Well, what did happen to them and how many did refuse?

Not really an answer but closely related. I spoke to two men on separate occasions who had been on firing squads. They both said it was a job they would rather not have done but when detailed, they did it. Similar to being picked to go on a raid. Both were chosen individually by a Sergeant Major. They were told to report to the CSM and told what they were wanted for. They formed a guard on the prisoner overnight, then were drilled on what to do the next morning, carried out the duty, were told not to discuss it and dismissed back to duties. These men were both in the same regiment but different battalions, so that seems to have been a system applied at regimental level anyway. One of the men informed me that " The bu**er deserved all he got". I suspect, and it's only a suspicion, that a good CSM or Sergeant would be given the job of organising a firing squad and he would hand pick the men he knew he could rely on.

Presumably this would count as refusing to obey a lawfuly constituted order and could be dealt with acordingly. As Truthergw has intimated a good NCO or Officer would follow the unwritten maxim 'never give an order you know wont be obeyed'

Phil

The British Army had far better things to do in 1914-18 than to compile pointless statistics such as that!

Anyone who objected might render himself liable to the same punishment, since as centurion says, they would be disobeying a lawful order. The answer, for the squeamish, would have been to shoot to miss vital organs. There are cases where men were told that the prisoner was going to die anyway, and it would be a mercy to him to make it quick and clean.

Ron

I suspect that, on the basis of no evidence whatsoever, the attitide of the men concerned would have been akin to that of Harold Pierrepoint, the hangman. His autobiography is a fascinating, if macarbe, read, for he was opposed to the death penalty, but took the view that if someone was going to die, then it was best that it be done properly. Until reading the book, I hadn't realised that there is a right and a wrong way to hang someone. He took the view that it was better that it was all over in 15 seconds than that the poor soul took minutes to die. Thus those selected for firing squad duties could well have thought the same.....better to get it over with quickly than to aim for a non-fatal area of the body and inflict further pain and suffering, in the knowledge that the officer commanding the squad would then have to administer the coup de grace.

Bruce

There is an unspoken assumption here, as in all the threads on executions. That the men would be against military executions and might refuse to take part. I never met a soldier who thought that executions should not take place. They nearly all felt sorry for the men who were shot and many felt ' there but for the grace of God, go I' but not one suggested that capital punishment was wrong in itself. Capital punishment was an integral part of life and the law as administered at the time. There would be several decades and another world war which culminated in the hanging of some war criminals before people as a whole started to reject the idea of capital punishment. It is still a contentious subject and we hear repeated calls for its re-introduction.

It sounds as if the man you are describing was Albert Pierrepoint, Bruce. I know his father and uncle were both executioners, but don't think either of them was Harold either.

320 odd executions means nearly 4000 men detailed for firing squads. Whilst I agree that most would think they were committing a humane act for someone who deserved it, that cannot have been universal. Without going into detail, there were some men who must have engendered sympathy from their fellows. The firing squad may have been from another battalion and not known the details of the alleged crime but, in that case, they wouldn`t know whether or not the victim "deserved what was coming to him".
No, Ron, I didn`t expect copious statistics to have been kept on the refusal rate. I did expect, though, that there may have been recorded instances, in memoirs, diaries etc, of the odd refusal. And, if there had been, I thought there would be a good chance of one of our eagle eyed members having seen it.

Immaterial consideration: the man in front of them had been tried and convicted in a legally-binding case. No time to wonder about the rights or wrongs of execution - leave that to us, 90 years on.

Personally, I think you're looking at this situation through 21st-century eyes, not through early 20th-century ones. Why should anyone refuse? They'be been given an order to execute someone who potentially left his mates in the muck. Execution was a not-uncommon result of a lot of trials in civil courts, so why should Private Smith of the Blankshires spend too much time agonising over whether the bloke he was about to shoot 'deserved' it? Of course he deserved it: he'd been found guilty, hadn't he? Guilty of a Capital offence.

I just think that, yet again, we're looking at the SAD question from the wrong angle - what would I have done. It's irrelevant - I wasn't there, and I wasn't alive in those times, so I can't say. Asking what would have happened to someone who refused to take part presupposes that someone would refuse to take part. And I suspect no-one did or could (or, possibly, would).

Quite correct..I sit corrected!



Bruce

No problem, Bruce - fortunately getting a name slightly wrong isn't a hanging offence ...

