"On 7th November 2006, the British Government agreed to give a posthumous pardon to all of those executed for military offences in the First World War."
This pale , almost eerily calm statue stands as striking centre piece of the 'Shot at Dawn' memorial.
The monument , which can be found at the National Memorial Arboretum near Alrewas in England, was placed to commemorates the some 306 British Army and Commonwealth soldiers who were executed through courts-martial for desertion and other offences during World War I.
The memorial itself portrays the figure of a young British soldier blindfolded and bound to a stake, presumably awaiting the fatal shot of the firing squad. With the added detail of a metal disk hanging around his neck instead of the more familiar piece of cloth used to mark where the squad were supposed to aim.
The likeness of the man was modelled after 17-year-old Private Herbert Burden, a British soldier from London who lied about his age in order to enlist in the armed forces and who was placed in British Expeditionary Force. Burden was accused of leaving his post - an act he stated was in order to see a friend in the neighbouring regiment - , arrested and charged with desertion. Upon being found guilty, he was executed by firing squad on the 21st of July 1915, he is considered to be the youngest soldier to face this fate within the British military.
The white statue is flanked by a semicircle of wooden stakes, each engraved with the name of a soldier who was executed in this fashion.
It is worth noting that the UK was one of the last to provide a pardon of this sort , 87 years after the end of the first world war and 91 years after the death of Private Burden.
