The Other Side Of WWI: The Men Who Were Shot At Dawn | Timeline 

Thank you. Although a plea for forgiveness should rather be issued, then a "pardon", but perhaps that was part of the wording in the attempt to make good this wrong.

Pardon but not overturning the verdicts. Not all were victims. Some were murderers who killed their fellow soldiers. It's uncomfortable that they would be pardoned.

@@MarlboroughBlenheim1 Did you watch the documentary? It was most of the time shooting some young boy, in order to not make the other young boys hesitate to jump into the slaughter when ordered to do so. Also in the cases of cowardice, to dismiss such soldiers from duty with a dishonorable discharge, making them and their family miss the pay they got, and to be sent home in disgrace, would and should be the strictest punishment for anything else then traitors and spies working for the enemy.

philoopnorth4901 Post hum finaly pardoned. A nice move. What about the generals that centenced these men to death? They then should post hum ripped of their ranks and medals. But instead they are still celebrated as hero`s. It`disgusting.

@@ianwilson6417 It's not disgusting and many men were rightly convicted by the law as it stood then. This wasn't a nice little 21st century woke Britain. It was war and soldiers who ran away or refused to follow orders or who murdered others got what they deserved under the law of a different time. You're applying 21st century values.

This documentary was made before the UK Government (at last!) issued posthumous pardons for 306 executed British and Dominion soldiers in August 2006. These pardons covered the offences of desertion, cowardice, insubordination etc. I believe that over 20 soldiers were court-martialled for murder - if these soldiers were executed they would not have been included in the pardons.

@@philipr1567 thank you for the update. I just realized this video was made 3 years ago. I'm very happy these boys's families finally got closure.

they didnt die for the king!

There are insufficient words for what their government did to them!

Their lives were taken for capitalist imperialism. Not wise.

Tears in my eyes seeing the woman in purple flower dress crying whilst putting flowers on the war grave of her relative.

@@keithad6485 Me, too.

Some of the infinite tragic tragedy of tragedy. And nought ro be done by us,

Haig was saying how he wanted to be able to court martial Australia Soldiers "sparingly" as the Australians were ill disciplined but I have read many accounts and seen many documentaries where they were acknowledged as the best soldiers in WW1. Australia was the only country engaged in WW1 not to introduce conscription as well. Twice this went to a referendum and twice the no vote won.

you went to the French Foreign Legion??

ANZAC troops were under the same regulations as everyone else in the British Army. 113 Australians were sentenced to death at various times during the war, (British Army was 3,076, and 346 carried out) but the Australian Governor-General ( Munro-Furgeson, a Brit!) had the final say, and despite the ANZAC General staff's opinions, never verified an execution.

No disrespect….Australia is the 15th powerful army so I wouldn’t say one of the finest. I do agree with you tho if I was Australian I would feel extremely proud that the government didn’t allow for their people to be executed!!!! ❤

@@Funnutter38 the Aussie navy is the only navy in history, who lost a war ship to a merchant ship in battle! they not the finest, only entitled exceptional Brits 2.0!

the Brits dont need a good reason to kill people...!

That movie was banned in France for many years.

VFT1729 ...it’s a great movie, and one that all should see.

VFT1729 I saw the film. Very uncomfortable viewing

It’s a great film that a leading cause of the reexamination of The Great War that emerged in the early 1960’s.. Kubrick was a master..

Salutes to the Australian government. ....the shameless Elizabeth should pardon and compensate the family. England will be browned and the whites will be a minority in the future.

Pup314 an unnecessary waste

@@halwarner3326Agreed they must be exhonerated and cleared of cowardice. We know better now what PTSD is and why it happens.

@@Shaden0040 they knew then as well it was called shell shock !

They did finally get a pardon but th British government I think around 2006

Amen to that. Breaker Morant and his mate were the last ---Victims of Kitchener . Thank god our outraged government (such as it was) stood up to Britain and said no more.

It was not the government that did it. T WAS SIR JOHN MONASH. JOHN MONASH THE WARLORD.

What about Gallipoli? It’s a legit question , I’m no bot.