There were certainly some men at the time who 'bucked the trend' and opposed capital punishment often from a religious point of view. However I suspect that most of these would be likely to be COs and not in the forces. However there is a difference between being in favour in principle and having to take part oneself! I'm sure there would be some queasyness and a desire to avoid the duty but probably not strong enough to make a down right refusal.

You may be right but maybe not. Is it safe to assume that WW1 men had a different attitude to shooting their own men to that of a modern soldier? They certainly had a different attitude towards authority but that`s not the same thing.

... but men have been shot for less.

One of my grandfathers absolutely detested deserters and said 'shooting was too good for them'. I think he would have preferred something less quick.

He served at and around Mazingarbe for nearly 18 months and may have been involved in the many executions held at the abbatoir there, even if only as a sapper organising graves to be dug. I don't know if he ever witnessed an execution.

Many accounts from the time show a good number of soldiers thought deserters got what they deserved. Others were more sympathetic but I'm sure even those men would have carried out the duty asked of them. I think the key here is that a good NCO knows his men and what they can and can't do easily or willingly. Some could face this duty without losing a minutes sleep, others would have done it but carried a guilt to their graves.

John

How many men made up a firing squad? The shooters I mean, not counting the NCO or Officer.

Is there an instruction for it?

Mick

QUOTE (Steven Broomfield @ Nov 5 2009, 12:07 PM)

Because Pte Smith is a human being !!!!! Sure, people, God bless them , were tried and sentenced to death. Some probably deserved it. They didn't only act in a way that threatened the well-being of those they served with, they committed heinous acts that would turn everyone who knew them against them. There were many though whose only crime was that they were human beings with all the weaknesses of mind and spirit that that term implies. Their only "crime" was that they broke down when faced by a situation that we, today, can only conceptualise in the most banal way.

Of course people would refuse. They joined up, many of them as volunteers, to "kill the Hun", not to take the lives of those who, like themselves had tried their best and failed. They had probably said "but for the grace of God, there go I.

One final point and I add this addendum not because I have "been there" but because I know, or - after 26 years service- I think I know, that for every firing squad that was assembled without anyone "crying off sick" there would have been a dozen or more where the officer or NCO in charge would have some difficulty finding men willing to take part.

Harry

In your 26 years service, how many times did you refuse to obey a direct order?

Statistics of the Military Effort of the British Empire shows 163 officers and 11,439 men were tried by Courts Martial for disobedience at home and abroad, between 4th August 1914 and 31st March 1920.

TR

I was never, thank God, in a position that in any way paralleled that of those poor souls we are discussing here. One of the things that has always guided me in my postings on the Forum is the need to put myself, when needed and whenever possible, into the situation that soldiers during the Great War experienced.

We are looking back from a perspective of almost a century and if we are not careful, we will try to analyse events and behavioural patterns that might be appropriate today but are alien to those who served nearly a hundred years ago. This was a time of collective suffering. Men had signed up for a variety of reasons but for most the reality was way beyond their wildest expectations. It is my belief that the level of comradeship and understanding that characterised the relationships between soldiers faced with the horrors of that time would be a whole lot different to the period I spent in HM Forces. For that reason, I find your question pointless.

Harry

And for those reasons, Harry, surely your comments in response to my earlier post are equally pointless. Whatever you say, I think you are putting late 20th-, early 21st-century feelings into this. Yes, some of the men executed shouldn't have been, but in a ghastly war I don't believe many men would have pondered too long or too hard over individual cases.

No, they probably wouldn't have liked to do it, any more than they would have liked to go over the top ... but both acts were, i would say, things they had little choice in.

Whatever your 26 years of service brought, it didn't bring being a late Victorian or an Edwardian into it. A totally different mindset on authority, duty and right and wrong.

That'll be a no then? Same as the guys who were there at the time. The condemned man was going to be shot whether a particular soldier was in the squad or not. 26 years should have taught you that you do as you are told. EVERY time. Not just when you think that it is right and proper. I think, like others, that most of the time, men were told off for the duty because they were steady dependable soldiers who would not let their emotions get in the way of getting the job done. Given a company to choose from, it would have been easy for an experienced, senior NCO to pick a squad of a dozen men who would do just what they were told and then put it behind them. In the same way that they would have picked the same guy out of a shell hole, put as much of him as they could find in a sandbag or two and buried him. All part of the job.

[quote name='Steven Broomfield' date='Nov 5 2009, 05:24 PM' post='1298719']
I think you [i]are putting late 20th-, early 21st-century feelings into this. [/i]

How could it be otherwise ? I live in the 20th century. That is my perspective. Having said that the horrors of war that I never experienced and that are today being, to some real extent, experienced by the lads in Afghanistan are in many ways nothing compared to those of 1914-18.

