1920-1939 | Civilians slaughtered | Collective punishments | Curfews | Massacres | Palestine | Punitive operations

Black watch troops beat twelve Arab villagers to death

ByAlisdare Hickson

6 November 1937 On Saturday 6 November 1937, an officer in the North Staffordshire Regiment recorded in his diary how soldiers of the Black Watch beat twelve Arab villagers to death with their rifle butts in the Palestinian village of Silwan.1  The incident occurred while troops were being deployed to crush an Arab rebellion against…

1920-1939 | Civilians slaughtered | Massacres | Palestine

Main square of Jaffa ‘strewn with the bodies’ of Arab protesters

ByAlisdare Hickson

27 October 1933 On 27 October 1933, a large crowd of Arab protesters assembled in Jaffa’s central square. They were outraged at injustices committed by a British run administration, which refused to listen to the wishes of the Arab Palestinians who still numbered over three quarters of the country’s population. In particular, they were angry…

1920-1939 | Civilians slaughtered | Massacres | Palestine | Punitive operations

British officer orders reprisal executions in Arab village

ByAlisdare Hickson

20 October 1938 Captain Orde windgate is still lauded as a hero who led daring raiding operations behind the Japanese lines in Burma during the Second World War. As tourists gaze up at his memorial, which stands just a two minute walk from Big Ben, few will be aware of the ugly reputation he earned…

1500-1799 | Burning people alive | Burning villages | Canada | Civilians slaughtered | Looting and plunder | Massacres

British troops massacre the Abenaki people and burn many in their homes

ByAlisdare Hickson

4 October 1759 In the early hours of 4 October 1759, 142 British troops, under the command of Major Robert Rogers, approached a large Native American settlement at Odanak on the Saint Francois river, some seventy miles south west of Quebec. Noticing that the Abenaki villagers were busily engaged in celebrations, the Redcoats waited until…

1940-1949 | Battlefield butchery | Burning towns and cities | Civilians slaughtered | Massacres | VIetnam

British kill hundreds of Vietnamese and burn large areas of Saigon

ByAlisdare Hickson

23 September 1945 On 23 September 1945, the British army in Vietnam backed a French coup in Saigon, the former capital of French Indo-China, with the aim of restoring colonial rule.  General Douglas Gracey with a force of British troops had arrived two weeks earlier on 6 September, soon after Japanese forces surrendered at the…

1800-1859 | Civilians slaughtered | India | Looting and plunder | Massacres | Prisoners murdered | Wounded killed

At least one thousand slaughtered as British troops sack Delhi

ByAlisdare Hickson

20 September 1857 Today in 1857, after a week of fierce street fighting, British troops under General Sir Archdale Wilson finally obtained the surrender of the remaining pockets of Indian Mutineers still holding out in the city.  Much of the city had already been sacked and many murdered in their homes [see 13 September 1857]….

1500-1799 | Battlefield butchery | Civilians slaughtered | Massacres | Prisoners murdered | Wounded killed

Cromwell massacres thousands of soldiers and civilians at Drogheda

ByAlisdare Hickson

11 September 1649 Historian Micheál Ó Siochrú, in his book God’s Executioner: Oliver Cromwell and the Conquest of Ireland, writes that ‘the storming of Drogheda (by British parliamentary forces) on 11 September shocked contemporary opinion and established Cromwell’s reputation for cruelty and savagery, which has persisted until the present day.’1 Although now forgotten by most people in…

1920-1939 | Burning villages | Civilians slaughtered | Flogging | Massacres | Palestine | Torture

20 Arabs killed when British troops force a bus to drive over a mine

ByAlisdare Hickson

7 September 1938 Shortly before the dawn on the morning of 7 September 1938, a company of the Royal Ulster Rifles (RUR), backed by several Rolls Royce armoured cars belonging to the 11th Hussars, surrounded the Palestinian village of al-Bassa, a large settlement of about two thousand Christian and Muslim Arabs located near the Lebanese…

1800-1859 | Burning towns and cities | Civilians slaughtered | Crimes against women | Looting and plunder | Rape | Spain

British sack San Sebastian, killing at least a thousand and raping the women

ByAlisdare Hickson

31 August 1813 On 31 August 1813, British troops, under the command of the legendary Arthur Wellesley, Marquess of Wellington, ransacked, looted and burned their way into the Basque town of San Sebastian, killing an unknown number of civilians, but later estimated by historians to have been at least a thousand. A census of the…

1970-1979 | Civilians slaughtered | Northern Ireland

Six, including priest, shot dead by British troops in West Belfast

ByAlisdare Hickson

9 August 1971 On 9 August 1971, six civilians ranging in age from 19 to 50 years, including Hugh Mullan, a Catholic priest, and Joan Connolly, a 45 year old grandmother, were shot dead in West Belfast by soldiers of the Parachute Regiment during a mass round up of Catholic men on the Ballymurphy estate….