The chaplain solemnly intoned ‘Amen’ and turned and walked away with his head bowed. The lieutenant then unsheathed his sword and raised it in the air. Fingers tightened on triggers and when the sword was lowered a thunderous volley rang out. Some bullets, whether deliberately or as a result of incompetence, missed the staked figure completely and threw up spurts of dust from the quarry wall behind. Some found their target and the condemned man sagged forward, at which point the medical officer approached him to determine whether life had been extinguished. With a look of disgust he signalled to the lieutenant that the man was still alive. The lieutenant, with a trembling hand, then stepped forward to finish him off with a revolver shot through the side of the head.
The watching companies were swiftly marched out of the quarry, with their sergeants silently defying them from looking anywhere but straight ahead. The firing squad was then brought to attention and marched back to its breakfast, also without a sideways glance at the dead man, followed by the lieutenant, the assistant provost marshal, the military policemen and the medical officer. They left two ambulance bearers to take down the body, which was then wrapped in a cape ready for burial, and to clear away the bloodied straw from around the stake. When they were finished, they placed the body on a stretcher and carried it to the burial site, where the chaplain presided over a short funeral service.
What you have just read is my fictional account of a British Army execution on the Western Front. It contains all the elements that you would expect, but how were these executions really organised and regulated?
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It is unlikely that those who went off to the Western Front could ever have imagined the horrors they would have to face, whatever their rank or experience. The men of the British Expeditionary Force, and those who volunteered in August 1914, were naively convinced as they cheerfully marched off to war that it would be over by Christmas, while the generals, equally naively, thought that the cavalry would prevail – indeed, right up until the final days of the war, Sir Douglas Haig, the commander-in-chief, was still looking for ways to unleash his cavalry on the Germans. Nobody foresaw that this would be a more static war of trenches, mud, machine guns, barbed wire and artillery barrages.
Soldiers going to the Western Front and to the other theatres of the First World War would have been trained in the very many ways to kill the enemy using their rifles, bayonets, grenades, machine guns and artillery, yet nothing could really have prepared those men for the actual sights, sounds and conditions that they would encounter. Despite their training, throughout the war many British soldiers still could not bring themselves to shoot wounded, unarmed and retreating German soldiers, so how could that training help if they were unlucky enough to be involved as a member of a firing squad, brought together to execute one of their own? What would that have felt like? Thankfully, very few people will ever have such an experience and so we will have to use our imagination to try to understand and gain insight into that situation.
When the state decides to take the life of one of its own citizens, in what can be described as an act of judicial murder, it is a momentous judgement for all concerned. Who decided how that execution should be conducted and who should be present – or was it simply left to the individual whims and preferences of the assistant provost marshal or the commanding officers?
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Those who volunteered for the army in August 1914, and those who joined afterwards, either as volunteers or as conscripts, left the civilian world behind them and found themselves in an alien environment, subject to what now seems, 100 years later, harsh military law which governed all aspects of the lives of the officers and soldiers in peace and in war, at home or overseas.
As a result of the outbreak of war, in September 1914 the normal system of military court martial was replaced by a system of summary court martial. Offences that carried the death penalty were then to be dealt with by a field general court martial presided over by a minimum of three officers, one of whom had to hold at least the rank of captain in order to act as president. All three had to be in agreement on any sentence passed. The recommended sentence was then passed up the chain of command, together with any mitigating circumstances and pleas for clemency.
The changes made in September 1914 are important because they allowed for the sentence, passed by the field general court martial, to be carried out within twenty-four hours – with no right of appeal. The reality for those sentenced to death was that the passage of time from sentence to its promulgation or announcement could be weeks if not months, whereas the time between promulgation and the actual execution was normally just a matter of a few hours.
On 8 September 1914, for example, Private Thomas Highgate at the age of 17 became the first British soldier to be executed on the Western Front for desertion, just two days after sentence had been passed, proving that the process could be quick. In fact, the time between Private Highgate being informed of the confirmation of his sentence and his execution was just forty-five minutes (David, 2013).
Driver Thomas Moore of the 24th Division Train (Army Service Corps, 4th Company) was executed on 26 February 1916, having been sentenced for murder, with his court martial having taken place on 18 February. The death sentence was only promulgated at 4.03 a.m., the company was paraded at 5.30 a.m., and just ten minutes later he was dead, which gave little time for any army chaplain to help him prepare for his end: Moore only had eighty-seven minutes from announcement to execution.
Sub-Lieutenant Edwin Dyett (opposite) was informed that the sentence of death had been passed upon him after he had returned to his battalion.
