The Postcard
A postally unused carte postale that was published by Fauchois. The card, which has a divided back, was printed by Baudinière of Paris.
The people in the photograph (and the horse!) have obviously been posed for the shot.
Fouquereuil
Fouquereuil is a commune in the Pas-de-Calais département in the Hauts-de-France region of France.
It is a farming village situated 1 mile (1.6 km) southwest of Béthune and 30 miles (48.3 km) southwest of Lille. Fouquereuil's population in 2017 was 1,570.
The church of St. Nicolas dates from the nineteenth century, and there is also an old mill. St. Nicholas was rebuilt, along with the rest of the village, after the Great War.
A Commonwealth War Graves Commission cemetery is located nearby. Sandpits British Cemetery was begun by the XIII Corps at the outset of the German advance in April 1918, and continued to be used by them until September 1918.
There are now 394 Great War burials in the cemetery. The cemetery was designed by Sir Edwin Lutyens.
Shot at Dawn
One of the 394 men laid to rest in the cemetery was 15161 Private Patrick Murphy of the 47th. Battalion Machine Gun Corps. He was executed for desertion the 12th. September 1918.
He had served for most of the war, but it seems that he was convicted of desertion on 3 separate occasions. The Roman Catholic Padre reported that:
"Murphy went to his execution
wonderfully calm & resigned."
British Military Execution Protocol
chrishobbs.com tells us that nearly all executions conducted by the British Army in the Great War more or less followed the pattern described below in this first-hand account:
'The officer had loaded the rifles, and had
left them laying on the ground at our position.
We were warned to fire straight, or we may
have to suffer the same fate.
The prisoner was taken out of a car (we saw
him get out, with a black cap over his head
and guarded) and placed on the other side
of a curtain.
If we did not kill him, the officer would have
to.
As soon as the curtain dropped (the prisoner
was tied to a chair five paces away from us,
a black mark over his heart) we got the order
to fire.
One blank and nine live rounds. It went off
as one. I did not have a blank. The prisoner
did not feel it. His body moved when we fired,
then the curtain went up. The firing squad
only saw him for a few minutes.
We went back to the Battalion Orderly Room
and got a big tumbler of rum each, and we
went back to our billets, ate, and went to bed.
We had the rest of the day off. It was a job I
never wanted'.
(from 'It Made You Think of Home', the journal of Deward Barnes, CEF, on the execution of Private Harold Lodge on the 13th. March 1918).
Chris Hobbs goes on to say that even though the rate of desertion was over 4 times higher in the UK, no soldier was ever executed for desertion at home.
This was because executions abroad could be largely covered up by the Military, whereas any conducted in the UK would have provoked riots. This was especially the case after the futile loss of life that occurred during the Somme Offensive of 1916.
A Typical Execution
The condemned private spends his last night in a small room, alone with his thoughts before his execution at dawn. He might be writing painful letters to family and friends. He is also likely to be encouraged to drink heavily in order to be insensible during execution. The private is guarded by two military policemen (MPs or redcaps) and ministered by a chaplain.
The condemned man’s commanding officer (CO) orders a company of men to witness the execution, wanting to set an example to other would-be deserters. Meanwhile a firing squad assembles, sick with nerves, in the dawn light. Some of the men know the condemned and have mixed feelings about his fate, some even carrying deep resentment at having to execute him. Their rifles have been pre-loaded—one with a blank—to take some of the individual responsibility away from shooting their fighting pal.
The condemned man is led, blind drunk, to a post by two redcaps, his hands tied behind his back. The lieutenant waits at the side of the shooting party, with a medical officer (MO). The lieutenant (Lt.) gives the order to shoot the prisoner. Some deliberately shoot wide. Two of the men vomit on the spot. The MO checks the prisoner over and concludes that the private is mortally wounded, but not dead. The young lieutenant, with shaky hands, administers the coup de grâce: a bullet to the head.
A military ambulance stands by to take the corpse off to be buried. That same evening the battalion colonel writes a letter to the private’s parents informing them that their son has been shot at the front. He leaves the message deliberately ambiguous, sparing the man’s family any difficult feelings about his execution.
Posthumous Pardons
The 'Shot at Dawn' Memorial in Alrewas, Staffordshire, originally contained the names of 306 men who were executed for 'cowardice' or 'desertion'.
With many now recognised as having been suffering from mental illnesses such as post-traumatic stress disorder, these men were posthumously pardoned by Royal Assent in November 2006.
The Staffordshire memorial was created to honour their sacrifices, along with all those who died in combat fighting for the British Empire during the Great War.
200,000 serving soldiers were officially court-martialled by the British High Command during the Great War.
Of these, 20,000 were found guilty of offences that carried the death penalty. 3,000 officially received it, although most of these sentences were subsequently commuted.
In the end, of the 3,000, 346 executions were carried out by firing squad.
Now, of the 40 names left off the Shot at Dawn Memorial, three have been added, thanks to the persistence of memorial creator Andy DeComyn.
They are New Zealander Jack Braithwaite, Gunner William Lewis from Scotland, and Jesse Robert Short, from Newcastle-Upon-Tyne.
Jack Braithwaite
Braithwaite's 'mutiny', according to the Birmingham Mail, consisted of nothing more than a misdemeanour.
The bohemian former journalist, who'd confessed at his trial to not being a natural soldier, had tried to calm down a belligerent prisoner at Blargies prison in Rouen by taking the man to his tent to feed him.
The soldier, Private Little, had been a ringleader in a small uprising against the prison guards. But Little was an Australian, and couldn't be executed because Australia's government wouldn't allow Great Britain to execute its soldiers.
Unfortunately Braithwaite was a New Zealander, and could be executed. His attempt to defuse the potential riot (sparked by appalling conditions at the prison) involved him leading Little away from the custody of a staff sergeant, which officially amounted to mutiny.
Jack was subsequently shot by firing squad on the 28th. August 1916.
Gunner William Lewis
Jack's execution occurred within five minutes of Gunner William Lewis, who'd also been involved in the uprising at the prison.
Corporal Jesse Short
Meanwhile, Corporal Jesse Short was condemned to death for uttering:
"Put a rope around that bugger's neck,
tie a stone to it and throw him into the
river".
He was said to be inciting guards barring his exit from the infamous 'Bull Ring' training camp to rebel against their officer.
This was the September 1917 Étaples Mutiny, an uprising by around 80 servicemen rebelling against what are now acknowledged to have been harsh and unreasonable conditions at the camp.
The uprising was depicted in the 1978 book (and 1986 BBC series) 'The Monocled Mutineer', the lead character in which is said to have been based at least partially on Corporal Short.
Field Marshal Sir Douglas Haig, confirmed Short's death sentence (as he had Lewis's a year earlier).
Short, Lewis, and Braithwaite received their pardons and have been honoured along with comrades who fell in battle.
The remaining 37 men who were shot, according to Richard Pursehouse of the Staffordshire military history research group the Chase Project, were not executed for mutiny, but murder.
As this also would have resulted in a death sentence even under civil law codes of the time, it was decided that their names should not be added to the memorial.
