The Medical Officer will provide a three cornered bandage for blindfolding and a small paper disc for fixing over the heart. He will adjust these when requested by the APM.
The firing party will be marched into position by the APM whilst the prisoner is being tied to the post. The APM will so time this that the firing party will be ready for action simultaneously with the completion of the tying up.
The firing party will march in two ranks, halt on the rifles, turn to the right or left, pick up the rifles and come to a ready position, front rank kneeling, rear rank standing. They will press forward safety catch and come to the ‘present’ on a signal from the APM. The Officer, when he sees all the men are steady, will give the word ‘fire’. This is to be the only word of command given after the prisoner leaves the place of confinement.
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The notes issued to Guilford make clear that the medical officer’s first action would be to ‘provide a three cornered bandage for blindfolding’, but this, contrary to public perception, was not done as an act of humanity towards the condemned but rather to save the firing squad from having to look into the man’s eyes, because as discussed earlier, that was the weak link in the execution chain.
Sergeant Len Cavinder of the 1/4th East Yorkshire Regiment was present at the execution of Private Charles McColl; Cavinder and another man were detailed to escort McColl from a military prison at Brandhoek to a prison at Ypres (Corns and Hughes-Wilson), the prisoner at that stage being unaware of his fate. It fell to Sergeant Cavinder and his fellow guard to bury Private McColl’s body at the conclusion of the execution.
Canon Scott (1922) recalled seeing a man (this was in all probability Private Charles McColl of the 1/4th East Yorkshire Regiment who was executed for desertion on 28 December 1917) prepared for his execution by having a gas mask placed over his head, but back to front so that the eye pieces were at the back. The gas masks were made of flannel and the wearer breathed in through the flannel itself and out through the attached tube – they were unpopular to wear even when under a gas attack. With the helmet on back to front, this would only have added to the horror of the moment for both the condemned man and the firing party.
Who would have decided that this was appropriate, stripping the condemned man of the last vestiges of dignity in his final moments? Canon Scott recalled that it had been the APM who had officiated at this execution and therefore the likelihood is that this would have been his decision because it is unlikely to have been an order passed down the chain of command. If so, it demonstrates that a degree of inhumanity, if not sadism, was present during the last moments of some of those shot.
The notes given to Guilford reveal the central role played by the APM, and the holders of this post were not generally well liked. It is likely that an APM would have been present at more executions than other officers in a division and so would have been looked to for their experience; therefore they wielded considerable influence as to how matters were conducted.
Private James Adamson of the 7th Camerons was executed on 23 November 1917 having been found guilty of cowardice. His execution was recalled in the memoirs of Trooper G.S. Chaplin who was a member of the Mounted Military Police (Putkowski and Sykes, 1996). On the morning of the execution, Chaplin had been sent up the road to stop any traffic, maintaining the army’s instructions to avoid bystanders, although it could be argued that allowing those passing to see what was happening would have reinforced the deterrent aspect of the sentence. His memoirs include his assessment of the APM as being ‘beneath contempt’.
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Étaples was a sprawling base camp in Northern France some 5km from the English Channel. It was an unpopular place with those who found themselves there for training or rehabilitation due to the petty and repressive regime they experienced, imposed by the instructors and the large number of military police. It was here, over six days in September 1917, that a sizeable number of men from the British Army mutinied, thereby threatening the autumn offensive at Passchendaele, much to the consternation of Sir Douglas Haig, the commander-in-chief.
The catalyst for the mutiny was the killing of ‘an inoffensive man by an excited military policeman’ (Brown, 2001). On 9 September 1917, Corporal Gordon Wood, of the 4th Gordon Highlanders, had decided to leave his compound and set off for a visit to the cinema, but on the way he stopped to talk to a girl from the WAAC. Unfortunately for Wood, a military policemen, Private Harry Reeve, came by and saw him lounging around with his tunic buttons undone, talking to the young WAAC. Private Reeve was both a boxing champion and had a reputation as a bully (Allison and Fairley, 1986), and he ordered Corporal Wood to move on, pointing out that he was improperly dressed. The two men argued, whereupon Private Reeve shot and fatally wounded Corporal Wood.
