The New Contemptibles
We now consider a recent controversial book by Cathryn Corns and John Hughes-Wilson entitled Blindfold and Alone, published by Cassell, London. Their declared intention is to debunk our cause. They claim it is a comprehensive study of British military executions during WW1. It is nothing of the kind. Less than a third of the cases are considered. Ignoring evidence that does not support their case, they use questionable sources to substantiate some highly dubious claims. Haig could not have done a better job to justify the executions, yet remarkably the authors are adamant it served no useful purpose. They try hard to have it both ways, which shows inconsistency. They suggest the British Generals at the front were preoccupied with desertions and mutiny that account for the use of the death penalty. No plausible evidence is given to back this up. Instead, using the same official War Office statistics, we show for the first time that their assertions are an illusion. But first, we consider a report by Hughes-Wilson on an international conference on the death penalty in Flanders.
There can be no greater critic of the Shot At Dawn Campaign than John Hughes-Wilson, a military historian and former Colonel with the British Army Intelligence Corps. In fact, he appears to have an almost pathological dislike for what we represent. This distaste distorts his perspectives about a subject that demands objectivity. And he appears less than fussy in how he uses source material, be it historical or contemporary.
The New Contemptibles
In June 2000, Hughes-Wilson poured scorn on our aims in a patronising, offensive and inaccurate article entitled "The New Contemptibles", which was published in the “Spectator. Most of the piece was devoted to reporting about the “Unquiet Graves” international conference which had taken place in Ieper/Ypres that considered executions and atrocities that had occurred on the Western Front during the First World War.
The gathering was attended by a number of distinguished academics from Australia, Britain, Germany, Belgium and France. “The Spectator” was saddled with publishing a succession of letters from people whose contributions to the conference had been addled or misinterpreted in Hughes-Wilson’s article.
What he declared people to have said was also compared with the digital recording of the conference speeches and debates – and the “Spectator” article was exposed as being either factually inaccurate or had taken out of context what had been said. Those whose views had been thus misrepresented rebuked him. Others took him to task for the manner in which he denigrated, belittled or sneered at speakers with whose views he evidently felt little sympathy.
For example, he referred to the conference chairperson as "...an ambitious young associate professor at New York University... whose principal research has been into prostitution and female exploitation."
The object of his attention was Professor Sophie de Schaepdrijver – a senior academic who has studied history at universities in Belgium, Italy and is a lecturer at the University of Amsterdam and an Associate Professor of Modern European History at New York University. Her scholarly contribution to the historiography of the First World War is considerable and includes a best-selling history (significantly unacknowledged by Hughes-Wilson) of Belgium during the First World War. Everyone other than Hughes-Wilson congratulated Professor de Schaepdrijver for the manner in which she conducted herself, her professionalism, outstanding intellect, original research and command of languages.
He appears to have done his best to smear her as an out-of-touch feminist intellectual, and wholly misinterpreted her opening address:
In the “Spectator” article, he wrote: "In a carefully worded introduction she reminded delegates that the armies of 1914-18 were led to the slaughter like so many great herds... with fear, and fear alone, keeping them in line: fear of the blindfold; fear of the execution squad: and fear of death at dawn.”
However, what de Schaepdrijver asked was what made armies go on and on to the bitter end and suggested their motivation remained a "central mystery", because the answer to this question ran "...the gamut between two extremes." One centred on the notion of "sacrifice" characterised by duty and loyalty, the other on "slaughter" where men were led by fear but she doubted if this captured the complex dynamics of trench warfare. These qualifying observations were omitted from the “Spectator “ article.
Again, according to Hughes-Wilson, she concluded her address by, “Reminding her listeners that, 'for a patriotic citizen-soldier it was a duty to oppose, to protest.' The executed soldiers were, in her words, 'merely exploring the boundaries of consent and personal motivation in a democracy at war'."
But was that what she actually said? The unedited, contemporary digital recording of her speech does not include the quotations cited by Hughes-Wilson. She touched on the question of coercive military justice, and consent; where men defend something of concern in their lives. She considered the peasant soldiers of the Russian Empire who eventually returned home because the war was not relevant to their lives and the citizen [or civilian] soldiers of the Western Front who fought to the end because they were defending something they continued to value. Victims of military justice, she argued, were at the heart of the war's central question of motivation and endurance. They also shared these values of consent and simultaneously questioned them. Consent is dynamic, is earned and negotiated. By their actions, the she observed, "... they explored the boundaries of consent in warfare and paid for it with their lives, because their plight is critical to the exploration of what it meant to be a citizen soldier."
The recording also confirms that she made reference to the French republican Right who held discussions on their military victims during 1998. They made a distinction between those who did their duty and those who stirred up trouble. In an army defending the cause of civilisation and liberty, she pointed out, it was the duty of the citizen soldier to stir, "... up trouble, if one wants to call it that, is a duty - a patriotic duty, even." In other words, soldiers too, have legal rights and if they have to stir up trouble to obtain secure those rights, then so be it!
And the “New Contemptibles”? In the same spirit that the “Old Contemptibles” of I914 cheerfully appropriated the insulting remarks allegedly made by the Kaiser, we are only too pleased to accept Hughes-Wilson’s sneer as his ungrudging acknowledgement of the tenacity, commitment and bravery demonstrated by the families of the executed men and the supporters of the “Shot At Dawn” Campaign.
Financial Compensation?
More recently, Hughes-Wilson has alleged that the surviving relatives of men who were executed by the British Army are motivated by the prospect of financial reward via compensation claims from the government. He supports this claim with a verbatim quotation allegedly made by Julian Putkowski during his speech at the “Unquiet Graves” Conference. Accordingly, Julian Putkowski is alleged to have remarked, "This issue will emerge as a case for financial compensation."
Again, he is patently mistaken. The digital recording of the conference reveals that with reference to military executions, Putkowski actually stated:
"Was the practice in any military sense necessary? Aha, now that depends on who you consult. Conservative historians, militarists and officials from the Ministry of Defence, possibly fearing claims for financial compensation, regularly conjure up justifications for these killings."
On 7 August 2001, David Hanley interviewed Hughes-Wilson following the publication of Blindfold and Alone, on the RTE radio "Morning Ireland" programme.
Early in the interview, Hanley addressed the text from the book which alleged: "It [the Pardons Campaign] had become a matter of radical and regional politics driven principally by emotion and a sense of grievance or some hope of financial compensation, rather than hard fact."
Hanley felt the criticism to be gratuitous but Hughes-Wilson responded by saying, "No. It is not gratuitous at all. I went to a conference last year... there's not a word in this book that is just slack opinion and that would be sloppy research."
John Hipkin, who had also been invited by Hanley to contribute his point of view, reacted by insisting that no money was wanted by anybody involved.
Hughes-Wilson retorted, "It's in the records of the papers. I have got it in front of me in black and white. ...It was Julian Putkowski. He said it in his lecture. It's in the transcript."
This is now at least the third occasion on which he has made such an allegation and there is not a scrap of evidence to support this smear.
His "New Contemptibles" article also made a number of observations about what other contributors to the “Unquiet Graves” were alleged to have said - and which they later denied. Some did so via letters that were published in the “Spectator”, but Dr.Elaine Murray MSP, took the trouble to email Hughes-Wilson directly, accusing him of gross misrepresentation of her statements and elicited a grovelling apology from him.
He accused Piet Chielens, co-ordinator of Ieper’s “In Flanders Fields” new museum of being delighted for the revenue the conference would generate - More of his books, he charged, would be sold!
He also denounced others for their cynical materialism, "For some of the more rabid pardons campaigners, history is not a fact, but an agenda to be exploited for personal gain."
His jibes lay him open to a charge of hypocrisy, for he omits to juxtapose this criticism with his past and current involvement with companies that organise First World War battlefield tours in Belgium and, at the time he wrote the “Spectator” article, his own intention of writing a book about the executed soldiers.
Blindfold and Alone
Let us now consider the book "Blindfold and Alone: British Military Executions in the Great War ", published by Cassell, London (2001). The title infers and the opening cover claims the book is, "... a complete history of this extremely emotive subject." Since only 102 of the 346 execution cases are considered, this is an inflated assertion. Nor, with one exception (Braithwaite – an Australian serving with the New Zealand Expeditionary Force) do they appraise the cases of any Canadians or New Zealanders.
