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Just watching Not Forgotten on Channel 4 and I think it would be wrong to pardon them all as there is not enough evidence to prove they weren't all cowards and were in fact suffering from shell shock.

2007-01-02 08:36:32 · 13 answers · asked by Robert M 2 in Arts & Humanities History

13 answers

My opinion is no they should not be pardoned. I do not think it is correct for people to engage in retoractive justice when those that found them guilty are not alive to defend their decisions or present evidence to the contrary. The men executed were given fair military trials. Secondly, few if any soldiers disagreed with the executions.

2007-01-02 09:32:01 · answer #1 · answered by Anonymous · 0 0

It is at perhaps first look a "complicated" question.

It is not.

Ask any soldier who did "active service" or what other say "saw combat". We feel strongly that true "cowards" are rare. Men do "break" reach a limit as studies have shown since the American Civil War and WWI.

A "coward" has his "bags packed" his "kit ready" and perhaps a few phoney documents. One with Post Traumatic Stress Disorder or such? they do not even try to really get away.

The UK shot way to many soldiers in WWI as did the French and Germans, the USA none, it WWII less and the USA: one.

That was a mistake.

Free men are not motivated by "terror" look the the sorry Russian Army in WWI: they revolted.

All soldiers should decide not an elite group of officers.

Leave up to the soldiers to decide; they will and have: many a report of a fellow soldier or NCO doing such in combat but to make it formal? No. Insulting and not honorable.

There was enough "evidence" but it is lost in history. Read any WWI narrative, memoir by a man who was in the trenches. That will tell the truth.

When General Patton shamed, slapped that Private; he knew he messed up he wanted to make a point but he did not shot his men for a moment's folly and doubt.

I was once a Private, then a Sgt then a senior NCO; I was the same person for all ranks but not the same man.

Read the highly decorated British officer Wilfred Owen poetry.

2007-01-02 17:02:20 · answer #2 · answered by cruisingyeti 5 · 0 0

Yes they should be pardoned! At the end of the day we do not know what each individual man went through or suffered perhaps the odd one or two shouldn't be pardoned, but we don't know and nor did the Army appear to care about the full facts at the time. It was a terrible terrible war and who came blame the odd one or two for for running away from the horrors of WW1.

2007-01-02 17:17:05 · answer #3 · answered by Roaming free 5 · 1 0

I have never heard about any movement to pardon soldiers shot for cowardice or desertion in WWI, but from what I'm reading here I don't see what the point would be. Are we going to issue a pardon to Julius Caesar for attrocities committed during the Gallic Wars?

The only way I can see justifying such a thing is on a case by case basis if there is evidence that should have resulted in an aquittal or lesser punishment as measured by the standards of THAT time. (I'm thinking here of the movie Paths of Glory, with Kirk Douglas.)

And to those who justify the actions of those who were shot with statements like "It was such a horrible war, and all the new weapons, and the machine guns and the tanks and the poison gas the shelling, and that was all new to them and... and wouldn't YOU have wanted to do the same thing?"

I don't know what I would have done, but I know what I would have had to think about: my fellow soldiers fighting and dying while I was off somewhere hiding out and trying to save my own skin.

2007-01-02 23:12:00 · answer #4 · answered by TexBW 2 · 0 1

Yes, they should have been long ago. I did not see the programme on Channel 4, but think about this; Many were wounded and refused to go back to the trenches after recovery, they had seen their mates being slaughtered and used as cannon fodder and many of the British Officers did not have a clue what they were doing. They sent their men up against German machine guns with nothing more than rifles. Wouldn't you have refused?
You also have to think about their families. There comes a time to forgive and forget and I would like to see them pardoned, even those who were as you put it; cowards. I lost three uncles in World War 1, the last one in 1918. I still have a faint memory of him a splendid lad, a pity I didn't get to know him better and I don't think he wanted his mates punished in all eternity. Cowards or heroes, they are all gone now... let them rest in peace and God bless them all.

2007-01-02 19:54:47 · answer #5 · answered by Tuppence 2 · 2 0

I believe that you have to take it as a case by case basis and look and see the circumstances behind the episode to see if it cowardice or shell shock before a judgment takes place. I believe there was cowardice on some but you must also realize that when bombs are constantly going off over you there is a tendency to feel your time is up and running for self-preservation purposes comes naturally but you must also be diligent and obey orders. It will also be difficult to prove cowardice now for it was many,many years ago and pardoning them might not be such a bad thing.

2007-01-02 19:26:33 · answer #6 · answered by Dave aka Spider Monkey 7 · 0 0

Yes i do believe they should all be pardoned. WW1 was the first war that men fought against tanks, machine guns, gas and even aircraft dropping bombs on them while they were stuck in trench's plus the fact is they were badly led by senior officers who sat it out in the safety of some chateau several miles from the front. how they had the balls to accuse anyone of cowardice is beyond belief

2007-01-02 17:04:15 · answer #7 · answered by Anonymous · 0 0

Yes, rather the wrong man pardoned than all those really shell shocked men being branded as cowards - it must be terrible for their families.

2007-01-02 16:50:32 · answer #8 · answered by blondie 6 · 0 0

I can see your point...but maybe there should be general pardon because it would draw a line under the whole thing. Its still important to some of the families.

2007-01-02 16:42:48 · answer #9 · answered by Well, said Alberto 6 · 0 0

well a pardon should be given for those suffering from shell shock and such but not if someone was a spy or traitor or some other serious thing

2007-01-02 19:44:27 · answer #10 · answered by ? 3 · 0 0

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