Pious perjury: Discipline and morale in the British force in Italy , 1917-1918

War in History

Volumn 9, Issue 4, 2002, Pages 412-430

  Oram, Gerard ^a  

^a NONE

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EID: 33846472133     PISSN: 09683445     EISSN: None     Source Type: Journal    
DOI: 10.1177/096834450200900402     Document Type: Review

References (46)

1. See, for example, D. Englander, 'Discipline and Morale in the British Army, 1917-1918', in
2. J. Home, ed., State, Society and Mobilization in Europe during the First World War (Cambridge, 1997), pp. 125-43, and 'Mutinies and Military Morale', in
3. H. Strachan, ed., The Oxford Illustrated History of the First World War (Oxford, 1998), pp. 191-203
4. See also J.G. Fuller, Troop Morale and Popular Culture in the British and Dominion Armies, 1914-1918 (Oxford, 1990)
5. Another aspect of the social dimension of military discipline - the paternalism of the army - is analysed by G.D. Sheffield, Leadership in the Trenches: Officer-Man Relations, Morale and Discipline in the British Army in the Era of the Great War (London, 2000)
6. Discipline in the New Zealand Expeditionary Force is considered by Christopher Pugsley, On the Fringe of Hell (Auckland, 1991), though here the emphasis is on military considerations
7. A more recent study of military discipline and the impact of the army on local communities can be found in C. Gibson, '"My Chief Source of Worry": An Assistant Provost Marshal's View of Relations between 2nd Canadian Division and Local Inhabitants on the Western Front, 1915-1917'
8. War in History, VII (4) (2000), pp. 413-41
9. According to official statistics there were 3080 death sentences in the British armies throughout the war. Approximately two-thirds of these (2004) were for the offence of desertion, of which 272 resulted in execution. See Statistics of the Military Effort of the British Empire during the Great War, 1914-1920 (London, 1922), pp. 642-73
10. F.P. Crozier, A Brass Hat in No Man's Land (Bath, 1931), p. 47
11. W. Childs, Episodes and Reflections (London, 1930), p. 145
12. G. Oram, '"What alternative punishment is there?" Military Executions during World War One', PhD thesis (Open University, 2000)
13. Gary Sheffield, Leadership in the Trenches, has shown how discipline in the Territorial Force divisions often exhibited little of the harshness normally associated with the pre-war regular army. New army formations, on the other hand, lacked the tradition of the Territorial Force with regard to officer-man relations and were more prone to regular-style discipline creeping in
14. The Military Correspondence of Field-Marshal Sir William Robertson, Chief of the Imperial General Staff, December 1915-February 1918, ed. DR. Woodward (London, 1989), p. 168
15. 'Official Report of the Convention in the Event of Co-operation of British Troops in Italy', cited in J.E. Edmonds and H.R. Davies, History of the Great War Based on Official Documents by Direction of the Historical Section of the Committee of Imperial Defence: Military Operations, Italy 1917-1919 (London, 1991), p. 422
16. J. Gooch, 'Morale and Discipline in the Italian Army, 1915-1918'
17. in H. Cecil and P. Liddle, eds, Facing Armageddon: The First World War Experienced (London, 1997), p. 437
18. E. Forcella and A. Monticone, Plotone d'esecuzione: I processi della prima guerra mondiale (Bari, 1968), pp. 441-42
19. Papers of Captain Hardie, IWM 84/64/1 (Hardie papers). Report for the period December 1917 - February 1918
20. The Military Correspondence of. . . William Robertson, p. 240
21. T.J. Mitchell and G.M. Smith, History of the Great War, Based on Official Documents - Medical Services: Casualties and Medical Statistics of the Great War (London, 1931), pp. 107, 177
22. Private A. Greene, 23 Middlesex Regiment (attached to Royal Engineers). PRO, WO 213/19
23. A.F. Becke, Order of Battle - Part 4: The Army Council, GHQs, Armies, and Corps, 1914-1918 (London, 1945), p. 66
24. Oram, 'What alternative punishment is there?'
25. This is a complex issue but, broadly speaking, the Territorial Force divisions retained much of their pre-war approach to discipline, which was characterized by 'self rather than 'imposed' forms. See Sheffield, Leadership in the Trenches
26. War diary, DDMS (Italy), PRO WO 95/4198
27. Edmonds and Davies, History, p. 162
28. Becke, Order of Battle, p. 66
29. The War Office publication The Statistics of the Military Effort, pp. 660-68
30. The Fifth Glo'ster Gazette, 1915-1919: A Trench Magazine of the First World War (Stroud, 1993), p. 257
31. Private J. Welsby, 2 King's Own Scottish Borderers (5th Division), had been tried for cowardice and desertion in January 1918, but had been found guilty only of absence. PRO WO 213/19, p. 82
32. Mitchell and Smith, History, pp. 183, 173, 237, 207
33. G. Oram, Worthless Men: Race, Eugenics and the Death Penalty in the British Army during the First World War (London, 1998), p. 42
34. For a comparison of desertion in the British and German armies on the Western Front, including the military and judicial responses to it, see C. Jahr, Gewönliche Soldaten: Desertion und Deserteure im deutschen und britischen Heer, 1914-1918 (Göttingen, 1998)
35. See also G. Oram, '"The Administration of Discipline by the English is Very Rigid": British Military Law and the Death Penalty, 1868-1918'
36. Crime, Histoire et Sociátás/Crime, History and Societies, v (1) (2001), pp. 93-110
37. L. Radzinowicz and R. Hood, A History of English Criminal Law, V, The Emergence of Penal Police (London, 1986)
38. See also Oram, 'The Administration of Discipline'
39. J.M. Beattie, Crime and Courts in England, 1660-1800 (Oxford, 1986), pp. 424-30
40. C. Emsley, Crime and Society in England, 1750-1900, 2nd edition (London, 1996), pp. 185, 197
41. The Petition of the Corporation of London (25 January 1819), cited in L. Blom-Cooper and G. Drewry, eds, Law and Morality (London, 1976), p. 44
42. Cited in Blom-Cooper and Drewry, Law and Morality, p. 47
43. Extracts from General Routine Orders issued to the British Armies in France by Field Marshal Sir Douglas Haig, Part I (London, 1918), p. 59
44. Statistics of the Military Effort, pp. 644-45
45. G. Oram, Worthless Men, pp. 102-19
46. G. Sheffield, 'Officer-Man Relations, Morale and Discipline in the British Army, 1902-1922', PhD thesis (King's College, London, 1994), p. 307