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Why Soldiers Were Executed for "Cowardice" in War
Why Soldiers Were Executed for "Cowardice" in War
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उपशीर्षक (196)
0:07
In some wars, you could survive artillery, trenches, and gas and
0:10
STILL end up dead…this is why soldiers were executed by their own side for cowardice in war.
0:11
When most people think about military crimes, they picture desertion - someone running away
0:16
from the army entirely - or mutiny, where soldiers rise up against their officers.
0:20
But armies had another charge that was far, far more vague and equally as terrifying: Cowardice.
0:26
And sometimes, it didn’t matter if you were wounded… or terrified… or
0:30
even honest. Because in at least one case, the US Army executed a
0:34
man not for shooting the enemy… but for admitting he was too scared to fight.
0:38
We’ll come back to him.
0:40
Unlike desertion, where you actually left your unit, or disobeying an order,
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cowardice could mean almost anything that suggested you
0:46
weren’t brave enough. And it was this ambiguity that made it dangerous.
0:50
That’s because the criminal charges often overlapped. A soldier who refused
0:54
to go over the top might be charged with disobeying orders, cowardice,
0:58
or both. Someone who retreated without permission could face desertion charges or cowardice,
1:03
depending on if their commanders had their tea or not that morning.
1:06
The British Army during World War I had charges for “abandoning [your] post,”
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“leaving a patrol,” “cowardice before the enemy,” “desertion,” and “shamefully
1:15
casting away arms”. And let’s be honest, the lines between them were murky at best.
1:20
But if you think the definitions would help clarify things, think again.
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In 1916, the British Army basically said desertion
1:27
isn’t just running away… it’s thinking about running away out loud. Trying to
1:32
desert. Helping someone else desert. Even nudging a guy toward the idea.
1:36
And desertion accounted for roughly 75% of executions in the British Army
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between 1914 and 1920 - making it by far the most common capital offense. So much
1:46
for that being a "clear-cut" charge compared to cowardice.
1:49
For military commanders, charges for cowardice were all about containing a contagion they
1:54
desperately feared. Panic is infectious on the battlefield. If one man breaks and runs,
1:59
others might follow. Before you know it, entire units are collapsing,
2:02
defensive lines are crumbling, and your strategic offensive has failed before it even began.
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So armies built a menu of punishments designed to destroy fear… with more fear.
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And fear wasn’t theoretical, either. In 1917,
2:16
the entire French Army literally fell apart, and it almost cost them the entire war.
2:21
A French general named Robert Nivelle promised he could win World War I in 48 hours with one massive
2:27
attack. His bosses were desperate after 3 years of trench warfare, so naturally they said yes.
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And… the attack failed catastrophically. 187,000 French casualties with virtually no ground gained.
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Predictably, the soldiers snapped.
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Roughly half of France's Army divisions refused to participate in further attacks
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that meant certain death. Around 3,400 soldiers were tried. Estimates of executions range
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from around 26 to 50 - possible even more. Thousands more received brutal
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prison sentences or were shipped to penal battalions in hellish colonial outposts.
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The crazy thing is that if the Germans had discovered half the French Army was essentially
3:06
on strike, they probably could have won the war right then and there. Somehow the Germans
3:11
never figured it out. The mutinies nearly knocked France out of World War I entirely.
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Only luck kept the other side from discovering how vulnerable the French had become.
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In a situation like that, what could actually get you accused of cowardice? Refusing to
3:24
advance when ordered is the obvious one. When the whistle blew to go over the top, you climbed that
3:29
ladder and ran straight into machine gun fire… or else. Retreating without orders,
3:35
even if staying meant certain death, could be considered cowardice. Leaving your post,
3:39
whether as a sentry falling asleep or a soldier physically abandoning his comrades,
3:44
certainly qualified. Self-inflicted wounds were treated as cowardice.
3:48
Soldiers would often shoot themselves in the hand or foot, hoping for a “Blighty
3:52
wound” - something serious enough to get them sent home to Britain,
3:55
but not crippling enough to keep them out of the post-war workforce. Medical
3:59
officers got good at identifying these, and when caught, soldiers faced court-martial.
4:04
Need evidence for how obsessed societies came with policing cowardice, even among
4:08
civilians during wartime? Look no further than the British White Feather Campaign during World War I.
4:13
The gist was simple. When voluntary enlistments were down, women handed white feathers - symbols
4:19
of cowardice - to men not in uniform, publicly shaming them into enlisting.
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Sounds patriotic, right? Except they kept giving feathers to the wrong people.
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Soldiers on leave got them. Wounded veterans got them.
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One man had to literally show a woman his missing hand before she’d apologize.
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And then there was George Samson, who got handed a white feather while on his
4:40
way to a public reception in his honor for winning the Victoria Cross at Gallipoli.
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Britain’s highest award for bravery… and he still got labeled a coward in public.
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Multiple men died after receiving feathers,
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unable to bear the humiliation of being shamed for something they couldn’t control.
