Breaker Morant

rdf:langString Breaker Morant

rdf:langString Harry "The Breaker" Morant

rdf:langString Harry "The Breaker" Morant

rdf:langString Bridgwater, Somerset, England, UK

rdf:langString POWs and civilians

rdf:langString Edwin Henry Murrant

rdf:langString Harry "The Breaker" Harbord Morant

rdf:langString December 2020

rdf:langString This is a bob sequitor - it needs amplification

rdf:langString Robert Poore

rdf:langString Daisy May O'Dwyer Daisy Bates

rdf:langString The Bushveldt Carbineers accepted the surrender of 8 Boers and after taking them along for some time shot them. If they had intended doing this they should not have accepted a surrender in the first instance. A German missionary was close by and so as to prevent him saying anything they shot him too. I just gave the outline of the case to lord K but it is a bad one.

rdf:langString Harry "The Breaker" Harbord Morant (born Edwin Henry Murrant, 9 December 1864 – 27 February 1902), more popularly known as Breaker Morant, was an Anglo-Australian drover, horseman, bush poet, military officer, and war criminal who was convicted and executed for murdering six prisoners-of-war (POWs) and three captured civilians in two separate incidents during the Second Anglo-Boer War. While serving as a lieutenant with the Bushveldt Carbineers, Morant was arrested and court-martialled for committing murder on active service – one of the first such prosecutions in British military history. According to military prosecutors, Morant retaliated for the death in combat of his commanding officer with a series of revenge killings against both Boer POWs and many civilian residents of the Northern Transvaal. Morant's defence attorney, Major James Francis Thomas, demanded the acquittal of his clients under what is now called the Nuremberg Defence, alleging that his clients could not be held legally or morally responsible because they only followed orders. Morant was accused of the summary execution of Floris Visser, a wounded POW, and the slaying of four Afrikaners and four Dutch schoolteachers who had surrendered at the Elim Hospital, five of whom were members of the Soutpansberg Commando. Morant was found guilty and sentenced to death. Morant and Lieutenant Peter Handcock were then court-martialled for the murder of the Reverend Carl August Daniel Heese, a South African-born Minister of the Berlin Missionary Society. Heese had spiritually counselled the Dutch and Afrikaner victims at Elim Hospital and had been shot to death the same afternoon. Morant and Handcock were acquitted of the Heese murder, but their sentences for murdering Visser, the eight victims at Elim Hospital, and three others were implemented by a firing squad from the Cameron Highlanders on 27 February 1902. Morant and Handcock have become folk heroes in modern Australia, representing a turning point for Australians' self-determination and independence from British rule. Their court-martial and death have been the subject of books, a stage play and an award-winning Australian New Wave film by director Bruce Beresford. Upon its release during 1980, Beresford's film both brought Morant's life story to a worldwide audience and "hoisted the images of the accused officers to the level of Australian icons and martyrs". Despite the seriousness of the evidence and charges against them, some modern Australians regard Morant and Handcock as scapegoats or even as victims of judicial murder. They continue to attempt, with some public support, to obtain a posthumous pardon or even a new trial. According to South African historian Charles Leach, "In the opinion of many South Africans, particularly descendants of victims as well as other involved persons in the far Northern Transvaal, justice was only partially achieved by the trial and the resultant sentences. The feeling still prevails that not all the guilty parties were dealt with – the notorious Captain Taylor being the most obvious one of all."

rdf:langString August