As Lewis-Stempel (2011) sets out in his book, many of the subalterns had enlisted straight from school and, given that the average time a junior officer survived was little more than six weeks, it is awful to think that for some, their time on the Western Front should have included the experience of being an officer in charge of a firing squad.
4
THE ARMY CHAPLAIN
Whichever side of the conflict they were on, the majority of both officers and men would have put their trust in their God to see them through the war at a time when societal norms meant that an individual had to choose whether to opt out of organised religion rather than to opt in, as is the case today. Few seemed to have questioned how the same God could operate on both sides of the line, perhaps because, for the majority, believing was enough without wondering why or how, but if such questions were raised then their army chaplains were on hand and would, with certainty, have been able to put their minds at rest.
Church parade on a Sunday was a compulsory event for all men, whatever their beliefs or faith. Chaplains from denominations other than Roman Catholic did not tend to go too near the front, leading some soldiers to feel that although they might give a fire-and-brimstone speech exhorting the troops to advance and fight, they did not share the inherent dangers involved. This is captured nicely in a quote from Siegfried Sassoon (Holmes, 2005), who was unhappy with a particular chaplain’s choice of words. ‘And now God go with you,’ he had told a group of men bound for the front. ‘I will go with you as far as the station.’
Perhaps in this individual’s defence, it should be pointed out that Anglican chaplains were expressly instructed to stay away from the front line, although this situation changed in 1916, when they were incorporated into the forward field ambulances and main dressing stations. Julian Bickersteth, who became a senior Anglican chaplain in the 56th (London) Division and was awarded the Military Cross, felt it was important for his credibility with the men to go where they went, as he explained (Lewis-Stempel, 2011): ‘I went out with a wiring party into no-man’s land last Friday, got back at 4.00am – a most interesting experience. I was glad of it because I do so dislike the men to have to listen to someone who has not been with them under all conditions.’
Army chaplains, and there were some 3,500 chaplains serving with the British Army by November 1918 (Snape, 2004), were given officer rank and carried out a range of duties from administering to the dead and dying, performing burials, giving troops absolution as they went forward, attempting to maintain morale, and even on occasions censoring letters from the front. Snape makes the point that from January 1916 onwards, part of the chaplains’ role was to raise morale and foster discipline amongst the troops and, therefore, it could be argued that the continued execution of offenders after that date represented failure on their part.
They could also be required to attend on those who were to be executed, and the notes given to Guilford in 1917, detailed in Chapter 2, set out the following duties for a chaplain:
Ascertain the prisoner’s denomination and arrange for services of a Chaplain. The Chaplain will attend the promulgation of the sentence to the prisoner and will inform the latter when it will be carried out. He may remain with the prisoner up to the time the latter is prepared for execution (ie when the APM enters the place of confinement and demands the prisoner from the guard) and will not be allowed further intercourse with him after that time. He may attend the execution and he will afterwards read the burial service. It is undesirable that he should wear vestments.
In civilian prisons, ministering to the condemned was seen as a highly specialised role, left to prison chaplains or to exemplary pastors, but this was not explicitly the case where military executions were concerned, although it does appear to have been devolved to those who were more experienced. Snape observes that because of the numbers of army chaplains on the Western Front and the small number of men executed, the number of chaplains who were called upon to attend executions was, in turn, quite small. Many death sentences – Snape says 89 per cent – were commuted at the eleventh hour, meaning that more clergy would have experienced preparing a man for death whose sentence was subsequently commuted, than were involved in an actual execution.
If a civilian had been condemned to death, the legal process involved led to many weeks passing between sentence and execution, giving a prison chaplain a considerable amount of time to spend with the condemned and allowing them to repent and be reconciled with God. This was not the case in the military where there were usually only days or just hours between promulgation of sentence and the execution of that sentence, meaning that the focus was on ensuring that the condemned ‘died a good death’ (Snape). Some chaplains were prepared to offer practical help in addition to spiritual assistance to the condemned, such as the provision of alcohol, pills to help them sleep better, letter writing, or accepting personal items to be passed on to family and loved ones.
Although the army required a chaplain to be present, it was still the condemned man’s choice as to whether or not to avail themselves of his services. In 1915, Captain T.H. Westmacott had been appointed the APM of the 1st Indian Cavalry Division, and his duties included being present at executions. On one occasion he attended the execution of a soldier from the 29th Lancers and noted (Brown, 2001): ‘Gibbon, the Divisional Chaplain, was a great nuisance, as he obtained leave from the Divisional Commander to visit Yadram during the night. As Yadram was a Jat and not a Christian we all considered it a great piece of impertinence on Gibbon’s part.’
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The role of the condemned man’s church and the army chaplain is not as simple as it may first be thought. For the condemned man who has just found out that he is to be executed in a matter of hours, the army chaplain may have been the friendly face that they craved – however, they were far from being a friend at that time. The army chaplains were, in fact, part of the military establishment and as Snape states: ‘No case has come to light during the course of this research of any chaplain condemning a capital sentence passed by a court martial.’ Brigadier F.P. Crozier (1930) noted that what seemed to exercise the clergy more than anything was the condemned man’s access to alcohol prior to their execution.
