K.B.D. 386; R. v. Portobello Barracks C.O. Ex parte Erskine Childers [1923], I Irish Rep. 5, and R. v. Strickland [1921], 2 Irish Rep. 317).
The whole subject of martial law—or rather the extent to which its enforcement is justified--provoked a blaze of excitement in the year 1919, as the result of the action of Gen. Dyer on April 13 of that year in ordering his troops to fire, with decisive results, on a bloodthirsty mob who, for several days, had been terrorizing the peaceful inhabitants of Amritsar in the Punjab province of India. As the result of the agitation of the Indian extremists, a committee of enquiry was appointed, whose constitution and procedure were, in the language of Lord Finlay, "most unseemly." As the result of the committee's report, the India Office, which acted with gross cowardice, removed Gen. Dyer from the army. The whole matter subsequently came under review in a debate in the House of Lords (41 H.L. Deb. 5 S. 222), which, by a large majority, approved the action of Gen. Dyer. Later on in the case of O'Dwyer v. Nair (unreported) an English jury, after a masterly summing up by Mr. Justice McCardie, vindicated the
action of Gen. Dyer, which was one of the points at issue, and awarded heavy damages to Sir Michael O'Dwyer, the lieutenant governor of the Punjab under whose authority Gen. Dyer acted, against the defendant who had written a book describing the action of both these distinguished public servants as an "atrocity." The main point at issue in all this was whether Gen. Dyer used "un necessary force," and the view was strongly expressed in the House of Lords by Lord Sumner that under modern conditions, with all their possibilities of rapid propaganda and equally rapid communication, a soldier, placed like Gen. Dyer, was entitled to take into account the possibility—and in this case the extreme probability—of a general rising if he did not take stern measures. Public opinion, when not clouded by political considerations, has entirely endorsed this view and it is widely held that the action of Sir Michael O'Dwyer and Gen. Dyer "saved India."