enemy artillery shell knocked him and Poole was later hospitalised with shellshock. After convalescing, he was classified as fit for duty and returned on I September to his unit at Ploegstraat in the Ieper Salient. A fortnight later the battalion moved back to the Somme and at Martinpuich, about twelve kilometres north-east of Albert, Poole was given command of a platoon of C Company.
During the morning of 5 October, Poole mentioned he was thinking about seeing a doctor after complaining about feeling rheumatic and “damned bad” to a fellow lieutenant. At the time both had been discussing going into the trenches and during the evening C Company were duly given orders to move from support trenches and into the front line at Flers. The 1800 metre journey along involved the unit moving up in small groups along meandering communication trenches and it was midnight before they all finally settled in at their destination and an inspection by Captain C.L. Armstrong, the company commander, revealed Poole was missing.
Exactly where and when Poole parted company with his platoon has never been clear but he was to explain that feeling confused and indecisive at around 5 p.m., he wandered away from his platoon. At 10 a.m. the following morning the medical officer of 10 Battalion, Duke of Wellington’s Regiment, also stationed at Martinpuich, reported an unknown officer from 11 West Yorkshires had visited his medical inspection room, asking for a few tablets to ease rheumatism. The MO had no tablets and suggested that they could be obtained from a Field Ambulance.
On 7 October near a water tank at Henencourt Wood, nearly 6 kilometres west of Albert the suspicious guard detained an officer enquiring about the location of 23 Division and summoned the Military Police. The police noted the detainee was, “Wearing a private’s tunic, with one star on each shoulder strap and a leather jacket over the tunic.” When called on to produce an identity disc, the officer, who said he belonged to 14 Bn. but was attached to 11 Bn. West Yorkshires gave the police a blank piece of paper. The officer was not categorically identified as Poole until interrogated by Lt. Col Hugh Rose, who later recalled that the lieutenant said he had been, “Sent back from the Battalion to join the transport.” To another staff officer, the lieutenant had explained that he had been ordered back to the vicinity of Henencourt because “He was nervous and that another officer had been sent back to the transport for thought he had been previously sent back for the same reason.”
A mess cart carried Poole back to his battalion transport lines near Beacourt Wood, where the battalion Quartermaster, Lieutenant E.A. Cooper later recalled:
“He seemed to me to be in a very dazed condition and from conversation which I had with him I came to the conclusion he was not responsible for his actions. He was very confused indeed, I attributed his condition to exposure since he left the battalion.“
However, Cooper reported Poole was much better after a night’s rest. Lt. Col . M.G.H. Barker, Poole’s battalion commander, had the lieutenant arrested on 10 October.
Nine days later, after a court of inquiry had been convened to examine Poole’s absence, Brigadier General T.S. Lambert, commanding 69 Infantry Brigade recommended that the lieutenant should not be court martialled because he was “Not really accountable for his actions. He is of nervous temperament, useless in action, and dangerous as an example to the men.” The 11 West Yorkshires, he added, had excellent discipline and had done well in action at Le Sars on 7 October. Lambert wrote to the 23 Division commander, Major General J.M. Babington, declaring:
“I recommend that 2nd Lieut. E.S. Poole be sent home away from the firing line as soon as possible. Before the war he was employed on engineering work in Canada. He could usefully employed at home in instructional duties or in any minor administrative work, not involving severe strain of the nerves.”
The Assistant Director Medical Services, 23 Division, examined Poole on 21 October, and noted:
“Physically he is in a good state, but he is of a highly strung, neurotic temperament, and I am of the opinion that it is possible (sic) the excitement may being on a condition which would make him not responsible for his actions at the time.”
Notwithstanding these assessments, on 25 October the Army Commander, Lieutenant General Henry Rawlinson ordered Poole be charged with desertion and the latter was tried by General Court Martial on 24 November. Prosecution witnesses testified to Poole’s absence, also advancing their opinions about his character and behaviour. His company commander remarked, “On the only occasion we had been in the trenches before this I noticed his nerves seemed rather shaken.” Commending on Poole’s intelligence, his battalion commander stated, “I should say he is below the average in intellect. He is rather stupid.”
In his own defence, Poole did little more than reiterate his medical history and confess that he had not realised the seriousness of his actions on 5 October.
Two fellow officers from his battalion appeared as witnesses for the defence, 2nd Lieutenant H. Alnwick and the unit’s medical officer, Captain D.O. Riddle RAMC. The former, who had served with Poole in Britain, explained that the defendant had never commanded a platoon until arriving in France, concluding, “I should say he was not fit to have charge of a platoon. He is in my opinion more than eccentric, when talking his mind is apt to wander and not keep to his subject.”