Readers seeking an explanation for the criteria for inclusion will have to search hard – but it’s there on page 445 – it’s to support their self-imposed rationale of “naming and shaming”? So much for the authors’ much touted impartiality and exploration of “justice”.
To some Shot at Dawn campaigners who have waded through the text, much of the book boils down to a highly polemical attack on the claims of the campaign. The book is not the only example of ex-military and conservative historians determination to block any re-appraisal of capital courts martial. But the belittlement of issues raised by the executed men’s families and the Shot At Dawn campaign may reasonably be acknowledged as part of a broader political agenda deployed by a Whitehall Establishment that is resolutely determined to discredit individuals’ motives and direct public attention away from flagrant acts of injustice of yesteryear.
They think we lack reason, are driven by sentimental, anti-establishment, self-seeking and increasingly anti-English voices. That we are angry, ignorant, indignant, emotional, pacifists or Marxists, expounding class war or ethnic cleansing. We are alleged to propagate myths and "downright lies". Such exaggeration is hard to believe, but they appear to suggest that only they have a monopoly on historical truth.
The book falls short of its claim to deliver new historical material. Instead, it is effectively a ponderous restatement of the Ministry of Defence’s views and current government policy, and an attack on the “Shot At Dawn” campaign. It is difficult not to conclude that an important, if not key intention of the book is to provide government ministers and officials with further excuses to frustrate any chance of pardons.
Perhaps unsurprisingly, some of the “new material” can be traced to a 1999 article by a former member of the Ministry of Defence. John Peaty has claimed he was instructed to research the execution cases. His conclusions about the pardons issue closely match the MOD line that was served up by Dr. John Reid (when Armed Forces Minister).
Peaty’s essay on “Capital Courts-Marital during the Great War.”, is featured in the book “Look to your Front: Studies in the First World War” by the British Commission for Military History, (ed) B. Bond et.al. However, as with a number of other sources used by the authors of “Blindfold and Alone”, his contribution gets scant acknowledgement by Corns and Hughes-Wilson (p224).
In fact, much of “Blindfold and Alone” is littered with errors, is badly annotated and poorly indexed. Elsewhere, the authors’ transcription of original sources is poor, demonstrably incorrect or inconsistent. For example, on page104, readers are informed that 5,250,00 men served in the British Army during the war but on page395, the authors maintain that the figure is 5,363,352.
They repeatedly misspell the name of the celebrated dance band leader, Victor Silvester as Sylvester. The reference to Pte. Rowarth on page 309 is a double-howler. The correct spelling of the man’s name should have been Roworth. He was too young to have served in the First World War, though he is the author of “The Misfit Soldier”, Cork University Press 1999 - a book which consists of the war reminiscences (recorded circa 1980) of an Irish World War One veteran named Pte. Edward Casey.
The fact that it is Pte. Casey to whom Corns and Hughes-Wilson ought to have cited is quite apparent, even in the ill-typed manuscript (lodged in the Imperial War Museum) that Corns and Hughes-Wilson maintain that they used as their source.
There are many other factual errors, some of which may be excused as casual editing by the publishers but others further seriously undermine confidence in the authors’ competence. For example, the book’s purportedly comprehensive roll of names of executed soldiers, omits seven of the executed men.
The executed Egyptian Labourer, M. Ahmed is recorded in “Blindfold and Alone” (p.502) as having been executed for mutiny and brief reference is made to his case (p395). However, the written proceedings of the man’s court martial (PRO WO71/600) make it clear that he was in fact convicted of striking an officer. And why was Labourer Thaourides and another omitted from Appendix 2. (p484)
As far as the officer corps is concerned, the authors are keen to maintain that the red-tabbed elite suffered as much as the lowly footsloggers – but they gloss over details. For example, on pages. 213 and 241, readers are informed that 78 officers of general rank were killed close to enemy lines and on page 262 we are informed that 224 British generals killed or wounded in WW1.
Such evidence is deployed to counter the negative image of “chateaux generals” enjoying comfort behind the lines. They also compare the fatalities with those in the Second World War, “…only twenty-one”. Aside from the fatuity of employing these indices of comparison, examination of their source material for the World War One statistics (F. Davis and G. Maddocks, “Bloody Red Tabs” , Leo Cooper, 1995) suggests that Corns and Hughes-Wilson have been less than critically acute in their appraisal.
What this actually reveals is that only twelve General Officers Commanding Divisions (the chateaux generals) perished (or thirteen, if Lord Kitchener is included). Of the unlucky dozen, in five cases, death was not strictly war related - two of the generals were drowned, two were possible suicides and one died in a flying accident. The non-war related deaths included, for example, a senior commander much inclined to exercise the death sentence, General Maude, who died of cholera in Mesopotamia.
The authors are liberal in their criticism of others (particularly individuals associated with the “Shot At Dawn” campaign), for employing conjecture as a ploy for bolstering their cause. Yet they also engage in speculation to support their argument, and are less than concerned about referring to evidence and issues that contradict their stolid defence of the military establishment.
In “Blindfold and Alone” the image of the Army of 1914 as an institution, is almost cosy! It is viewed as being akin to a “family”, with officers fulfilling their duties as caring father-figures, whose close relationship with the men under their command is acknowledged and reciprocated by a rank and file who acknowledge the limits of acceptable military behaviour.
They seemingly portray higher military authority as having a cruel, even barbaric history, but who have become enlightened enough to have eliminated some of the harsher aspects of discipline, like flogging. They concede that senior officers, when compelled to do so, resort to administering the ultimate penalty, but remain guided and constrained by rules that ensure the fullest protection of an accused soldier.
And they insist that the military hierarchy are scrupulously fair in their observation of legal procedures which have been fully approved by parliament and the people. In the military mirage that is created, Sergeant Majors are permitted to shout and curse, but only out of gruff affection or in order to coax wayward rankers back into the comfortable embrace of army discipline.
And what of executions? Why, such activities were a grim but necessary chore and a serious distraction from the urgent bloody business of fighting a war in the trenches and killing Germans. The circumstances of life on active service are such that misunderstandings and the minor failures to observe due legal process, according to Corns and Hughes–Wilson, are understandable and may thereby be excused.
Their smug depiction of the Army of 1914 is inaccurate and essentially conservative and their atavistic interpretation of history is employed to support a clique of similarly inclined social reactionaries. Collectively, they adamantly reject critical re-appraisal of the past by invoking the mantra that we should not revisit history to reinvent it with the standards and understandings of today.
They don’t see any valid reason why we should feel upset or disgusted by the decisions made by military commanders to execute soldiers during the last century – not even when there is abundant historical evidence that the executed men’s comrades-in-arms (officers and the rank-and-file) were frequently appalled and disgusted by the military hierarchy’s recourse to the death penalty.
Corns and Hughes-Wilson do not produce any substantial evidence to support their contention that the rank-and-file had scant sympathy for condemned soldiers. Regrettably, it is confined to only two examples. The first is a quotation from a battalion medical officer (p23) who declares the death penalty to be "absolutely essential" and the second consists of an ill-cropped misquotation from the classical war novel, “Her Privates We” by Frederick Manning (p461).
However, in another case, the authors miss the significant fact that some of the evidence they cite actually contradicts their support for the death penalty. One can see this with reference to the case of 22-year-old Lance Corporal Hawthorne, 1/5 Bn. South Staffordshires (p196) who was shot for cowardice. They quote Maj. Gen. Thwaites, commanding 48 Division opposing the convicted man’s execution. Thwaites’ reckoned that the execution would have a negative effect on the battalion’s morale and he blamed the unit’s officers (no rank and file or NCOs gave evidence against Hawthorne) for having initiated an ill-advised raid that led to Hawthorne being charged with cowardice.
