http://trenchfever.wordpress.com/2006/08/21/an-end-to-shame/ War - what _is_ it good for? Tue, 21 May 2013 09:34:49 +0000 hourly 1 http://wordpress.com/ http://trenchfever.wordpress.com/2006/08/21/an-end-to-shame/#comment-291 Mon, 21 Aug 2006 18:45:37 +0000 https://trenchfever.wordpress.com/2006/08/21/an-end-to-shame/#comment-291 Richard Smith has a fairly extensive discussion of Morris’s execution in _Jamaican Volunteers in the First World War_, arguing that he suffered from shell shock at the time. Smith’s position follows that of Oram, that black soldiers were treated more harshly, although he doesn’t actually cite Oram’s work.

]]> http://trenchfever.wordpress.com/2006/08/21/an-end-to-shame/#comment-290 Mon, 21 Aug 2006 17:35:31 +0000 https://trenchfever.wordpress.com/2006/08/21/an-end-to-shame/#comment-290 The case was apparently raised in the Commons by Ms. Begg in 2000, and thanks to the online Hansard the transcript is available and of great interest: http://www.publications.parliament.uk/pa/cm199900/cmhansrd/vo000322/halltext/00322h04.htm

]]> http://trenchfever.wordpress.com/2006/08/21/an-end-to-shame/#comment-289 Mon, 21 Aug 2006 16:31:54 +0000 https://trenchfever.wordpress.com/2006/08/21/an-end-to-shame/#comment-289 Ah, is that the noise of floodgates opening? Perhaps. But I think that the MoD will get out on the ‘moral not historical’ issue here. These men too were guilty as charged, and I suspect probably got a fair trial by the standards of the time (or at least not a demonstrably unfair trial – Alan, you might know better). Some may have lost decorations – which I suppose could be reinstated – but I’m not sure their families could claim to have suffered the sort of abuse which was a factor in the WWI pardons.

]]> http://trenchfever.wordpress.com/2006/08/21/an-end-to-shame/#comment-288 Mon, 21 Aug 2006 16:11:04 +0000 https://trenchfever.wordpress.com/2006/08/21/an-end-to-shame/#comment-288 There has been a proposal to extend the pardon to men convicted in the 1943 ‘Salerno Mutiny’. See http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/scotland/north_east/4800955.stm

]]> http://trenchfever.wordpress.com/2006/08/21/an-end-to-shame/#comment-286 Mon, 21 Aug 2006 11:45:59 +0000 https://trenchfever.wordpress.com/2006/08/21/an-end-to-shame/#comment-286 Now I’ve checked out the MoD’s website again, it seems to suggest all ‘battlefield’ crimes which might have been affected by stress of combat. So that widens the scope a bit I guess – except of course that some of those executed for desertion were caught well behind the lines. I always think it’s slightly unreasonable to suggest that repeal should be based on the fact that people at the time exercised their very considerable racial/eugenic/psychiatric prejudices – because that seems to open the door to an awful lots of civil criminal repeals, and avoids the idea of justice as a social construct.
Also worth noting, as Chris Pugsley has done, that Australian units had very severe problems with discipline in 1918, which greatly affected their military effectiveness. Contrary to modern myth, Australian officers were in many cases as much if not more socially divided from their men than their British equivalents. They would very happily have shot a few if they could. I’ve also heard – although this probably has the status of a professional myth – that Aussies also had the worse rates of VD, but how many times do you see that discussed on ANZAC day?

]]> http://trenchfever.wordpress.com/2006/08/21/an-end-to-shame/#comment-285 Mon, 21 Aug 2006 11:21:19 +0000 https://trenchfever.wordpress.com/2006/08/21/an-end-to-shame/#comment-285 Hi Dan – check out Gerry Oram’s _Worthless Men_. One of the points he makes is that in black units, the execution rate was 90%, compared to the 10% in ‘white’ units (and the 0% in Oz units). Also, it was sometimes dangerous to be short. Gerry’s _Military Executions During World War I_ (Palgrave 2003) ought to be the point of departure for all these discussions.

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