Australia refused to execute its deserters in the First World War
Britain pressed hard, but Australia's government would not allow soldiers of its First Australian Imperial Force to be shot for desertion. It held firm even though its troops went absent without leave more often than any other contingent in the British Expeditionary Force, and deserted at a higher rate than other forces in France.
Desertion is leaving military duty without permission and intending never to come back. That intent separates it from being absent without leave, a temporary lapse. American forces strike a missing member from unit rolls after thirty days and list them as a deserter, yet under US military law the offence turns on intent, not time away. Someone gone longer who returns voluntarily may still count only as absent, while someone gone a week who joins a foreign army can be tried for desertion. Missing a unit's deployment is a separate charge, and since 2020 an absent-unknown status triggers investigations in the first 48 hours.
Other armies treated deserters harshly in 1914 to 1918. France executed between 600 and 650 of its soldiers for desertion, and a 2013 report to the veterans ministry recommended pardoning them. Canadian courts passed over 200 death sentences, though only 25 men were executed. Germany carried out just 18 such executions in that war, but in the Second World War it executed some 15,000 Wehrmacht deserters.
Attitudes depended on whose army was being abandoned. France honoured men from Alsace-Lorraine who slipped out of the German army during the First World War, awarding them the Escapees' Medal. Austria has gone further: in 2014 President Heinz Fischer unveiled a memorial on Vienna's Ballhausplatz to victims of Nazi military justice. Designed by Olaf Nicolai, its stepped sculpture carries a two-word poem by Ian Hamilton Finlay: all alone.
Desertion can reach enormous scale. Revolutionary France's mass conscription leaked men so badly that in 1800 War Minister Carnot counted 175,000 deserters who had come forward under an amnesty. Neutral Ireland's army during the Second World War had little to do after 1942 besides cutting trees and peat; of 60,000 who served, about 7,000 deserted, roughly half of them to fight for the Allies, most in the British Army.
Source: Desertion
