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.
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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
2 comments:
Pardon a long comment. I started to think...
I can't help picturing the way it may have felt to be woken at dawn (if you could sleep), and taken out to be shot by "your own". The very idea is barbaric. Killing people for reacting to traumatic experiences. They did not abolish that death sentence one day too soon.
These days I am much into trying to understand why people do odd things. While I do not accept them, I can see the reasons why they would want to have a death penalty for "cowardice". Of course quite a few soldiers would become so afraid when death on the battlefield was a real possibility that they might refuse to fight, indeed be unable to do so. So, the death penalty for "cowardice" would serve to make the battlefield seem the better alternative after all: instead of facing the certain death of execution, they would merely face the risk of being killed.
It still does not make it right. And, especially, it doesn't make the way those "trials" were conducted right. (I can't help wondering, btw, if the officers were often spared because they usually came from "better" families, that would have the means to raise difficult questions.)
But, why this reluctance to pardon these men now? Well, since the death penalty has already been abolished, it can't be in order to protect that. It makes me think that they are reluctant to admit that they did wrong in holding those "trials" the way they did. Could a pardon, even for these men that died so many years ago, be seen as affecting the way court martials may work?
I can see no other reason for the refusals. Surely it can't be that hard to say "this was wrong"?
To "RACH" and the anonymous poster.. If you have nothing constructive to say, I'd rather you didnt say anything at all... Typing sa lot of invective shows what a lack of understanding you have of the situation I blogged about. That and it shows the intelligence, or rather, lack of, that you possess...
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