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Screenshot from "King & Country" by Joseph Losey
with Tom Courtenay and Dirk Bogarde (1964) |
No British soldier of the Great War was condemned to be ‘shot at dawn’.
The capital sentence passed on 3,080 occasions by Field General Courts Marshall between 1914 and 1920 was “to suffer death by shooting”.
Of the 346 executions actually carried out, most indeed took place at dawn: not for any symbolic or legal reason, but according to one historian, “because it was a quiet time – casual bystanders were not welcome”.
Another myth is that the majority of victims were shot for cowardice.
In fact, two thirds of those shot were convicted of desertion, (an easier charge to prove in legal terms). Over four years only 18 British soldiers were shot for showing cowardice and two for the unique military crime of “sleeping on sentry”.
The next largest category of executions was murder, a crime which of course at that time carried the death penalty in civilian courts.
By and large, courts were properly constituted, comprising three officers, with the accused not being allowed to enter a guilty plea as he faced a capital charge.
Although the accused were not guaranteed legal representation, they could choose any individual available as defending officer, who had to accept the role unless there was a good reason for not doing so.
Sentences could only be modified downward, which nine out of ten death sentences were.
The executed were not in the main part conscripts. Rather, the majority were either pre-war regulars or ‘New Army’ volunteers.
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