Thwaites’ recommendation was over-ruled by more senior commanders and the authors "wonder" and idly speculate why the Major General personally attended Hawthorne’s execution and recorded, "...that Lance Corporal Hawthorne met his death like a man and a soldier". They comment, “...the most likely explanation is a strong sense of identity with one of his Staffordshire men, whom he was powerless to spare”, even thought it is unequivocally apparent that Thwaites objected to Hawthorne being executed.
The rebellion of the company commanders of the 1/4 Battalion, Suffolk Regiment, who all refused to take part in an execution, is entirely ignored by Corns and Hughes-Wilson. And what about the evidence of Pte. Leslie Bell of the 10 Battalion Royal Inniskillings? In a 1992 Northern Ireland BBC Radio programme, "In the Firing Line", he recounted the execution of two fellow Riflemen, McCracken and Templeton, who were executed together on 19 March 1916.
Their battalion was paraded and told about the execution, the men murmured their dissatisfaction with the killing, whereupon their colonel threatened to shoot every sixth man unless there was order among the ranks. Bell maintained that after the episode, the rank and file lost respect for officers. The men felt that those responsible for ordering the executions should themselves have been tried for murder.
They also claim that military law was applied impartially and equally to all ranks (p22). It is true, many minor disciplinary offences by the rank-and-file were dealt with informally because of compassion being exercised by NCOs and officers. However, the application of informal punishments and the exercise of compassion was more generous when the malefactor was a public-school educated officer.
The combination of wealth, social privilege and a shared public school morality ensured that “one of the chaps” was rarely punished for offences that, had he been a lowly ranker, would have attracted the death penalty. The authors fail to acknowledge the chasm that separated the officers from the rank and file – even allowing for wartime commissions from the ranks of specially selected gentlemen soldiers. The war may have led to junior officers “slumming” in the trenches but closer identification with the men they commanded was officially discouraged and subalterns who became over-familiar with their men were admonished.
The Army ensured that officers’ luggage was carried for them by their soldier servants, who also acted as boot-cleaners, cooks, scavengers, baggage bearers and cleaners. Officers rode horses and enjoyed social and other privileges that were akin to the county squirearchy, with whom they hobnobbed when on leave.
In political terms, the vast majority of senior officers were profoundly conservative, with deeply reactionary views about religion, the aristocracy and the social order. They may have demonstrated physical courage and self-confidence but to maintain their lifestyle, it was necessary to have a private income – for mess bills could be substantial and allowance had to be made for their sporting and social activities. To be an officer, you had to be rich which the rank-and-file were not.
With ill-advised audacity, they also claim that officers were at greater risk than other ranks of being punished (or even executed) for military indiscipline. (p325). They ignore cases like that of Second Lieutenant A J Annandale, who with help from influential colleagues escaped being shot and also the officially recorded statistical fact that throughout the war (all theatres of operations) only 3 officers were executed (including one for murder) and that a grand total of about 50 officers were jailed (mostly for less than a year).
We have already noted on the home page of this website that officers who suffered nervous breakdowns were treated differently from other ranks. The former underwent radical and comparatively harsh treatment by “nerve experts”, but officers were allowed to rest and recuperate, and were usually withdrawn from the war zone for a sustained spell of convalescence.
Even the best doctors, including the eminent neurologist William Rivers, reserved their attention for officers (p81), and by the end of the war they were also disproportionately represented in the official statistics relating to shell shock (officers – 4,692; other ranks - 16,857). (p415)
Readers of “Blindfold and Alone” have to exercise considerable patience before coming across the substantive issues that the book purports to address. On page 104 the central theme, is identified: "The questions then remain: how and why was it [death penalty] used; and was it successful as a disciplinary policy?"
Evidence relating to the "how and why" is limited and the "success" question according to the authors is entirely contradictory
The authors are also anxious to advance two theses. Firstly, they insist that “…statistics show with lucid clarity just how sparingly the final sanction of military law was employed by a massive army fighting for its life.” (p104) and secondly, they claim that the sheer number of desertions indicated the British Army faced a particularly serious threat to its fighting ability. (p504)
In exploring these points, they are mostly disposed to support the execution policies of the generals. Thus, they observe, “…if one’s man [sic] death could encourage others to do their soldierly duty, then his death was an unfortunate consequence of war.” (p310) A neat repetition of the Farrar-Hockley thesis today.
In the cases of Pte's Highgate (p116) and Downey (p126) in particular, their deaths are considered good examples to stem mutiny and disaffection. The death of Gunner Lewis was "justified" (p387), and in the case of Corporal Short (p394), the British Generals had good cause to have him shot. Accordingly, Pte's Rose, Mills and Lawrence were manifestly guilty and like Pte's Ingham and Longshaw deserved the full rigour of the law – execution
In the opening section, Corns and Hughes Wilson confidently assert there was not a single case of an officer or soldier being wrongly convicted. (p93) This is later qualified with the prefix “many” who had been only too guilty. So their initial bold claim is consequently weakened. (p444)
The initial sweeping assertion is then undermined by their conclusions about the cases of Pte. Harry Farr and Lance Sergeant Will Stone, whose treatment they concede to have been unjust.(p446)
And what are readers to make of the cases of Pte. Edward Tanner, Lance Sgt. William Walton, Pte. Abraham Harris (Beverstein) and Lance Cpl. William Moon, whom they accept were shell shocked at the time they committed their offences? (p312)
These contradictions demonstrate they are rather uncertain about the concept of justice – and the exercise of logic, if not jurisprudence. They simply can’t assert that everything was legal and above board and then draw attention to flaws in particular cases.
They freely accuse others of indulging in speculation and value-judgments regarding the nature of the executions, yet allow themselves that very opportunity. Consider the case of L.Cpl William Moon. They observe he was “traumatized beyond endurance”, and like that of Harris (Beverstein), his story makes “chilling reading.” In their view, Moon was “…undoubtedly a victim of the harshest decision of war.” (p319)
Clearly, they are indulging in what they condemn in others. Namely, making observations based on current understandings and social conventions. They pander to themselves because early on in Blindfold and Alone they exhort others by stating, "We must not quibble over the exigencies of procedure or the harshness of sentences handed down over eighty years ago..." (p93)
This brings us to a central accusation that is often repeated by those who wish no change. It is that we must not interpret historical events with contemporary values. This is a subtle technique that justifies the reality of the executions. It is never explained quite what contemporary values are being used.
The proposition can be stated differently. If you are in favour of a pardon for the executed soldiers, you are using modern notions to reach such a conclusion. It also assumes the historical information has been available for the last eighty years, when clearly it has only been released in the last decade.
The fact of the matter is this - we complain today about the harshness of the executions simply because others did at the time it was happening. Blindfold and Alone provides clear evidence of a government that repeatedly prevaricated, obfuscated and lied throughout the war about the military executions. It's as if they were ashamed of what was going on!
Similarly, rejecting any notion of a hastily convened paramilitary kangaroo courts, they consider that the conduct of the courts martial to be a measure of detachment and formality.(p92)
This doesn't square up with what many other sources have claimed. Consider General Haig's observations. "It has to be remembered," he remarked, "that a great number of these courts martial are held under very difficult conditions, for instance, in trenches when actual firing is going on..." He warned that unless a court was quickly summoned an accused soldier could get away with serious offences, because wounded or dying witnesses were unavailable. (See WO95/596)
They also state that the execution of Sgt. John Robins, a mutineer, “…appears somewhat harsh”, yet justify it on the basis army commanders were gripped with the likelihood of mutiny. (p127-8)
It is not clear how they have managed to comprehend the attitude of the commanders on potential mutiny since they acknowledge the “astonishing” fact that mutiny was a rare offence – only 1,132 men charged and three executed on active service. (p395) But as we shall later see, even this statistic is misleading!
Aside from the fact they quote dubious figures, they go on to add that this reflects on the good discipline of the army. Whilst this may be conceded, it is not sufficient evidence for them to further claim, “That only three soldiers were executed for this most serious of military crimes speaks volumes for its humanity by the standards of the day.” (p395). It is not the only example of their generous rationalizations.
