Private Benjamin Hart
SN: 1763 1ST/4TH Battalion Suffolk Regiment
Case file written by Ellie Grigsby (Not an old Mertonian)
“The whole ghastly process inspires revulsion. The victim… was strapped to a post or chair and shot by a firing party often composed of men from his own unit: what was intended as demonstrative justice made reluctant accomplices of all involved…destroying beliefs, changing ideas and leaving incurable wounds of disillusion it created a physical as well a psychological gulf between two epochs.”
The very much prevailing view during the First World War was that fear could be conquered and surrendering to it was emasculate, and Imperial Man did not give into such impulses. As the state inhabited such a rigid definition, it made no room for the genuinely traumatised; the man who was simply unable to conquer his personal demons or simply needed hiatus before returning to the war.
Medical professionals were on the cusp of knowledge of war neurosis, it was becoming evident that something was wrong, but lacked the empathy through limitations of the system, and by-in-large society’s disconnected cultural attunement to mental health, in order to understand. Private Hart was not understood and thus fell victim to the system, here is his story.
The Corporal acting as first witness to Hart’s trial, in charge of the no.4 platoon of A coy, remembers Hart being present in the trenches as he brought some supplies and warned the men to fill their water bottles, ready for the trenches that same afternoon on the 14th December 1916. Upon his return at 14:15pm at Pettbois, Hart was missing. Previous to this warning for the trenches, a Sergeant can confirm Hart’s presence up until the 14th as he concured his presence when asking the soldiers whether they wanted to bring blankets to the trenches or not. Hart was missing for two days, until he reported to the town Major at Bray on the evening of 16th December. The area commandant of Bray told the court, he felt Hart was unable to provide a ‘satisfactory account of himself’ so he handed Hart over to the police, despite Hart consciously coming to his office after deserting the trenches. Hart was charged with desertion, and despite his plea of not guilty, Hart was declared guilty and ordered to suffer death by being shot.
The 1st/4th Battalion war diary for the month of March starts and ends with nothing but disparity in between. From March 1st-8th it was a ‘very quiet time’ but this was soon to change. After some heavy shelling by the enemy during the evening of the 18th at Cambrin, the battalion reportedly could feel the effect. By the 22nd battalions had performed relief and were in place at the front only to discover the line they were entrusted to hold was badly damaged by craters and feared it would prove difficult. At 06:35am the following morning, the enemy sprung a mine attack in front of A coy 20 yards from their wire; an event that not only manipulated the sequence of the war, but an event that no doubt left many men of a generation traumatised, and in this instance, placed at the hand of the court martial. The enemy mine killed and injured many, more due to the throwing of grenades, and saw the position the battalion had consolidated, lost. (This was retrieved however the following early morning in a counter-attack proceeding at 2am).
On oath, Hart told the court he left the platoon because his ‘nerves were too bad’ to return to the trenches due to the mine explosion, admitting he has ‘never been right since.’ He implores he tried to find the transport but was unable to do so and so explains on the 16th he indeed reported to the area commandment at Bray. When rotation saw a stint in the trenches, violence encircled the soldiers, but it was random and unpredictable. Naturally this would tremendously perturb the nerves because of the uncertainty of the nature of a warfare of attrition. The isolated event on March 24th superintended the shattering of Hart’s sense of safety and the concept of returning to the ubiquitous danger of the trenches was evidently unbearable.
A fellow comrade of Hart spoke at the trial confirming Hart’s nightmare: ‘Private Hart was buried at the end of last March at the ‘British Stacks’ by a mine explosion with several others. I saw Lieutenant Corporal Ratcliffe digging him out.’ This is confirmed by Ratcliffe, adding, once he ‘dug him out he struggled back to the aid port, a distance of about ¾ mile… I do not know if anyone helped him.’ Ratcliffe provides us with one hellish detail at the end of his statement that he was only able to identify and retrieve Hart because it was only his feet that could be seen. The choking reality that Hart was buried alive, inevitably to suffocate underneath the earth, until he felt the frantic pulling of his feet and the great mass of mud and debris crumble away from his encased body, is mentally disturbing. It is of no wonder Hart pitifully exclaimed the incident made his ‘nerves bad.’
In consequence of this statement made by Hart in mitigation of punishment, enquiries were made, confirming evidence obtained, and a special medical report ordered. Hart was placed under medical observation for four days, scrutinized by army neurologist William Brown. Brown concluded: ‘I can find no evidence of feeble mindedness or other mental defect in his case.’ Many wartime doctors were empirically-minded favouring traditional not psychological explanations and treatments for mental disorders were subjected to the strategic requirements of the army rather than considering evolving medical opinion and research. Generations of judgement and predisposed ideals decisively influenced the lack of tolerance for shell shocked soldiers, but it is important to appreciate doctors did hold varying approaches to mental health thus individual cases such as Hart, should not construct a whole standard of received medical care.
Hart previously escaped the extreme penalty owing to insufficient evidence, but the damning medical report of the war neurologist seemed to be the emphatic corroboration the court required. Notes on Hart’s behaviour label him ‘indifferent’ and a ‘coward’ and it was concluded by the Lieutenant General commanding XV corps that: ‘the report is such to afford no excuses for his conduct. In view of the statements… as to the effect of his example I recommend that the sentence is carried out.’ What is excruciatingly frustrating is that Hart was twice before the Medical Officer and twice passed unfit for duty. It can be established such diagnoses were based on psychological examinations as the trial minutes include the fact Hart was never wounded yet Brown found no evidence of such mental disturbance of which Hart still suffered.
A curious piece of primary material from a Captain Stormont Gibbs’ memoir, narrates the phenomenon that was the refusal of Hart’s firing squad to follow order. Gibbs’ recalled in his memoirs:
“…There was a man in the battalion who had run away on numerous occasions. His intelligence was low and he could not stand war at all. After, I think the sixth occasion when he had collected some twenty years or more of ‘penal servitude’ from various courts martial, I made him my servant so that he shouldn’t have to go in the line… The unfortunate man then proceeded to run away from transport lines… We were ordered to supply a firing party. I sent a chit to OC companies to supply a few men each – wondering what would happen. As I expected, everyone refused to do it and I wasn’t going to press the company commanders on the subject. I rang up Brigade and had a rather heated conversation about it and finally the poor chap was shot by someone else – perhaps a well-fed APM… I had to write to the man’s mother.”
Shell shock victims during the war must have been consumed with an all-encompassing sense of loneliness and alienation. In 1917 there was a restriction placed on medical professionals officially using the terminology of ‘shell shock,’ feeling the coercive pressure to diagnose war neurotic men as ‘not yet diagnosed nervous.’ We can dare to imagine the way Hart almost certainly felt at the very end, presumably blindfolded, strapped to a post decorated with the small white cloth target positioned on his left breast, frantically relying on his sense of sound to establish his blackened surroundings; waiting for what seemed like an eternity to hear the blast from the pistol that fired the fatal bullet. An officer provided Hart’s coup de grâce at 06:46am, February 6th1917.
Hart was already an orphan before the war, losing his mother as a small boy in 1898, and his father in 1913. Hart’s death preceded his elder brother’s death on 22nd October 1917, leaving behind the grieving Hart sisters’, who in one generation had lost more than they could have ever, imagined.