To encourage others
Julian Putkowski
During the First World War many British and Canadian soldiers died in a village called Loker. As is customary today, we remember all those soldiers who died in all wars. We are told these men died fighting for justice and freedom and in doing so were treated equally. We can see this - the graves are all the same.
This impression, however, is a betrayal for five of the men who died and are buried in Loker. They were executed by firing squad after their officers insisted they had to be killed in order to intimidate the rest of their comrades – pour encourager les autres.
The executions of Privates Byers, Evans and Collins were carried out at the back of the Six Family farm, behind the greenhouse, at the side of a tree-lined hedge. The parents and uncles of Mr. Firmin Six all lived at the farm, located about 150 metres from Loker cemetery. They saw the men being executed and the traumatised family talked about it for many years after the war ended.
The first two to die were shot together - Private Joseph Byers and Private Andrew Evans. Byers was one of the thousands of volunteers who joined the army to share in a gloriously exciting patriotic extravaganza which war propagandists promised would be "over by Christmas". He arrived in France on 5 December 1914 and joined the 1 Battalion Royal Scots Fusiliers, part of 3 Division near Kemmel.
To stay warm and cook their food in the trenches at Kemmel, the Scots Fusiliers collected sacks of coke from a supply dump at Westouter. On 8 January 1915 the squad of men, including Byers, went to collect their fuel ration. As they prepared to return with their fuel, Byers asked for permission to go to use the toilet and did not return.
Ten days later, a French policeman saw Byers walking along the Ieper-Poperinge road, and arrested him. Under interrogation, Byers said he had been sick in hospital at Kemmel for three days and afterwards he had travelled to Vlamertinghe, Dikkebus, Zillebeke and Poperinge, trying to rejoin his battalion.
On 30 January he was charged with attempting to desert and tried by Field General Court Martial at Loker. He was not assisted in preparing his defence and admitted he was guilty. The three officers who composed the court then sentenced Byers to death.
In separate proceedings, the same court tried a 41-year old Englishman, Private Andrew Evans. He was a pre-war reservist who had been recalled in August 1914 to serve with the machine gun platoon of 1 Battalion, Royal Scots Fusiliers. Since October he had carried out regular tours of duty in the trenches and was with the battalion when it was billeted in Loker at Christmas time. However, on New Year's Eve, when they were ordered to return to the trenches, Evans could not be found.
On 15 January, Evans was arrested at a farm near St. George by a corporal from the French Army. Like Byers, Evans was unassisted in his defence and pleaded not guilty to being a deserter. He explained to the court that he was drunk on Christmas Day and had gone for a walk to Ballieul and was returning to rejoin his platoon when arrested.
The proceedings took about 15 minutes and Evans was sentenced to death for desertion.
As was the custom, the decision of the court had to be confirmed by more senior officers, including Field Marshal Sir John French. Of these, only General Sir Horace Smith-Dorrien, their Army Commander, wrote down the reason why these two men had to be killed. He said the battalion's discipline had been very bad for some time. Smith-Dorrien also noted that he would have preferred the court to have insisted Byers pleaded not guilty and recorded the evidence of witnesses but Sir John French, the Commander-in-Chief of the BEF had no doubts and confirmed the death sentences on 4 February.
Two days later, Byers and Evans were shot together by a firing squad in Loker.
Who were these two men? The only Joseph Byers born in Scotland during the closing years of the 19th century would have been aged 16 or 17. I thought for many years that the man buried in Loker cemetery had given a false age when he had been arrested. Recent research reveals it could not have been the 16-year old - but there are no birth certificates in the Scottish Records Office for a man who would have been aged 19 and 7 months in January of February 1915. Nor are there any British Army service records - his papers, those of Andrew Evans and many others were destroyed by Nazi bombers during the Second World War. And Evans? His name is so common that it is unlikely we will ever know anything more than I have noted about the man.
Neither Byers nor Evans deserted from the front line trenches. Their battalion was not preparing for a major attack and although their actions were certainly not those of good soldiers, neither man had a bad reputation.
The 1 Battalion, Royal Scots Fusiliers numbered 1000 when they travelled to Europe - but by early January, 261 were dead and many more had been wounded. Was that why Smith-Dorrien had said the battalion's discipline had been bad? If soldiers had to be shot for the sake of example, surely one should have been sufficient.
