The harshness of British military justice seems to have had the desired effect of deterring indiscipline — in general. But this was precisely how Britain’s Irish soldiers increasingly came to view the offence of deserting their unit. This stark shift was mirrored widely: after the Rising, Irish military recruitment collapsed, and subsequent British attempts to impose conscription faltered. What Chen discovered is that, on the Western Front, Britain’s punishment of Irish revolutionaries at home had the effect of inverting the whole concept of British punishment as a deterrent. The Irish volunteers’ reaction to the British punishment of militant republicans tells us that official justice is fragile.