In contrast, the court martial for Sub-Lieutenant Edwin Dyett of the Nelson Battalion, Royal Naval Division, was held on 26 December 1916 for an alleged offence of desertion on 13 November (Moore, 1999). Under the Army Act, the fact that at the end of those proceedings Sub-Lieutenant Dyett was not released meant that he would have known that he had been found guilty, but at that stage he would not have been informed of the sentence, although he would have been aware of the penalty for desertion. The procedure thereafter, which had been set down in some detail, was, according to Moore:
• A character report from his company commander and an opinion as to whether the death sentence was appropriate in that case.
• A report from a medical officer as to his nervous condition.
• The commanders of the brigade, division, corps and army in which the individual’s battalion was assigned had to submit their recommendation as to whether the death sentence was necessary.
In the meantime, Dyett was returned to his battalion, where he was given the role of censoring the men’s letters. On 4 January 1917, while playing cards in the mess, he was told by an officer – in front of all those present – that a sentence of death had been confirmed by the commander-in-chief, Sir Douglas Haig. The execution took place on the 5th. It was to be a case that caused concern to many people, and was subsequently raised in Parliament.
Although Sub-Lieutenant Dyett’s case did not merit a mention in the commander-in-chief’s diaries (Sheffield and Bourne, 2005), there is an entry for 11 January 1917 that deals with eleven cases where the death penalty had been recommended. The eleven men were from the 35th Division and Haig confirmed the sentence on three of them: Lance-Sergeant William Stones and Lance-Corporals Peter Goggins and John McDonald, all from the 19th Durham Light Infantry. Where the rest were concerned, Haig commuted the sentence to fifteen years’ penal servitude, which he then suspended.
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The 302 British and Commonwealth soldiers executed for military offences committed while on active service on the Western Front (Babington, 2002), cast a long shadow and their cases remain controversial to this day. As shocking as that figure might be, it represents only 10 per cent of the 3,076 sentenced to death (in fact some 20,000 offences that could have attracted the death sentence were committed over this same period). These statistics show, therefore, that some of thos
e executed were undoubtedly unlucky to be in the wrong place at the wrong time, when those further up the command chain saw a need to make an example of them, thereby making it something of a lottery for those concerned and therefore inherently unfair. This seems to have happened in the case of the eleven men mentioned above: although all of them had been found guilty, it was the three more senior men that Haig decided needed to face the ultimate penalty. It is a pity that the records of those whose sentences were commuted were destroyed in 1924 because it would be interesting to read the reasons given and to see where their cases differed from those who were executed.
A previous diary (Sheffield and Bourne) entry, for 3 March 1915, details briefly that Haig had confirmed the death sentence on three men ‘of the Loyal North Lancs’ who had deserted, stating the reason: ‘The state of discipline in this battalion is not very satisfactory…’ This entry, and the decision it describes, raise some interesting points. Firstly, it seems to be subjective because there is no detail as to the basis of Haig’s conclusion about the state of the battalion’s discipline. A battalion’s discipline could encompass a broad spectrum of offences ranging from the soldiers’ appearance up to a reluctance to fight, and Haig’s diary entry does not clarify the shortcomings involved. Secondly, every soldier and officer in the battalion must therefore be considered to have borne a collective responsibility for the deaths of their three comrades because it is possible that, had the battalion displayed higher standards of discipline, they would have been spared, further highlighting the part that chance played in these matters.
As a final point about the number of sentences passed, it is also interesting to note that the British Army only executed thirty-seven men between 1865 and 1898 – during a time when it was fighting colonial wars all across the globe – and only four men during the whole of the Boer War from 1898 to 1902 (Irish Government Report, 2004). These statistics are important because they seem to imply that a significant increase in the prevalence of capital offences was caused by the horrors of the First World War. Although this undoubtedly played a part, it needs to be borne in mind that this was the first war for 100 years that saw the British Army fighting in Europe. This meant that, for many soldiers, home was just across the English Channel, making desertion an attractive option, whereas that would not normally have been the case if they were fighting in Africa or India. If you deserted then, where did you go?
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In the early 1900s, court sentences were about punishment and deterrence, and society and the Church in general both accepted and supported capital punishment. In a civilian criminal court there could only be one sentence for the offence of murder, namely death, and once all the legal procedures were exhausted then the penalty was enacted. The situation in the military was different, and the vast majority of death sentences were passed for offences that would not be recognised as an offence in the civilian world.
With no right of appeal, the fate of the condemned man rested solely in the hands of his commander-in-chief, who would make his decision based on his view of the needs of the service rather than looking for mitigating reasons to commute the sentence. Those who did have their sentences commuted were either sent to prison or, in some cases, as a result of the Suspension of Sentences Act of 1915, the sentence would have been suspended and the individual returned to their unit with the certain knowledge that it could be enforced at any time. Where a sentence was suspended, the Act provided for the sentence to be reviewed at intervals of not more than three months, and if the individual’s conduct merited it, then the sentence could be remitted, thereby introducing the possibility of rehabilitation.
