It’ll all be over by Christmas – Part 2
A total of 306 soldiers from the trenches were court martialed and killed for such trumped up charges as cowardice or desertion for refusing to go over the top to a certain death or mutilation.
So heinous was the ‘justice’ that there were cases of shellshocked soldiers dragged from their sick beds, tied to a chair and shot. If a clean kill had not been achieved the officer was required to ‘kill him off’ with a bullet to the head or heart with his service pistol.
Perhaps the most disgusting verbatim account of a British firing squad was reported by a French military observer ...
“The two condemned men were tied from head to toe like sausages. A black bandage hid their faces and, a horrible thing, on their chests a square of fabric was placed over their hearts. The unfortunate duo could not move. They had to be carried like two dummies on the open-backed lorry, which drove them to the rifle range.
“It is impossible to articulate the sinister impression the sight of these two living parcels made upon me. The padre mumbled a few words and then went off to eat.
Pole
“Two six-strong platoons appeared, lined up with their backs to the firing posts. The guns lay on the ground. When the condemned men had been attached to the firing point by a hook on each pole, the men of the platoons, who had not been able to see events, responding to a silent gesture, picked up their guns, abruptly turned around, aimed and opened fire.
“Then they turned their backs on the bodies and the sergeant ordered ‘Quick March’. The men marched right past them, without inspecting their weapons, without turning a head. No military compliments, no march-past, a hideous death without drama or trumpets.” ( Christmas 1914 – The First World War at Home and Abroad, by John Hudson).
Never forget, each one of these was somebody’s son, brother, father, cousin or uncle. Many of them would have been under age.
This barbarism was seen as a fitting form of punishment by former cavalry officer Haig, who personally signed each death warrant after what was a five to twenty minute court martial without professional defence or appeal.
Closer to home as we know it in the Black Country, eight soldiers of the Worcestershire Regiment 3rd Battalion, six privates, a corporal and a sergeant had all faced a firing squad on the 28 July, 1915 which was reported as the largest killing on one single day. Also, Pte Joseph Bateman from Wordsley was shot in the French village of Ytres on Mon 03 Dec 1917 by his fellow service men of 2/5 South Staffordshire Regiment. He was one of the first to enlist in November 1914 and on his first wedding anniversary.
Desertion
After just six weeks he was accused of desertion which if true, an apparantly easy thing to happen if disorientated by loud explosions. After the government pardon in 2006, a brass plaque bearing his name was placed on the Wordsley war memorial.
Not before time, death by firing squad was abolished in 1930, and shell shock was eventually redefined as Post Traumatic Stress Disorder. In 2006 the then-defence secretary, Des Brown, announced that all 306 soldiers so killed would be formally pardoned. This was as
Harry a consequence of the Parr test case.
Haig was nicknamed The Butcher of the Somme by the troops when twenty thousand soldiers were literally slaughtered and forty thousand injured. This however did not deter him from ordering yet more suicidal charges toward relentless German machine gunfire. To this Haig remarked:
“The numbers killed were relatively small in relation to the total involved.” He also claimed: “I feel every step of the plan has been taken with divine help.”
The stupidity of the officers was endemic. General Rees, commander of 94th Infantry Brigade at the Somme, described how his men went into battle on 1st July, 1916,
“They advanced in line, dressed as if on parade, and not a man shirked going through the extremely heavy barrage, or facing the machine-gun and rifle fire that eventually wiped them out. I saw the lines which advanced in such admirable order melting away under the fire. Yet not a man wavered, broke the ranks or attempted to come back.
“Had I have never seen, I would never have imagined such a magnificent display of gallantry, discipline and determination. The reports I have had from the very few survivors of this marvellous advance bear out what I saw with my own eyes viz, that hardly a man of ours got to the Germans’ front line”.
The idea of shell shock was effectively outlawed by the army and doctors alike, and it was suggested that it could be avoided by selecting the right type of soldier, the condition apparently caused by the men’s own weakness. Officers were given the following advice:
Discarded
“The poorest human material is like a cheap car, to be run to the limit and then discarded.
“Hysterical screeching and jibbering can often be stopped at once by means of a sharp command, a gallon or two of cold water, or the abrupt application of the flat of the hand to the side of the face. These can be regarded as purely common sense forms of first aid.”
It is important to mention that horses were essential to armies on both sides, primarily being used to ferry supplies and armaments to the front lines. Serving in brutal conditions and surviving on meagre fodder, it is estimated that a staggering eight million were killed, including donkeys and mules.
Two years into the war, Prime Minister David Lloyd George said:
“The volunteers of 1914 and 1915 were the finest body of men ever sent to do battle for
Britain.
“Five hundred thousand of these men, the flower of our race, were thrown away on a stubborn and unintelligent hammering away at what was then an impenetrable barrier.”
In truth, Haig was detested by the British public and so Lloyd George, when he became Prime Minister in December 1916, immediately placed the BEF under the command of the new Commander-in-chief Robert Neville, even though Haig had only just been made a Field Marshall by King George V in a handwritten letter, which said:
“I hope you will look upon this as a New Year’s gift from myself and the British public.”
I’m aware that my words have painted a dark, but no less true version of events – a side that is often overlooked when celebrating The Glorious Dead. I was lucky, because my uncles Tom and Bill survived to lead fulfilled family lives. But I was too young to realise the hell they had seen and they never spoke about it in company, although Uncle Bill would often address me in French.
Murder
There has certainly been a lot to reflect on since March of this year, so I shall be raising a glass to my uncles whilst Slade’s Greatest Hits album rings out this Christmas.
The last word should really go to Harry Patch, author, and the longest-surviving Tommy of the Great War. Speaking in his old age, he said: “I felt then as I do now that the politicians who took us to war should have been given the guns and told to settle their differences themselves, instead of organizing nothing better than legalised mass murder.”