Yes, some of the men executed shouldn't have been, but in a ghastly war I don't believe many men would have pondered too long or too hard over individual cases.

I'm sorry but I find this a sombre indictment of the human psyche. The whole purpose of military training is to create a unit that supports and trusts each other. Now, before you jump on the bandwagon on this statement, let me say that this rapport is focused on mutual trust and support. Each man suffered. Not necessarily in silence and invariably they had the support of those who stood to next to them at first light. Everyone was frightened to death, everyone tried their damndest to act like a man, to live up to the reputation of the regiment they served with but each and every one of them shared at least one thing in common: a comraderie that understood, yes understood, that sometimes the horrors would be too much for some. This was something it took The Army per se a long time to understand (hence the tragic list of people who had served gallantly and when their resilience finally let them down, where shot at dawn).

As I've said already, there were many whose actions were so alien to the military ethic and so reprehensible that the ultimate penalty was appropriate. In these cases, the attitude of those chosen to man a firing squad might well have been somewhat different. I say "might" because executing one's "brother in arms" immaterial of the court's findings would not have been easy for many.

No, they probably wouldn't have welcomed being involved any more than they would have liked to go over the top ... but both acts were, I suppose, things they had little choice in.

Whatever your 26 years of service brought, it didn't bring being a late Victorian or an Edwardian into it. A totally different mindset on authority, duty and right and wrong.

B-lls--t !

Harry

That's an informed response, I take it?

My father was born in 1917. My mother in 1915. Although a lot of my views I inherited from them, I suspect a lot of my outlook is hugely different: my attitude to homosexuality, my attitude to foreigners, my attitude to authority.

I also certainly wouldn't have finished a friendly discussion with such a pathetic comment.

[quote name='Steven Broomfield' date='Nov 5 2009, 06:46 PM' post='1298797']
That's an informed response, I take it?

absolutely.

My father was born in 1917. My mother in 1915. Although a lot of my views I inherited from them, I suspect a lot of my outlook is hugely different: my attitude to homosexuality, my attitude to foreigners, my attitude to authority.

Yes, I think you and I would differ on many things.

I also certainly wouldn't have finished a friendly discussion with such a pathetic comment.

Well, there you go. that's one of the ways we differ.

harry

I thought peronal attacks and insulting comments are verboden on this Forum ?

Yes, less of that, gents. The quote below reminds of another current thread which concludes that Gestapo men were executed by the British for doing just that. I suspect that 26 years modern service teaches one that there are times when you don`t do as you`re told?

No soldier would ever be executed for obeying a lawful order from a superior. I would like to hear an example of when it was correct to refuse such a command.

It doesn't stop it happening on a lot of threads though. Ignore the topic and snipe at the posters.

I am sure I read somewhere (sorry, I don't have a reference) that one could refuse to serve in a firing squad and that was the end of the matter.

A book I read recently has a quote from a soldier who did just that. I will try to find it and post details.

Nigel

Thanks Russ, all I was trying to do was to suggest that the shared horror of the trenches and the reliance of one person on another was almost certain to create a level of esprit d'corps that would transcend even that of the regiment one belonged to. The members of any military unit are taught and trained to respect and support each other. It's that way today, it was that way when I served and I have no doubt at all that it was the same during the Great War.

All I'm saying is that a lot of people who were SAD during that war were soldiers who had genuinely given their best and should never have been despatched in that way. In such circumstances, I'm convinced that it would have been no easy task getting people to become a member of a firing squad. I'm also convinced that the officer and/senior NCO charged with the responsibility of finding people to carry out this onerous task, would have been reluctant to force soldiers to take part except in the most extreme circumstances. Attitudes like that are surely what makes us HUMAN beings.

Harry

QUOTE (Phil_B @ Nov 5 2009, 07:37 PM)

I suspect that 26 years modern service teaches one that there are times when you don`t do as you`re told?

Perhaps so Phil but that really wasn't my point. People who took part in a firing squad were rarely eager volunteers. OK there will have been occasions when an individual who had shown himself to be an out and out scoundrel was SAD and few if any felt sad about it. There were though lots of poor souls who don't fit into this category and my point is that in these circumstances assembling a firing squad might have been extremely difficult.

