"Corporal Punishment"

"Corporal Punishment"

We have all heard, at some point in our lives, tragic stories about one the most abject and shameful aspect of the first world war; the countless executions of soldiers accused of desertion by firing squad, under the order of their own generals.

This particular episode is, in many respects, a homage of various anti-war movies such as Stanley Kubrick's "Paths of Glory" (1957) or "King and Country" by Joseph Losey (1964).

Summary:

In this episode, Captain Blackadder shoots a carrier pigeon carrying orders for his men to go over the trenches and face the Germans. It turns out that his actions are punishable by court-martial. He is found guilty and is scheduled to be shot by firing squad. However, at the last second, a call from the Minister of War saves his life.

 

   Blackadder takes advantage of the frequent communications problems to avoid the inevitable message from HQ ordering him to go into no man's land. When HQ resorts to sending pigeons to carry orders, the captain kills the bird in cold blood and says:

"Come on, George. With 50,000 men getting killed a week who's going to miss a pigeon?"

Those sort of allusions to the ever-increasing number of casualties is recurrent throughout the entire season. In the first episode, for instance, when yet again they are ordered 'to go over the top', Blackadder gives is opinion (in a brilliant deadpan delivery by Rowan Atkinson) and declares "Clearly Field Marshall Haig (who was an actual senior officer during WWI) is about to make yet a Gargantuan effort to move his drinks cabinet six inches closer to Berlin". Sadly, this is barely an exaggeration, trench warfare was incredibly slow paced and offensives were often rewarded by a the gain of a very small parcel of land.

Melchett: "Look, this is the amount of land we've recaptured since yesterday."

George: "Oh, excellent."

Melchett: "What's the actual scale on the map, Darling?"

Darling:"Uhm ... one to one, sir."








However ludicrous the scene above may appear, one cannot deny it efficiently conveys the message that sometimes many thousands of soldiers gave their lives for what seemed to be a fruitless progress.
Yet the episode "corporal punishment" conjures up another morbid account of the war.
In "Paths of Glory" a hundred men are sentenced to died for crime of 'cowardice' after a travesty of a trial, as it was clear that only three men were involved and they could not possibly have gone over the trenches because it was utter suicide.

The absurdity in Blackadder stems from the fact that not only judge of the court is the accuser General Melchett (how convenient), but also the latter seems to be utterly indifferent to Blackadder's  repeated disregard of orders and rather focuses his accusations on the murder of his pet pigeon 'Speckled Jim'. Although it bears absolutely no historical relevance, I would argue that the plot is eminently symbolical of the lack of fair trials and the over abundance of power in the hands of the generals.