With our army in Flanders

by Valentine Williams

The A.G. Department likewise falls into two divisions—(a) Administration; (b) Military Law. The first attends to the all-important question of men, the wastage due to casualties and sickness, and the replenishment by fresh drafts out from home. At a stated hour every day telegrams begin pouring in from every part of the line with the day’s casualties which are sent home, and immediate measures taken to refill the gaps thus caused by fresh drafts out from home.

The Medical Services, presided over by a Director-General of Medical Services, and their immense ramifications, from the regimental aid-post, installed in a house or barn right behind the firing-line, down to the hospitals established in palatial hotels at one or other of our army bases, come under this division of the A.G. Department.

The Military Law division deals with discipline, no small matter in an army which has grown to the size of ours. Offences against military law, such as drunkenness, desertion, cowardice in face of the enemy, and so on, are matters with which this department deals. Trial is, of course, by court-martial, and the sentence is sent up to the Judge Advocate for confirmation by the Commander-in-Chief.

It was under the auspices of this division of the A.G. Department that the Suspension of Sentences Act, a measure which, though revolutionary in its bearing on military law, received next to no attention in England, was passed through Parliament. The effect of the Act is to empower the military authorities to suspend for the duration of the war the execution of a sentence passed on a British soldier on active service, and at the same time to offer him the opportunity to expunge the conviction by meritorious conduct in the field.

It is a sane, a merciful, but also a practical measure. Though it does not apply to death sentences in cases where the authorities are constrained to let justice take its course, in all ordinary circumstances a man need no longer feel that he has irretrievably ruined his career by a single unreflecting act. Absence from duty, for instance, is an offence that can find no condonement on active service. But a man with a clean record may shirk his duty under the influence of a fit of depression caused by passing indisposition or some other external circumstance. In these conditions a sentence of imprisonment may be passed, but its execution postponed until the end of the war. The man returns to his duty knowing that he can wipe out the black mark against him by gallant behaviour in face of the foe. The Act has the practical advantage of frustrating the attempts of shirkers to evade their duty in the firing-line by committing offences which, under the old system, would have sent them down for a spell of penal duty at one of the bases.

The measure has been completely successful. It has undoubtedly prevented injustice being done in more than one case. I was told of a sergeant, for instance, who was sentenced to death by court-martial for cowardice in face of the enemy. It was an inexplicable case, for the man had an excellent record, but the facts were incontrovertible. The man’s conduct had been disgraceful, and might have imperilled the position if his comrades had followed his example. According to custom, a report on the man was requested from his commanding officer. It was extremely favourable, and it stated, on the doctor’s evidence, that on the occasion in question the sergeant was suffering from a liver attack.

While the case was being debated, the sergeant, who was carrying on with his duties, performed a deed which in other circumstances would certainly have won for him the Military Cross. It seemed an ideal opportunity for applying the Act, though, in point of fact, it had not then been passed by the House of Commons. The sergeant, who had been degraded, was restored to his rank, and the conviction wiped off his record.

Another case of an even more remarkable nature in which the Act was applied was that of a man who escaped from custody after sentence of death passed on him for desertion had been confirmed by the Commander-in-Chief. By some means or other the man contrived to get wounded after his escape, and was in this way passed through the hospitals to England, where he spent a delightful week posing as a wounded “hero” back from the front. When he was discharged from hospital he calmly returned to his regimental depot, and was in due course sent back to France with a draft to his old battalion. The sergeant who received the draft promptly recognized the offender, and, speechless with stupefaction, marched him off under guard to the lock-up while the case was sent up to the A.G. Department for a decision.

The case was unique in the annals of the Department. Fortunately for the scapegrace, the authorities handling it were men of the world, and the decision they reached was both wise and merciful. It was argued that a man who would not let even a sentence of death deter him from returning to the front is the kind of man we want in the firing-line—what the army in the field would call “a stout feller.” Accordingly the death sentence was commuted, and the scamp returned to the trenches with a long term of imprisonment suspended, like the sword of Damocles, over his head as an added inducement to valour.

The Provost Marshal, most feared of officers, with his acolytes, the Assistant Provost Marshals, commonly known as the A.P.M.’s, attached to the different armies and corps, is under this branch of the A.G. Department.