‘The administration of discipline by the English is very rigid’: British Military Law and the Death Penalty 1868–1918

Abstract

In a recent study of military discipline during the First World War David Englander rightly asserted that ‘British and Belgian soldiers were more at risk [from capital punishment] than either their French or German counterparts’.1 This contradicts both existing ideas on Prussian militarism and popular notions of French military justice — or more accurately injustice — such as those conveyed by Stanley Kubrick in his film Paths of Glory. A comparison of statistics on discipline in the British, French and German armies, the three main combatants on the Western Front between 1914 and 1918, supports Dr Englander: the British condemned more than three thousand men, compared with two thousand in the French army and only 150 in the German army.2 Indeed, the comparative harshness of the British was especiaily marked in the case of deserters on the Western Front.3 While it should be noted that the number of French soldiers executed (approximately 6004) exceeded that of the British army (officially 346, but probably many more5) the two remain comparable given the relative size of the armies. Only 48 of the 150 German soldiers condemned by military courts were shot. Putting aside for a moment the apparently more oppressive military regimes in Eastern Europe and the Italian army, which executed 750 men, the British soldier was especially vulnerable among those serving on the Western Front.