He will provide a black hood to cover the head of the prisoner, and a four-inch, round, white target. He will also arrange for an ambulance or other conveyance to be in attendance at the execution, to receive and care for the body.
The assembly of the escort should be as follows; the prisoner guard, twelve men with rifles under the command of a sergeant armed with a pistol, will form in double ranks and will proceed to the place of imprisonment to receive the prisoner. The main guard will consist of one or more platoons and will form up in the rear of the band [yes, there had to be a band!].
The execution party [the firing squad] will proceed to the previously prepared rack of rifles, take up arms, and move to the scene of the execution, halting fifteen paces from, and facing the position to be taken by the prisoner.
At the designated time the prisoner, with his arms bound securely behind his back, will be received by the prisoner guard and placed between the ranks. The escort will then proceed towards the scene of the execution, the band playing the “Dead March”. The escort will approach in line with the open side of the rectangle formed by the witnessing troops. The band will move past and will take position on the opposite side of the rectangle, facing the scene of the execution. The prisoner guard, prisoner and chaplain will proceed directly to the prisoner’s post, halt, and face the execution party. The main guard will proceed to a point five paces behind the execution party, and form a line facing the scene of execution.’
The execution itself commences with the officer-in-charge facing the prisoner and reading to him the charge, the court’s findings and the sentence. The officer then waits for any last statement before ordering the sergeant to secure the prisoner to the post and to place the hood over his head. The medical officer then pins the target over the prisoner’s heart. The prisoner guard, chaplain and medical officer retire to the flank of the parade, and the officer-in-charge takes up position five paces to the right of, and five paces to the front of, the firing squad.
Commands for the execution may be given by a combination of manual and oral sounds as prescribed (verbal orders may not be heard under battle conditions, or it may be necessary not to alert or alarm local civilian communities until the actual volley).
When the officer raises the right arm vertically overhead, palm forward, fingers extended and joined, or commands ‘Ready’, the execution party comes to the ‘Ready’ position and unlocks rifles (safety catches off).
When the officer lowers his arm to a horizontal position in front of his body, or commands ‘Aim’, the execution party aims at the target on the prisoner’s body.
When the officer drops his arm directly to his side and orally commands ‘Fire’, the execution party fires simultaneously.
Together with the medical officer, the officer-in-charge examines the prisoner and, if necessary, directs that the coup de grâce
be administered. In that case the sergeant of the execution party will do so, using a hand weapon and holding the muzzle just above the ear and about 12 inches from the skull.
Upon pronouncement of death by the medical officer, the execution party then proceeds to the rack from which the rifles were originally obtained, and replaces them in the rack at random; the party is then dismissed.
The escort, with the band playing a lively air (!), marches back to the parade ground and dismisses. The witnessing troops parade in front of the body before returning to their barracks, leaving the officer-in-charge to direct the burial party in the disposal of the body.
This type of elaborate but highly necessary SOP (Standard Operating Procedure) was in fact applied only once by the US military authorities during the World War Two. It was for the execution of a deserter, Private Eddie Slovik, he thereby achieving the unique distinction of being the only American soldier to be executed in that manner since 1864. During World War Two 2,864 soldiers were tried by General Courts Martial, 49 being sentenced to death. They were all reprieved, their sentences being commuted to varying terms of imprisonment, but it was obviously felt that an example had to be made in Slovik’s case, and all appeals for clemency were denied.
Accordingly, on 31 January 1945, in the little village of St Marie aux Mines in eastern France, an execution site was found, a large garden surrounded by walls 7½ feet high, ideally suitable for the grim purpose. A barrier of thick and heavy wooden boards, 6 feet square, was constructed, to be fixed behind the prisoner, in order to absorb the impact of the bullets from the rifles then in use, the M-16 rifle, a bullet from which could kill a man two miles away.
A 6-inch-square post was embedded deep in the snow-covered ground, and into the back of it, at shoulder height, was driven a long nail, its purpose being to stop the straps and the body they supported from slipping down the post after the execution. Twelve expert marksmen were chosen from the condemned man’s regiment, their general reaction being that of disbelief, for death by firing squad was unheard of. One reportedly asked his captain how he could get out of the detail, only to be told drily: ‘Not unless you want to take his place!’
The general consensus of opinion, however, was that, in a war situation as savage as the one they were at that very time engaged in, deserters exposed their comrades to even greater risks, so little sympathy was generally felt towards the condemned man.
The morning of the execution was bitterly cold, heavy snow having fallen. The rifles were issued, one loaded with a blank, though the traditional reason for this was nullified, for the M-16 rifle automatically ejected the cartridge case of a live round after firing, but not that of a blank round.
The victim’s hands having been tied with parachute cords, he was then secured to the post. Straps and further cords around his shoulders, knees and ankles held him upright. After prayers had been said, the black hood was drawn over his head. On the dreaded orders being given, the guns spoke, their voices echoing across the snow-clad hills, and Slovik’s body jolted with the multiple impacts.
Eleven bullets had struck him, yet not one had pierced his heart, probably due to nervousness among the squad members. It is one thing to fire at one of the enemy who is endeavouring to shoot you; it is entirely different to fire at an unarmed and shrouded fellow soldier standing motionless only yards away.
