'autres sources : fiches de décès des militaires "Morts pour la France"; fiches des sépultures de guerre; registres matricules des 8,5 millions de combattants français; lettres et journaux de guerre de soldats.

Un travail de bénédictin qui a abouti à une première, la publication de 740 biographies toutes présentées avec la même grille d'analyse. 108 photographies de sépultures de fusillés, 33 portraits photographiques de suppliciés, quelques rares images d'exécution, des rapports médicaux (mutilations volontaires) ou des notes autographes du commandement complètent les biographies.

130 biographies comportent les témoignages, pour la plupart inédits, de fusillés lors de leur passage au "falot", le tribunal militaire en argot des tranchées, et 84 contiennent les témoignages de Poilus qui ont assisté aux exécutions ou aux faits reprochés aux fusillés.

Dans la seconde partie de son ouvrage, Frédéric Mathieu exploite les informations contenues dans les biographies de 668 soldats fusillés après leur condamnation à mort en conseil de guerre.

Première conclusion : les trois pics d'exécutions constatés durant les 52 mois de conflit correspondent aux trois crises graves auxquelles l'armée française a dû faire face : guerre de mouvement de l'automne 14, bataille de Verdun au début de l'année 1916 et mutineries du printemps 1917 lors de l'offensive Nivelle. Le pic le plus haut se situe de septembre 1914 à octobre 1915 avec 421 exécutions, soit 63% du total de la guerre.

De même, la comparaison des deux courbes, celle des pertes de l'armée française et celle des exécutions, montre qu'elles adoptent le même profil en atteignant leur maximum lors des batailles les plus meurtrières (guerre de mouvement, Verdun, offensive Nivelle).

Les 668 données biographiques permettent également de dresser un portait-robot du soldat fusillé : un militaire du rang (soldat ou caporal) de 23 ans, cultivateur ou artisan, originaire de la Seine, du Nord, du Pas-de-Calais, du Rhône ou encore de la Seine-Maritime, soit les départements les plus peuplés avant le début de la guerre, et condamné à mort pour abandon de poste ou refus d'obéissance devant l'ennemi.

A peine 6% (43) des soldats fusillés ont été officiellement réhabilités entre 1917 et 1934 par la Cour de cassation, la Cour d'appel ou la Cour spéciale de justice militaire.

Source: Agence France-Presse, 2 septembre 2013

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