103 FORESTERS MUTINIES AND DEATH SENTENCES IN THE LOCAL REGIMENT – 1914-18 ISSUE 2: The First Case – W Harvey’s death sentence, Western Front, February 1915 Authored by Valentine Yarnspinner, published by Loaf On A Stick Press, Nottingham, February 2015, Version 1.2. Distribute and quote as you like (non-commercial use only!). This is the second issue in a series of pamphlets, planned to be published over the next few years. Given that this is a work in progress, you will find that we will be revisiting earlier issues as the project develops, adding to or changing sections of previous publications. For some more information on People’s Histreh, please see the links below and have a look at the last page of this document. For comments, criticism etc. please contact us: [email protected] Please keep an eye on our (highly irregularly updated) blog to find future issues in this series, and information on events, past projects by People’s Histreh, etc.: http://peopleshistreh.wordpress.com You can also find us on one of those social media thingies: http://twitter.com/PeoplesHistreh Contents Introduction ........................................................................................................................................... 3 I. The 1st Foresters ........................................................................................................................ 4 II. The 1st Foresters at war – November 1914 to March 1915 ................................................. 8 III. W Harvey’s death sentence .................................................................................................... 15 Conclusions ......................................................................................................................................... 21 Bibliography ......................................................................................................................................... 22 Appendices .......................................................................................................................................... 24 a) Map of the area around Neuve Chapelle .............................................................................. 24 b) List of 1st Foresters killed 16th Nov 1914 to 6th Feb 1915 .................................................. 25 About the People’s Histreh group .................................................................................................... 28 Tables and Charts No 1: 1st Foresters’ casualties (16th Nov 1914-21st Mar 1915) ................................................... 13 No 2: Death sentences and executions abroad (Dec 1914-May 1915) ..................................... 18 No 3: 1st Foresters’ casualties (16th Nov 1914-7th Feb 1915) ..................................................... 19 People’s Histreh: 103 Foresters: Mutinies and death sentences in the local regiment – 1914-18, Issue 2, Version 1.2 Introduction Following our first publication in this series, introducing and briefly outlining our research project,1 in this second pamphlet we look into the first of the 103 cases of Sherwood Foresters sentenced to death or charged with mutiny during World War One (hereafter WWI). Our starting point was the brief information listed in ORAM’S book Death sentences passed by … the British Army 1914-1924, based on his extensive work with the registers of Field General Courts Martial, held at the National Archives at Kew:2 On the 5th February 1915, Private W Harvey of the 1st Battalion Sherwood Foresters (hereafter 1st Foresters) was sentenced to death on the Western Front following a trial by court martial on a charge of desertion. This death sentence was later commuted to a punishment of two years hard labour. Harvey was the first of 38 Foresters sentenced to death during WWI. Whereas a number of researchers have looked into the cases of the eight soldiers who were executed, besides the information listed by ORAM, nothing appears to have been published on the cases of Harvey and the 29 others whose sentences were commuted by the commander-in-chief.3 Identifying who exactly W Harvey was, as well as outlining the circumstances of his alleged ‘crime’, trial and the reasons why he was able to avoid the firing squad has been a rather complex and only partially successful task. In short, although it has been possible to find a lot of evidence regarding the wider context of these events, uncovering details about the life and experiences of this particular soldier has proven to be rather difficult. Based on the information available at present, we identified two persons called W Harvey who served with the 1st Foresters at the time. Either could have been the soldier court martialled in February 1915. We have a policy of directly referring to any personal data about the 103 Foresters that has already been published elsewhere, whilst deciding on a case-by-case basis whether to publish additional personal information that comes out of our research.4 Given that in Harvey’s case we currently remain unsure which candidate is the person referred to in the registers of courts martial, we decided not to publish their full names or soldier numbers. Interested readers will however be able to retrace our research process (please let us know if you discover anything!). Combining the patchy evidence regarding Harvey with the comparatively extensive body of circumstantial evidence, it seems possible to infer quite a lot regarding this first case in our 103 Foresters project. In order to do so, the following deliberations will initially discuss who those soldiers were who were sent into France with the 1st Foresters in 1914 (I.), before summarising the battalion’s first few months of active service on the Western Front (II.). This is followed by outlining the patchy information we have on W Harvey and debating his case in light of the evidence presented (III.). Please see Issue 1 of this pamphlet series for more contextual information, for instance regarding the procedure of sentencing a soldier to death in a court martial. We have tried to avoid repetitions or banish them into footnotes5 where possible, but if you just finished reading Issue 1 you might spot one or another. Please also note that this remains a work in progress. There are more potential sources to be examined, hopefully offering new insights into Harvey’s case. We hope in time to revisit this case and be able to add more information. 1 Please find Issue 1 on our blog. 2 See ORA2; p23; see also WO213/3; p98; Issue 1; chapter I. 3 See Issue 1; Introduction. 4 This issues around this policy are indeed rather complex and will be discussed in detail in a future publication in this pamphlet series. 5 That is of course not to diminish the importance of footnotes. Anyone who has ever opened one of our publications knows we love them. 3 People’s Histreh: 103 Foresters: Mutinies and death sentences in the local regiment – 1914-18, Issue 2, Version 1.2 I. The 1st Foresters Historians have often stated that the British Army which went into WWI in 1914 was very different to the British Army in 1918. Indeed, even if an examination of the British Forces is narrowed by not discussing the millions of soldiers and labourers mobilised from all over the Empire, there are distinct differences in the make-up of the British troops at different stages of the war. There was not so much one British Army fighting in WWI, but four: the Regular Army, the Territorial Army, the New Army (or Kitchener’s Army) and finally the conscripts. When the war began, the units of the Regular Army were available for instant deployment, i.e. the professional soldiers who signed up for military service before the war. These soldiers, alongside colonial troops, made up for instance by numerous units of the Indian Army, took the brunt of the fighting during the earliest stages of the war, whilst the Territorial Army units were mobilised and the New Army was still being recruited, let alone trained and equipped. Following the extreme casualties suffered by the Regular Army in the first few months of the fighting, the British Army would change ‘out of all recognition’, long before conscription was finally introduced in 1916.6 There were distinct differences between these four armies, not least regarding the disciplinary regime in the respective units and relations between commissioned officers and other ranks. ORAM’S 2003 work Military Executions … provided conclusive evidence that Regular Army units had to live up to stricter standards of discipline as well as higher expectations, even after the ‘Regular army had ceased to exist in anything other than name’.7 ORAM points out that this has to be seen in context with the pre-war history of the British army and refers to the apparently widespread perceptions of the army as a refuge for the ‘scum of the earth’, a view said to have been especially common amongst the army’s own commanders. However, holding troops in low esteem was also common among the general population, given that the army had been called upon time and again to brutally repress industrial action,8 for instance in the 1893 Featherstone Massacre.9 ‘It was in this context that the British army discipline had evolved. The result was a form of discipline that was particularly harsh as this was believed to be the only effective means of ordering men drawn from the very bottom strata of society.’10 Such ideas by the Foresters’ contemporaries can be contrasted with some historians’ descriptions of the pre-war regulars.