Good or Bad?
For me it raises all sorts of questions!!
The main question- Should they're executioners be branded as murderers as the "Victims" were branded Cowards!!!
The second- Should their relatives receive Compensation for their premature deaths?
Just a few thoughts from the top of my head...
http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/uk/4796579.stm
Originally posted by VargI sort of agree here. If it was the custom at the time, what is the point of going back through history judging people by modern standards?
Why should investigators 80 years after the event know better than the people at the time?
Seems a bit pointless to me.
Whatever next?
Originally posted by Red NightI'm not dismissing his post.
Is dismissing someone's post with the word "next" the ultimate conceit?
Millerman didn't offer an opinion, in fact he asked for one.
In answer to slimjim, they were executed for treason or cowardice, so I guess they are not alive to receive their pardon 😛
Originally posted by millermani would like to antepostregrammariaticaliseate you're first question:
Good or Bad?
For me it raises all sorts of questions!!
The main question- Should they're executioners be branded as murderers as the "Victims" were branded Cowards!!!
The second- Should their relatives receive Compensation for their premature deaths?
Just a few thoughts from the top of my head...
http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/uk/4796579.stm
Should their executioners be branded as murderers, as the "Cowards" were suffering from a medical condition called "shell-shock"!!!
and i say ... NO! NO!! NO!!!
The executioners were forced to do it by the poorly informed primitive and illinformed practices of the day ...
They intended to do the best they could in the circumstances.
I would even suggest that manslaughter may be innappropriate ... these executioners were completely and 100% immersed in an environment where this was appropriate ...
However: the times and its beliefs should be held accountable ... all cases of precedence relating to issues dealt with from this period should be cast in doubt ... the whole concept of precedence of legal procedure from a time whem such practices were believed sensible should be retestable.
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The facts are that the British shot 306 of their own soldiers for cowardice, the Germans 25, and the Americans 0. It is clear that the British, pertified of working class unrest spured on by the Russian Revolution, saw this as more of a problem than some of the other protagonists.
I have included a below discussion paper (from the UK National Workplace Bullying Advice Line, www.bullyonline.org) which highlights the issues of the case. Given your question it seems clear that yes they needed to be pardoned and yes the senior management were guilty of murder to show those "bolsovicks" soldiers to keep in line and die for their country.
"The pretexts for execution for British soldiers had a common theme: many were suffering shell shock (also called "war neurosis" or "combat stress" and now recognised as Post Traumatic Stress Disorder or PTSD), and most were deliberately picked out and convicted "as a lesson to others". Charges included desertion (walking around dazed and confused suffering from PTSD), cowardice (ditto), or insubordination (any minor action that could be pressed into service as an excuse for execution). Some were simply obeying orders to carry information from one trench to another. Most of those shot were young, defenceless and vulnerable teenagers who had volunteered for duty. They were selected, charged, and subjected to a mock trial often without defence one day, convicted, then shot at dawn the following day. Eye-witness accounts suggest many faced their death with a gallantry absent in their accusers.
General Haig, when questioned, declared that all men accused of cowardice and desertion were examined by a Medical Officer (MO) and that no soldier was sentenced to death if there was any suspicion of him suffering shell shock. The Under-Secretary of State for War also and repeatedly misled the House of Commons on this matter. In fact, most soldiers accused of cowardice and desertion were not examined by an MO, and in the few cases where a medical diagnosis of shell shock had been made, the medical evidence was rubbished or ignored and the man was convicted and shot anyway. General Haig not only signed all the death warrants but when questioned later on this issue lied repeatedly. General Haig's behaviour in choosing to murder his own men places him in the category of war criminal.
The generals' sterile belief was that anyone suffering shell shock was malingering. In fact in the generals' minds, shell-shock and malingering were one and the same thing. Amongst the Western nations involved in World War 1, the British Military were the furthest behind in understanding trauma, and such steps as were taken by the British Forces towards dealing with trauma were for the sole purpose of returning men to the Front as quickly as possible. So obsessed were British Generals with making accusations of cowardice and malingering that it is more likely to be projection; weak, inadequate, cowardly, but aggressive individuals project their weaknesses onto others in order to distract and divert attention away from their own weakness and inadequacy. This mentality still thrives in employers who blame employees suffering stress for not being able to cope with their job and for being weak and inadequate. Anyone indulging in a blame-the-victim strategy is revealing their own inadequacy.
Documentation on these atrocities was kept secret for 75 years and only recently have the circumstances become clear. In the intervening period, the families of these men have suffered shame, humiliation and embarrassment, compounded by the government's refusal to allow the families to mourn these men alongside their comrades. For these families, an awful guilty secret has blighted their lives and financial hardship has been heaped upon them through the actions of neighbours, landlords, employers and gossips exhibiting the prejudice of a misinformed public.
