Ladies and Gentlemen,
The 10th Battalion, CEF, man executed was a Company Quartermaster Sergeant William Alexander.
He had served for eight years in the King‘s Royal Rifle Corps including service in the 2nd Anglo-Boer War, emigrated to Canada in 1911, enlisted into the Alberta Regiment 24 September 1914.
He served well in the 10th Bn, until September 1917 during the fighting on Hill 70 opposite Lens. He was a acting Platoon Commander, whilst on patrol he ordered a corporal to take over command of the patrol, as he had been wounded. The patrol took heavy casualties, its survivors made ‘complaint to higher authority‘.
Alexander continued to claim he had been wounded and had been unable to carryon, two seperate examinations showed no wounds. There was no signs of mental distress in any form, he was alert and coherent.
At his courtmartial (represented by an officer who was legally trained and had practiced as a barrister) he refused to give anyother reason other than he was wounded. The court stated that he was a senior NCO with the duty of care and responsibility for his soldiers. Sentenced to death, all charges laid against him proven (not just a charge of cowardice in the face of an enemy), appealed all the way up to commander 1st Army (ie through Brigade, Division, Corps), he was executed 18 October 1917, aged 37.
Correspondence and diary entries I examined a number of years ago from men of the 10th, indicated a strong belief by them that justice had been done.
Over the last 27 years I have examined just about everything within the public domain re military executions during the Great War. All 346 men of various armies and racial backgrounds, whilst a high percentage would have in this day and age been given psychiatric and physical medical treatment. I personally find the fact that those men who were executed repugnant, and that the system failed them.
The majority according to the law, moral values, and attitudes of the time, received a fair trial, where duly executed after rejection of appeals. Not all were charged with cowardice or striking a superior, many for murder, rape, dealing with the enemy or mutiny.
ORAM Gerald. Death Sentences Passed by Military COurts of the British Army 1914-1920. 1998. Lists all who were awarded the death. Those actually executed only reflect a small percentage of the total. Should be read in conjunction with PUTKOWSKI. British Army Mutineers 1914-1922. 1999; and by both authors. Officers Court Martialled by the British Army 1913-1924. 2001.
A substantial number of soldiers of the various armies were discharged and handed over to the civil authority for trial and subsequent execution for such as murder or rape of civilians both in France & Flanders, and Britain. It is also well recorded that summary executions were carried out in the actual front line of offenders, this after no recourse to legal action, but, that to maintain control in battle.
In regard to Hollywood. There is a superb British film in Joseph Losey‘s; King and Country, a quietly compassionate anti war treatise well acted by Dirk Bogarde as a captain (a civil lawyer) acting as the defending officer of Tom Courtenay‘s role of a deserter from their battalion, during the battle of Passchedale. Leo McKern (Rumpole of the Bailey) played the suitably vicious rear echolon prosecutor. It was a training aid that I used with students. It is available in video through Roadshow.
I must say that the badly informed comments re these executions reflect our place in time, our current values and mores. If you wish to judge them you must understand the values and attitudes of that period of time, and the events taking place.
Having waffeled on for too long, must apologise.
Yours,
Jock in Sydney