Tanner’s Troubled Time
Julian Putkowski
Edward Tanner was a pre-war Regular Army soldier who arrived in France with 1 Bn. Wiltshires on 4 August 1914. Part of 7 Brigade, 3 Division, he had been one of the (sic) contemptible little army which fought dogged rear guard action after rear guard action for weeks, wearily withdrawing from Mons to the Aisne.
It was a costly business for Tanner's unit - on 20 September they were singled out by enemy gunners bombarding the 7 Brigade and then swept by machinegun fire after a couple of hundred Germans with a brace of machine guns infiltrated the British line and killed or captured some of the Wiltshires. The Germans then machine-gunned the 2 South Lancashires and hand-to-hand fighting ensued
The situation was desperate and Brigadier-General McCracken, commanding 7 Brigade was compelled to call for reinforcements to prevent the enemy breaking through and it was several hours before the Germans were repulsed. Eventually, after a day's heavy fighting, the enemy were driven back by a couple of hundred men from the Wiltshires, Worcestershires and 2 Bn. South Lancashires. The 7 Brigade lost 400 men, killed, wounded and 'missing'. The official history comments that it was a successful day for the British but the Expeditionary Force had suffered two thousand two hundred casualties.
This kind of experience wore down the nerves of even the most robust soldiers and even if they didn't break down, their health suffered when the weather broke and the soaked soldiers had to survive on bully beef and tooth-breaking hard tack biscuits. By mid-October the enemy had inflicted over 600 casualties on the battalion but an unrecorded number of men were rendered ineffective because of sickness, including 33-year-old Edward Tanner, who had been hospitalised with dysentery.
However, 18 October found Pte Tanner and a small party of men in the tiny village of Halpgarbe, near Neuve Chapelle, en route to rejoin the battalion at nearby Ligny-le-Grand, where a fierce battle was being fought. Pte Tanner later explained what happened during the early evening:
"I lost my party at the village on the night of 18 October and after they had left I went off on my own in the direction where I thought my regiment was - when I walked into a firing line of some troops - so I turned round and came back to the village and slept there till daylight - I was terribly overcome by nervousness from heavy firing and do not know what I was doing at the time. I had just left hospital suffering from dysentery and my nerves were shattered by the battle of the Aisne."
What Tanner had not mentioned was that he had actually been arrested in Halpgarbe at around 9.15 a.m. on the morning of 19 October by Lieutenant Clemens, the Adjutant of 2 South Lancashires. The lieutenant had spotted the soldier coming back into the village from the enemy lines and had questioned Tanner, assuming the private to have been a local man. The mistake was understandable since Tanner had hidden his rifle and equipment and swapped his uniform for civilian clothes. However, Clemens suspicions had been aroused when he noticed that Tanner was wearing British army boots.
When Clemens arrested Tanner, the soldier, without any prompting, declared, "I belong to the Wiltshire Regiment". Still later, as he was being escorted back to the Wiltshires, Tanner led his guards to a nearby house, where he had hidden his rifle and equipment under some straw.
Tanner was tried by Field General Court Martial at Richebourg St. Vaast on 23 October. He was undefended and his trial cannot have lasted more than 15 minutes. He was found guilty and sentenced to death. On 24 October, General Sir Horace Smith Dorrien, commanding II Corps recommended that the sentence be carried out. Thereafter, on 26 October, the BEF Commander in Chief, Field Marshal Sir John French agreed and three days later at 7.10 a.m. Edward Tanner was executed by a fining party commanded by the Assistant Provost Marshal, 3 Division.
It seems to have been an open and shut case. Tanner had deserted and abandoned his rifle and equipment and was arrested in plain clothes. However, at an elementary level, Tanner’s case challenges the notion that Field General Courts Martial dispensed justice. Aside from a lack of a defending officer and the hasty proceedings, no consideration given to Tanner’s previous record or health – from the written proceedings of his court martial there is absolutely no indication that he was even certified fit for trial.
Moreover those who sat in judgement on Tanner could hardly be regarded as impartial – for they comprised: Maj. GC Ashworth, 2 Bn. South Lancashire Regiment (President); Capt. WH Mosley, 1 Bn. Wiltshire Regiment (Member) and Lt AC Johnson, 3 Worcestershire Regiment (Member) - all were officers from 7 Brigade and Moseley was an officer from Tanner’s own battalion. Even if Tanner had been articulate, would these officers have returned a not guilty verdict or awarded a lesser punishment, effectively over-ruling the Wiltshire’s commanding officer and challenging their own brigadier’s opinion? Experience of numerous other cases suggests not. It wasn’t illegal to be tried by officer from an accused’s own unit - but it certainly wasn’t fair.
But why had he been singled out from dozens of other stragglers - many of whom had also swapped their soiled and lousy clothes for civilian outfits? Notionally at least, Tanner’s death was required for the sake of example, a sharp lesson to stiffen the resolve of the Wiltshires and to prevent the kind of incident that had occurred a month earlier.
Of course, war is hard on the weak-willed but how effective was the lesson and exactly whose resolve had been stiffened? Between 23 and 27 October, the Wiltshires took part in the battle of Neuve Chapelle. Their casualties were officially recorded as 2 Officers Killed; 5 Officers Wounded; 7 Officers Missing ; 150 Other Ranks Wounded; 350 Other Ranks Missing. The following officers spent the remainder of the war in German POW camps, some had been wounded but others effectively surrendered to the enemy:
Major J R Wyndham
Captain A W Timms
Captain R Smith
Captain C H E Moore
Lieutenant R P Rogers
Lieutenant H B Rose
Lieutenant J H Wand-Tetley
Lieutenant F B Riley
Lieutenant K J P Oliphant
Lieutenant H W C Lloyd
Second Lieutenant W Martin
in all, a third of the Wiltshire’s officers! So much for the sake of example.
General Routine Orders announced that No.5919 Pte. E Tanner was executed at 7.10 a.m. on 27 October 1914, probably at Richebourg St. Vaast, where it is most likely that he was also buried. As in the cases of many other soldiers who were executed during the first six months of the war, the Army never bothered to record the location of Tanner’s grave but after the Armistice, the Commonwealth War Graves Commission arranged for his name to be engraved on the Le Touret Memorial to the Missing.