4:56
Others enlisted despite being medically unfit, too young, or working essential
5:01
jobs. And plenty of them ended up trapped in the exact nightmare this whole system
5:05
was supposedly meant to prevent: men breaking under pressure… and being punished for it.
5:10
By World War II, most armies had learned something from the previous war’s excesses. The British
5:15
abolished the death penalty for desertion entirely; they’d seen the aftereffects of
5:20
shooting shell-shocked teenagers in World War I and calling it justice.
5:24
But not every army learned the same lessons.
5:26
While the fear of being called a coward could drive men to death in civilian life,
5:30
in certain cases military justice still had the power to actually execute you for it. And in 1944,
5:37
that's exactly what happened to a 25-year-old replacement soldier
5:40
from the United States who never wanted to be fighting in Europe in the first place.
5:44
On October 9th, 1944 deployed somewhere in France, Eddie Slovik did something that thousands of other
5:51
American soldiers had done during World War II: he deserted. Not technically cowardice
5:56
on paper - but in wartime, desertion was treated like cowardice with a different title.
6:01
Slovik was a Detroit-native with a criminal record who'd been drafted despite his protests that
6:06
he wasn't cut out for combat. He'd married, got himself a job, and was working at a plumbing and
6:10
heating company when the Army lowered its draft standards and came calling. Turns out when the
6:15
army needed bodies, his prior disqualification for his criminal record didn’t matter anymore.
6:20
In January 1944, Slovik was trained to be a rifleman, which wasn’t a match made in
6:25
heaven because he actually hated guns. When he arrived at the front, the sounds of artillery
6:30
immediately terrified him. Within hours of joining his unit, he and another replacement
6:34
got separated during a German bombardment. The other soldier eventually returned; Slovik ended
6:39
up staying away for several weeks, spending time with a Canadian unit before turning himself in.
6:44
He confessed in writing to desertion and his commanders actually gave him a break. Basically,
6:50
if he returned to his unit, they'd forget the whole thing. Slovik went back, but when the unit
6:55
came under fire, he refused to serve in a rifle company. He told his company commander he'd run
7:00
away again if forced into combat. Then he put it in writing… again - essentially confessing
7:05
to desertion a second time and stating his intention to desert if sent to the front lines.
7:10
This was more akin to calculated refusal than outright panic. But it came at the worst time.
7:16
Winter was approaching after a grueling campaign through France since D-Day.
7:20
Desertion rates were climbing, and commanders wanted to send a message.
7:24
And here’s the problem. When thousands desert,
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you don’t execute thousands. You execute one… to scare the rest.
7:31
When someone was accused of cowardice or desertion,
7:33
the military justice system moved quickly, especially in wartime.
7:37
The process usually started with an officer filing charges. In World War I,
7:41
this often happened right in the trenches. Your commanding officer could charge you on the spot.
7:46
Next came the trial. And calling it a “trial” is generous at best.
7:50
A court-martial would be convened. Here’s
7:52
how it worked. Three officers. No lawyers. No time. And sometimes,
7:56
no second chance. Your defending officer? Overworked, inexperienced… or checked out.
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The trials were shockingly brief. It could take less than a half hour to
8:05
decide if you lived or died. Evidence was thin. Witnesses? Good luck. They
8:10
were probably back at the front getting shot at.
8:12
The officers would hear the case and vote on guilt and punishment. Once the sentence was passed, it
8:17
went up the chain of command for review along with any mitigating circumstances or pleas for mercy.
8:22
But here's the catch. The system allowed executions to happen within 24 hours of
8:27
the final decision. That meant that in practice, you might wait weeks or even months while your
8:32
case crawled up the bureaucratic ladder to the generals, giving you false hope.
8:37
Then came the announcement of your sentence, and suddenly you had hours to live. Hours…not days.
8:43
Private Thomas Highgate, just 17 years old, was the first British soldier executed on
8:48
the Western Front in September 1914. He had just 45 minutes between being told
8:53
his sentence was confirmed and being shot in front of two companies of his
8:57
own regiment. The general wanted him killed as publicly as possible to send a message.
9:02
And don't expect anyone to care about your mental state. Soldiers who'd been blown up by shells,
9:07
who had documented nervous breakdowns, who were clearly suffering from what we now call PTSD - it
9:12
just didn't matter. Medical officers testified these men were faking it, “malingering,” as they
9:18
called it, when really they couldn't stop shaking or had gone catatonic from trauma. The idea that
9:24
combat could break even willing soldiers wasn't something most militaries accepted.
9:28
Want to hear about an even worse system?
9:30
Ancient Rome practiced decimation, which sounds about as brutal as it
9:35
actually was. If a legion showed cowardice,
9:37
every tenth man was selected by lottery and beaten to death by his fellow soldiers.
9:42
If you were found guilty, the range of punishments varied wildly depending on the army, the war,
9:47
the specific offense - and sometimes just the mood of the commanding officer.
