Great War Portraits

Bob Russell who features in Great War Portraits suffered a similar fate. His crime, burning a wooden bomb box for fuel. He was sentenced to 28 days Field Punishment No. 1, tied to the wheel of a gun for one hour per day.
 
Born 1894 in Liverpool, Robert Simpson ‘Bob’ Russell, served with the 8th Battalion (Irish) The King’s (Liverpool Regiment) and The Machine Gun Corps throughout the Great War.
 
Bob had poor eyesight in one eye, but he managed to evade detection by swopping to his good eye whenever possible. On the rifle range he would shoot with his good eye when the instructor wasn’t looking.
 
For his efforts he served on the Western Front from 1915. He saw action at The Second Battle of Ypres and then in The Battle of the Somme in 1916. Where he was gassed and buried by an explosion. In 1917 he took part in the Third Battle of Ypres. 1918 saw him move to The Italian Front - where he contracted typhoid fever. He believed this probably saved his life.
 
He remembers the fighting in Delville Wood and Trones Wood on the Somme as being the worst of his experiences.
 
He died in 1989 at the age of 95.


Outcomes of Court Martials during the Great War.

 
It's worth studying the figures below before watching dramas on the Great War. Myths and clichés need greater scrutiny before forming a balanced view of historical events.

 
In all, 5,952 officers and 298,310 other ranks were court-martialled. This amounts to just over 3% of the total of men who joined the army. Of those tried, 89% were convicted; 8% acquitted; the rest were either convicted without the conviction being confirmed or with it being subsequently quashed. Of those convicted, 30% were for absence without leave; 15% for drunkenness;14% for desertion (although only 3% were actually in the field at the time); 11% for insubordination; 11% for loss of army property, and the remaining 19% for various other crimes. The main punishments applied were : 3 months detention in a military compound - 24%; Field Punishment Number 1 - 22%; Fines - 12%; 6 months detention - 10%; reduction in rank - 10%; Field Punishment Number 2 - 8%.
 
3.080 men (1.1% of those convicted) were sentenced to death. Of these, 89% were reprieved and the sentence converted to a different one. 346 men were executed. Their crimes included desertion - 266; murder - 37; cowardice in the face of the enemy - 18; quitting their post - 7; striking or showing violence to their superiors - 6; disobedience - 5; mutiny - 3; sleeping at post - 2; casting away arms - 2. Of the 346, 91 were already under a suspended sentence from an earlier conviction (40 of these a suspended death sentence).
 
I'm indebted to the excellent WW1 website 'The Long, Long Trail' for the above figures: http://www.1914-1918.net
 
The Village - http://www.bbc.co.uk/programmes/p0162blq