Today in 1998 Families of World War 1 soldiers executed for cowardice or desertion laid a wreath at the Cenotaph in Whitehall in the first ceremony of its kind to pay tribute to the 306 servicemen who died. Those soldiers now have a memorial at the National Memorial Arboretum in Staffordshire

Today in 1998 Families of World War 1 soldiers executed for cowardice or desertion laid a wreath at the Cenotaph in Whitehall in the first ceremony of its kind to pay tribute to the 306 servicemen who died. Those soldiers now have a memorial at the National Memorial Arboretum in Staffordshire.

It is well recorded that despite a dubious disciplinary record, Australian troops were amongst the most effective of those available to Field Marshal Sir Douglas Haig. This observation is at odds with the example of the Guards Division which also had a favourable reputation, but whose discipline was strict. It is therefore potentially useful to try to establish a link between divisional efficiency and divisional discipline, in order to see if conclusions can be drawn from the available data.

This article will endeavour to establish if there is any correlation between discipline and efficiency. Besides examining the British divisions that made up the B.E.F., it will also examine the comparative disciplinary records of the Regular, New Army and Territorial Force soldiers.

Whilst the aim of British military doctrine may have been to achieve the highest general level in each division, in reality some divisions must have been better than others. These differences may be partly put down to the amount of rest a division had received and training it had undertaken. Besides rest and training, which Haig highlights, other factors influencing a division’s efficiency would include leadership, planning and staff work, cleanliness, and morale. But discipline is also a factor in a division’s status.

Should we expect to see a common theme of strict discipline applied to efficient divisions? Or alternatively, did these divisions only require a light touch as far as discipline was concerned? Conversely, are less elite divisions less elite because of lax discipline or is there evidence that they were less efficient despite (or because of) harsher discipline being applied?

The two major difficulties here are the identification of elite divisions, and the issue of measuring discipline. Discipline is a subjective concept and cannot in itself be quantified. However, an indicator of a division’s discipline may be suggested by the number of its soldiers being subject to a court martial. On the basis it is only possible to look at capital offences, it is pertinent to analyse such data that exists to see if this gives clues to divisional discipline.

In the Great War, there were approximately 238,000 courts martial, of which 3,080 resulted in death sentences. Corns and Hughes-Wilson detail the death sentences carried out. Those between August 1914 and the Armistice can be summarised as follows:

It could be argued that the crime of murder has less to do with unit discipline than the other crimes, so by disregarding executions for murder, we have 309 for ‘disciplinary’ offences. Of these, sixteen executions occurred in theatres other than on the Western Front. This leaves 293 executions on the Western Front. Of these 293, exactly thirty occurred in non-British units. How the remaining 263 executions were divided between the British Army divisions will be examined shortly.

Although attempts have been made to nominate elite divisions, such analysis is always going to be a source of disagreement, especially as divisional competence is likely to have varied during the war. By limiting the elite and ‘non-elite’ divisions to six in each category, it may be suggested that for the majority of the war, the following divisions were amongst the most highly regarded: Guards, 3rd, 9th (Scottish), 18th (Eastern), 21st and 29th. Although not wishing to denigrate the achievements of the men who served in these units, the following may have had below average reputations: 31st, 35th, 40th, 46th (North Midland), 49th (West Riding) and 61st (South Midland).

There are two methods of comparing capital courts martial - by condemnations whether or not promulgated and by executions actually carried out. Taking actual executions first, Putkowski and Sykes give details of executed soldiers’ divisions. This can be summarised in the form of a table.

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