The Society for the Abolition of Capital Punishment carried out a survey of ecclesiastical opinion in 1900 and found that all those who took part supported the state’s right to carry out executions, relying on Genesis 9.6 as justification: ‘Whoever sheds the blood of man, by man shall his blood be shed.’ Where British Army executions in the period August 1914 to March 1920 are concerned, only fifteen British soldiers were executed for murder, while the remainder were executed for offences that did not exist in civilian law (Snape), therefore making the clergy’s support for military executions questionable. The vast majority of British soldiers executed had not committed an offence that had its equivalent in civilian law or could be categorised as a sin. As Brigadier Crozier (1937), a supporter of military executions, pointed out in connection with the execution of Private James Crozier of the 9th Royal Irish Rifles on 27 February 1916: having committed no specific sin, ‘Why the culprit had to make his peace with God when the only trouble he had at the time was with the commander-in-chief of the British Armies in France, I do not know.’
It can be said, therefore, that army chaplains supported the death penalty – thereby producing a tension between their role ministering to the condemned and their place in the establishment, which would almost certainly have been too subtle for the condemned man to understand. In addition, as Snape says, the army chaplains, who were both educated and commissioned, would have had little in common with the majority of those men sentenced to death.
Even without the First World War, the world of 1914 to 1918 was vastly different from that of today, so that must temper any criticism of their conduct and views. However, if anyone at the time could voice opposition to what was happening, then it would have been the churches, and the army chaplains would have been best placed
to do so, but they supported the death penalty and therefore never saw the need to do so.
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Reverend Julian Bickersteth of the 56th Division was in attendance at the execution of Private Walter Yeoman of the 1/12th Royal Fusiliers on 3 July 1917. Yeoman was a soldier who had been sentenced for the offence of desertion. Bickersteth had got to know Yeoman over a number of months, and asked the senior chaplain, who had decided to attend the execution himself, if he could go instead. His diary entry, contained in a long letter he wrote on 5 July 1917, provides a very moving account of the build-up to Private Yeoman’s execution.
Bickersteth (1996) spent the twelve hours between the promulgation of the sentence and the execution itself with Yeoman in a room that he described as only ‘nine feet by ten feet’ and with two guards in attendance, so there was no opportunity for any privacy. Bickersteth, in a very detailed letter to his brother, recalled saying to Yeoman, ‘I am going to stay with you and do anything I can for you. If you’d like to talk, we will, but if you’d rather not, we’ll sit quiet.’
Yeoman was initially unresponsive to Bickersteth’s ministry but eventually said that he wanted to sing hymns, which they did for three hours, finishing eventually, if somewhat ironically in the circumstances, with ‘God Save the King’. Bickersteth realised that the words to the hymns had themselves meant nothing to the condemned man, but that he perhaps made himself feel better by convincing himself that they were, in fact, a form of prayer and that therefore they had, indeed, prayed together. Bickersteth stayed with Yeoman all night while one sentry played patience and the other read a book. Earlier he had used a sentry’s knife to put jam on Private Yeoman’s bread as the condemned man was not permitted to use a knife himself.
At dawn, with preparations under way for the execution, Bickersteth was given rum for the condemned man by the APM. In fact, Yeoman refused it but enjoyed his breakfast of bread, butter, ham and tea. When Yeoman was tied securely to the stake, Bickersteth whispered in his ear, ‘Safe in the arms of Jesus’, and Yeoman replied, ‘Safe in the arms of Jesus’.
Bickersteth was also in attendance at the execution of Private Henry Williams of the 1/9th Royal Fusiliers on 28 December 1917 for the offence of desertion. His diary shows that he found the experience physically and mentally trying and wrote of the ‘simple heroism of this mere lad of nineteen, who has been out here at the front since 1914’.
He spent the night with the condemned man, hearing what Bickersteth said was Williams’ first and last confession. He said that Williams:
gave me all his little treasures to give to this friend or that. He wrote a letter to his sweetheart and sent her his letter with all its photographs and trinkets, a lucky farthing which she had given him for a keepsake, his last ‘leave’ ticket, and other small things.
In his diaries (1996), he recalled the condemned man’s final moments:
As they bound him, I held his arm tight to reassure him – words are useless at such a moment – and then he turned his blindfolded face up to mine and said in a voice that wrung my heart, ‘Kiss me, Sir, kiss me,’ and with my kiss on his lips and, ‘God has you in his keeping,’ whispered in his ear, he passed on into the Great unseen. God accept him; receive him.
Bickersteth (Holmes, 2005) had sufficient awareness to realise that it was not just the condemned man who needed comforting and, following an execution, he spent time talking to those in the firing squad and giving them cigarettes, but he does not reveal any views in his letters or diary entries that show that he opposed the death penalty. It must be assumed, therefore, that despite everything he supported it.
