"There were no summary executions in the British Army of WW1."

In stating that Keith A is 100% correct.

Just over 3,000 men were sentenced to death by British Courts Martial during the First World War, the court records can all be read online. Roughly one in ten were actually carried out the sentences in nine out of ten cases was commuted to life sentences.

"There are numerous eye witness accounts of them taking place and the link I provided last time tells of a special group of military policemen there to carry them out when soldiers were reckoned not to have responded quickly enough to orders to go over the top - the writer describes it having been witnessed by to his grandfather#

What numerous eye witness accounts? You haven't been able to come up with any that have been substantiated -a load of hearsay and complete and utter twaddle.

Ah so the goal posts have been moved and it was a "Special group of military policemen" now is it Carroll?? Tell me Jim just out of interest how did the powers of the day know where to position this Special group of military policemen", how did they know the section of line or even in what trench those "reluctant" squaddies would be lurking? Applying logic, commonsense and a healthy dash of reasoning it all presents itself as being a bit fanciful and haphazard doesn't it.

"(more "lies" I suppose)" - Most certainly.

Knowing what I do know about soldiers if any "special group of military policemen" started shooting soldiers the members of that "special group" would all be dead in seconds - killed by the rest of the soldiers in that regiment.

The account that Tommy Kenny gave us was of soldiers being sentenced to death, locked away awaiting execution, then, if there was a push on, being taken out and put in the front line.
If they survived they were then placed back in prison and eventually executed.

Tommy burst into tears (all on tape) when he described how he got to know people in the trenches, fought beside them, then later read the notice that they had been executed"

Now all of that is complete and utter twaddle Jim - As previously stated only 1-in-10 sentenced to death were ever executed. Under Service Regulations a man under a charge or under punishment is forbidden to bear arms (Oddly enough it was that little rule that saved my paternal grandfather's life), the only exception to this regulation was shown in the film "Breaker Morant" when the Boers attacked the garrison he was being held in. The rational is that in such a situation prisoners are released and armed in order to defend themselves, under no circumstances would prisoners be left in confinement and left to the mercies of the enemy should the enemy attack succeed.

Lets face it - we have virtually no information of how the ordinary Tommy felt about the war and his experiences.
The officers were the only ones allowed to keep diaries, and the men who defied orders and wrote things down would have been insane to the point of being suicidal had they wrote about how they felt.
It took nearly a century to make available some of those forbidden writings and those few that are, obviously, censored."

More twaddle, while YOU and members of the general public have no access to the diaries and letters of common soldiers the Imperial War Museum has held absolute mountains of such records for decades and that material has been read and studied by historians studying the period. Where on earth did you get the line about officers being the only ones allowed to keep diaries? Anybody could keep a diary - NOBODY was allowed to keep or take a diary into front line positions - for what should be f**king glaringly obvious reasons. Ah but there again you haven't the foggiest notion how the "front line" worked in your BBC comedy/drama little world soldiers were sent into the front line and stayed there for years - they didn't.

"We only have the word of people like tabloid journalist Max Hastings, who cut out his career in Hitler supporter's Daily Mail to tell us that the soldiers knew why they were fighting and that they supported the cause - hardly a reliable source!"

Well damn me Carroll you could not have got this bit more wrong had you tried.

1: I believe that the first paper Max Hastings ever worked for was the Evening Standard - he became an occasional columnist for the Daily Mail much, much later on.

2: It was the very first Viscount Rothermere who was the appeaser and Hitler supporter, he was also one of the strongest advocates for British rearmament in the 1930s, he died in 1940, Max Hastings wasn't born until 1945 and he did not work for the Daily Mail until after 2007 - so I fail to see the connection or the inference you are trying to make.

3: Now as you are such a believer in what the soldiers of the time said and the stories they told how about this:

- My Paternal Grandfather certainly knew why he volunteered and fought in the British Army in the First World War

- My Maternal Grandfather certainly knew why he volunteered and fought in the British Army in the First World War

- My next door neighbour certainly knew why he volunteered and fought in the British Army in the First World War

- All of the "old comrade" friends of the above who I talked to as a child all knew why they had joined up and fought in the British Forces during the First World War

- Watch the 1964 documentary "The Great War" and all those interviewed knew why they had joined up and fought in the British Forces during the First World War

Now then Jim were they all lying?