Pardoning the shell-shocked

last updated 8 January 2015

London

The British government has begun pardoning 306 soldiers who were executed for desertion or cowardice during World War I. The gruesomeness of trench warfare and poison-gas attacks in that conflict traumatized soldiers so severely that many became mentally ill with shell shock—now known as post-traumatic stress disorder. Some were briefly treated and then ordered back to the front lines, and if they refused to go, or broke down in battle, they were executed. Those soldiers are now being posthumously pardoned. “I am conscious of how the families of these men feel today,” said Defense Minister Des Browne. “They have had to endure a stigma for decades.”