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therefore cannot decide to summon a particular witness on the grounds that he or she might think such testimony would help establish guilt or innocence. In contrast, military courts are inquisitorial, in that they set out to establish what happened and as a result the court itself can summon and question any witnesses it considers necessary in the furtherance of that aim. Lastly, and so importantly, unlike in civilian criminal law, there was no right of appeal for those condemned to death by the military.

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    The Army Act was enshrined in the Manual of Military Law in order to provide a framework that was universally consistent and predictable, and which set out the concepts of discipline in an accepted set of rules to control and order the army’s activities, and to regulate the conduct of its members. Corrigan (2004) makes the point that, ‘The only difference between an army and an armed rabble is discipline.’ Army discipline comes from training, and then more training, backed up by a set of rules enshrined in military law, ignorance of which, as in civilian law, does not form an acceptable defence.
    The types of punishments meted out to soldiers in the First World War are quite likely to be familiar to those who have read Bernard Cornwell’s Sharpe novels, which are based on the Napoleonic Wars. Minor matters, such as being unshaven, not saluting a senior officer correctly, or having dirty equipment, were usually dealt with by the non-commissioned officers. Punishments would range from extra fatigues, extra exercise, the offender’s confinement to barracks, or the loss of a day’s pay. Such offences were generally irritating for all concerned, as were the punishments.
    The rules for field punishment were set out in section 44 of the Army Act, and a man could be sentenced to no more than three months by a court martial or twenty-eight days by his commanding officer.
    Field Punishment No.1 involved the offending soldier being bound or handcuffed to stop him escaping, and the rules allowed for the prisoner to be attached to a fixed object – without specifying what constituted a fixed object. In practice this led to prisoners being tied to the wheels of a gun carriage as if crucified, for no more than two hours a day, split between morning and afternoon, and for no more than three out of four consecutive days and for no more than twenty-one days in total. This form of punishment was not abandoned by the army until quite late in the war. Unsurprisingly, this form of punishment was very unpopular, not least when it was done in full view of the local population.
    Albert Marshall, of the Essex Yeomanry, who was believed to be the last surviving First World War veteran to have fought on horseback, recalled guarding (Taylor-Whiffen, 2003):

    … a chap who had been tied to a wheel, without food or water, as a punishment for something. I can’t remember what he’d done. But I felt sorry for him so I put my fag up to his lips so he could have a smoke. It was a very risky thing to do because if anyone had seen me they’d have tied me to the wheel as well!
    Years later I was walking down Oxford Street in London and I saw him. He recognised me immediately and thanked me. He said he’d never forgotten that fag.

    The treatment of this soldier was despite military law specifically stating that punishment:

    …should not be inflicted in such a manner as is calculated to cause injury or to leave any permanent mark on the offender; and a portion of a field punishment must be discontinued upon a report by a responsible medical officer that the continuance of that portion would be prejudicial to the offender’s health.

    Archie Baxter (2014) was a conscientious objector who had served with the New Zealand Army, and recalled what Field Punishment No.1 felt like:

    My hands were taken round behind the pole, tied together and pulled well up, straining and cramping the muscles and forcing them into an unnatural position.