Armed Forces Bill

That point is covered in the amendment and if the hon. Gentleman will permit me, I will refer to it in a broader sense later in my speech. If the amendment is passed, as I hope it is, it should not be seen as a reflection of the failure of those who presided at and conducted the field courts martial that condemned the 306 to a firing squad. Those who presided were doing the duty required of them. They held the King’s commission to prosecute a war. They had to maintain discipline and administer military justice as the law of that time prescribed. In my view, they acted properly and honourably in the discharge of that duty. Some will say that the amendment will rewrite history and judge the actions of 1914 by today’s standards. That is a perfectly reasonable argument, although I do not accept it because I do not believe that the amendment condones cowardice, desertion, mutiny or assisting the enemy, as the hon. Member for Lancaster and Wyre (Mr. Wallace) suggested a moment ago. Military discipline was and remains the cornerstone of our armed forces’ behaviour. However, the amendment is necessary as a recognition of the fact that many—I accept not all—of those shot were suffering from mental illnesses, of which people at the time knew very little. I have had meetings with the families of some of the men who were shot and I was touched by their quiet determination to see those men pardoned. They were motivated by nothing more than a wish to see their loved ones remembered, without shame, alongside the tens of thousands of others who went to war in September 1914 full of high spirits and pride, but who never came back. I pay tribute to the families’ quiet dignity, as many have lived with the terrible stigma associated with having a father, grandfather or great-grandfather going bravely off to war only to be shot by his own side. The amendment will not ease the pain and heartache that the verdict of the field courts martial caused, but I hope that, in time, it will be seen as having put right a terrible wrong. It is all too easy to forget that the soldiers of the first world war had none of the modern world’s benefits of free education and health care. Most of the accused were poorly educated, working-class young men: often, they were inarticulate and illiterate, with no ability to represent themselves in a tense court room where life or death was at stake. If all the young men who stood trial were medically examined according to the standards of care enjoyed by our soldiers today, I am sure that the result would not have been that 306 of them were shot. No one can turn back the clock. The passage of time means that we are left with only the records of the cases, most of which make no reference to the mental or nervous illnesses from which the soldiers were suffering. This week, we will remember our war dead. I hope that, as a country, we can at long last find it in our hearts to pardon and pay our respects to all the young men who lost their lives on the foreign battle fields of the first world war. Whether they were shot by the enemy or by their own side, all were victims of a terrible and bloody war.