Reenactment of a firing squad executing a British soldier
Reenactment of a firing squad executing a British soldier. Today 108 years ago, on September 8, 1914, 19-year-old British Private Thomas Highgate was executed for desertion - the very first of 346 British soldiers sentenced to death and executed during the First World War. Born in Shoreham near Kent, England on May 13, 1895, Thomas James Highgate was just 17-years-old when he enlisted into the 1st Battalion, Royal West Kent Regiment of the British Army on February 14, 1913. Aged 19 when the First World War broke out, Private Highgate was shipped to France with his battalion on August 15, 1914. Already a week later, Private Highgate participated in the Battle of Mons and the subsequent British withdrawal to the Marne river. In the early hours of September 6, Private Highgate's battalion went forward and attacked in the First Battle of the Marne. His battalion suffered staggering losses in the attack, and it was at this point that the nerves got the better of the young soldier, who f...