9:51
Field Punishment Number One, used by the British during World War I,
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was designed to be humiliating. The convicted soldier would be tied to a fixed object like
10:00
a post, a wagon wheel, or a gun carriage in a crucifixion position for up to two
10:04
hours a day for several weeks. This happened within view of other soldiers and sometimes
10:10
within range of enemy fire. It was meant to shame you while your comrades watched.
10:15
Penal battalions were another option. The Soviets made these infamous with
10:19
their battalions during World War II. Stalin's Order No. 227–the famous "Not One Step Back"
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rule–established these units for soldiers accused of cowardice, desertion, or other military crimes.
10:32
The image of blocking detachments mowing down masses of retreating Soviet soldiers
10:37
is largely mythology. Records from the NKVD, the secret police and intelligence agency,
10:42
suggest around 1,000 deaths in the first three months of its implementation. But by October 1942,
10:49
the concept had been largely dropped. Fortunately for them, most soldiers caught
10:53
by blocking units were returned to their units or sent to penal battalions rather than shot.
10:58
That said, penal battalions were genuinely brutal.
11:01
These units were assigned the worst tasks, things like clearing minefields,
11:05
assaulting fortified positions, leading attacks that regular units wouldn't survive. Hundreds
11:10
of thousands of Soviet soldiers served in penal units during the war. Death
11:13
rates were astronomical, though it wasn't the suicide squad arrangement Hollywood depicts.
11:18
Prison sentences were common for less severe cases or when commanders didn't want to execute
11:23
someone. Hard labor, solitary confinement, loss of rank and pay, these were all options.
11:28
But the ultimate punishment was execution, and this is where things got darkest.
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The British Army executed 306 soldiers during World War I for cowardice, desertion,
11:38
and related offenses. Many were teenagers. Some had documented psychological trauma.
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The trials were perfunctory, the appeals process minimal. These men were tied
11:48
to posts at dawn and shot by firing squads made up of their own comrades,
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men who sometimes deliberately aimed to miss, forcing officers to deliver coup de grâce shots.
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In 2006, these 306 soldiers were posthumously pardoned,
12:02
the British government finally acknowledging that many had been victims of injustice.
12:06
They had been suffering from what we now recognize as PTSD or shell shock.
12:11
Others had simply been used as scapegoats for failures of command.
12:14
The method was almost always a firing squad, though the details varied.
12:19
Sometimes the condemned man's uniform buttons were removed and a paper target
12:23
pinned over his heart so the shooters knew where to aim. Sometimes he was blindfolded;
12:27
sometimes he faced his executioners. Usually it happened at dawn, away from the regular troops,
12:32
though sometimes it was done publicly to maximize the deterrent effect.
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The condemned often spent their last night writing letters home,
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knowing their families would be told they died dishonorably. The stigma, however,
12:43
extended beyond death. Families of executed soldiers sometimes
12:46
received reduced or no pensions, and the shame could follow them for generations.
12:51
Look no further than Private Eddie Slovik. He was court-martialed on November 11th, 1944. His trial
12:58
lasted less than 2 hours. He was found guilty and sentenced to death. The sentence went up the chain
13:03
of command, crossing the desk of General Dwight D. Eisenhower, Supreme Allied Commander. Eisenhower
13:08
confirmed it. Out of approximately 21,000 American soldiers tried for desertion during World War II,
13:14
and around 49 sentenced to death, Slovik would be the only one actually executed.
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On January 31st, 1945, in a small French village, Eddie Slovik was led into a
13:24
courtyard. His last words were ‘They're not shooting me for deserting the United States
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Army… They just need to make an example out of somebody and I'm it because I'm an ex-con...
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They're shooting me for the bread and chewing gum I stole when I was 12 years old.’
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A paper target was pinned to his jacket over his heart. Twelve soldiers from his division formed
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the firing squad. At 10:04 AM, all twelve fired their M-1 Garand rifles and Slovik
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was hit simultaneously in the neck, shoulder, chest, heart, and arm. But somehow, he didn’t
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die instantly. Instead, he faded as the firing squad were preparing for their second volley.
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He was buried in a secret grave with other American
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soldiers executed for sexual crimes and murder. Criminals, in the Army's eyes,
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are unworthy of burial among honorable dead. His wife didn't learn the true circumstances
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of his death for years, told only that he'd been killed in action.
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She and others would petition multiple U.S. presidents to secure a posthumous pardon for
14:19
Slovik. Each was denied. Eddie Slovik remains the only American soldier executed for desertion since
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the Civil War - though thousands committed the same offense. He was made an example of during
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a desperate moment when commanders felt they needed to send a message about discipline.
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Cowardice wasn’t always cowardice. Sometimes it was trauma. Sometimes it was exhaustion.
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And sometimes it was just one unlucky man… chosen to be the warning.
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Now go check out How Soldier Who Didn’t Want to Fight Became Most
14:47
Decorated of WWI. Or click on this video instead