An example of a last letter home, in this case from Private Albert Troughton, can be found in Appendix 4.
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Another army chaplain, Martin Andrews, was present for the execution of Private Alfred Ansted of the 4th Royal Fusiliers. Ansted was executed on 15 November 1916 having been found guilty of desertion. In addition to his official duties, Andrews brought Ansted two pills to ‘put in his tea’ and ‘which would make him sleep better’.
The Reverend Harry Blackburne (1932) was required to officiate at the double execution of Lance-Corporal William Price and Private Richard Morgan, 2nd Welsh Regiment. Both men had been found guilty of murder and were executed on 15 February 1915. On the night before the execution, he read them the parable of the prodigal son and then prayed with them; in a letter to his wife, he said, ‘now I must go and be with them to the end. Thank God, it is all over’ (Putkowski and Dunning, 2012).
Captain T. Guy Rogers, MC, who was chaplain to the 2nd Guards Brigade, was ordered to attend the execution of Private H.T.W. Phillips, 1st Coldstream Guards, which took place on 30 May 1916, for the offence of desertion. In his letters, kept at the Imperial War Museum, Rogers wrote:
It has just fallen to my lot to prepare a deserter for his death – that meant breaking the news to him, helping him with his last letters, passing the night with him on the straw in his cell, and trying to prepare his soul for meeting God: the execution and burying him immediately … Monday night I was with him, Tuesday morning at 3.30 he was shot. He lay beside me for hours with his hand in mine. Poor fellow, it was a bad case, but he met his end bravely, and drank all I could teach him about God, his father, Jesus his Saviour, the reality of forgiveness of sins. I feel shaken by it all, but my nerves, thank God, have not troubled me.
Although this letter demonstrates some sympathy for the plight of Private Phillips, there is again no indication that Rogers actually opposed the sentence, whereas there is more than a suggestion of feeling sorry for himself and of wanting the reader of the letter to share those feelings.
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However, although not in the British Army, one chaplain, Canon F.G. Scott, senior chaplain to the 1st Canadian Division, did try to stop an execution going ahead, and his recollections are valid in the context of this book. The condemned man is not named by Scott but Putkowski and Sykes (1998) have identified him as Company Quartermaster Sergeant William Alexander of the 10th Canadian Expeditionary Force (Alberta Regiment). Alexander’s offence was desertion; however, despite Scott lobbying senior officers on two occasions, the execution went ahead on 18 October 1917.
Alexander was in a cell under guard when Scott arrived, sitting at a table with a bottle of brandy and writing materials. In the ensuing conversation, Alexander revealed that he had never been baptised and in the time that was left this was something that he wished to rectify, so Scott performed what must have been one of the bleakest baptisms he ever carried out. Scott was impressed by the man and said, ‘I kept wondering if I could not even then, at that late hour, do something to avert the carrying out of the sentence.’
Keeping his feelings to himself and certainly not giving hope to Alexander, as that would have been cruel, in the early hours of the morning Scott walked to army headquarters to ask the army commander, a general, to commute Alexander’s sentence. The general explained to Scott that, as the due process had been followed and the sentence had been confirmed by the British commander-in-chief, Sir Douglas Haig, the decision would stand unless new evidence could be presented. The general suggested that mental weakness or insanity might cause a stay of execution and a new trial, which gave Scott some hope.
When he returned to Alexander’s cell, Scott was able to steer the conversation and found that there was a history of mental weakness on both sides of the condemned man’s family. Armed with this information, he returned to army headquarters and again saw the general, who said that Scott needed to see the divisional commander. With time running out, Scott got to see the divisional commander and spoke for Alexander, only to be told that as the court martial had carefully considered the case, then the final decision would stand. The divisional commander added that to delay the execution, even for twenty-four hours, only for it to then go ahead, was adding an avoidable level of mental torture for the condemned. Scott could only agree.
By the time Scott returned, Alex
ander had somehow found out what had been attempted. Scott told him, ‘Everyone is longing just as much as I am to save you, but the matter has been gone into so carefully and has gone so far, and so much depends upon every man doing his duty to the uttermost, that the sentence must be carried out.’
Scott describes the execution in some detail – one of the most notable points of which was that Alexander, despite his pleas to have his eyes left uncovered, had his head covered by a gas mask which was put on back to front. As Scott states, the condemned man wearing a blindfold would have been for the benefit of the firing squad because the effect of seeing the victim’s face had been known to lead to the men firing wide.
The medical officer and Scott had retired beyond a hedge out of sight of the execution, but no amount of putting their hands over their ears could keep out the sound of the volley. Scott then spoke to the members of the firing squad, telling them ‘how deeply all ranks felt the occasion, and that nothing but the dire necessity of guarding the lives of the men in the front line from the panic and rout that might result through the failure of one individual, compelled the taking of such measures of punishment’.
Despite everything, though, even when writing his memoirs, Scott still could not bring himself to oppose the legitimacy of the death sentence.
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