Interested in finding out more about the story

Hi,

I came across your post just now and thought I'd respond to some of your queries. More detail is available in my posting in response to `did handcock kill the boer priest?'...... but...

My interest in the story was sparked by reading Nick Bleszynski's excellent book `Shoot Straight, You Bastards!'. My advice however is to be careful of what you take as fact and fiction in his book... the italics bits are mostly made up. I spoke with Nick about a year ago and he put me in touch with some acknowledged experts in the field who all chorused that he muddied the waters with his poetic license and they literally begged him not to. The book is however exceptionally well researched and every page shows another potential cover-up or mistake - But double check your facts if something from Nick's book sparks your interest.

Armed with the detail from this book I wrote a new stage play on the subject... So I read George Witton's historical account Scapegoats Of The Empire' (George is the soldier who was tried, convicted.. but not shot. I believe this book is on project guttenberg but if you can find one the 1982 edition sells for about A$300. George's book is unfortunately, again, full of factul errors and poetic licence as certain sequences of events simply could not have happened. It was also written by somebody intent of maintaining his (and Morant's and Handcock's) innocence - Even though he later admitted to Major Thomas (the defence lawyer) that Handcock had confessed to him over the priest's murder. My opinion is that it was as much to stop Thomas from writing his own book as anything else. I also read Kenneth Ross' play `Breaker Morant' and Kit Denton's 2 books `The Breaker' and `Closed File'.... There were more documents but they were all military records and journals too.

I am of the view that at the end of the day Morant and Handcock (and to a certin extent Witton and Picton and Taylor etc. etc.) performed the acts for which they were tried in a number of separte courts martial. The British did not overtly taint the proceedings IMHO. The issue that Major Thomas raises re: condonation however is very important because as he states in the movie the fact the defendants were called to do their duty during the trial should have exonnerated them totally... Truth is, that the issue was not raised during the trial at all because Thomas had never heard of it (not being a military lawyer) and the judges didn't feel they should bring it to his atention. They wanted some scalps to save face for what had gone on in the region... Morant's and Handcocks would have to do - Since the one they really wanted (Major Lenehan) had not been `ratted on' by Morant and Handcock.

Should the mean have been shot based on the facts? - Yes. Should they have ben shot based on the true application of military law? - No.

The facts of the story aren't known by many people outside of the movie. Many will never be known anyway. The fact is that it's a very convoluted story and few peole have much of a grasp of it... There's a voting system at the Australian War Memorial though. I belive the machine asks - Should Breaker Morant have ben executed?.. The responses from people who have voted is roughly 50% yes and 50% no.

The movie is true to the events that occurred `in essence' only. Funny thing is though that the more I watch the film the more accurate it seems to be. There were multiple trials and many more issues than just the idea of following orders.

According to the manual of militry law at the time, a soldier ought not to obey an order that he knows to be illegal. This of course opens up a huge can of worms, especially given the caliber of man who signed up for the Bushveldt Carbineers (Morant's unit). I don't know what the current law is but I suspect it hasn't changed much.

This movie and the facts around it would make for an excellent seminar in my opinion.

B

You can find a copy of Witton's book "Scapegoats of the Empire" on the Guttenberg project Australia. Just type "Scapegoats of the Empire Guttenberg project" into a search engine and you'll find it. It's an interesting read. And as the previous poster wrote there are some parts which wax poetic. I find those parts to be tolerable however.

My public library has a copy of "The Breaker" by Kit Denton. I'm in the middle of reading that.

From what I know the movie is basically an allegory for scapegoats. Even though the defendants were guilty of the murders and had been acting in their belief (possibly questionable) and in accordance with the ambiguous but implied intent of higher powers, politically the wind changed and their fate was set. Although the defendants were no angels, if they deserved to be shot people further up the ladder deserved it as well. But the world doesn't turn that way.

It is similar in context to the Abu Ghabi court martials in your country at present. The perpetrators of the violence in the prisons were foot soldiers only, and obviously guilty of abuse, but was there an implied approval from on high until the poo hit the fan? The soldiers themselves are then put in the untenable position of either taking their punishment stoically, 'as all good soldiers should', or spilling the beans to an entrenched system that will absolutely cruel them as whistle-blowers. No choice, really!

The book the movie was based on (The Breaker) was written by Kit Denton, the late father of Andrew Denton who is quite a well known TV personality, commentator and tragic South Sydney rugby league fan here in sunny Australia. As a useless piece of trivia, Andrew Denton also once interviewed ex-President Bill Clinton on our TV when the one time Hot Springs lothario was out here.

The final point I want to make is that our freedom loving government is trying to bring in strict anti-terrorism legislation in the next few weeks (initially slotted in for Parliamentary decision late Tuesday afternoon next until public uproar caused otherwise: the second Tuesday of November in Australia I might add is Melbourne Cup Day, the biggest horse race in the country and basically the day the country stops and everyone gets pissed, so a perfect time to bring in draconian laws). These draft laws were not even made public ("for security reasons") until one of the Territory Ministers, who had been cursorily briefed, placed the draft on the net. The salient point is that one of the many impositions proposed is sedition (5 years and up) for denigrating the Crown (that is Queen Liz in London, not even a citizen of this country and last here at the 2000 Olympics). Notwithstanding the ambiguities of defining what sedition is, the irony is evident; if these laws had been passed 30 years, Breaker Morant would not/could not have been made. Simple as that!

"I am also surprised that Austalia could allow the British government to execute Australian citizens. Didn't the Australian govt. make any attempt to intervene on the side of Morant and Handcock? It didn't seem to be mentioned in the film."

One of the outcomes of this was that in WWI the British were no longer allowed to punish Australian troops.