After initially endorsing the execution of soldiers, they state on page 431 that the death penalty was of little value. This is reinforced on page 456, when they additionally remark, "The death penalty is pointless in battle.", and, "The death penalty can only rarely have been a real deterrent in the trenches or, more dangerously, going 'over the top'." Following on, in the next page they state, "...military executions in the Great War ...encouraged no one and probably deterred very few." Rejecting notions of draconian discipline they advocate the value of group bonding and peer pressure as a means to enable men to overcome fear so they can fight effectively. (p438)
What are readers to conclude from this? That Corns and Hughes-Wilson believe the executions to have been gratuitous or at least, seriously flawed? Well, the Shot at Dawn Campaign and many other critics of the Army’s use of the firing squad have been saying precisely since the facts first became public ten or so years ago. Allowing for the author’s meandering contradictions, they are surprisingly supporting the grounds we advance for the dead men’s exoneration.
One the other hand and without any supporting evidence, the authors attempt to smear Julian Putkowski by inferring he’s infected with revolutionary Marxist ideas on jurisprudence. This is intended to counter his factual criticism that the military courts were monopolised by public school educated officers.(p446) Unable to counter the truth of what Putkowski asserts, they respond with fatuous and personal remarks. And yet, remarkably, they argue that courts martial were class based. (p93)
Finally, we have to return to the gravy-train accusation of compensation once more! The authors allege in connection with Andrew Mackinlay's 1995 Pardon's Bill before Parliament, that it controversially provides for compensation for any dependant at the discretion of the Secretary of State.(p444)
This is another mischievous slur which has drawn a recent strong rebuke from Mackinlay who remarks, "It is deeply offensive to suggest that relatives of executed soldiers want or desire compensation and no such provision is provided for in the Bill. On the contrary, all relatives have stressed that they neither seek nor want a penny compensation!"
Notice here, we are talking about "dependants" and "relatives" Surely, Cathryn Corns and Hughes-Wilson must know there is a distinction between the two and whilst relatives are still living, all dependants have passed on?
Young Offenders
The approach to the issue of the executed under-aged soldiers effectively echoes the current attitude of the Ministry of Defence. But it is not clear what semiological message is intended by declaring them as "young offenders".
They concede that recruiting officers often encouraged under-age youths to lie about their age and that although it was officially declared that they had to be 19 before being sent overseas, younger men could still enlist in the Army. If closely followed, a reading of this chapter draws attention to a number of surprising and important facts about the army’s attitude to under-age soldiers:
The army conspired informally with the enlistment of under-age recruits.
They then approved the enlistment or false age as the official "army age".
They did little to rectify the position and put the onus on an under-age soldier or his family to apply for release.
Even when an application by a parent was made, denying a soldier his true age in favour of the recruitment age could frustrate it.
The army had rules on the age of its soldiers fighting at the front. It could be strongly argued it had both a legal and moral duty to enforce its own regulations.
They justified the executions of under-age soldiers on the basis it was their own fault for falsifying their age on enlistment and ignored the role of its recruiting officers as the agents who conspired to secure the youngsters’ enlistment.
The fact that the army directly prevented or obstructed this process undermined its legitimacy, so transferring blame to the individual soldier protected its authority.
The authors are quite correct in asserting that the vast majority of working class adolescents left school at 14 to find manual work or to take up apprenticeships and that a privileged few continued into full-time education until they were 18 or 21. They are also correct in observing that the age of criminal responsibility was 14 but more appositely, they omit to add that by 1908 it was forbidden to sentence to death anyone under 17 years of age and that since 1887 the state had refused to sanction the execution of anyone under the age of 19.
Throughout, Blindfold and Alone is unashamedly guilty of complacent simplicities about aspects of Edwardian society which fall short of reality. For instance, of young men they observe, "A young man who joined the army at the age of 17 or 18 would undoubtedly have considered himself a man, doing his bit for his country." (p288)
They continue, "At the start of the twenty-first century, when greater life expectancy and social change have permitted the young the luxury of extending juvenility so that many stay in full-time education to the age of 18 or 21, it is easy to forget the realities of 1914." (p289)
All very well, but the authors fail to acknowledge a widespread disenchantment, if not outright hostility to a military career that was evident throughout working-class Edwardian society.
This was clear before 1914 by the consistent and abject failure of the British Army to meet its recruitment targets. Senior officers candidly admitted that hunger and deprivation, rather than exercising their masculinity, was what compelled poverty-stricken, unskilled young men to enlist in the pre-war army.
They also fudge the issue of the civil registration of births, by claiming that at the time of the Great War people were not used to having to prove their age as we are today with the production of a birth certificate. From a succession of unsupported generalisation they conclude, "Most people depended on their memory to work out their age and some were quite unaware of their true age." (p289)
They pay scant regard to the fact it had been a criminal offence not to register a birth since 1875. So why should they disregard this important fact and indulge in speculation about a supposed period where birth certificates were uncommon?
Surely, it is to disguise the fact they are protecting the army from blame for its active indifference to a legal duty of properly assessing an important detail of its young recruits. And if, as they allege, birth certificates were rare, they should closely study their own evidence on page 290 where details are given of the army refusing a discharge even when a birth certificate was produced.
In spite of this, they advance the claim the army had no way of discovering a recruit’s correct age and that the military authorities subsequently recognised the problem of under-age enlistment and attempted to rectify matters. To back this they cite a post-recruitment Army Routine Order late in 1916. This instructed commanding officers on what to do if an application was made by a soldier or his parent claiming he was under 19 years of age still serving in the trenches.
Except for a handful of cases, there is no documentary evidence that officers commanding combat units observed this order. In any case, release from service was only implemented when an application was initiated by the individual on grounds of age, and it had to be supported with a the birth certificate. In effect, the order was merely a cosmetic, if not impractical exercise, to demonstrate army willingness to enforce its own standards.
They are unwilling to admit the scale of under-age recruitment by the British Army during the opening stages of the First World War. However, there is abundant contemporary evidence that MPs repeatedly complained in Parliament about the Army’s flagrant breach of regulations concerning the minimum age at which youths could enlist and fight on the front.
Had they paid more attention to exchanges between MPs in the House of Commons, they would have read of a number of examples in which the army deliberately withheld the release of under-age boys, even in cases where anxious parents had personally produced their offspring’s birth certificates.
In September 1915, for example, Sir Arthur Markham complained that boys of 15 and 16 were being recruited from his constituency. He gave several instances where the parents had been vainly seeking the release of their sons. He went on to question the policy of the army in enlisting young boys, when definite ages had been approved. He remarked, "…The question has been raised time after time and we get no satisfaction from the Government. The War Office well knows that the declarations made by these boys – made for patriotic reasons – are false."
Markham continued to question the Under-Secretary of War on this issue. He demanded to know why no steps had been taken by Lord Kitchener to ensure that the recruitment regulations governing the age of enlistment, which had been approved by the government, were being adhered to? He stated it was common knowledge that under-age soldiers continued to be recruited and asked if confidential instructions had been given by the military authorities to ignore the age limits. The Government responded by blandly denying any claims of impropriety by the army, and adding with a touch of indifferent ambiguity that, "…no cases of under-age enlistment have come to notice…"
Additionally, they fail to acknowledge the scale of under-age enlistment. It was a major embarrassment to the Army, for a letter sent by the National Service League during November 1915 to Lord Milner, the Minister for War, indicated that the NSL estimated 15% of the army consisted of under-age soldiers.
Even on a conservative interpretation, this estimate would have embraced about a quarter of a million youths.
Nor after the introduction of conscription in early 1916 did the military authorities do anything more than place responsibility for the problem squarely on the shoulders of the youngsters who had enlisted under age.
For example, as late as March 1917, the War Office complained that it was wrong for parents of boy soldiers to seek their offspring’s discharge from service when they were scheduled to join a draft for active service overseas. Moreover, the government exercised the threat of a financial deterrent in order to curb this attempt. They took the view that if those concerned were released, then it was expected the authorities should be refunded all the pay they had received from the date of a youngster’s enlistment.
It was not until 1918, the final year of the war, that the true ages of young men were properly identified. Some 3,000 were sent to a holding camp outside Boulogne, where they remained until they reached 18 years of age, when they were returned to serve in the trenches. The Canadians also addressed this problem and sent about a 1,000 youths to a camp in North Wales, pending their shipment back to Canada.
