A rchive Date
[ 23-02-2005 ]
Category
[ International Relations ]
sub-Categoy
[ Canada ]
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[Apology offered to executed war deserters
By JOHN WARD-- Canadian Press
Tuesday, December 11, 2001
OTTAWA (CP) - The federal government on Tuesday formally said it was sorry for the First World War executions of 23 Canadian soldiers shot for desertion or cowardice.
The names of the disgraced men will be added to the Book of Remembrance in the Peace Tower, Veterans Affairs Minister Ron Duhamel told the Commons.
The book, which lies in the memorial chamber, lists in elaborate calligraphy, the names of Canada's war dead. A page is turned each day.
"To give these 23 soldiers a dignity that is their due, and to provide closure to their families, as the minister of Veterans Affairs, and on behalf of the government of Canada, I wish to express my deep sorrow at their loss of life," Duhamel said.
He said the decision was taken not because of what they did or didn't do, but because, "they too lie in foreign fields where poppies blow amid the crosses, row on row."
The 23 were all volunteers, he said.
"They all volunteered to serve their country in its citizen-army and that service, and the hardships they endured prior to their offences, will be unrecorded and unremembered no more."
The Canadians were among 306 Commonwealth soldiers shot for desertion during the First World War 1914-18. Most were British, but in addition to the Canadians, five New Zealanders, four Africans and one Jamaican were executed. Australian authorities refused to allow such executions.
Military law was stern in those days. Soldiers convicted of desertion or cowardice were routinely marched out at the traditional hour of dawn, blindfolded, tied to a stake and shot to death by a firing party.
Duhamel said the times were different then. "We can revisit the past, but we cannot recreate it," he said.
"We cannot relive those awful years of a nation at peril in total war, and the culture of that time is subsequently too distant for us to comprehend fully. We can, however, do something in the present, in a solemn way, aware now, better than before, that people may break for reasons over which they have little control."
For example, he said, some of those shot may have suffered from what now is known as post traumatic stress disorder.
The apology doesn't erase the men's convictions.
"They were lawfully executed for military offences such as desertion or cowardice," Duhamel said.
A department official said pardons had been considered, but lengthy study of the records didn't turn up evidence that the soldiers weren't guilty as charged.
In Britain, a memorial is being constructed at the National Memorial Arboretum to remember the executed soldiers, including the Canadians.
The arboretum serves as a memorial to all who served and were lost in both world wars. The area set aside to honour those shot for cowardice is one part of the wider memorial.
David Childs, director of the arboretum and a retired British naval commander, said many of those who deserted were little more than children who enlisted under age, then fled the terrible fighting.
"In our opinion, the youngsters, and they were mostly youngsters, were as much victims of conflict as many others," said Childs. "And we felt at least we could acknowledge the fact that they had suffered in this way."
The monument consists of 306 pine stakes that will stand around the blindfolded statue of a deserter, hands tied behind his back, as he would have faced a firing squad
 World Fact Book (CIA)]
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