Riddle, who had known Poole since May, concurred:
” I have always noticed something peculiar in his manner. He is somewhat eccentric, and markedly lacking in decision… in times of stress or while under shell fire the accused mental condition is such that he might very well have great difficulty in coming to any decision and might become so mentally confused that he would not be responsible for his actions.”
After the court elicited from Riddle that Poole was more susceptible to shell shock than a “normal man”, it was the turn of the prisoner’s friend, 2nd Lieutenant M.T. Dawson to sum up the case for the defence. In what was Dawson’s only intervention in the proceedings, he cited evidence presented to the court by Cooper (who appeared as a witness for the prosecution), Alnwick and Riddle, maintained that Poole had been confused and it was therefore unable to form the intention necessary to prove desertion. Dawson ended by contending:
“Mr Alnwick’s evidence shows that before the accused came to France he was what is called ‘super eccentric’ and I suggest that this is only a kind word for a graver mental defect.”
The strength of Alnwick's comment was rather nullified by the final remark in the summing up by 2nd Lieutenant O.F. Dowson, the Judge Advocate General who provided legal advice to the court. In his resume, after remarking that it was up to the court to decide about the extent to which Poole had been affected by shell shock during July, Dowson finished off with:
“ A man is not of course unable to form an intention to go away or to shirk a duty because he has a feeble type of intelligence.”
The President of the court, Brigadier General H. Gordon, commanding 70 Infantry Brigade and four other officers who sat in judgement found Poole guilty.
On 3 December, a three-strong Medical Board, the most senior member of which was Lieutenant Colonel H.G. Martin RAMC, examined the convicted officer. Martin was also the president of the Standing Medical Board, Etaples, which had passed Poole as fit for duty during August, and so would have been most unlikely to contradict his previous judgement about Poole’s fitness for service. Of his two associates, Major G.F. Sheehan, RAMC Deputy Assistant Director of Medical Services, 16 Division, had qualified in psychological medicine in 1908. The other, Captain F.G. Crookshank , was an experienced and well qualified hospital clinician whose interest in psychology blossomed into print after the war ended. They all agreed that Poole, “Was of sound mind and capable of appreciating the nature and quality of his action in absenting himself without leave on October 5th 1916, and that such act was wrong.” They believed that he was, “Now of sound mind” but also were of the opinion that Poole’s, “Mental powers are less than average. He appears dull under cross examination, and his perception is slow.”
Their equivocation left the decision to confirm the court’s sentence firmly in the hands of the Commander in Chief, Field marshal Sir Douglas Haig. Haig’s justification for having Poole killed was basically because hitherto no officer had been sentenced to death and executed. In his diary, Haig confided:
“Such a case is more serious in the case of an officer than a man, and it is also highly important that all ranks should realise the law is the same for an officer as a private.”
Haig’s nonsensical excuses took no account of Poole’s medical history and the Field Marshal’s affirmation that military law was applied with equal force to both officers and other ranks was wholly unsupported by their respective rates of conviction and the severity of punishments. When it suited the British military authorities, shell shock and mental instability served to excuse murder, as in the case of Captain Bowen-Colthurst.
Bowen-Colthurst successfully pleaded insanity arising from shellshock as a means of escaping responsibility for the wilful murder of three unarmed civilians during the Irish Easter Rebellion earlier in 1916. His court martial became a cause celebre and provoked a sustained political furore which culminated in a Royal Commission of Enquiry into the murders. The report of the Royal Commission was issued in late September and though only partially exposing Bowen-Colhurst’s mendacity, provoked further public uproar at the time Poole’s case was being processed. Of course, this may only have been a macabre coincidence, but Haig’s insistence on shooting Poole, enabled the army to rightfully claim that it did not indiscriminately accept shell shock as an excuse for officers’ misbehaviour. That said, had the hapless lieutenant been the social equal or personally acquainted with senior British Staff Officers, there is little doubt he would have not have even been arrested, let alone faced a court martial.
Poole’s final hours were spent in Poperinge Town Hall, where he was executed on 10 December. Brief summaries of his offence and punishment, as well as the similar fate of three privates who had also been convicted of desertion, were published in BEF Routine Orders on 14 December. There was no political fuss in Britain about the unprecedented decision to have Poole executed, mainly because his distraught family understandably wished to avoid distressing his elderly, ailing father. Given the furore which public disclosure of other executions and enduring sensitivity over the Bowen-Colthurst affair, the War Office appear to have been all too pleased to comply with the family’s wishes and omit disclosure of Lt. Poole’s name from casualty lists which were circulated to the press.