Harry

I am not attacking any contributer. I am however very much against unsupported statements being presented as fact and also I deplore the attempt to apply our modern mores and ethics to the men who served in the Great War. I make no apology for presenting my case as vigorously as I can.
There is an aspect of discipline here. Once an NCO allows a man to refuse a duty because he finds it immoral, where does that end? If his corporal tells him to throw a tin of petrol with a couple of mills bombs wired around it into a dugout can he refuse on the grounds that it is immoral to burn people to death? If a recalcitrant prisoner on a raid is jeopardising the success of the mission can his captor refuse to beat him to death with a rifle butt or stab him with a knife?
Discipline is instilled and obedience demanded for a reason. 'Theirs not to reason why' is not just a line in a poem. War is a horrible, cruel business and no sane man would indulge in it for more than an hour if he was a free agent. The insistence on immediate and unthinking obedience absolves the soldier from the need to judge. There was a reference to another thread where it was said that there was a duty on a soldier to disobey an illegal order. In any court of law it would be very difficult to convict. Apart from a few sadistic killers who went far beyond their duty, we hang important losers not war criminals.

Regarding the selection for firing Squad Duty,the Senior Nom Com delegated with the task i feel sure would have had his own list of readily available candidates,possibly Battalion troublemakers,bad boys,Shirkers,and those that he deemed might benefit in helping to carry out the grisly task.According to Military Law if a Soldier refuses to obey a direct order from his superior then it is classed as insubordination..albeit wether he thinks that order is right or wrong..the luxury of the common soldier in WW1 questioning the legality of an order or its morality was i should think unheard of..the Refusal to obey on the other hand could and did lead to a Court Martial.

What was ratio of guns loaded with blanks to live rounds ? Theoretically a soldier in a firing squad would not have known whether he fired the fatal
shot or not.
I believe the attitude to judicial murder is far, far different to what it is now. These days most people look upon it with revulsion but when I was a kid
it was just part of life. It happened, so what - he deserved it. I think the last execution in Australia was in 1968 and there is still debate about whether
the guy concerned fired the fatal shot. Trouble is if the jury gets it wrong there is not much use giving the deceased a pardon later. Much good it does them.
David

Bringing it back to the facts for a minute, from memory after ?1917 personnel from the Military Provost Staff Corps were detailed to carry out executions, with personnel from the man's own battalion being used on only rare occasions. It is difficult to ascertain exactly why, but a high percentage of executions did not result in instantaneous death - the files at TNA indicate this for each man. This could be because men deliberately missed, or could be an indication of how poor the level of musketry was in the British Army by 1917. I suspect we will never know which.

Maybe they should have used a Mills Bomb or a Lewis Gun.

Coming back to the subject of men of the same regiment, but a different battalion: is that the case? What would happen if there wasn't anothe battalion of the regiment handy? Using the services of "police" of whatever shade would make sense.

And I still think there is a risk of us looking at this sad affair through modern eyes.


So did I.

Hello Paul,

Yes, I suppose it could have been either of the two reasons you mention but I'd bet my army pension on the fact that killing someone in cold blood, someone who you know and have served alongside is far more likely to have been the reason for the change you mention.

However, Truthergw has a valid point when he writes about "unsupported statements." All I'm saying is that there are sometimes valid issues that deserve to be discussed even when that sort of statistical or anecdotal proof is missing.

The only "concrete example" of a soldier's refusal to knowingly kill another human being that I can think of at the moment was that of Harry Patch. Was he unique? In an interview shown on TV he admitted that he couldn't even kill the enemy when his own life was being threatened. Rather than do this he chose to fire at a more difficult target: the man's legs. I'm suggesting that if some soldiers found it difficult to kill the enemy, then surely it would be even more difficult to kill someone who, until recently, had been a colleague and perhaps a friend.

Yes Paul "the level of musketry" in the British Army in 1917 must have been really bad if they couldn't hit a pretty large target from a few yards distance.

Harry

[quote name='Steven Broomfield' date='Nov 5 2009, 10:24 PM' post='1299027']
Maybe they should have used a Mills Bomb or a Lewis Gun.

I assume this is a joke Steven?

Harry

Yes

Why is it a concrete example? I know honest men who have their own version of events of 20 years ago that are unrecognisable to anyone else there let alone 50,60...90 years.

Mick

I thought virtually all of those shot were repeat offenders.

I'd also be wary of anything Harry Patch said at the end of his life. He was a very old man telling interviewers what they wanted to hear. All the interviews I have seen are full of leading questions which he answers exactly as the reporter wants.

