Dark Nightmare: The Shooting of William Alexander as Canon Scott Saw it

Abstract

Frederick G. Scott's World War I war memoir, The Great War As I Saw It, contains the sole unofficial eyewitness recording of a court martial execution that we possess. The case of William Alexander 20726, executed in October 1917, for desertion in the face of the enemy compelled Scott to devote more printed space to it than to the death of his own son, Henry. A discussion based upon a close reading of Scott's memoir and an exposition from archival sources of Alexander's case demonstrates the ways in which Scott evades the case's disturbing implications echoes wider aspects of Canada's early memorialization of the Great War.