Chico: Hey, wait, wait. What does this say here, this thing here?
Groucho: It’s all right. That’s in every contract. That’s what they call a sanity clause.
Chico: You can’t fool me. There ain’t no Sanity Clause.
The Marx Brothers, A Night at the Opera
Undercover and unsung, the two deserters were not alone in absenting themselves without leave. Not just in this war—the practice is ancient. As long as men have been waging war, men have been actively avoiding it. The penalties could be harsh, depending not just on the nature and length of absence but on geography. Under Australian law the maximum sentence for desertion among soldiers serving in World War I was a term of imprisonment, whereas British, Canadian and New Zealand deserters could be shot for the offence. The British were not too happy with the leniency shown by Australian authorities and believed that in the interests of army discipline and equity, AIF deserters should be put down. Prime Minister Billy Hughes defied any such pressure from the British, well aware of the damage such an unpopular move might do to his reputation and his party’s. Australia stuck to its guns, and refused to fire those guns against their own. The British were certainly not swayed by our decision. The shadow of such brutal punishment had some British soldiers in World War I choosing to relieve the pressure of front-line service by shooting themselves instead of the enemy. On-the-spot court martials were held at medical units as wounded men suspected of self-harm were evacuated from battle. There was little sympathy for the wounded, who were interrogated as they lay on stretchers.
By the close of World War I, the British had executed over three hundred of their own men. To add salt to these wounds, the firing squads that carried out the punishments were usually chosen from the men’s own unit. Desertion is a flexible term—it can be interpreted as merely malingering, or the more serious activity of self-inflicted wounding. However, the fatal decision was not to just absent yourself without official leave, but to have no intention of returning at all.
Britain’s high command in World War I were convinced that harsh measures such as these were the perfect deterrent for any lack of self-restraint in the ranks. Fear cultivated discipline. Yet to this day no Australian serviceman has ever been executed for any military offence, under our very own ‘No Death’ clause.
There were, of course, the famous executions of Breaker Morant and P.J. Handcock in the Boer War, but these were at the hands of the British. Australian mythical hero worship aside, the real Ed Murrant was little more than a slaughterer of innocents, including one twelve-year-old boy. There is a tradition in this country of glorifying low-life killers and con men: we revere the likes of Ned Kelly and Breaker Morant. This peculiar cultural compulsion perhaps stems from a fascination with the notion of the little battler upholding justice on his own terms. Or could it be the old chestnut of our shared convict past? It does seem rather odd that invariably, when an Australian delves into their past and uncovers no convict ancestor, it is of great disappointment to them.
In Australia, at least, thanks to the ‘No Death’ clause, we most certainly did believe in a sanity clause. Sanity almost prevailed in the United States: during World War II 21,049 soldiers were charged with desertion, and forty-nine of those were sentenced to death, but only one achieved that end. The case of Pte Eddie Slovik is a famous one.
By the time he was twenty-two, Slovik, a Polish-American resident of Detroit, had spent more than four years in prison for petty crimes ranging from drunkenness to disturbing the peace. He was paroled in November 1943, and before year’s end he had married. For once, things were looking up in the life of Eddie Slovik. Just before his first wedding anniversary he was conscripted and sent to France. The army needed as many bodies as possible, preferably young and alive, and prison sentences were no hindrance. Eddie wasn’t happy. While marching in to his unit an artillery attack sent Eddie running for cover, and he didn’t stop. Separated from his unit, he joined a Canadian one nearby and huddled down in a rear position with them for the next six weeks. No charges were laid for this misdemeanour. But this slice of active service was about as much as Pte Slovik was prepared to take and he made it perfectly clear that this was the case. He admitted to a superior officer that he was scared to death and requested that he be placed in the rear. He also asserted that if the officer didn’t grant this request he’d run away. Eddie then asked if that might be considered desertion. The answer was a resounding ‘yes’ and his request was abruptly refused. Eddie then informed a Military Police officer of his intention to desert; this time he went one step further and put it in writing. He was advised that if he destroyed the note he would suffer no consequences. But fear, coupled with a longing for the woman he loved, meant Eddie not only refused to comply, he also wrote another note, which would turn out to be his death warrant.