@@omicrontheta3894It wasn’t Sir John Monash either. It was the Governor of Australia who reprieved the miscreants.

Haig was a mad man

It was sheer murder most if not of these cases based on the evidence would possibly not of stood up in courts martial during ww2.

Have always said haig should have been done for war crimes should have all awards and titles taken away

In reply to a request for the death sentence on a Union soldier President Lincoln said " You say he must die because he is a bad soldier, Well I really do not see how shooting him will make him a better one ".

He was a man’s man and top notch commander of men. Now, his monuments are desecrated and torn down. The world is upside down, post 2020.

@brandonwestbrook6003 why should we have a statue of a general from a foreign country that attacked America?

@@Ken-fh4jc tf are you taking about? Robert E Lee was born, lived, and died in VA.

@@Ken-fh4jc Congress passed laws in 1929 and 1958 designating all Confederate soldiers as United States veterans.

Amen.

Bless her.

Same goes for Chesty Puller who spent his formative Corps years chasing bandits to protect United Fruit Company.

Business men do not start wars,evil governments start wars.Disgruntled Marine.

Vito Santo ..nothing? Tell that to the elites of the 1st world countries that made billions of dollars off of it..fuked up but true

Dalton ..not just any jewish..tbe ROTHSCHILDS ..then the riyal English family then tbe rockerfeller then the DuPonts then the Morgans..in thhat irder..then the rest of the bilderberg group families..but ROTHSCHILDS are indeed on top..with 500 TRILLION in cash and gold...just RU-vid 'rothschild 500 trillion'...and the rothschilds have always lent money to the royal English family.

French soldiers were good,generals not so good

Never served but I've been in some gnarly spots where some guys just couldn't hang. You pick up that slack cause you never know when you'll need someone to carry you. We're all we got, and you take care of what you have because you can lose it anytime

Well said. Unfortunately, that is not how the British officers saw it. Their preference was obviously for form over substance.

Monash was one of the best generals of that war.

The US military needs to hear this.

I’m sure he was very happy.

Too late to do anyone any good...I feel sorrow for his descendants who are tainted by this politically inspired miscarriage of justice.

Thank you for the update, while it came far too late, it makes me a little happier and I hope it brings some peace to their relatives. I don't think a pardon is really acceptable, I think they should be totally exonerated and a black mark should be placed against those who ordered their deaths.

bruce vandermeer wow a snowflake without anything intelligent to say, go get yourself some education Brucey Baby, it's a fine thing to impress your Sheila with

Even be it 100 years ago I feel every officer whom ordered this injustice including the officers whom sent troops over the top to be killed on that last morning of this war should be disgraced or at least have their false medals taken from the history records, nothing but war criminals, sadly anything done would never be enough, we can only remember these brave souls and to give thanks for what they did before they were murdered as a memorial to them.

The BBC radio did a series called voices of the First World War in the years building up to the centenary of the end of the war. It was based on the archive of recordings made mainly in the 1970s. One episode featured a much longer recording of her telling her story. It's utterly tragic. I lay a cross in the field of remembrance for him every year when I lay others for the men I knew who were killed in Iraq and Afghanistan.

78 British Generals were killed in action in WW1. 146 British Generals were WIA or POW.

Twelve percent of enlisted ranks were killed; 17% for officers.

** THE GENERALS, ARE ALWAYS * RIGHT ! ** RANK, HAS ITS *PRIVELEDGE !

IF THE GENERALS, WERE AT THE FRONT ? THEY WOULD HAVE WON * ALL* THE VICTORIA CROSSES ? *BULLOCKS*

** IN ANY ARMY, THERE's A *CATCH 22 ! *YOUR * GUILTY OF * SOMETHING !

103 years ago. Ancient history. Move on. You are as bad as the Paddies whinging on about their famine. Get over it.

@@norwegianzound Guaranteed to sway the overwhelming majority

@Pendulous Testicularis.. No. By issuing compensation.

lol this is a drop in the bucket. they have done crimes against humanity for the last 1000 years and can be blamed for almost all of todays current issues. they had a hand in all of it.

