Soldiers executed for "cowardice"...

[Bigmack]

This news is 90 years old, and from Britain, but the attitude of the “powers that be” reminds me so much of the attitude of the chickenhawk war criminals that are pissing away our military......the same disdain for due process, the same lack of compassion, the same devaluing of human life.

- - - - - -
Executed during WWI, soldiers aren't forgotten

By Tom Hundley Chicago Tribune


LONDON — Nearly 20,000 British soldiers were killed on the first day of the battle. By the time it was over, 4 months later, casualties on both sides of the trenches would surpass 1 million. The combined death toll was 310,000. All for 5 miles of muddy territory.

Today, Britain marks the 90th anniversary of the Battle of the Somme. But as the nation honors the 95,675 soldiers who gave their lives in that struggle, the search for some remnant of honor continues for 306 others whose deaths were less noble. The 306 were soldiers in the British army convicted of cowardice or desertion during the war. They were executed by firing squad. At least two dozen of them were in their teens. Many of those executed were volunteers who had served on the front lines and were clearly suffering from shell shock. They received quick courts-martial with no legal representation and were shot the next dawn.

"Dear Madam," began a letter from the War Office to the widow of Pvt. Harry Farr, 25. "We regret to inform you that your husband has died. He was sentenced for cowardice and shot at dawn on 16 October." There was, however, another message from her husband's regimental chaplain: "Tell his wife he was no coward. A finer soldier never lived."

In Farr's case, he had served on the front lines at Neuve-Chappelle before being blown out of a trench by a shell and suffering what doctors at the time diagnosed as shell shock. Today, the condition would probably be called post-traumatic stress disorder. Farr was hospitalized and eventually returned to his unit at the Somme. But in October 1916, Farr's medical condition again deteriorated, and he refused further front-line duty, complaining that he "could not stand" the sound of shellfire. He was arrested for cowardice and given a quick trial. Before the firing squad the next morning, Farr rejected the blindfold, preferring to look his executioners in the eye. He was buried in an unmarked grave.

http://archives.seattletimes.nwsource.com/cgi-bin/texis.cgi/web/vortex/display?slug=somme01&date=20060701&query=executed+during+WWI

[Freedom_from_Chains]

1. Most of the neo-cons would say,

"Now that's a real man's army."

Sad.

[SteppingRazor]

2. Yes, they would say that...

provided, of course, that they didn't have to serve in it.

[Freedom_from_Chains]

15. You got that right!!!! LOL

[Tierra_y_Libertad]

3. Should read, "Soldiers executed for acting sensibly".

While 95,675 others died for nothing.

[raccoon]

7. Amen to that! The way in WWI soldiers would charge out of the

trenches and get mowed down by machine guns, I'd say the ones who deserted were the smartest.

[warrens]

4. The Kinks had this one nailed

"Give the scum a gun and make the bugger fight

And be sure to have deserters shot on sight

If he dies we'll send a medal to his wife (HAHAHAHAHAHA)."

Yes Sir, No Sir, from the album Arthur

[Swamp Rat]

5. Watch "Black Adder Goes Forth" (IV) for ripping satire on this subject

[dipsydoodle]

8. Wasn't sure if you got that or not. in the USA.

Yes - shows a lighter side to it without completely losing sight of the tragic aspects.

General Haig's statue in Whitehall get's attacked occasionally and there odd movements now and then to have it removed.

[Swamp Rat]

9. Yes, and many many other British comedies.

Growing up I watched "Monty Python," "Dr. Who," "Fawlty Towers," and later on "The Young Ones," "Red Dwarf," "Jennifer and Saunders," "Bottom," etc. Then there is Masterpiece Theater ... "I, Claudius," etc. (I'm a big fan of Derek Jacobi).

I probably watched as much British tele as American TV. :)

I've seen every episode of Black Adder maybe 20-50 times? I cannot count.

[Octafish]

12. Send for the Witchsmeller Swamp Rat!

Gee. Only this morning in the courtyard, I saw a horse with two heads and two bodies.

LOL. I've seen each episode about 20-50 times, too. No wonder we get along.

WATCHES ONLY
COMMERCIAL TV

[Swamp Rat]

13. I can't say which is my favorite episode...

I love "Ink and Incapability," about Dr. Johnson's dictionary. :D

Dr. Johnson: This book, sir, contains every word in our beloved language.

Edmund: Every word, sir?

Dr. Johnson: Every word, sir.

Edmund: Well, in that case, sir, I hope you will not object if I also offer the doctor my most enthusiastic contrafibularities.

Dr. Johnson: What??

Edmund: Contrafibularities, sir. It is a common word down our way.

Dr. Johnson: Damn!

Edmund: Oh, I'm sorry, sir. I'm anaspeptic, frasmotic, even compunctuous to have caused you such pericumbobulation.

:rofl:

[Octafish]

17. That was HUGH! Also Robbie Coltrane, if memory serves.

Absolute pure gold, on every level. The frustrations Blackadder goes through, as he continues to devolve from nobleman to lackey for the imperialist class is the perfect history of our age.



