[Original Article]

FIRST World War court-martials were pressed to show no mercy to officers convicted of desertion and cowardice, according to new evidence.

The findings add weight to the argument backed by some military historians that a number of death sentences imposed by the British Army between 1914 and 1918 were flawed and should be reviewed. Previously unpublished diaries of Maj Gen Sir Aylmer Haldane record a conference presided over by Lt Gen Sir Edmund Allenby, the commander of the Third Army, in the autumn of 1916, as the disastrous Somme offensive was grinding to a halt.

Haldane writes in his private journal of how Allenby read out a confidential GHQ [General Headquarters] paper expressing concern that officers were being shown "too much leniency" for military offences "for which men [the ranks] were being shot".

The historian Lawrence James, who uncovered the diary entry while researching for a new book, Warrior Race: The British Experience of War, says in the forthcoming issue of BBC History Magazine: "The inference is unmistakable. [Earl] Haig, the Commander in Chief, wanted no mercy shown to officers who faltered - understandable, given that his strategy depended on an army suffused with offensive spirit.

"Officers were expected to set an example in the suppression of fear; if they flinched, their men would panic. Fear, like courage, was thought to be contagious. Top-level pressure for exemplary death sentences was transmitted downwards in an army where only officers with an aggressive spirit secured promotion. Arms were twisted in a denial of basic justice."

More than 300 British soldiers were executed during the First World War for military offences such as desertion and cowardice in the face of the enemy, although 10 times that many were sentenced to death. By contrast, the Germans executed only 18 of their own men for similar offences during the war, despite having an army twice the size of the British.^[1]

The fact that only a handful of British officers were executed suggests that Allenby's directive was not widely enforced. However, news of the diary entry was welcomed by Shot at Dawn, an organisation which campaigns for posthumous pardons for "deserters" who were executed - many of whom are now believed to have been suffering from shell shock or to have been trying their best to carry out orders in the chaos of the trenches.

"This can only help our campaign to clear the names of officers shot by British soldiers during the war," said John Hipkin, the founder of Shot at Dawn. He is currently campaigning for a pardon to be given to two officers shot during the conflict: Sub-Lt Edwin Dyett (whose last words were: "For God's sake, shoot straight!") and 2nd Lieut Eric Poole. The organisation believes that both men were unjustly executed. "They were sacrificial lambs - shot simply to make it look as if the Army was being impartial," said Mr Hipkin.

In the case of Dyett, who was lost for 24 hours in the smoke and confusion of war before reappearing at his brigade HQ to be accused of desertion, the court martial recommended mercy owing to his age (21), inexperience of operations and the confusing circumstances. However, the general in charge of his case said Dyett should be killed because "if a private had behaved as he did in such circumstances it is highly probable that he would be shot".

Field Marshal Haig simply noted "Confirmed" on the file. "The irony is that it wasn't even an effective policy" said Niall Ferguson, a history professor at Oxford University and the author of The Pity of War. "In the Second World War, when there were no executions, desertion rates were actually lower." A Ministry of Defence spokesman said: "We cannot make any comment before examining the evidence."

Related articles:

5 January 2001: Public pays its respects to the First World War deserters
4 February 2000: Villagers against adding deserter's name to memorial
30 April 1998: No pardon for deserters shot in Great War
18 September 1997: Place of honour for true hero shot as coward
28 May 1997: Soldiers executed for cowardice could be pardoned 80 years on

THE WIDOW'S PARTY

By Rudyard Kipling


"Where have you been this while away, Johnnie, Johnnie?"
Out with the rest on a picnic lay.
                                       Johnnie, my Johnnie, aha!
They called us out from the barrack-yard
To Gawd knows where from Gosport Hard,
And you can't refuse when you get the card,
                                       And the Widow give the party.
                                             (Bugle: Ta-rara-ra-ra-rara!)

"What did you get to eat and drink, Johnnie, Johnnie?" '
Standing water as thick as ink,
                                       Johnnie, my Johnnie, aha!
A bit o' beef that were three year stored,
A bit o' mutton as tough as a board,
And a fowl we killed with a sergeant's sword,
                                       When the Widow give the party.

"What did you do for knives and forks, Johnnie, Johnnie?"
We carries 'em with us wherever we walks,
                                       Johnnie, my Johnnie, aha!
And some was sliced and some was halved,
And some was crimped and some was carved,
And some was gutted and some was starved,
                                       When the Widow give the party.

"What ha' you done with half your mess, Johnnie, Johnnie?"
They couldn't do more and they wouldn't do less.
                                       Johnnie, my Johnnie, aha!
They ate their whack and they drank their fill,
And I think the rations has made them ill,
For half my comp'ny's lying still,
                                       Where the Widow give the party.

"What was the end of all of the show, Johnnie, Johnnie?"
Ask my Colonel, for I don't know,
                                       Johnnie, my Johnnie, aha!
We broke a King and we built a road—
A court-house stands where the Reg'ment goed.
And the river's clean where the raw blood flowed.
                                       When the Widow give the party.
                                           (Bugle: Ta—rara-ra-ra-rara!)

— Hans Schneider, in Italy,
from his diary entry for 1945 04 19
(A few days before he was taken POW.
He was a few months short of turning 18 —WHS)