Trains and regiments

[Blackdog]

Hi Scrimmet,

                   I have often wondered about these things, but are you saying that officers at the moment of ordering men to go over the top did not shoot someone who refused?  If they did would it have been recorded and if recorded would it not just have been listed as KIA.  I would imagine that it would not have been the most pressing thing to sort out afterwards when there could have been a huge toll of life in a battle and confused accounts.
                   I am far from an expert and as such follow the general knowledge out there which has always given the impression that summary execution was a way of instilling the discipline to follow the command to go over.
                   On the second part of my question, would the train crews have been called up for frontline duties, even possibley as volunteers?

                    Adrian

[scrimnet]

Hi Scrimmet,

                   I have often wondered about these things, but are you saying that officers at the moment of ordering men to go over the top did not shoot someone who refused?  If they did would it have been recorded and if recorded would it not just have been listed as KIA.  I would imagine that it would not have been the most pressing thing to sort out afterwards when there could have been a huge toll of life in a battle and confused accounts.
                   I am far from an expert and as such follow the general knowledge out there which has always given the impression that summary execution was a way of instilling the discipline to follow the command to go over.
                   On the second part of my question, would the train crews have been called up for frontline duties, even possibley as volunteers?

                    Adrian

Oh gosh no!! There was NO summary justice...the Russians meted it out in WW2 with the Commissars standing at the rear, shooting anyone who came back for whatever reason...

What would we be fighting for if this is what happened??

There was always the Field Police, but they were feared more for arresting you and giving you a good hiding, and then sending you on COs orders than for being ready to shoot you.

There were thousands of men invalided out of the army through mental disorder of one kind or another...These are the men that would have stood in the trench and had a break down. If there was  an officer shooting the refuseniks,  why were there so many in hospital for years after the war (TENS of thousands!)??

But thankfully we are British! (huzzah!!) The Manual of Military Law 1914 of which I have a copy is quite explicit....It's not the done thing...There was always a Court Martial. Justice must always been seen to be done!

The tosh perpetuated by WW1 books and films from the 1960s still pervades popular thought today. Alan Clarks myth of Lions Led By Donkeys and the   anti war film "Oh What a Lovely War" are stories...Nothing more. Who needs the facts when there is a good tale to tell! (Joan Littlewoods Theatre Workshop was staunchly anti establishment and both she and a number of the members were card carrying communist !)

May I commend to you the book Mud Blood and Poppycock by Gordon Corrigan?

[Blackdog]

Thanks for that scrimnet.  My grandfather was prone a bit to what we call "nugging" on a bit (taking half a fact or some element of truth and adding story to it.  We know he went to great lengths to stop his son signing up in WW2 due to his experiences of war service and I don't doubt he saw things that deeply troubled him, but it sounds as though he probably added to it to emphasis his views.
I like to get to facts and will follow up your sugested reading.  I can see heated conversations ahead with one of my brother-in-laws who has he believes all the answers about WW1 but likes the set beliefs.