The third man to be executed at the Six family farm was George Collins. At 2 p.m. on 27 November 1914, he and his comrades from B Company, 1 Battalion Lincolnshire Regiment paraded near their billets in Westouter. All were ordered to prepare themselves to go to the trenches but Collins went back to his billet and got completely drunk. The following day, he later explained, he woke up in Paris and was totally unable to explain how he got there.
Collins was returned to Westouter, charged with desertion and tried by Field General Court Martial on 7 February. The president of the court was a major from the Royal Fusiliers assisted by two captains, one of whom, Edward Grantham, was an officer from Collins own battalion.
The court martial papers do not show how this twenty-year old soldier supported himself during his absence. However, it seems Collins may have been arrested at Le Mans and attempted to excuse himself by saying he had been sent there to assist with horse transport, but the court never bothered to ask about the circumstances of his arrest.
Unassisted in presenting his defence, Collins' trial was brief. It lasted about fifteen minutes. The court ignored his explanation he had been totally drunk when he first went absent and in spite of the fact that he had never been previously punished for bad behaviour, he was sentenced to be shot.
The confirming officers simply agreed with Major General Haldane, the commander of 3 Division, who said: "I can see no extenuating circumstances in the case of Private George Collins."
Collins was executed in Loker on 15 February. The next day, the Adjutant General, General Headquarters, circulated a memorandum by the confirming officers giving reasons for agreeing to death sentences. The Adjutant General also said:
"The Commander-in-Chief wishes to be assured that a good fighting man is not shot for absence arising out of (for example) a drunken spree."
However, this advice was ignored and throughout the war British army courts martial continued sentence to death men who had been completely drunk when committing more serious military offences.
The fourth man to be executed was also English. He was Private Denis Jetson Blakemore (aged 28) who came from Bicton, near Shrewsbury. He had joined the army on 10 February 1916 and it is very likely that he was one of a very small number of conscripts who were executed by the British Army during the First World War.
On 7 June 1917, Blakemore's unit, 8 Battalion North Staffordshires, were ordered to advance from the assembly trenches and prepare to take part in the battle of Messines. As they prepared, his platoon sergeant could not see Blakemore but after a brief search the soldier was found in a shell hole behind the assembly trench. He was ordered to join the reminder of his section and went forward into the attack. Blakemore explained what happened when his unit advanced into no-man's land:
" At the original front line I stayed for some time and then I went away. I went farther and farther and as near as I could tell went the way that we came. From there I got on the road and got into a motor lorry and went in it and got to Ballieul. Then I got on a train and went to Boulogne. I was there three or four days before I was arrested."
Blakemore was arrested by the Military Police in Boulogne on 19 June and eight days later he was court-martialled at Mont Noir. Although a court martial officer was assigned to ensure that the court observed legal details, Blakemore was unassisted in presenting his defence and the president of the court was Major W. Shakespeare, an officer from the 8 Battalion North Staffordshires.
Blakemore simply explained that had been too upset to join in the attack. The court did not ask this soldier what had caused him to be upset. Neither did they bother to call for any medical examination to check whether he was suffering from shell shock, personal problems linked with his family - or the effects of being ostracised by his section. Convicted cowards and deserters released from military prison or detention were often treated badly by NCOs and stronger, more obedient soldiers who did not want a weak or unreliable man with them when attacking on the enemy. Blakemore had been released from military detention only two days before being ordered to take part in the attack. He had previously been sentenced to death on 25 May 1917 after having been found guilty of desertion but the sentence was commuted to 15 years penal servitude, which had been suspended on 4 June.
The result of his second trial for desertion was never in doubt and he was found guilty. For a second desertion, there was little possibility that he would escape the firing squad - and so he was executed in Loker at 4.30 a.m. on 9 July. Today his grave can be seen in the Loker Hospice Cemetery.
The fifth man was from the town of Glyn Neath in Wales. He was the private who marched into the Military Police headquarters in Bristol at eight o'clock on 4 September 1917 and said he had deserted from the army and wished to surrender himself. He said he had been absent from 9th Bn. Royal Welsh Fusiliers since the beginning of August and that his name was William Jones.
Jones was returned to Belgium and eventually appeared in front of a Field General Court Martial on 28 September at Rossignol Camp, near Kemmel. The court was advised by a Court Martial Officer who had been a barrister (legal advocate) in civilian life but Jones had to defend himself.
