France 24 states that a report requested by the French Ministry of Veteran Affairs recommends that French First World War soldiers who were executed by their own side for desertion should be “officially considered under a new light”. The report could lead to a pardon for those executed.
The report stated that “There is a large consensus in our society that the majority of them were not cowards, but decent soldiers, who performed their duties and did not deserve to die…” and suggested that a “formal declation… that these soldiers also, in a certain way, ‘died protecting France’, would serve a sort of moral and civic pardon”.
To read the full article, visit the France 24 website here.
Date of article publication: 01/10/2013
Image courtesy of Wikipedia; in public domain
Posted by: Daniel Barry, Centenary News