The Army (Suspension of Sentences) Act of 1915 meant that those who had their sentences commuted would serve the alternative sentence when out of the front line. This Act: ‘fulfilled the basic tenet of military law in that the penalty did nothing to precipitate a manpower shortage’.
An example of this can be found in a book by Lieutenant Max Plowman (2001) who had been a subaltern in the 10th Battalion, West Yorkshire Regiment. He had served on the Western Front, and wrote that a deserter from his regiment had his death sentence commuted to two years’ hard labour, which he then served when out of the front line.
The First World War was fought in a dehumanising and brutal environment where individual life seemed increasingly to have little value except to the individual concerned and their family, friends and loved ones. Such an environment, then as now, also had the potential to lead to thoughtless actions and an emphasis on self-preservation. These, it could be argued, would also be present on the execution ground unless the procedure was regulated. So did the British Army, with its penchant for highly regulated ceremonial and an eye for detail, have in effect a ‘standard operating procedure’ to be followed for all executions, with nothing left to chance?
The Western Front from 1914 to 1918 was a world unlike any other that had gone before, or indeed came after, so there is always a potential risk of looking at it and judging it through today’s eyes rather than by the standards of those times. The risk of subjectivity could be avoided by utilising a set of regulations setting out the conduct of an execution, if they existed, thereby providing an objective means of examining the roles and experiences of those who took part against the norms of that time.
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The existence of the death penalty in the military can be traced back to the fourteenth century, and was based on the twin aims of maintaining discipline and not alienating the local population, but, as mentioned above, with the important proviso that it should not cause a shortage of men. These principles of discipline and not alienating the local population can be seen in the following document that was issued to every soldier for them to keep in their Active Service Pay Book (The National Archives, WO 95/1553/1):
You are ordered abroad as a soldier of the King to help our French comrades against the invasion of a common enemy. You have to perform a task which will need your courage, your energy, your patience. Remember that the honour of the British Army depends on your individual conduct. It will be your duty not only to set an example of discipline and perfect steadiness under fire but also to maintain the most friendly relations with those whom you are helping in this struggle. The operations in which you are engaged will, for the most part, take place in a friendly country, and you can do your own country no better service than in showing yourself in France and Belgium in the true character of a British soldier.
Be invariably courteous, considerate and kind. Never do anything likely to injure or destroy property, and always look upon looting as a disgraceful act. You are sure to be met with a welcome and be trusted; your conduct must justify that welcome and that trust. Your duty cannot be done unless your health is sound. So keep constantly on your guard against any excesses. In this new experience you may find temptations in wine and women. You must entirely resist both temptations, and, while treating all women with perfect courtesy, you should avoid any intimacy.
Do your duty bravely.
Fear God.
Honour the King
Kitchener
Field Marshal
This paper was then supplemented by a further exhortation from the brigade to which the men were attached, in this case the 13th Brigade (WO 95/1553/1):
We shall shortly, probably, be engaged with the enemy.
Remember that the Germans hate the bayonet, and also that their theory that ‘determined men in sufficient numbers can do anything’ has already been proved, at Liege, to be a fallacy. In the face of modern weapons they cannot.
Remember also that heavy artillery fire looks terrible, but is far more alarming than harmful, and if you do not bunch, it will not do much damage. The Germans do bunch, hence their enormous losses.
Therefore remember three things:
1. If stationary, keep cool and shoot straight and steadily.
2. If moving, keep good intervals and distances.
3. If the opportunity offers, use the
bayonet with all the vigour you can.
And, above all, remember that no man in the 13th Brigade surrenders. We must fight to the end, for the honour of our Country, and the credit of our Brigade and our Regiments.
If these words came from the mouth of General Melchett in Blackadder Goes Forth, they would, at the very least, raise a smile from an audience today because of this document’s seemingly comedic content. However, its author was deadly serious with the exhortation that ‘no man in the 13th Brigade surrenders’. It is likely that it was this exhortation that sealed the fate of Private Thomas Highgate.
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The Army Act, which was first introduced in 1881, was updated every year thereafter and passed as the Army (Annual) Act by Parliament, thereby enabling the government to maintain a standing army. The Army Act of 1881 formed part of the law of England, with one difference being that it was administered by military officers and court, and emphasised that ‘in all times and in all places, the conduct of officers and soldiers as such is regulated by military law.’
As an example of the differences between civilian and military law in 1914–18, consider the situation of a factory worker who, if found asleep, could face dismissal in the worst case scenario, while a sentry found asleep in the front line could well have faced the death penalty. Although the circumstances are somewhat different, nevertheless the example highlights quite starkly the contrast in outcomes, particularly as a civilian falling asleep at their job commits no criminal offence, but under military law a soldier does.
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