Prosecution witnesses confirmed Jones went missing on night of 15-16 June, when they had been stationed in the trenches at Rose Wood, near Kemmel. One remembered:
"I saw the accused helping a wounded man about 4 yards from the trenches. It was 10 p.m. He was walking beside the stretcher going in the direction of the dressing station."
Jones explained:
"There were some wounded in the trench. I volunteered to carry them out. On the way I was wounded myself. I went to a hospital; I don't know what it was, then on to a Red Cross train to Boulogne then to Folkestone. I went by an ordinary train to Folkestone and found myself at Victoria. Then I went home. When I came to my senses I gave myself up."
The court was told by the Lieutenant who had been in action with D Company on 5-11 June, that Jones had been a good soldier, assisting the wounded and was "very cheering". His Company Sergeant Major said that he had always been good soldier "until after the Somme", adding, "I have not noticed anything strange or abnormal about his mind."
His disciplinary record revealed that he had been previously punished twice for being missing and late on parade. More seriously, he had also been court-martialled for desertion on 4 February for having been absent for a few hours on 2 February. Found guilty, he was sentenced to death, a punishment later commuted to ten years' penal servitude and then suspended.
No record exists about the reasons why Field Marshal Sir Douglas Haig decided to confirm the second death sentence on 22 October. Four days later, Jones was executed in Loker.
The attendance of a court martial officer at Jones' trial shows that military authorities were careful to make sure that the legal rules were carefully observed. However, even before the trial began, all would have known of Jones' poor disciplinary record. By not providing him with a defending officer demonstrates the Judge Advocate General did not ensure the defendant was given every assistance.
Except for a cursory question, briefly answered by the Company Sergeant Major, absolutely no effort was made to gather medical evidence about Jones' mental condition at the time of his offence or even to examine his medical record. Again, this was not unusual but Jones' trial and many others contradict the British government's statement that all soldiers undergoing court martialled who may have been suffering from shell shock were medically examined.
Of the hundreds of thousands of men who were killed during the First World War, why now bother with these five?
Firstly, if we are to believe the war was fought to establish justice then what happened to these men was unjust.
The officers' legal training was minimal and the system permitted officers from the accused man's unit to serve as members or the president of a court martial, as happened in 83 of the wartime cases which ended with the defendant being executed.
The defendants were often poorly educated and sometimes illiterate, inexperienced and inarticulate and all were on trial for their lives. Yet in only 50 of the wartime cases, which ended in executions, did an officer assist defendants. Most trials were finished in about twenty or thirty minutes and there was no system of appeal.
Reviewing the cases of all those who were executed, it made little difference if soldiers were very young or very old, dressed in uniform or civilian clothes, recently recruited or veteran fighters, arrested close to the front or far away from the front. If the absence was a few hours or many months or soldiers surrendered themselves to the authorities instead of trying to prolong their liberty - most were certain to be found guilty.
Of those sentenced to death 10 percent were shot. Over three thousand British soldiers were sentenced to death but only five officers. Over three hundred and forty men were executed but only three officers. The entire military judicial apparatus was controlled by officers for the benefit of officers.
Between August 1914 and the end of the war, this system led to the execution by firing squad (only one man was hanged) of three officers and 343 soldiers and military labourers serving in overseas theatres of operations.
Exactly what was achieved militarily by having these men executed is difficult to say but the number of desertions continued to increase and there is the view that these killings made the British Army more successful on the battlefield - the supposed logic of "pour encourager les autres".
Secondly, the families of these men were also cruelly punished. The army stopped allowance money being paid to dependents. Some were thrown out of their homes, others were forced to beg for charity and at least one woman became a prostitute to feed her children. The shame was total - even the children were persecuted at school for being "cowards' bastards". How do we know? Because many are still alive and bear harrowing testimony of their past.
For over seventy-five years the British government refused to allow the men's families to see the courts-martial documents. For seventy-five years the papers were secretly locked away and nothing was said. But now, when it is finally possible to see how these soldiers were judicially murdered and the families beg for their men to be rehabilitated, the British Minister for the Armed Forces continues to refuse to reconsider these judgments. No regret, no remorse, no reservations and no posthumous pardons - just a bureaucratic concession that "they were victims of war" and not the British Army - and families are permitted to add the executed men's names to rolls of honour.
Before reconciliation, the unjust manner in which they died needs to be told. It has to begin somewhere - and even if my words cannot tell the full story, for these five men it begins here, now, on the 11 November 1999 in the Flemish village of Loker.
