Shot at dawn: Memorializing First World War executions for cowardice in the landscape of the UK's National Memorial Arboretum

Abstract

SUMMARY The United Kingdom’s National Memorial Arboretum, in Staffordshire, England, contains a memorial to the 306 British and Commonwealth soldiers who were shot at dawn during the First World War for desertion and/or cowardice. The location of the ‘Shot at Dawn Memorial’ within the Arboretum’s living archaeological landscape reveals ambiguities and tensions between the memorial’s physical location, its prominent role in site interpretation and the nature of memorialization of one of the most emotionally charged sequences of events in the First World War.