The significance of these two figures is hard to assess but when the respective sizes of the BEF and the CEF are taken into account, it could be argued that the British total represented only a small fraction of the numbers of under-age soldiers who were serving at the front.
On another matter, judges have never regarded ignorance of the law as an excuse for breaking it – and in the matter of under-age recruitment there is absolutely no doubt that the army breached both the spirit and letter of the law.
Even in war, the British Army had a formal responsibility of ensuring the proper management of it soldiers and cannot therefore be excused because of the misplaced enthusiasm of its under-age recruits or the fact it was in a desperate struggle against tyranny. Casting aside the necessary legal standards of a democracy, even at war, is the first subtle step to totalitarianism. The very thing the army was established to fight!
Cathryn Corns and Hughes-Wilson are therefore wrong in asserting that today’s "Shot at Dawn" campaigners are applying the standards of today to disturb a time-expired, foreign field of history. It is they who are refusing to face up to a historical reality which sits uncomfortably with their cosy notions of the conditions of the Great War.
Blindfold and Alone is useful because it reminds us that the army simply did not adhere to King's Regulation that were approved by Parliament, which accounts for the fact so few young men were removed from the trenches. It is possible to see this as an abuse of its constitutional authority. But the fact remains, the army benefited in two ways.
Firstly, they retained the services of youngsters who were actually fighting at the front, and secondly, they were later able to evade a corporate responsibility for the physical or nervous breakdown of its under-aged soldiers.
Regrettably, the attitude of the MOD remains that of the Army of 1914-18 – if they faced capital charges, these often ignorant and sometimes frightened young men had only themselves to blame.
Little wonder the authors are unable to find the names of under-age executed soldiers in the Summary of First World War Capital Court Martial cases! The sad fact is that the British Army silently conspired with under-age recruits so its records in this respect are a sham.
But what about those who were shot for alleged military offences? According to the authors, in one surprising case at least, a young soldier was "knowingly" shot by army.
The authors appear to be posturing with regard to the Putkowski and Sykes book Shot At Dawn. There's almost an element of point scoring. Turning to the case of Pte Joseph Byers (p293), for instance, is the claim he was not aged 17 when shot as was initially stated by them. Had Corns and Hughes-Wilson checked the source of the revised information, which they acknowledge to have gathered from this website, they would have discovered that it was Putkowski who actually revised the original findings, informed journalists and logged the outcome on the internet.
Equally, they claim the case of young Pte Herbert Burden (p294), is not as simple as the Pardons Campaign make out. But they get themselves in such a terrible pickle not quite knowing who's who out of a choice of some eight soldiers. They eventually settle on a Herbert Francis Burden, who it is said joined the Northumberland Fusiliers, only to desert them for the 3rd battalion, East Surreys at Deptford, and ultimately to return to the Northumberland Fusiliers again.
Two facts can be stated about this young soldier, for there really is no confusion. First, Herbert Francis Burden of Lewisham, London, joined the Northumberland Fusiliers in 1914 at the age of 16, telling the recruitment officer he was 18. He remained with the battalion and after a year’s service, he was shot for desertion on the 21 July 1915, two months after his 17th birthday. Today, his name is inscribed in the Book of Remembrance in the Northumberland Fusiliers Museum at Alnwick. Such facts can be confirmed with Captain Marr, the Regimental Historian. So there's no historical mystery!
And then there's the case of Pte William Hunter, whose actual age was 20 but at his trial, he claimed that he was 18. Corns and Hughes-Wilson allege that Hunter was the "Youngest man knowingly executed by the British Army." (p300) According to the authors, it is the, "only case in which an under-age man's true age emerged at his trial".
Hughes-Wilson and Corns can examine all the historical documents they like, but they are simply wrong. Hunter, it would appear, was a bit of an artful dodger. He did convince the courts martial he was 18, and for that reason they strongly recommended the death sentence be commuted to five years penal servitude. In spite of this, however, he has left two researchers with the necessity of reconsidering his case.
John Hipkin, whom Corns and Hughes-Wilson appear to hold responsible for the questionable "regional politics" of the "Shot at Dawn" campaign knows a living relative who can quickly confirm, not only Hunter’s correct age, but also his mischievous tendency to gild the lily.
Another teenage soldier should now be added to the list of executed youths. In this case no criticism can be attributed to the authors of Blindfold and Alone, who have acted in good faith with what evidence was available to them.
The sad story of the execution of a Jewish soldier, Abraham Harris (recorded also as "Beverstein" by the Commonwealth War Graves Commission but correctly, Bevistein ) (pp316-18) has been pieced together with the aid of his family. Pte. Bevistein was born in Russian-occupied Poland in 1899. A sister, Kate, was born a year later on 5 October 1900. The family emigrated to England about 1902 and settled in Whitechapel, in London’s East End.
Nowadays, Kate’s daughter, Betty Jacobs, lives in Ontario, Canada, where she heard about the service of dedication at the National Memorial Arboretum in June 2001. She contacted John Hipkin and was surprised and indignant to discover additional details of Abraham’s court martial. During September 2001, John visited her and they pooled information about Abraham’s dedication and demise.
When Abraham voluntarily enlisted in September 1914, he gave his age as 18 years and 3 months and in correspondence with his mother he was at pains to sustain the fiction that he was about two years older than he really was. Aside from his enthusiasm to enlist, he concealed his true identity, for at the time military service was discouraged by his devoutly religious parents - and many newly-arrived settlers fleeing Czarist pogroms were unhappy about both supporting allies of Imperial Russia and possibly also killing German co-religionists. The parents spoke little English and relied upon 14-year-old Kate as a translator, and in spite of assistance from Sylvia Pankhurst, the family lacked the necessary information, resources and self-confidence to pursue the illegality of the Army’s action in executing their son – who was another under-aged soldier.
We entirely agree with the authors that he paid for his enthusiasm with his life. It was a cruel price for any sick youth to forfeit!
Fact or Fiction
In one important instance, at least, Hughes-Wilson and Corns have failed to inform the reader that they quote fictional rather than factual evidence. Indeed, they are liberal in reconstructing the quotation to avoid lengthy wordiness. They also change statements and "Shoot the begger." becomes "Shoot the bugger!" More to the point, they fail to complete the passage that would convey a different effect from what they suggest. Turning to page 461 they reproduce a statement from Frederick Manning's seminal book, "Her Privates We", published by Peter Davies, London. This is a fictional story based on wartime experiences. So it is impossible to know what is fact and what is fancy!
This is what they quote, "When Miller disappeared just before the Hun attack, many of the men said he ...must have gone over to the enemy lines. They were bitter and summary in their judgement of him. The fact that he had deserted his commanding officer ...was nothing to the fact that he had deserted them. They were to go through it while he saved his skin. It was about as bad as could be, and if one were to ask any man who had been through that spell of fighting what ought to have been done in the case of Miller there would only have been one answer. Shoot the bugger!"
This clearly conveys a stringent bitter feeling that there was only one answer for a deserter. There are no shades of grey. It appears as the unambiguous and authoritative voice of a collective of veterans. But interestingly, if we continue with the quotation this is what it adds,
"But if the same man were detailed as one of the firing-party, his feeling would be modified considerably. Suddenly Bourne wondered what he himself would do, if he were detailed for the job. He tried to put that involuntary question he had asked himself aside, and he found it was impossible: he was one of those men who must try to cross a bridge before coming to it. It would be his duty; his conscience would not be too nice when there was a collective responsibility, but these justifications seemed unreal." (Emphasis added)
Manning goes on briefly to juxtapose different forms of desertion and concludes, "All these cases were in a different class, and might be considered with sympathy. If he were on the firing-party he would have to make the best of it; he took the same chance as the rest of them, none of whom would care for the job of an executioner."
The effect here is that the determined "Shoot the begger" has become much more reflective, even introspective and considered, whilst still maintaining a sense of duty. But it surely is not the cut and dried determination favouring the death penalty as the initial quotation suggests. This is poor scholarship as well as being unfair on the reader because it misleads.
A Question of Questionable Statistics?
