Shot at Dawn...

This is something that I've recently started looking into. The injustices served in World War One on those men who volunteered to serve their country and were then tried, convicted and shot at dawn for "cowardice".

People like Harry Farr...

Harry Farr was evacuated after five months in the front line and treated for shell shock. He returned but was treated again before he finally refused to fight. A nurse who looked after him said he was shaking so much he couldn't write.*1

Harry defended himself at his Courts Martial and it was all over in twenty minutes, no mention was made of the shell shock and Harry was duly executed on 18 October 1916. Whilst I agree that these were different times to the one's we live in today, I still find it ridiculous that the Defence Secretary (of a supposedly Socialist forward-thinking Government) still finds it hard to pardon Harry Farr and the other 306*2 soldiers that were also shot for "cowardice".

To say that they wont even look into the cases of all 306 men is a disgusting oversight in my opinion. After all, they can pardon someone whom they "judicially murdered" incorrectly so why not these soldiers? They volunteered, they weren't forced, and looking back most of them were denied the Right to a Fair Trial. It was Bingham LCJ himself who stated "that in the court's judgement the summing up in the case by his predecessor Lord Chief Justice Goddard, "was such as to deny the appellant that fair trial which is the birthright of every British citizen"*3.

It is my belief that Harry Farr did not receive a fair trial, nor did Private Thomas Highgate (the first to be shot), his trial, sentence and confirmation of the Death Penalty were all concluded on the same day. Hardly a fair trial, and with no means of Appeal?

The trial was hastily sanctioned by General Sir Horace Smith-Dorrien, the commander of 2 Army Corps, who noted that because of the proximity of the enemy, it had not been possible to permit Highgate the authorised time to prepare his defence.*2

Does that look like a fair trial? Of course not, yet still the Government refuse to look into it. On the Roll of Honour in the village Private Highgate came from, there is a name missing...

It wouldn't be so bad if they had treated the Officers the same, but 15 Officers were spared the indignity of being shot and instead were charged with the leser "crime" of Scandalous Conduct, some even received a Royal Pardon and were reinstated to full military honours!

In 1929 Ernest Thurtle MP managed to get the Death Sentence for cowardice and desertion abolished, it's an disgrace that at the time those who had been "judicially" murdered by the UK Government hadn't been pardoned then. And it's even more disgusting that they still havent been pardoned over 70 years later...

EDIT:
Defence Secretary John Reid is to reconsider granting a posthumous pardon to a soldier who was executed during World War I for cowardice.
..
The Ministry of Defence said he would do so after Private Harry Farr's daughter launched a High Court appeal against an earlier refusal.
..
However the MoD said there had been no change in policy on granting pardons, but it would "rightly and properly consider what the court has said". *4


*1 Stotty on Sunday; Sunday Mirror 30 Oct 2005
*2 http://www.shotatdawn.org.uk/
*3 Appeal of Derek Bentley's Family for Pardon 30 July 1998
*4 http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/england/london/4847504.stm