Black Sea mutiny

After the armistice of November 11, 1918, the dreadnought battleship Jean Bart was part of a squadron sent across the Black Sea toward Odessa to combat the Russian Revolution. The mutiny began on April 16, 1919, on board the destroyer Protet, as it lay anchored in the Danube River port of Galatz.[1] One of the mutiny's supposed leaders, André Marty, was arrested that same day. Disobedience movements had emerged in February 1919, provoked by some combination of poor living conditions, the absence of demobilization following the armistice, and sympathy with the Russian revolutionaries. André Marty had fomented a plot to take control of the protest movement and to enter the port of Odessa waving a red flag, the symbol of the Bolshevik revolutionaries. A few hours after this first mutiny, the mutiny extended to the French naval vessels stationed in the Crimea. On the morning of April 20, the red flag was raised on the two battleships (without lowering the French tricolor).[2]

The mutiny spread on April 23 to the cruiser Waldeck-Rousseau. A court-martial held in Constantinople in July 1919 sentenced Marty to 20 years forced labor. In total, about 100 sailors were sentenced by French military tribunals, although the majority were rapidly reprieved.