*Neue Rheinische Zeitung* — The Oath of the English Soldiers

The Oath of the English Soldiers

[*Neue Rheinische Zeitung* No. 241, 9 March 1849]

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Cologne, 7 March. The *Neue Preuß[ische] Z[ei]t[un]g* shares, with great triumph, the oath of allegiance of the English military, and is overjoyed at the discovery that the English soldier swears loyalty only to the Queen, but not to the constitution. And we in Prussia, in the youngest constitutional state, we are supposed, *contrary* to the precedent of the oldest constitutional country, to have the soldiers swear an oath to the constitution?

The *N[eue] Pr[eußische] Z[eitung]*, however, forgets to tell its readers how the English soldier is placed in relation to the civil laws.

It goes without saying that the British soldier is placed, in *all* offences that are not *mere disciplinary infractions*, before the ordinary courts, the magistrates’ courts, petty sessions, quarter sessions or assizes, and that in all collisions with other citizens he is treated as a *mere citizen*.

But that is not all. In England, every citizen, be he official, soldier or whatever, is responsible before the law for every one of his actions, and cannot plead that the action in question was ordered by his superiors. For example, a riot takes place. The military moves in. The legal summons to disperse either occur or do not occur. The people do not disperse. The civil officer (invariably a justice of the peace or an *elected* urban official) either grants authorisation to intervene or refuses it. The military fires, there are dead. These corpses are presented to a coroner’s jury, before which the facts are established. If the jury finds that the intervention was not justified by the circumstances, it returns a verdict of *wilful murder* against all participants, thus also against the *civil officer* who authorised the intervention, against the *officer* who commanded the fire, and against *all the soldiers who actually fired*.

If the civil officer has not authorised the intervention, this has no further consequence than that he does not figure in the verdict. For officers and soldiers the matter remains exactly the same.

This verdict of wilful murder now constitutes a formal indictment, on the basis of which criminal proceedings are initiated before the ordinary jury.

The English soldier is therefore by no means regarded by the law as a mindless machine, who must obey the command given him without reasoning, but as a “free agent”, a man with free will, who at every moment must know what he is doing and is responsible for every one of his actions. The English judges would give fine answers to an accused soldier if he said in his defence that the firing had been commanded and he had to “obey orders”!

In Prussia, it is all different. In Prussia, the soldier declares that the firing was commanded by his immediate superior, and he is free from all punishment. In Prussia and likewise in France, every official is, in general, assured complete impunity for any violation of the law as soon as he shows that the order came to him from his regular superior through the regular hierarchical channel.

That we are not of the opinion that a short oath formula can turn one person into another, a black-and-white Guard lieutenant into an enthusiast for “constitutional freedom”, the *N[eue] Pr[eußische] Z[eitung]* will surely take our word for.

The gentlemen with God for King and Fatherland have had the most pleasant experiences with their own laudable clan in the last twelve months as to what oaths signify. We also have no objection to the *N[eue] Pr[eußische] Z[eitung]* making the military swear loyalty to the King, the Dalai Lama or the Man in the Moon, as soon as only “My splendid army” is placed, in the manner presented, in exactly the same position *vis-à-vis the laws* as the military in England.