The authors draw attention to the gravity of the problem of desertion levels in the British Army by citing statistics to account for the Army’s exercise of executions as the only effective strategy for curbing what they regard as a crisis.
For example, on page 216 they refer draw to a War Office Instruction of June 1915, proclaiming that there had been 1,251 desertions from the BEF.
However, it is possible to see from officially compiled figures that were published in the War Office’s own “Statistics of the Military Effort of the British Empire during the Great War” relating to the period 4 August 1914 to 30 September 1915, that the statistics have been uncritically quoted in Blindfold and Alone.
The effect has been to exaggerate the scale of the problem and serves to diminish the proportion of cases in which the army inflicted the death penalty for desertion during the opening year of the war. As will be seen, this is a tendency that is repeated elsewhere in relation to other government statistics.
A proper reading of the official record shows the following:-
Courts Martial (all theatres) OVERSEAS: For Period 4.8.14 – 30.9.15
General Courts Martial - Officers:
Desertion: nil
Absence: 5
General Courts Martial – Other Ranks
Desertion: nil
Absence: nil
District Courts Martial – Other Ranks (DCM were not empowered to award death sentences)
Desertion: 41
Absence: 107
Field General Courts Martial – Other Ranks
Desertion: 381
Absence: 2,581
Total:
Desertion: 422
Absence: 2688
Desertion + Absence = 3110
It has to be observed that under the provisions of the Army Act 1914, “absence” was not a capital offence and District Courts Martial were not permitted to award the death penalty – so, in all overseas theatres of war, between August 1914 and September 1915, there are only 381 soldiers (all convicted of desertion) who were liable to be executed.
Of these, the Judge Advocate General’s records reveal that over half, 226 were sentenced to death, of whom 46 were eventually executed.
The authors contend that the military hierarchy were sparing in the exercise of the death penalty during the opening months of the war. But is it correct? When it comes to statistics, Dr. Gerard Oram’s Worthless Men presents a more accurate and informative analysis of statistics.
But what of the authors accompanying reference to the War Office claim that by August 1915, there had been over 20,000 desertions from the New Army, Reserve and other units stationed in the United Kingdom? (p216)
Again, it’s not borne out by the War Office’s own figures. The following is revealed from the “Statistics of the Military Effort of the British Empire during the Great War”:
Courts Martial at Home 4.8.14 – 30.9.15
General Courts Martial - Officers:
Desertion: nil
Absence: nil
General Courts Martial – Other Ranks
Desertion: 9
Absence: 2
District Courts Martial – Other Ranks (DCM were not empowered to award death sentences)
Desertion: 4157
Absence: 5491
Field General Courts Martial – Other Ranks
Desertion: 18
Absence: 79
Total:
Desertion: 4183
Absence: 5572
Desertion + Absence = 9755
Even when the Home and Overseas figures for both Desertion and Absence are collated, the final figure is only 12,865 – and even that was not achieved until 30 September 1915, much less the “mid-1915” period to which the authors contend.
It is puzzling as to why the War Office should circulate misleading and highly inflated figures about desertion? Nevertheless, we are pleased to agree with Corns and Hughes-Wilson’s accompanying acknowledgement that it was “quite improper” for the War Office to have issued instructions in 1915 urging military courts to treat deserters more harshly because in nearly half of the cases men were being sentenced to less than three months imprisonment.
However, their uncritical reproduction of these ambiguous statistics is not confined to 1915, for they also insist, “In total during the war there were a total of 126,818 courts martial for desertion and absence.” (p216) [Emphasis added]
They do not cite their source for this, but it corresponds with what is published in “Statistics of the Military Effort of the British Empire during the Great War”. This source does not cite a total 51 months which covers the war period, but a much longer period of 68 months – from 4 August 1914 to 31 March 1920, and relates to all ranks for District, General and Field General Courts Martial.
The detail of the official statistics are reproduced below:-
OVERSEAS: 4.8.14 to 31.3.20 (p667)
Desertion: 7,361
Absence: 37,034
HOME: 4.8.14 to 31.3.20 (p658)
Desertion: 31,269
Absence: 51,154
HOME and OVERSEAS: 4.8.14 to 31.3.20 (p669)
Desertion: 38,630
Absence: 88,188
Desertion + Absence at Home and Overseas: Total = 126,818
If the authors had been more accurate, they could have acknowledged that there were 115,005 cases of desertion and absence, at home and abroad, during the fifty-one month period of the Great War. (See PRO: WO32/5479).
So, the statistics in Blindfold and Alone, create the impression that desertion and absence were more serious a problem than it actually was.
In fact, in considering soldiers liable to be executed for desertion, the total is significantly less than what may be inferred from the totals recorded in Blindfold and Alone and for that matter, the War Office figure of 115,005.
This is because the 1914 Army Act, did not authorise the execution of men convicted of absence. Also, no soldier was executed for desertion after being convicted by a court martial in the UK during wartime nor by a court martial held at home or abroad after 11 November 1918 (when the Army suspended the death penalty for desertion) – so the actual number of deserters who were convicted and liable to be sentenced to death was confined to those tried overseas between 8 August 1914 and 30 September 1918, i.e. about 5,561.
The precise figures for courts martial convictions for deserters overseas during the final 5-6 weeks of hostilities on the Western Front cannot be accurately computed from published data.
However, it seems reasonable to add a further 135 to this total, (the weekly average throughout the war was about 27, but bearing in mind the numbers decreased during winter months) and round the resulting total to less than 5,700 for the period of the war from August 1914 to November 1918. The official statistics and research by Dr Oram roughly concur that less than 2,000 death sentences were given to deserters.
And what about the number of mutineers? According to the authors, mutiny is a matter of considerable importance which, "...concern commanders far more than the prospect of an attack by the enemy." (p128) They provide two sets of figures to show the size of the problem.
Quoting from official War Office statistics once more, they indicate that 1,800 men were charged for the period between 1914 and 1920. (p379) Note they have gone for the longer period again which exaggerates the issue. In the same chapter they are "astonished" to quote a figure of 1,132 men charged with mutiny, "...on active service." (p395) It is unclear what they mean by active service? But it is this latter figure which is the most pertinent of the two.
We have carefully checked their source in the War Office statistics at page 667, and come to a different total.
The details are as follows:-
Total Mutineers Abroad (All theatres)
4:8:14 TO 31:3:1920 = 1,132 cases
Total Mutineers Home and Abroad
4:8:1914 to 31:3:1920 = 1,807 cases
Total Mutineers Abroad
4:8:1914 to 31:9:1918 = 631 cases
Total Mutineers Home
4:8:1914 to 31:9:18 = 258 cases
Total Mutineers Home and Abroad (All theatres)
4:8:1914 to 31:9:1918 = 889 cases
We can see from this evidence that Blindfold and Alone are responsible for quoting statistics at the higher level and over the lengthier period which extends well beyond the period of the war. Is this done purposely to show an exaggerated total even though the figures are relatively small? It is more than likely!
Our analysis, laid open for scrutiny, shows that during the period of the war only some 631 cases of mutiny occurred on the front. Research by Dr. Gerard Oram indicates that twenty-one cases resulted in a conviction of death and of these only three were shot.
As for sins of omission, Blindfold and Alone includes a trio of gems – specifically, the graphs featured in Appendix 3. They are prefaced by a well-merited caution: “These figures, like all statistics taken out of context, can be misleading, but analysis of number reveals some significant trends” – for Corns and Hughes-Wilson cite no sources for the data from which they constructed their graphs (pp304-305).
In Appendix 3 (p504) the authors claim “…desertion quickly became a serious problem for the BEF…” Their graph “Net effect of desertion per month through the war” (an unsourced data but possibly referring to overall totals at Home and Overseas for desertion throughout the war), suggests that the initial number of deserters peaked at over 3,000 by September 1915, before settling down to an average of about 1,000 each month for the duration of the war.
This graph hardly supports the notion that desertion was a critical problem generally for the BEF.
