Book Review: The First World War, Shell Shock, and Crime

In his second article for The Commandant, contributor Cameron Telch reviews Robert James Clark's Fiendish Crime: A True Story of Shell Shock and Murder.

As the grandson of a Canadian Great War veteran, Robert James Clark knows the struggles of former servicemembers who do not discuss their war experiences with their family and suffer psychologically in silence for decades. Clark tells the story of George Allen Chisholm, a Canadian shell-shocked veteran, in Fiendish Crime: A True Story of Shell Shock and Murder. In this work, Clark reveals that Chisholm was shell-shocked and gassed at the Battle of Vimy Ridge in April 1917 and never fully recovered psychologically. In the years after the war, Chisholm displayed erratic behaviours related to his shell shock condition, including excessive drinking, anger, irritation, and infidelity. With the end of his marriage and the beginning of his next relationship with his mistress, Helen Lawrence, in East Chicago, Indiana, Chisholm’s symptoms worsened, and he murdered his young sons, George and Edgar Chisholm, in February 1928. With the Chisholm murder cases, Clark demonstrates the plight of shell-shocked veterans who were “traumatized by their experiences in the Great War” and did not prevail over their internal scars (12).

            What makes Clark’s book significant is the archival sources he utilizes. The author’s use of multiple newspapers from the East Chicago area makes the text an original contribution to the historiography of shell shock. These sources and Clark’s analysis of them reveal Chisolm’s psychological suffering: “Chisholm was, according to a journalist, a ‘trembling, crying, fear-ridden wreck” and “he ‘was unable to control his vocal organs’” that “some fear he may not live through the ordeal” (108). The murders of his sons and the guilt he felt tormented Chisholm’s mind. His symptoms worsened throughout the murder investigations as Chisholm became overtly emotional and could not fathom the consequences of his actions. Clark’s analysis of “Insanity Plea of Father Who Drowned Sons” in the March 5, 1928, edition of the Lake County Times reveals that Chisholm’s defence lawyers knew that he suffered from severe shell shock and was beyond saving as he was not mentally stable before the murders.

At the center of Clark’s book is the question of mental health and accountability in the American judicial system. Citing multiple murder cases throughout the 1920s, including the infamous 1927 Walter Scholl case and the murder of his two children, Clark reveals that the U.S. justice system was plagued with a mental health epidemic. Clark demonstrates that many accused criminals relied on the insanity defence, the argument that criminals were mentally ill and could not rationalize and comprehend the consequences of their actions. Relying on the insanity defence, which Chisholm utilized, demonstrates the complexities of mental health and where justice needs to be upheld. Clark’s analysis of “Slayer of Sons Get Life Term” in the May 29, 1928, edition of the Indianapolis Star shows that mental health was a delicate matter as the court contemplated “that there ‘were other interests to be served besides society’” in the Chisholm murder cases (157). It appeared that there were ethics involved when deciding the fate of an accused murderer and ensuring that justice was carried out. In the case of Scholl, for example, Clark shows that the court delicately balanced mental health and accountability while serving the interests of society when deciding their verdict: “[Judge] Crumpacker did believe that Scholl was in ‘an abnormal mental state’ and that a life sentence was commensurate with recent legal precedents” (151).

Hidden beneath the legal proceedings in Clark’s book is the stigmatization of mental health. Even after the shell shock crisis of the First World War, mental health attitudes did not change. Veterans like Chisholm were marginalized for their mental suffering throughout the 1920s. With shell shock being associated with insanity, Clark implies that shell-shocked veterans were perceived as having inherited a mental disease or possessed a weakened character deficiency. American newspapers revealed that many veterans could not recover from their trauma and live meaningful lives: “Though [Chisholm] recovered to face the enemy again in the World War, so the theory ran, he did not recover sufficiently” (169). The negative portrayal of mental health in the media suggested that returned veterans with psychological trauma were dangerous and a threat to society.

A Fiendish Crime is a sad narrative of a returned veteran and his mental health struggles in post-war America. It is highly recommendable for anyone interested in the history of shell shock. The book is written in an engaging chronological manner that will keep readers hooked until they reach Chisholm’s verdict. Readers will embark on a journey of learning through Chisholm’s perspective and discover the stigmatization of mental health. The book’s use of primary sources provides depictions of the haunting realities for so many veterans with shell shock and other mental health disorders. Clark does not hesitate to present the psychological suffering of Chisholm to reveal the plight of shell-shocked veterans.