When news of what had occurred spread around the camp, the soldiers erupted in fury and the military police, already the focus of many grievances, had to take flight. They were hunted down and many were badly beaten or killed in the process, despite having been given temporary shelter in local homes. It was an event that led to the brief breakdown of all discipline in the camp.
Allison and Fairley’s book, entitled The Monocled Mutineer, is a very interesting read, as it describes the story of this not inconsiderable mutiny in detail; there is no need to retell the story here, except to highlight the way that the news of the event and its aftermath were handled.
According to Allison and Fairley, the official records do not mention the scale of the problem, and Sir Douglas Haig went to great lengths to avoid his nemesis David Lloyd George, the prime minister, finding out the true picture, as he feared giving his adversary an excuse to replace him. This was a demonstration of the commander-in-chief living by his mantra that ‘truth could be abandoned in the cause of the war effort’. This lack of transparency will be further discussed in the later chapters on abolition and pardons.
Lady Angela Forbes, who was no friend of the commander-in-chief, was much loved by the soldiers, having set up a tea-and-bun hut in the middle of the camp. She was an independent witness of what had gone on at Étaples and therefore Sir Douglas Haig ordered that she was to be sent back to Britain. Again, the details of this episode are well set out in The Monocled Mutineer and so do not need to be covered here other than to repeat Lady Angela’s concern ‘at the cruel conduct of the military policemen’, which she maintained was a reflection of their commander, Assistant Provost Marshal Strachan.
There is also a lack of transparency over what happened to those soldiers who were deemed to be the ringleaders of the mutiny once it had ended. Allison and Fairley state that ten men were eventually shot, and yet the official records only admit to three men in the whole war having been executed for mutiny. To confuse matters further, whilst Corns and Hughes-Wilson list four men who were executed for mutiny, two were killed on 29 October 1916 – which predates the mutiny – with the remaining two being executed in October 1917.
It is possible, therefore, that Labourer Ahmed Mahmoud Mohamed of the Egypt Labour Corps, who was executed on 20 October, and Private Thomas Davis of the 1st Royal Munsters Regiment, who was executed on 4 October, were involved in the events at Étaples.
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Military policemen, also known as ‘redcaps’ because of the red band around their caps, could be just as affected by an execution as the next man (Moore, 1999), as shown when one of their number entered a small café in a distressed state and desperate for company. Having found a friendly ear, or at least someone who was prepared to share a table with a military policeman, he told of his experiences the previous night guarding a man who had then been shot that morning. It seemed that just before the condemned man was taken away, he had given his cigarettes and matches, together with a few coins, to the military policeman, saying, ‘I shan’t need these. You’d better have them.’
From the evidence available, the picture that begins to emerge is one where the APM was a central figure regarding the organisation of the e
xecutions. The regimental officers, in the absence of regulations governing the conduct of executions, were only too happy to defer to a figure who would have more experience than them in such matters, and this gave rise to the variations that occurred.
The mutiny at Étaples resulted from the actions of a military policeman, and Private Reeve appears to be the public face of a regime typified by calculated cruelty on the part of the base’s instructors and military police, and indifference to the treatment of the men by the officers who were charged with their care.
Another aspect arising from the mutiny at Étaples is the way that the military hierarchy sought to cover up the extent of events there and seem to have manipulated the facts in accordance with Sir Douglas Haig’s mantra, mentioned earlier. This will be explored further in a later chapter.