ETA: I had missed Mick's post on Harry Patch when I made mine. I wasn't trying to pile on.

Tin hats on now.

Mick

Len Sellers, in his book on the Dyett case [For God's Sake Shoot Straight!, Leo Cooper, 1995, ISBN 0 85052 470 9] quotes J. Blacklock who stated
"I got off it, got out of being on the firing squad. I said to the Petty Officer, 'I will never sleep well if I shot one of our own.'"
There is no evidence that this was later held against Blacklock

The same cannot be said for the officer who acted for Dyett's defence. Len quotes Thomas MacMillan (Clerk, 189th Brigade)
"The Battalion(s) had been instructed to render a statement giving names of the officers who would participate in the next fight (Gavrelle) and, as the lists arrived, I took them to the Major. His eagle eye observed that the officer who had acted as 'Prisoner's Friend' to the young man who was 'Shot at Dawn' was on the reserve list. At this his monkey rose, and in his most unbearing manner he told me to instruct the Battalion Commander concerned to send the 'hard-faced ******* forward.'"

[The officer in question developed a raging temperature and was evacuated back to England before the battle]

regards
Michael



ps: hard-faced ******* - I see that the GWF still automatically censors posts. For some reason I thought that we had stopped that

Not at all Mick. Perhaps I was naive to believe what he said. Having said that is there any "supported proof" that he was telling porkies ?

Harry

It`s a sad thought that men were shot by a combed out collection of troublemakers, bad boys, shirkers etc.

There seem to be two possible routes for selecting mn: Tom (IIRC) suggested the sergeant major would select reliable blokes; PBI suggests he'd select the bad boys.

Although personally I'd incline to Tom's suggestion (were I organising this sort of thing, I'd rather have blokes I could rely on - kinder to the victim, too, possibly), is there any evidence either way?

Absolutly no evidence he was telling porkies and I doubt that there is any evidence, but I am a natural cynic.

As regards picking men for nasty or dangerous tasks, I would choose the best and most reliable for the job any decent NCO has a core group he or she can trust completely, and if not to follow unquestioning, to at least follow.

Mick

If we are going to start discussing evidence (and why not?): Does anyone know of any specific person court-martial ed for refusing to obey a lawful order "namely, to take part in a firing squad"? If there were such cases, I would expect there to be at least some records to show it.

With my 21st century eyes and possibly managerial outlook, I would have thought that any leadership organisation would try and stop something that might cascade out of control.
W is condemned to be shot, X refuses to serve on the firing squad and goes to court-martial
X is condemned to be shot, Y refuses to serve etc. (Y was not too happy about W, so has sympathy for X)
Y is condemned to be shot, Z refuses to serve (how many steps until you have a near mutiny?)
Even if the authorities were careful to select people from a wide range of units, and those on the squad were not told in detail why an individual had been condemned, I would have thought that word would still get round. You only need one person to refuse to serve on a firing squad to potentially create another cycle which would take up more court-martial time and potentially undermine morale.

Far better for an NCO or officer to select people that he knew would lose no sleep over doing the job.

David

I get your point David but I doubt if a man would be shot for refusing. It is exactly because the army would not want such a legal escalation that it would never be allowed to happen. There are King's Regulations which govern every aspect of a soldier's life and there is a corps of Officers and NCOs which make sure they are hardly ever needed. Anyone who has served, knows that. If I was told by a sergeant to do a sh**ty job and I didn't want to do it, I have a dozen different ways of getting out of it. If the sergeant approaches me and asks me as a favour to do this job for him, I'm one of the few he can rely on, blah blah, I will almost certainly do the job. To refuse is much more serious than going sick to skive a duty. That is how stuff gets done and I'll bet my state pension that in most cases, it was how it was done. I can also see PBI's point of view and it is a tempting thought. I don't believe that it would be done though because it would be very tempting for a squad of bad lads to make the execution a true shambles and that would reflect badly on the officers and NCOs entrusted with arranging it. I bet that the typical firing squad before the Provost took over was comprised of the same men who would form an honour guard at the CO's funeral. The men who always got picked when something needed done and needed to be done properly.

Does anyone know of any relevant information on French or German methods?

http://answers.yahoo.com/question/index?qi...02125351AAZb3Us
According to most records that I've found , in WW1 both the British and the French executed far more of their soldiers than did the Germans for cowardice or desertion. Here are the numbers: -
British (including Commonwealth) = 306 executions.
France = approximately 600 executions.
Germany = 18 executions.