He had inadvertently made quite clear to all that he was completely aware of the consequences of his actions. Slovik wasn’t worried—it never occurred to him that his complaints would lead to him facing a firing squad, and he had no fear of prison. Technically Slovik was not a deserter, more a man with intent to desert, but it was enough for the US Army to decide to make an example of him. Slovik was just what the military needed: a deterrent. This obscure private was killed even though his actions had endangered no-one. Slovik was guilty of blatant honesty. The argument went that he would have been a liability on the front lines; his argument was that he wanted nothing to do with those front lines. Despite pleas from his wife, it would be forty-two years before his remains were allowed back into America, by which time Mrs Slovik was dead.
While the USA only managed one execution, the Germans eliminated thousands of men for desertion during World War II. Not to be outdone, the Russians chose on-the-spot execution for anyone who turned their back to the front.
Another threat to maintaining good order in the ranks was the condition that came to be known during World War I as shell shock. Those in the British higher ranks thought it a disciplinary matter rather than a medical one. The solution? More discipline. The proposed treatment was to return the shell-shocked to the front lines as swiftly as was possible. This belief was shared by leading military figures on both sides, with the result that on the front lines shell-shocked soldiers found they were face to face with opposing shell-shocked soldiers. For some reason the Irish were singled out as particularly susceptible to the condition. The Irish were considered to be ‘predisposed to lunacy’ and ‘emotional’, and therefore of great danger to discipline. Consequently, they were appraised as suitable firing-squad material. While officials denied that the phenomenon was at all medical in nature, there remained concern that shell shock was contagious. There was a fear that whole units would collapse under the influence of lunatic shell-shocked Irishmen running from battle. A chap of high standing at the time, one Lord Gort, made his feelings known on the matter. ‘I think “shell-shock,” like measles, is so infectious that you cannot afford to run risks with it at all and in war the individual is of small account.’
There were two categories of shell shock: commotional and emotional. Commotional meant the result of a commotion, like being blown up. Emotional was the fear of being blown up. Either way, shell-shocked men were considered worthless and disposable, which placed them right in the firing line for execution. The renowned psychiatrist W.H.R. Rivers described shell shock as the result of the repression of one’s natural instinct; that is, to flee the battlefield. I wonder how long it took W.H.R. to figure that one out. Military historian Colonel Henderson, writing at the turn of the nineteenth century, put it a little more emotively. ‘The truth is, when bullets are whacking against tree trunks and solid shot are cracking skulls like egg shells, the consuming passion in the heart of the average man is to get out of the way.’ You don’t need to read Freud to agree with the colonel. Any soldier appealing for leniency by complaining of shell shock had their pleas interpreted as an admission of their lack of discipline, and therefore, in the minds of their superiors, they were expendable. The solution? Shoot them. There would be no reprieve for those of a nervous disposition, especially a nervous Irish one.
By the outbreak of World War II the British had called a ceasefire on their own troops and focused their aim on the enemy. The term ‘shell shock’ was officially replaced by ‘battle fatigue’, which was eventually to evolve into ‘post-traumatic stress disorder’. The medical profession at the time covered a lot of bases with the term ‘anxiety state’. The army felt they could dumb this term down a touch more, declaring that any soldier removed by stretcher from active service after exposure to prolonged and unrelenting bombardment by other persons exposed to prolonged and unrelenting bombardment be marked NYDN—Not Yet Diagnosed Nervous. The soldiers themselves had their own name for it: shell-happy. Stage fright is the term used in my own profession, often the result of a relentless bombardment of abuse from aggressive intoxicated hecklers. Audiences have their own term for the condition: NYDF—Not Yet Diagnosed Funny.
Whatever name you gave it, no soldier was immune. Pte Stanley Livingston was no exception. According to family legend, at some stage Stanley had been taken from the line, not yet diagnosed nervous, and hospitalised for three weeks before being sent back to the front. Where this occurred is unclear, and whether it was commotional or emotional I’ll never know. There is no report in the records of Stanley being evacuated in the Middle East. For Pte Livingston, the show that must not go on was obviously yet to open.