7
ABOLITION OF THE
DEATH PENALTY IN
THE BRITISH ARMY
The campaign to abolish the death penalty started in 1915 and finally achieved its objective by 1930, having been fought out in the Houses of Parliament and in and around Westminster. The case for abolition was based, by and large, on moral, ethical and logical grounds, but those involved did not seek pardons for those executed. The campaign for pardons got underway in 1989 and ended successfully in 2006, involving and engaging the public much more, although its final battle was again to be fought in the Houses of Parliament and Westminster.
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The final public execution in England took place on 26 May 1868 when Michael Barrett was hung at Newgate for the Fenian bombing at Clerkenwell, yet ‘public’ executions were still taking place on the Western Front throughout the First World War because, on occasions, at the apparent whim of their commanding officer, regiments and battalions were paraded to witness the event.
Private Thomas Highgate, as discussed earlier, was executed on 8 September 1914, having been sentenced to death for desertion. Private Highgate served in the 1st Battalion of the Royal West Kents, which was one of the first elements of the British Expeditionary Force to land in France on 15 August 1914 and took part in the fighting at Mons. General Sir Horace Smith-Dorrien decided when confirming the sentence to make a very public example of Highgate and ordered that he ‘should be killed as publicly as possible’ (Hastings, 2013). As a result, he was executed in front of two companies of his comrades. Smith-Dorrien later justified this by claiming that, as a result, there were no further charges of desertion brought in his division and, therefore, deterrence worked.
The execution post at Poperinghe, against which men such as Private James Michael were shot. Private Michael of the 10th Battalion Cameronians, Scottish Rifles, was shot at dawn for desertion on 24 August 1917. He had gone absent during the opening of the Third Battle of Ypres in July. Private Herbert Morris was recruited in the West Indies during the winter of 1916/17. As he was black, he was never intended to be a combatant. He went absent, he said, because he could not cope with the sound of the guns. At 17 he was one of the youngest to be shot – though not the only one underage. (Courtesy of Paul Kendall)
After the war, an MP recalled being told by a general that he had ‘paraded the whole division in order to see the sentence carried out’ (Moore, 1999). On 22 May 1916, Private William Burrell of the 2nd Sussex Regiment was shot for desertion. Private Burrell was executed in front of his comrades, who were ordered to face away from the place of execution and told that anyone who turned around would be placed on a charge. Such was the strain on the men present that one man fainted as the shots rang out.
As brutal as such public executions may seem today, the military hierarchy justified them on the grounds that there would have been no purpose in executing a soldier except in front of his comrades, where it would serve as a deterrent to others. But as Private Walter Williams of the Machine Gun Corps/Northumberland Fusiliers (Williams, 2013) shows in his memoirs, this was not always the effect achieved. Williams wrote about the emotional aftermath of having to witness, along with many other soldiers, the execution of a man from his own regiment. When the men had fallen out after the execution, a number expressed their anger at what they had just seen by swearing, cursing the injustice, and breaking whatever was to hand, while others prayed. The men were united in the view that the execution was not the deterrent the army had hoped for and that their officers had lost all respect. This was surely not the effect the officers concerned would have hoped for or expected?
It was also likely that the First World War, perhaps more than any conflict that had gone before, piled horror upon horror on those involved, and therefore the effect of witnessing an execution became diluted as the war progressed.
The deterrent aspect of the executions was further undermined by the fact that a number of men who had been shot for desertion were serial offenders – they had been tried and sentenced to death, but the sentence had been commuted two, three and sometimes four times before their luck finally ran out. By way of an example, Private Frederick Broadrick of the Royal Warwickshire Regiment was serving with its 11th Battalion while already subject to a suspended death sentence, when he deserted again rather than parade for a working party to which he had been detailed; he was executed on 1 August 1917. Private Samuel Cunningham, also from the Royal Warwickshire Regiment, who had enlisted in January 1914, was sentenced to twenty-eight days’ detention for desertion on 21 January 1916. Undeterred, he deserted again; after his eventual capture, at a court martial held on 29 April 1917, he was found guilty and sentenced to death. He was executed on 19 May 1917.