The UK government has persistently refused to grant posthumous pardons to these men. The passage of time, declared Defence Secretary John Reid in September 1998, means that grounds for a pardon on the basis of unsafe conviction "just did not exist". Clearly he's not read the documents and has no intention of reading them. His specious and insubstantive argument betrays an unwillingness which suggests ulterior motives.
The UK government's refusal to consider a pardon makes sense when you realise that to do so is to open the door to:
* allowing families of those murdered by officers in World War 1 to bring claims of compensation for
a) unlawful killing by incompetent officers supported and encouraged by Sir (sic) Douglas Haig (known affectionately at the time as Butcher Haig)
b) legal action for libel, slander, defamation of character and injury to feelings of the families and descendants of those so killed
c) continued libel, slander, defamation of character and injury to feelings of the families and descendants of those so killed by successive governments' refusal to provide posthumous pardons and allow those soldiers to be honoured and mourned alongside their fallen comrades
* identifying those guilty of incompetence and prosecuting them for war crimes, stripping them of honours and titles and removing them from positions of esteem in military and civilian history
* acknowledging the mistaken views of military top brass and politicians throughout this century in aiding and abetting the cover-up
* finding other horrific abuses yet to be disclosed"
There is a lot more of this paper at...
http://www.bullyonline.org/stress/ww1.htm
Andrew
The last two posts are really interesting. Essentially, the paper that latexbishop posted seems to be saying that the reason anyone was 'ill-informed' was NOT because the information wasn't available. It was available but ignored.
To my mind that makes an enormous difference. I agree that people shouldn't be judged by today's standards. But if the medical evidence was in fact available at the time, refusing to look at it and even perhaps LYING about it raises some pretty serious issues.
It reads as if Haig knew that the medical evidence ought to be taken into account and deliberately acted to create the veneer of acceptability over the verdicts. If that's a correct assessment, then his actions were unconsionable and the pardons are deserved.
Originally posted by orfeoit seems you have taken the easy path ... find a scapegoat in the individuals that were attaching their names to the situations.
The last two posts are really interesting. Essentially, the paper that latexbishop posted seems to be saying that the reason anyone was 'ill-informed' was NOT because the information wasn't available. It was available but ignored.
To my mind that makes an enormous difference. I agree that people shouldn't be judged by today's standards. But if the medic ...[text shortened]... 's a correct assessment, then his actions were unconsionable and the pardons are deserved.
.... but ...
what of the bigger picture, what of the whole world in which they were immersed?
that whole moral world was deeply flawed ... and yet the follow on of their practices is the setup of the world in which we live.
Originally posted by flexmoreAccording to the data posted above, the 'whole world' wasn't executing soldiers at anything LIKE the same rate. Which suggests either that British soldiers were inherently more cowardly for some unknown reason, or the system finding them guilty was different in some way. Your choice.
it seems you have taken the easy path ... find a scapegoat in the individuals that were attaching their names to the situations.
.... but ...
what of the bigger picture, what of the whole world in which they were immersed?
that whole moral world was deeply flawed ... and yet the follow on of their practices is the setup of the world in which we live.
If the system was different, the next question is: why?
Originally posted by WheelyCor! I actually agree with you on this issue.
I sort of agree here. If it was the custom at the time, what is the point of going back through history judging people by modern standards?
It is all part of the of the PC, breast-beating, self-abnegating, Blairite society.
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Originally posted by PhilodorSo you agree with future governments covering the crimes of past governments? If you follow the logic of, it all happened a long time ago so it doesn't really matter, things have changed, time has moved on, then how can any country celebrate its past in any way?
Cor! I actually agree with you on this issue.
It is all part of the of the PC, breast-beating, self-abnegating, Blairite society.
You can not just push the bad stuff under the carpet and say nothing to see here. It has got nothing to do with a Blair governemnt, they have tried to suppress this as much as previous governments. Maybe they are scared of anything that could in anyway tarnish the image of "we won the war", like for example British war crimes during both world wars which just get brushed over.
Re-assessing your history is how countries grow and mature. And I am not talking about re-inventing here, its not the same thing.
Andrew
Originally posted by catfoodtimNonsense. One may as well argue that all those who have been hanged in the past should now be pardoned on the grounds that some may have been wrongly convicted.
I think it's an example of how the British Empire was just as hard on its native subjects as it was on those in the colonies and dominions.
The system itself was the reason that the British Empire was so successful (in terms of Empire); its foundations were deference, rule of law and class structure.
Edit: Should the pardons been issued? Of cours ...[text shortened]... t if we don't learn from our history how can we ensure the same mistakes don't happen again?