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First World War Soldiers (Pardons)

It is a pleasure to serve under your chairmanship, Mr. Bayley, in the removed Westminster Hall. The subject that I have been lucky enough to have had selected for debate—that of pardons for British soldiers executed in the first world war—continues to generate great public interest and controversy. It was not only a controversial subject at the time, more than 90 years ago; there has been a continuing campaign that seeks pardons either for individuals or for all the men who were executed while serving in the British Army or the Commonwealth armies during the first world war. It is regarded as a question not only of natural justice, but of humanitarian concern. Having been interested in the subject for more than 30 years, I have concluded that the debate about pardons for British soldiers executed in the first world war is not a narrow debate about just those men, British military justice and the way in which the British Army performs. There is also a continuing debate about Britain's coming to terms with the first world war. Whatever the evidence at the time and the continuing work of historians, those of us who have been involved in the issue as historians realise that any attempt to influence wider public opinion on the first world war or pardons for British soldiers executed in that war comes up against powerful and popular cultural images, which have helped to define at least public perception. I am thinking of the impact some 30 years ago of the play and then the film ““Oh! What a Lovely War”” and some 15 years ago of the series ““Blackadder Goes Forth””. Whatever historians have attempted to say about British generals in the first world war, and there is a case to be made, the image of Stephen Fry playing General Melchett—a bovine man of intense stupidity callously sending tens of thousands of young men to their deaths—is incredibly difficult to overcome. Let me declare an interest—first, as a military historian. Many years ago, when I had as my father-in-law would say a real job and before I became a Member of Parliament, I researched and wrote a number of books connected with the first world war. In the early 1970s, I was lucky enough to interview several hundred veterans of that war who of course even then were in their 70s and 80s. One question, among many others, that I invariably asked them concerned their attitude towards the men who were executed in the first world war for desertion, cowardice and so on. The survivors of that war had an ambivalent attitude towards those executions. That is borne out by the archives at the Imperial war museum, whether oral or written. It was possible to find large numbers of men who, at the time and in their old age, regarded the executions as wrong, vindictive and not achieving their objective of deterring people from running away, but equally I found large numbers of veterans who were bitter. They might not necessarily condone the fact that ultimately the men were executed, but they were bitter that some men decided to abscond and, as they saw it, did not do their duty and let their muckers down. That is an equally balanced view. Following that research, I was involved in getting a minor classic on the first world war republished in 1986. I am referring to a book that was originally published anonymously in 1938, ““The War the Infantry Knew””, an account of the 2nd Battalion the Royal Welch Fusiliers during the first world war based entirely on letters and diaries of officers and those of other ranks. The core part of the book was the diaries of the battalion medical officer, the formidable Captain James Churchill Dunn, Distinguished Service Order, Military Cross and Bar, Distinguished Conduct Medal—that related to his time as a trooper in the yeomanry in the South African war. I had always imagined that Dr. Dunn was, frankly, a rather tough old bastard. A particular image was given by the contemporary accounts from those who served with him. I am thinking of Siegfried Sassoon, Robert Graves and Private Frank Richards, who was one of the few pre-war regular working-class soldiers to leave a real memoir—it was tarted up by Robert Graves, but ““Old Soldiers Never Die”” gives a real view from the ranks. I was to discover that Dr. Dunn was probably a more sensitive and perceptive man than I had ever imagined. Interestingly, through his diaries, he gives a number of accounts of his views on morale and discipline and of how his own courage leached away in the course of continuous soldiering and participating in major battles. He served as a regimental medical officer continuously for nearly two years. Robert Graves and Siegfried Sassoon, brave men as they were, flitted in and out of combat, unlike the bulk of the British Army. Dr. Dunn was one of only two regimental medical officers to give evidence in 1922 to what we now call the shell shock committee. There are virtually no first-hand evidence accounts of the questionnaire surviving. Dr. Dunn's, however, does survive, because it was in his papers. Despite being a sensitive man, he was absolutely convinced of the deterrent value of executing those who wilfully deserted and absconded; he believed in the deterrent effect. I am not suggesting that just because that was the view of one regimental medical officer—a man of considerable experience who was sensitive enough to recognise what battle stress was; he used to withdraw soldiers from the front line to rest them—a case should be based on it against the campaign that seeks pardons for British soldiers executed in the first world war. I am trying to illustrate my background interest in the subject. When I became a junior Front-Bench defence spokesman in June 1998, my first Front-Bench speaking role, within a few days, was to respond to a statement by the then Minister for the Armed Forces, who is now the Secretary of State for Defence, on the review of pardons for soldiers executed in the first world war. It is interesting that, in the 1970s, a large number of Labour Members then in opposition felt very strongly that the then Conservative Government and previous Labour Governments had been far too secretive about the records relating to the men executed and that the likelihood was that there had been a cover-up. The Minister of State in 1998 carried out a very comprehensive review. As he said in his statement, he personally examined about one third of the files. He interviewed many people, including historians and relatives, and he concluded in 1998 that there was not a legal case to pardon those who had been found guilty and executed. However, the Government were moved to say that they regretted what had happened. It is interesting that someone whom I suspect before he looked into the matter was predisposed to consider that there was a strong case the other way concluded at the time, after an exhaustive survey, that there was not necessarily such a case. I am speaking here today because we are now eight years on. I am not saying that just because the Government had a review and said then that there was not a case that there will never be a case. I am not persuaded—it was my considered view then and still is today—that there is a case for retrospective pardon. My view is still based on a reluctance to rewrite history without real evidence. I am not in any way suggesting that those who are advocating pardons for those executed during the first world war are arguing this, but there is a case that such pardons could apply to other periods in history involving the British armed forces. There is strong feeling about the issue in the first world war because it is close and real, and there are still surviving members of families of those who were executed, but there is certainly a case to be argued that we could consider those British soldiers who were executed during active service in, for example, the Peninsular war, to see whether at the time similar criteria could be applied and that they did not know that they were suffering from post-traumatic stress—although they would not have understood at the time what that meant. I want to draw out the Minister on the point that the evidence at the time was more complicated than some popular historians have made out and that each individual case is different, which creates a major problem. That does not mean that all of us who are involved in this debate are not moved by what must be the trauma of the families who have discovered that a grandfather, a father or an uncle was found guilty of a capital offence and executed. It has moved many members of the public, and I can understand why; it is a natural feeling.