What do you expect them to do? Resurrect the dead?

gfodale ..Agreed. Include a few armament manufacturers, and war profiteers as well.

Perhaps it would be even better to start with those who START these wars - those on all sides.

Why do you post such silly messages. Grow up.

@@anthonyeaton5153 Troll much???

The British always did that. Look at the Charge of the Light Brigade when they sent light mounted lancers against artillery on 3 sides.

Terry Johnson the charge of the light brigade was a special kind of stupid. If the light brigade had gone after the target General Lord Lucan intended to send them after it still would have been a waste of lives to little purpose. Instead, vague orders by Lucan, botched delivery of those orders by a staff officer, and utterly shocking misinterpretation of those orders by Colonel Lord Cardigan, made for a truly appalling loss of life. The light brigade was destroyed as a fighting unit. And the British still celebrate it as a glorious chapter in British arms. Seems that incompetence and butchery of your own troops is to be celebrated in British eyes.

You do realise all armies fought that way? It was the way war was fought at the time.

@@mglenn7092 All armies have had events the charge you mention. You only have to look at Cold Harbour and the early Union battles of the Civil War to see this. The Italians have Adowa in 1896 if I remember rightly, and the French have the disaster of the Prussia-French war of 1870. The Russians had Tannenburg in 1914, and the Germans, although the Spring Offensives in 1918 were initially successful, caused the loss of their best soldiers and the subsequent loss of the war. Disasters are not the exclusive domain of the British.

Mysterion and Grant himself, along with most American students of the war, considered Cold Harbor to have been something of a disaster, that serious blunders had been made, and that those losses were NOT something to glorify and shower praise on. Pretty much only in Britain do they glorify stupid f***ing mistakes like the Charge of the Light Brigade. Let me restate that so I'm clear: 1. The charge of the light brigade was one of those disasters that was a really flagrantly stupid and wasteful loss of life without the slightest bit of useful results, kind of like the annihilation of Custer's battalion of the 7th Cavalry at Little Bighorn (yes, other nations have their disasters too). 2. The British seem to praise and celebrate them as moments of great honor and heroism instead of the utter disasters that they were. The Russians don't celebrate Tannenburg, the French don't celebrate the Battle of Sedan, and the Germans don't celebrate the 1918 Spring Offensive; but the British still celebrate the Light Brigade at Balaclava. Why? Most armies do have bloody mistakes like that, but they don't shed honor on the commanders rather than admit someone f***ed up. Also, no, most Armies tried not to throw their men away in such a senseless stupid, useless way as the Charge of the Light Brigade was, even at the time the Battle of Balaclava occurred, and also not in earlier wars. Sounds like you got your idea of war from utterly clueless and ridiculously romantic civilians like Alfred Tennyson and Cecil Woodham-Smith, if you believe that's how it was usually done.

Worse.

The high ranks were the enemy.

​@@jeffreydirksen8121another childish statement.

They are

It had to happen for the world to change as it has

@@TheMrgoodmanners How did that war change Britain? set an example.

@@JuanTorres-ny9ff pre WW1 - richest country in the world with an abundant empire, £650m debt Post WW1 - overtaken economically by the USA, the beginnings of a declining empire,£7b debt,

That was not the reason in any case Pershing would have decided.

Also butcher Haig executed hancock and moran in the boer war for wrongly following verbal orders

​@@jimlofts5433 I wouldn't have put haig out if he had of been on fire I class him as a serial killer they were the cowards sending young men back in to the trenches those officers who murdered those men should have taken there places in the trenches and given a taste of there own medicine

Have you never seen the monocled mutineer some men did desert and deserved to die

@@jimlofts5433 I think you mean Kitchener, but regardless Haig was hated by more Australian service men than any other British General. In fact some of the senior Australian Generals were not supporters of Haig's methods.

Most of the English who were executed were volunteers.

wow

Incorrect. The highest casualty rate was amongst junior officers, mainly as a result of them leading their men into battle and setting an example. Percentage of British Ors killed - about 12%. Officers - about 17%.