The Reverend Julian Bickersteth wrote in his diary on 5 July 1917 about Private Walter Yeoman, who had deserted a further four times since his initial act of desertion. The man had had his death sentence commuted and then suspended to give him another chance, but he had deserted again.
The evidence, therefore, as limited as it might appear, points to this being an aspect of military executions where there was no consistency, as not all executions were carried out with the condemned man’s battalion or regiment present, which undermined the only logical reason for executions, namely deterrence. As will be discussed later, some soldiers simply did not believe that they took place at all.
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From 1915 onwards, uncomfortable questions about the army’s use of the death penalty began to be asked in Parliament. In 1915, Under Secretary of State for War Harold Tennant, in answer to a direct question, confirmed that executions had taken place, but in July of that year he refused to confirm the number of death sentences passed, on the grounds that it would not be in the public interest. Over the subsequent years the questions were to continue.
In 1919, the army showed that it was aware of the public mood and the likely consequences for its ability to retain the death penalty, as evidenced in the following extract from Public Record Office file ‘WO32/5479 Suspension of the Death Penalty: 1918–19’:
‘Even during the continuance of hostilities there was very strong feeling both in the country and in the House of Commons against the infliction of the death penalty for military offences. Now that hostilities have ceased it can confidently be stated that the effect on this country of a death penalty might lead to an agitation which might be difficult to control and in all probability would jeopardise the prospects of maintaining the death penalty for military offences in time of peace when the Annual Army (Act) comes before the Houses of Parliament.’ 2nd March 1919 D.P.S. [Director of Personal Services] Brigadier General Sir Wyndham Childs (Department of the Adjutant General)
The Darling Committee Report in 1919 effectively gave a clean bill of health to the court martial system of the time despite three committee members refusing to sign the report. These individuals then submitted their own report, which differed from the majority report in many areas. Specifically, they complained that investigations into miscarriages of justice had been blocked and, although such instances were evident, they had been unable to investigate further. They also concluded that there had been too ma
ny courts martial during the war, court martial panel members should have legal training, the confirmation-of-sentence process should be removed, and that a right of appeal should be introduced.
In 1920, a War Office committee of inquiry was set up, under the chairmanship of Lord Southborough, to look into the different types of hysteria and traumatic neurosis and, not surprisingly, this was referred to as the Shell Shock Committee, which reported back two years later. As a result of its deliberations, it brought together knowledge of these conditions and treatment methods and Corns and Hughes-Wilson provided a detailed examination of the work of this committee.
One of the witnesses called was Captain James Churchill Dunn, DSO, MC and Bar, DCM, of the 2nd Royal Welch Fusiliers who had received his gallantry awards while serving as a trooper in the Boer War. In a debate in the House of Commons on 18 January 2006 (Hansard), Keith Simpson, MP, recalled that Captain Dunn, who went on to serve as a medical officer on the Western Front, had published his diaries, in which he had expressed his views on morale and discipline. He was one of only two medical officers who gave evidence to the committee. He was a man who was ‘absolutely convinced of the deterrent value of executing those who wilfully deserted and absconded; he believed in the deterrent effect’, but his choice of the word ‘wilfully’ suggests that he did not believe it should apply to those men who simply could not help themselves as a result of mental trauma.
Following a strong campaign from abolitionists, such as Ernest Thurtle, MP, who had himself served as a captain on the Western Front, the death penalty for eight offences committed on active service was abolished in 1928. These offences included striking or offering violence to a superior officer, disobeying a lawful order so as to display a wilful defiance of authority, and sleeping or being drunk while on sentry duty. The death penalty remained for desertion, cowardice, leaving a post without orders, mutiny and treachery when committed on active service. Thurtle was an abolitionist because he felt that it was unfair that military law ‘enabled non-fighting people, the majority, to send fighting men, the minority, to be killed or maimed in any cause the majority may decide proper. And the fighting man may not refuse on pain of death, or at least, penal servitude.’
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