The failure could also be attributed to the fact that, probably in the belief that trained marksmen needed no aim to be pointed out on a human body, no target had been pinned over Slovik’s heart. And so several moments elapsed, too few for the coup de grâce, too many for the victim, before death was finally pronounced.
He was buried in the Oise-Aisne American Cemetery alongside the graves of 95 other disgraced American soldiers who had been hanged for violent crimes in the European Theatre of Operations during the war. But after many appeals, the efforts of an ex-army veteran, Bernard Calka, proved successful, and on 11 July 1987 the body of Edward Slovik was brought home and laid to rest beside that of his loving wife Antoinette, in Woodmere Cemetery, Detroit.
There may have been only one American soldier shot for desertion in World War Two, but many more than that faced the firing squads during the World War One. Mention has already been made of the 307 British soldiers who were executed by firing squad, and that penalty applied equally to the French servicemen.
In 1914 the French were under extreme pressure from the enemy, and sustaining heavy losses in men and equipment. On one front the 336th Infantry Regiment was pinned down in the trenches, and General Reveilhac, determined to regain the offensive and smash through the German lines, ordered the soldiers, already battle fatigued and with the corpses of many of their comrades rotting on the barbed wire of no man’s land, to make a frontal attack. Two officers and a few NCOs obeyed, but the enlisted men were too demoralised to follow. The general, in his anger, took the incredible step of telephoning the artillery commander and ordering him to open fire with his heavy guns on the mutinous troops in the French trenches. Aghast, the gunnery officer refused to comply without a signed directive.
Reveilhac then ordered that four corporals and 16 men should be sent into no man’s land to cut the wire, ready for another assault, a suicidal mission in broad daylight. On advancing, the sortie came under heavy fire and had to retreat, some soldiers having been injured. The general was determined to make an example. A court martial was immediately convened and the four corporals, Maupas, Girard, Lefoulen and Lechat, were sentenced to death. No appeal to higher authority was permitted, no confirmation from Paris was sought. The next day the executions took place, the revulsion in the regiment being such that a unit of cavalry dragoons had to be brought in to maintain order.
The firing squad, either nervous or mutinous, managed only to wound two of the corporals, both having to be finished off with pistol shots to the head. Despite the obvious injustice of punishments such as this, more instances occurred where the French generals sought to blame the ordinary soldiers for their own strategic failures.
In April 1915 General Delatoile announced that he intended to have not one or two men but an entire company executed. His staff officers, appalled, eventually persuaded him to reduce the number to 76, then finally to six. But which six? Then followed the grim Lottery of Death, the soldiers drawing straws to decide which ones were doomed. Those who drew the short straws, Corporal Morange and five privates, then appeared before a court martial, which shortly after went into recess.
The next morning the priest visited them in their cells and informed them that the court had reconvened and, without hearing their defence, had found them guilty and sentenced them to death. They were then marched out, to face a firing squad from another regiment, and forthwith shot.
As the war raged on into 1917, more and more
poilus
were shot for ‘mutiny’. Identifying those who were blameworthy was unnecessary, any handful of soldiers showing dissent or hesitancy being arrested and put to death. In May examples were made of four men and a corporal named Moula. But fortune smiled on the latter, for as he was being led to the execution site, long-range German artillery opened up and, in the chaos that ensued, he made his escape. Somehow he managed to evade recapture, and 20 years later he was reported as having settled in South America.
As morale continued to ebb away, the mutinies spread, some deserters taking over entire villages in defiance of their commanders. At one village, Missy-aux-Bois, disciplined troops blockaded them, cutting off food supplies, and on surrendering the ringleaders were executed, it being reported afterwards that ‘12 bullets were found in each body’.
By June 1917 whole battalions had deserted, one party hiding in a large cave in a wood. General Taufflieb, determined to regain control of his forces, ordered each of his four company commanders to select five men for execution, regardless of degree of blame. So, as in the Roman army, where execution by decimation was applied – putting one man in ten to death – so it was in the French army, the same method being more or less applied. The 20 men were shot by firing squad. The mutiny was over.
After the war the executions that had taken place were given wide publicity, posthumous pardons being granted to many of the victims. A monument was erected in the town of Sortilly, in the
département
of Manche, to the memory of the four corporals shot in 1914. Compensation was awarded to their widows, the derisive amount hardly making restitution for the loss of four lives – one franc each.
The French were, of course, no strangers to death by firing squad. As described in the earlier entry on Drowning, the 1793 revolt in the Vendée resulted in grim massacres perpetrated by the national army on the orders of the revolutionary government in Paris, hundreds of French men, women and children being drowned in the river Loire.
Similarly, death was meted out by firing squad, or fusillade. Captured Vendeans were shot without trial, dozens at a time dying by the rifle bullet. At Savenay 400 were shot; later, 500 were surrounded by two battalions of the army, who were ordered to open fire. Jephson, in his book
The Real French Revolutionist
, published in 1899, describes how ‘they all fell, some shot, some from fear. But as there were many who still moved, the general shouted: “Those who are not wounded, stand up.” These poor people, thinking that it was intended to spare their lives, hastened to do so; but a second volley is fired into them, and those not killed are finished off with the bayonet or sabre.’ The revolutionary General Westerman wrote to the Minister of Public Safety in Paris: