Julian Putkowski

Julian Putkowski (born 1947) is a British university teacher, military historian, researcher, and broadcaster. He has written extensively on military executions in World War I. Life Putkowski graduated from the University of Essex in 1976. He has since then been researching military discipline and dissent. In 1989, he was co-author, with Julian Sykes, of Shot at Dawn: Executions in World War I by Authority of the British Army Act. The publication of the book led indirectly to renewed public interest in the topic of soldiers executed during the war, culminating in the issue of pardons to 306 men who were shot for various offenses, including cowardice.

Later, Putkowski wrote a book entitled Murderous Tommies with Mark Dunning, a lawyer interested in British Army capital courts martial cases. Murderous Tommies is also about the First World War, and gives an account of 13 soldiers who committed homicide in France and Flanders.