17-year-old British soldier Private Herbert Burden blindfolded and tied to a stake





‘Shot at Dawn’ 

This memorial in Staffordshire is dedicated to the 306 British and commonwealth servicemen who were executed during the Great War.

It portrays 17-year-old British soldier Private Herbert Burden blindfolded and tied to a stake, a disc pinned over his heart, waiting to be shot by a firing squad. 

Burden, who falsified his age to enlist, had been Absent-without-Leave multiple times. When he left his post again, he was arrested and accused of desertion. Found guilty, a firing squad executed him two days later. 

Eighty years on, grieved relatives petitioned the British government to correct these perceived injustices. In Burden’s case, research revealed that he had suffered under severe shelling, witnessed his friends killed battle, and had been sent to a military hospital.

In response to the groundswell movement, British artist Andy DeComyn created the memorial in 2000 and gifted to the relatives of the executed soldiers. 

The execution of confused and shell-shocked soldiers understandably aroused heated passions. Critics pointed to flawed court martials and executions within hours of verdicts. 

Tellingly many of the military regulations governing soldiers in the Great War seemed outdated, harking back to the Duke of Cumberland era; and supposedly designed to keep ‘dull-witted, drink-sodden illiterates standing in line shoulder-to-shoulder to kill or be killed.’ 

Yet, the Great War ushered in horrors and a degree of strain for soldiers that was unprecedented. 

In 2006, the British Secretary of State for Defence announced that Burden would receive a parliamentary pardon, along with over 300 others who had also been executed for various offences (excluding murder.)

Despairingly, Burden was executed in 1915 when the ailment of shell shock was unrecognised. The subsequent Shell Shock Enquiry in 1922 duly recognised that during the war ‘the nervous system of the recruit did not receive adequate consideration.’ 

The finding was of little comfort for Herbert’s parents, John and Charlotte. 

Take a sneak preview or pre-order ‘Night in Passchendaele’ (out in August 2023)

https://www.panmacmillan.com.au/9781761265976/night-in-passchendaele/

Scottbennettwriter.com 

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