Shooting One's Own

[cyberia]

A soldier of unknown nationality, executed by firing squad

Troops fighting in World War I faced death in a myriad of guises; gas, artillery, machine gun fire and enemy riflemen. On occasion, they fell to the intentional fire of their own.

Shot at dawn by firing squad was not simply a cliche. It was a very real threat hung over the heads of those in the trenches by their superior officers and at times, the punishment for those guilty of little more than succumbing to the basic human instinct of self preservation.

In all the British military sentenced 306 soldiers to be executed by firing squad. This number includes 25 Canadians, 22 Irishmen and 5 New-Zealanders.

German soldiers who deserted ranks mostly fled over the borders of neutral Netherlands, Denmark and Switzerland. Of the several hundred who were caught trying, no more than 18 were executed.

The French military executed more than 600 of its own soldiers. In the case of the 10e Compagnie of 8 Battalion of the Régiment Mixte de Tirailleurs Algériens, French-African soldiers who refused an order to attack early in the war, the French enacted decimation, the shooting of every tenth man of a "disgraced" unit. They were shot at dawn on the 15th of December 1914 near Zillebeeke, Flanders.

The American military sentenced 24 of its own to be shot to death for desertion between April 1917 and November 1918. None of the sentences were ever carried out.

Australia also had a change in heart about executing its own. Of the 129 Australians sentenced to death during the war, including 119 deserters, all had their lives spared.

[cyberia]

The execution of 21-year-old Belgian volunteer soldier Aloïs Walput, 2é Grenadiers
Dawn, 3rd June, 1918-Oostduinkerke

The photograph was taken just moments after Walput was executed by firing squad. Two of his fellow soldiers have just cut loose the bonds that held him to the stake as the firing-squad commanding officer looks on. Another officer notes the time of death.

Walput was one of 13 the Belgian military sentenced to death in World War I as a warning to others.

Soldiers of almost all nations were executed by their own for desertion, mutiny and cowardice. Shell shock or other mental affections were rarely, if ever, taken into account.

[cyberia]

The tombstone of Herbert Morris, Commonwealth soldier, executed for desertion

According the British war records, Herbert Morris was a "black" war-volunteer from the British West Indies who enlisted for service at the front in Jamaica in 1917 at the age of 16.
As he has wished, Morris ended up serving in the trenches of Flanders where his superiors noted in records he "behaved well".
Less than a year later Morris was building trench parapets around heavy and continuous gunfire. His nerves apprently shattered, Morris fled from the trenches and was reported to have run for two days before being arrested.
He was tried and sentenced to be shot for desertion from active service.

Herbert Morris was executed dawn on 20 September 1917 in a coal-shed in the Belgian village of Poperinge.

He had just turned 17 years old.