If anything, it shows a consistently low level of desertion around 1,000 each month from February 1916 onwards. The graphs showing the notional “Number of executions per 1 million soldiers in the Expeditionary Forces” and “Death Sentences during the War, by month” demonstrate, if anything that there was no apparent correspondence between what they show and what was recorded in “Net affect of desertion per month through the war”. (pp505-506)
Corns and Hughes-Wilson’s efforts to demonstrate that there was a crisis of discipline in the British Army during the First World War simply does not stand up to critical scrutiny. They also fail to probe a number of other elementary but important issues.
The desertion figures for soldiers serving overseas is comparatively small, Also, given that the numbers of men who deserted while serving in the UK was proportionally far greater than the corresponding total for Overseas, why was no soldier shot on British soil? After all, they were all subject to the same military code.
The most obvious answer is reflected in the fact that punishments for soldiers who committed offences while on active service were heavier than those awarded under similar circumstances in the UK. This may have reflected the importance of maintaining strict discipline at the Front but the fact of the matter is that no soldier stationed in the UK, where the vast majority of desertions occurred, was executed.
Blindfold and Alone does not only rely on ill-identified statistical evidence to support the assertion by Corns and Hughes-Wilson that, “By far the most serious disciplinary problem confronting the BEF was desertion.” (p. 215)
In Chapter 17 they are hard pressed to find cases that support their assertion. They come up with precisely four instances of long term desertion: Drummer Rose (absent 2 years); Pte. Ives (10 months) and Pte. Harris (10 months) and Pte. Lawrence (three spells of absence, the longest of which involved was 10 weeks masquerading as a Royal Flying Corps draughtsman).
If the problem was so “real” then where’s the evidence? If readers are seeking reliable statistics or a plethora of individual cases involving lengthy periods of desertion, they won’t find either in Blindfold and Alone.
Their contention that the commanders of the various British Expeditionary Forces ensured that courts martial gave soldiers a fair hearing is also undermined by contemporary documentary evidence – some of which is negligently unexplored.
For example, as early as November 1914, Haig complained that “…a great number of Field General Courts Martial have been quashed through small legal omissions.”, and that the legal requirements of a courts martial were “…exceedingly cumbersome and complicated.” [Emphasis added] (See PRO, Kew file: WO97/596
Neither do the authors explore the significance of Army General Routine Order No. 585 of January 1915, approved by Haig, which effectively removed the presumption of innocence in cases involving men charged with desertion.
The reluctance to examine this order is a little surprising, for Dr Christoph Jahr (Humboldt University, Berlin) directly informed Hughes-Wilson about it at the “Unquiet Graves” Conference in Ieper in May 2000.
To be fair, at the time, Corns and Hughes-Wilson denied knowing anything about it. But why have they continued to ignore it because it directly challenges their stout defence of the British Army hierarchy's purported respect for jurisprudence?
Even allowing for repeated interference by convening officers pressuring courts martial for convictions, exemplified by the testimony of Gerald Hurst MP, a wartime courts martial officer, the figures are small. Research carried out in 1998 by Dr Gerard Oram (See Worthless Men page 120) reveals the total number of men sentenced to death for desertion to have been 1,990 and the annual numbers sentenced to death are as follows:
Reviewing these findings it appears almost miraculous that there were so few desertions in view of the horrifying conditions at the battlefront.
But if the magnitude of desertions were as serious as they lay claim, which by implication justify the death penalty, why was no soldier shot in the U.K, where the problem was over four times greater? This question is not posed and remains unanswered.
The army hierarchy had a murky advantage on the muddy fields of Flanders and other overseas theatres of war. It was possible to keep unsavoury realities hidden from public scrutiny and to subsequently lodge the documentary evidence in impregnable secret vaults of the War Office for the next eighty years.
Apart from the sparse details of the offence, sentence and date of death, the executed men’s next-of-kin were told nothing more by the authorities. And they certainly were not permitted to examine the written proceedings of the capital courts martial. This raises another important question. Why were the files kept secret? Corns and Hughes-Wilson (on scant evidence) maintain that secrecy was considered essential to protect the families of the victims from social stigma, but surely this was no valid reason to withhold the written proceedings from the men’s families?
There are other, more plausible reasons, including the authorities’ fear that possible public scrutiny would expose those who were involved in the process of selecting who was to be sentenced to die, and from those, who were to be selected for actual execution.
Their families also needed to be shielded from public opprobrium. After all, these officers would eventually return to their respectable professions as bankers, lawyers, architects, professional technicians, accountants and doctors in civilian life.
Secrecy was also maintained out of cowardice. The Army hierarchy, having killed off those they considered weak and used their deaths as grisly propaganda to intimidate the remainder of the rank-and-file (the vast majority of whom did not require intimidating, and many of whom were revolted by the decisions to carry out executions), were themselves frightened of public opinion.
What would the British public say about the shabby, unjust manner in which they had exercised the death penalty? Brigadier Wyndham Childs, Director of Personal Services in the Department of the Adjutant General thought he knew what might happen. In March 1919, Childs’ cautioned the Army not to execute any more men for military offences. He wrote:
“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 would be difficult to control and in all probability would jeopardise the prospects of maintaining the death penalty for military offences in times of peace.” (Quoted by Andrew Mackinlay MP in G. Oram, Death Sentences passed by Military Courts of the British Army 1914-1924)
Finally, the lesson here is that we must treat the statistical data in Blindfold and Alone with considerable circumspection. For clearly, the authors have exposed their hand in freely accepting questionable, though official, data. Cathryn Corns and Hughes-Wilson it seems have led us down a potentially misleading path, but the fragility of their case is now exposed. In the final analysis they have indeed surrendered to sloppy research. The official statistics clearly show there was no significant disaffection of the troops at the front to worry the High Command.
One is strongly led to conclude, that at the time, the War Office also had an interest in inflating the figures on capital military offences in order to camouflage an uncomfortable reality. In so doing, it may have provided the political authorities with the necessary justification, if called upon, to publicly support the military policy on executions. It is also clear that the army adopted a quite separate policy on the execution of deserters at home. In spite of using the same military law as on the battle fields of France and Flanders, no soldier was shot!
It is difficult not to suspect that this same evidence was recently used to advise the Government who ultimately rejected any consideration of a pardon in 1998. Should that prove to be the case, and on the balance of probabilities it seems more than likely, then the executed soldiers will have suffered yet another profound injustice.
The Pardons Campaign?
According to Blindfold and Alone, the official policy of secrecy appeared to have worked and the shame of relatives “quietly slipped away”. This bizarre statement is wrong. It assumes that because there is no public clamour for information, then relatives must have ceased carrying a heavy burden of guilt not knowing what had happened. Of course, the shame was transmitted from one generation to the next. There were, however, other cases, and Will Stones is one, when the family literally blotted out all mention of what had occurred. Just as painful, it was denial through shame.
Their very one-sided commentary on the gradual development of our campaign deserves considerable skepticism. They adopt a flippant attitude to those who have made serious contributions to the debate, and ascribe a moral motivation to other scholars with a genuine concern for historical truth. For example, the authors of Shot At Dawn are alleged to have taken the high moral ground “possibly” to justify identifying executed soldiers.
They go on mischievously to assert this was calculated to generate increased publicity, sales and commercial success. John Hughes-Wilson, in particular, appears to be absorbed with the financial question and one cannot help think that it is intended as a means to discredit. Equally ridiculous is their claim that the regular sales of Shot At Dawn “fuelled a full-scale Pardons Campaign”. Many supporters were drawn following several independent television programmes on the subject in 1999.
But to complain that Putkowski and Sykes “named names” is to miss the point that their material was already in the public domain by several years in a book by Gloden Dallas and Douglas Gill. Indeed, some would argue they showed more original scholarship than is evident in Blindfold and Alone.
It seems clear that anyone who does not agree with the authors line have associated themselves with the “dark theories of conspiracy” much in the tradition of stories about aliens and flying saucers. This is an ultimate insult to those who have preceded the efforts of Hughes-Wilson and Corns. They have thus elevated themselves onto a remarkable platform of erudition.