My fave is the Witchsmeller because of Frank Findlay, whom I've grown to resemble in my dottage -- in temperment and physicallity.

Witchsmeller: Now, Satin, just relax. You're among friends. Good. Now, tell

me, in your own words: Did you, Satin, on certain nights last

(Gareth's?) tide, indulge -- albeit, I accept, in all innocence

-- infrenzied, naked, and obscene Satanic orgies with your

master, known to you as the Great Grumbledook?

Edmund: What?

Witchsmeller: Silence, Grumbledook! Satin, you're not replying. (to Harry)

He's not replying, My Lord. Are we to assume this horse has

something to hide?

Edmund: Either that or he can't talk.

Witchsmeller: A likely story. Black Satin, known in the Hierarchy of Evil as

Black Satin the Loquacious, are you or are you not the servant

of Satan?

(The crowd screams; Black Satin whinnies)

Harry: I'm sorry, I didn't quite catch that. Was that a yea or a nay?

Witchsmeller: It was a neigh, My Lord, but I don't believe a word of it.

I call for a recess. He may think he (controls us?), but

we have ways of making him talk!

(The crowd cheers)

http://www.geocities.com/TelevisionCity/7539/blackadder_1-5_script.htm

!The horse has something to hide! HA HA HA HA!!!!

CARROTS ARE
HIS FAVORITE
FOOD

[Swamp Rat]

20. "OHHH! ... That PROVES it!"

:D

[Octafish]

10. Gen. Melchett portrayed the perfect BFEE chickehawk turd.

Many if not most in the upper classes care not one jot for the common man.



Funny thing is Fry can also perfectly portray Wodehouse's Jeeves.

[Swamp Rat]

11. Stephen Fry was also great as the Duke of Wellington

"Two other trifling things Highness... The men had a whip-round and got you this. Well, what I mean is I had the men roundly whipped until they got you this. It's a cigarillo case engraved with the regimental crest of two crossed dead Frenchmen, emblazoned on a mound of dead Frenchmen motif." :D

[Bigmack]

29. Captain Darling...

.... Melchett's aide - the guy on the left side of the picture - was a chickenhawk. Got sent to the front for the big Last Charge in the last episode. Would that Wolfowitz and Perle and Rummy could be pushed into an unarmored Hummer for a few "routine" patrols.

[Joe Chi Minh]

6. I remember on a TV programme a chaplain saying that a

particular sergeant-major was executed, actually, because he was too brave. He saw so much action, leading by example, that he ended up shell-shocked (doubtless also wounded many times).

Nor was he the only British soldier shot for his repeated outstanding courage under fire. However, it's all of a piece with the moral turpitude of the pre-war British monied classes, still unapologetic imperialists, at home (the British working class being the last of the colonies), as well as abroad. Very many of their own sons, however, were to pay the ultimate price in that war.

[deaniac21]

14. This guy knew what to do with 'British' soldiers...

[Joe Chi Minh]

16. Who would that be deaniac? Robert the Bruce?

[deaniac21]

19. William Wallace

[Joe Chi Minh]

21. Oh, I thought so at first, but thought I saw a crown.

[Octafish]

18. A certain class of American is eligible for execution.

Working class and below.

http://info.detnews.com/history/story/index.cfm?id=103&category=people

The aristocracy doesn't have to fight or pay for their humanity.

[Joe Chi Minh]

22. A very sad story, octafish. For Eddie Slovik and his wife.

But cheer up, he could have been used as a guinea pig to study the effects of radiation or some hideous drug or cocktail of drugs, since servicemen in both our countries seem to have been a favored group for that purpose.

[calico1]

23. Eddie Slovik was killed to make an

example of him. Just used him as a tool to keep the rest of the army in line. How disgraceful.

[Joe Chi Minh]

25. A French minister was imprisoned not so many years ago for

knowingly permitting a batch of AIDS-contaminated blood to be supplied to hospitals for blood transfusions. I couldn't see that happening here or in the US. There'd be a media-supported cover-up.

[genie_weenie]

24. And yet

I've read here on the DU on numerous occasions that our troops should be rejecting en masse the illegal orders of the Bush Regime, followed by a nasty comment that those who don't are getting exactly what they deserve (death, dismemberment, depression and destroyed marriages).

Hmmm...

[NoodleyAppendage]

26. Shades of Kubrick's "Paths of Glory" - RENT IT, WATCH IT.

There's never been a better film of WWI trench warfare or the injustices of those in power over "cannon fodder."

Highly recommended movie.

J

[Geoff R. Casavant]

27. I recall George Carlin's commentary.

How the seriousness with which a problem is taken varies inversely with the number of syllables in its name.

From WWI's "shell shock" (2) we went to WWII's "battle fatigue" (4) and ended up at Vietnam's "post-traumatic stress disorder" (8); and each time we did less and less for the ones who suffered.

[Raine]

28. Very sad

how awful for their loved ones.