A sweeping comment that I'm sure is incorrect. I think you're thinking of some of the decisions made in these cases. There for sure there's blame against the officers in question.

totally agree,,, Defense only,,, stop the madness,,, but the wheels of the Bankers want war for profit,,, We the people must stop the politicians and bankers, ole USN vet

Both sides were fighting a war that they had never dealt with before, and tactics were several wars behind. There were the standard frontal assaults that had proved ineffective during the American Civil War. What most people forget was that Haig, and the British General Staff learned their lessons and this was clearly shown after the German Spring Offensive failed and the Allies counterattacked and broke through the German lines and didn't stop until the Armistice.

No soldier in the British Army was executed for Insubordination.

Amen to that!

War is a crime against humanity, yet such a common occurrence.

Even more effective, if the wives AND MISTRESSES of the male power-brokers, were to Just Say No until the jerks declare peace.

brain mclaughlin amen

That would have gotten you thrown in a cell if you said something like that back then. (Mainly in America). But, that was something that many moral and ethical people have said. Especially if you were a socialist. That's why Eugene Debs is a personal hero to me.

Conditions were just as bad or even worse for the germans. They were starving, and not only them in the trenches but also their families back home. The whole country was facing starvation.

The state of the trenches is not a genuine explanation of the difference in numbers. There a many, many more factors involved.

And that disparity in numbers is amplified by the fact that the German Army was significantly larger.

@@wintersnoobhey starved because they were blockaded. That’s what ultimately caused them to negotiate the armistice.

and the hun lost remember? Perhaps because of cowardly soldiers.

William Behan they did In Russia and look how that turned out

Pagan Light there’s a good obedient servant of the elite. Good boy. Have a pat on the head.

Pete Conrad said like a true commietard, If you dislike something some says, next time you might try making a counter argument instead of just insulting people, You might find that for once in your long and simple that you actually learn something.

Pagan Light I did but it’s too subtle fro a half wit like you to spot it.

Let the men that decide for war fight it.

Now that is a..COWARD!

Can't lead an army from a frontline trench or foxhole.

@@jrt818 and you can’t in a war by massacring your own troops

NO HE DID NOT!

@@anthonyeaton5153 Oh yes he did

Yes and there were more rats not in the trenches to,hiding far away giving out death sentences

Fragging was happening in the Roman Legions... in war 1 it certainly occurred.

All armies fought the same way in World War 1 and the lessons learned in earlier battles brought about the defeat of the Central Powers.

Right, JFK was sharing a mistress with Chicago Mafia boss Sam Giancana, doing Marilyn Monroe, ordering the coup in S. Vietnam that killed the Catholic tyrant Diem, ordering the disaster at the Bay of Pigs, and sleeping with an East German spy. Strong, moral, and peaceful, right.

@@davisworth5114 You may do a list of every crime, scandal and intrigue from those times. Yet, people had a sense they lived in a more peaceful world than today's.

Monash was also credited with being the first General to exercise co ordination of all arms. Something that the Germans took note of in their Bliztgreig

No every man does not become an animal. It is possible to fight a war and kill without doing anything to be ashamed of before man or God.

Churchill voluntarily served as an officer in the trenches. Not something former Cabinet members usually do. Churchill’s record as a young man in the Sudan and South Africa also does not exactly scream cowardice.

If you find out he was your family..then the next thing you do is hold your head up..and be proud he was not a murderer.

Haig was a butcher and an utter incompetent. In an alternative universe where Arthur Currie or John Monash were assigned supreme command (under Foch) on the Western front in 1916, the war could have been won with a fraction of the casualties and much sooner (with a legacy of combined ops to use in the future). Sad.

No he didn't. Perhaps you are unfamiliar with modern studies of the British Army's development between 1902 and 1914. May I recommend you read works by Spencer Jones, or Edward Spiers. Proper historians who have actually studied this period. You may change your view.

They were the ones with steel balls. I take my hat off to them. If only the nations of the world could follow the example of Costa Rica - no armed forces. But whilst we have scumbag arms dealers, monarchies steeped in militarism, what can we do?