cowardice is when a soldier refuses to fight it was punished by death
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They sent a white feather. It implied cowardice.
About 150,000 soldiers deserted from the German Army, many of them fled to neutral countries such as the Netherlands, Denmark and Switzerland. Only 18 from those caught were executed. In WW2 10,000 deserters were shot.
Deserters would be court martialled. The trial usually ended with them being sentenced to be shot at dawn by a 12 man firing squad. In WW2 the only offence for which you could be put to death was mutiny, whereas there were several more in WW1 including cowardice, and striking a superior officer.
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The last lines of the inscription on the grave are a bitter reference to carey's supposed cowardice.