Another disingenuous charge is that we claim a “monopoly of compassion” for the executed at the expense of those who fought on and died. This is a cruel slur because there’s not one jot of evidence our campaign has harmed or detracted from a heartfelt remembrance of those who so gallantly gave their life. Not for one moment would we wish to undermine the tremendous sacrifice these men have made. If it is meant to imply that no other people feel similarly repelled by the cruelty of it all, they are then mistaken. But it certainly excludes the authors and all those who oppose our campaign.
But we, as relatives and reformers, concern ourselves with one small isolated group of unfortunate men who were denied life at the hands of their own, and in many cases the opportunity to fight on. To anyone properly prepared to consider the matter, these men were executed under questionable circumstances! It was a futile exercise in military discipline. Some relatives feel a surge of outrage and consider their long lost kin to have been judicially murdered. One the facts of the case, who can deny them this?
The British policy on the death penalty was disproportionate, even by the standards of the day and cannot be justified, which is another reason why it was surrounded by secrecy and strictly confined to the battlefront where it was less of a problem. The authors legitimate its use by stating other nations were doing it. Of course, not all were, but it's a cowardly defence of an appalling act.
We should be mindful that some relatives lost sons and brothers to enemy bullets as well as those at the execution stake. Relatives would not wish that one be cherished more than the other, but they are right in their continued fight to see that proper regard is paid to those unfortunate few who were so unmercifully executed.
Conclusion
Blindfold and Alone is of limited value since less than a third of the executions are considered. With one exception, the executions of Commonwealth troops are ignored. On its own admission it is not strictly impartial since it is intended to counter our campaign. By "naming and shaming" they hope to grind their own brittle political axe. Scholarship is the first casualty!
The evidence presented here shows that the death penalty was a very blunt instrument indeed. If, as is claimed by some, it was for the purposes of setting an example, it was an unmitigated failure. Evidence to the contrary is imaginative rhetoric and gross speculation. The authors state it had no plausible purpose, yet appear to agree that in some cases it served a useful function. Are they right to have it both ways? That possibility has to be rejected if we are to avoid confusion!
By and large the death penalty policy was unsuccessful because it was applied differentially. And there was a lack of consistency. At home, where the majority of desertions took place, it was never exploited. On the battlefront it was used so few times that its effects were never positively established. And it was mainly reserved for other ranks, not the officer class!
Considerable evidence suggests the policy had a reverse effect by creating unease, resentment and loathing, not deterrence. Put simply, more defiance than deference! Importantly, the authors mislead by suggesting the British Generals faced a real problem of desertions. This now turns out to be an reckless exaggeration.
The lack of effect can be seen in another direction. In case after case, soldiers in front of courts martial are clearly oblivious to the potential danger they face. Many pleaded guilty, offered no defence, questioned no witnesses and called no character witness. It is plausible to think they had no reason to believe they would be shot, even quite remarkably, with the case of so-called serial deserters.
The authors have argued that the British military establishment showed great compassion that accounts for the fact so few men were shot. Their quantitative data is both suspect and deceptive. It is suspect because it is wrong. It is deceptive if one looks carefully at some of the distressing individual cases. Indeed, it is possible to say that at times the authorities were hardened to very basic humanitarian considerations. And it's not without some irony, that the authors themselves identify such cases. But they have failed to consider what others have suspected, that there was something intrinsically wrong with the high sentencing rate in the first place. It was too extreme! Yet, curiously, even they hint at this on pages 97 and 98.
They are right to feel unsettled by some of the cases they disclose. And they do give horrifying examples where justice, though maybe not legality, was tossed aside. The policy on executions was a futile exercise based upon a false assumption. Thus, too many men were needlessly shot under highly irregular circumstances and the suffering this caused would resound from one generation to the next. Without question, if it had become universally known at the time, it would have created a whirlwind of public protest! And it’s all too convenient for them to dismiss the Australian and Belgium examples! Similarly, they fail to consider the example of the four-million strong American army who did not execute any men for military offences.
Broadly speaking, the authors have adopted a distinctly narrow view of military discipline in arguing their case from a “legalistic” perspective – whatever was done at the time was demonstrably legal and therefore beyond criticism today - a disputatious claim. Unfortunately, this is often done at the expense of “justice” which even they cannot altogether ignore. Nevertheless, when legalism is given less prominence, they permit themselves a degree of compassion by suggesting there are cases, albeit small in number, where men suffered under questionable circumstances.
Although, they do not say it, the confirming process whereby senior army officers sometimes offered highly dubious and prejudicial remarks confirming guilt, has to be seen in the light that it contributed to an exceedingly uncertain standard of justice. Their comments often lacked substance or were wide of the mark. In most cases, they were appraising the character of men they couldn't possibly know. As such, their evidence was at best worthless, at worst prejudicial, But of course, it was precisely what the law allowed! And it suited Haig considerably!
Finally, the argument that the generals faced a grave problem of desertion or mutiny throughout the war is not supported if confined to France and Flanders. Nor is it validated at home on British soil, because the seriousness of the offence is never reflected in the sentencing policy.
Our evidence shows there was actually less than 5,700 cases of battle-field courts martial convictions for desertion throughout the war - approximately 112 per month - and not 7,361 as claimed by the authors, Of these, 1,990, or about 39 each month, resulted in a death penalty sentence, of which 245 and not 266, were shot.
Cathryn Corns and Hughes-Wilson claim that 1,132 men were charged with mutiny on active service for which only three soldiers were shot. But we have shown this is incorrect and that the true figure is 631 cases - about 12 cases each month.
From an army of over 5 million strong, these are insignificant statistical numbers that fall short of supporting the idea the British Generals were preoccupied with substantial dereliction of duty. We suggest it is testimony to the sheer grit, tenacity and discipline of the men fighting at the front. More importantly, the small number of executed men aptly demonstrates the futility and misconception of a policy that sought to set an example.
It was the legendary Pte Tommy Atkins who endured the constant crawling company of vermin, the chronic lack of sleep, profound exhaustion, intense cold, thirst, hunger, poor rations, inadequate sanitation, mediocre medical care, high rates of dysentery, trenchfoot, malaria, tuberculosis, pneumonia and Spanish flu. He suffered the nightmare of seeing mates being butchered, blinded or wounded, surrounded by the stink and sight of unburied putrefied human flesh. It was he who suffered the pain of hearing the unheeded distressed cries from the wounded in no-man's land, or helplessly watched his wounded comrades drown in a morass of mud. Led by a system of iron-discipline and occasionally "friendly" brute force from NCO's, he faced up to death in the form of unmatched massive daily bombardments, or the sudden snipers bullet, or gas attack, sometimes without relief for many months, in a static, rat-infested, muddy, hell-hole trench.
Removed from such scenes of unimagined chaos, the bungling British generals contributed one more dimension of terror that sought to empower their authority by suppressing conduct they thought undermined army morale and efficiency. It was an illusory interpretation of military discipline. And it embraced the innocence of ambitious, enthusiastic adolescent youths, whose emotions had been whipped up back home by a circus of jingoism that sought to ensnare.
Ultimately, the firing squad proved to be a viciously cruel and utterly confusing motivator of men. Today we know it added to the horror of it all. This is what the British establishment, the Ministry of Defence and even the likes of Cathryn Corns and John Hughes-Wilson find difficulty to swallow.
They want to support and thus legitimate the actions of the British Generals on the basis they acted according to the pressing exigencies of war, and not that they might have been unwittingly spiteful, or simply misguided and foolish.
There is another issue of crucial concern here! We have shown that far too many bold claims have been made, which upon scrutiny have proven to be substantially misleading or incorrect. Thus, the central value of Blindfold and Alone in explaining and supporting the military establishment's policy on executions is adrift because it is embroiled in considerable uncertainty and is cluttered with extensive contradiction. Nor can we feel confident they have not over-exaggerated their case to the point that historical truth has become a singular casualty! In the final analysis, whatever it offers to this most complicated debate is significantly weakened, if not irreversibly lost.
In spite of the complexity of opinion and contorted reasoning as to why our campaign should fail, the authors assiduously avoid one simple yet central consideration.
If the New Zealand Government can cut through all the convoluted hyperbole and the delicacies of legality to promptly pardon its sons shot under British Military jurisdiction – why can’t we? It was the same law in the same war!
