Posted on 03/14/2010 3:21:41 PM PDT by naturalman1975
A PARLIAMENTARY committee will today consider a petition calling for a crown pardon for Breaker Morant and two other Australian soldiers court-martialled during the Boer War more than 100 years ago.
The vexed question is to be considered at a public hearing of the House of Representatives petitions committee later today.
Harry Morant, Peter Handcock and George Witton were tried and convicted by a British military courts martial in 1902 for executing Boer prisoners of war.
Morant and Handcock subsequently were executed by firing squad in Pretoria.
(Excerpt) Read more at heraldsun.com.au ...
Handcock and Witton are slightly more complicated. While both held commissions, having come up through the ranks, neither had the type of education that allows us to assume they knew what they were doing was outside the laws of war. They may well have followed Morant's orders believing he had the full authority to give them.
Don't get me wrong - I believe Morant was shafted. Other officers who committed similar crimes were cashiered and sent home, not executed. Morant and Handcock were scapegoats. But they were guilty, and Morant knew what he was doing.
On the other hand, Officers in the high command and members of parlaiment who kept boer women and children hostage in unsanitary camps while disease swept through and slaughtered them, SHOULD have been executed and were not.
Sort of a British “trail of tears” to live down.
Yes, there were some atrocities at higher levels as well. There often are in wars. But just because everybody who should have faced trial didn’t, isn’t a reason to pardon those who did.
But if he received orders to execute Boer prisoners, why shouldn’t he be pardoned?
Yes, it was a crime. But put yourself in his shoes. What would you have done?
I don’t understand why Morant’s ability to put a couple of sentences together and make them rhyme makes him more ‘educated’ and thus more culpable for his actions.
Other than that, I think you are right. The government over here has been reluctant to grant pardons to British soldiers shot for cowardice during WWI, not because we don’t all know that the executions weren’t monstrous acts, but because they were technically guilty of the offences for which they were sentenced. The best that could be done symbolically would be some kind of posthumous commutation of death sentence to a lesser punishment (although doing that might seem a bitterly insulting irony)....
Those deaths were acts of carelessness, not a deliberate attempt at extermination.
It was basically an act of manslaughter, not murder....
If such orders were given (and I believe they were but it has never actually been proven to the extent a court would require) the orders were illegal. An officer should not obey an illegal order, and in such cases, "I was only following orders" is no defence.
Secondly, evidence at the trial makes it quite clear that Morant did not order the shooting of Boer prisoners because of these orders, but because he wanted revenge following the death of a close friend of his.
There was also the case of Visse - which Morant admitted - in which the defence of "following orders" couldn't have applied anyway.
Yes, it was a crime. But put yourself in his shoes. What would you have done?
Having accepted the surrender of the Boers, I'd have delivered them into the custody of those who were handling POWs.
If I really wanted to kill them, I wouldn't have given them the chance to surrender.
I can't claim any real expertise in this matter (or any like it).In Army Basic Combat Training (*many* years ago) we were taught that there were orders..."unlawful orders"...that need not/should not be obeyed.Having been an Army desk jockey (Personnel Specialist) I was never,as far as I can see,issued such an order.
But Major Thomas' closing statement was convincing,IMO.All three were junior officers who,clearly,had direct orders from Captains Hunt and Taylor that no prisoners were to be taken and,furthermore,were told by Hunt and Taylor that those orders were straight from the Commanding General of all British and Colonial forces in SA himself.There was also the matter of Colonel Hall and his transfer to India,among many other things.
In the bit of research I did on the subject after last week's viewing I learned that the trial transcript and other important documents regarding the case mysteriously disappeared many years ago.If true I think that *alone* casts major suspicion on how "clean" Kitchner's hands were in all this.
But then,not being schooled in Australian military history as you are,naturalman,my opinions may well mean less than nothing here.
If these had been combattants there might have been room for debate.
Under the circumstances that prevailed your equivocation bears no more merit than those who equivocate for that poor physician under orders, Mengele.
It doesn't - the fact he had a full education is what makes him educated - neither Handcock nor Witton were educated beyond the age of 12. Not uncommon in those days, but they were not fully educated. Morant was. He was also commissioned as an officer while within Australia, and trained as an officer. They received battlefield commissions and none of the training in matters of laws and Queen's Regulations that Morant had had.
Comparing what happened in the Boer War camps to Josef Mengele’s evil and wilfully cruel experiments is ridiculous. Sure, there is a degree of culpability on the part of the British authorities for not providing adequate facilities to prevent the loss of life in the camps, but to call it murder would need some demonstrable evidence that there was a deliberate policy of killing the prisoners through malicious intent, rather than simply as the result of incompetence and inadequate resources.
What you are doing is the equivalent of trying to have someone who killed someone as the result of drunk driving responsible for an act of first degree murder instead of manslaughter or causing death by dangerous driving (or vehicular homicide in the US)....
It's a good movie and pretty accurate, although I find it a bit confusing when it comes to the verdicts.
I can't claim any real expertise in this matter (or any like it).In Army Basic Combat Training (*many* years ago) we were taught that there were orders..."unlawful orders"...that need not/should not be obeyed.Having been an Army desk jockey (Personnel Specialist) I was never,as far as I can see,issued such an order.
Most service people never are - but the principle that an unlawful order should not be obeyed was understood in Morant's time, just as it is taught today.
But Major Thomas' closing statement was convincing,IMO.All three were junior officers who,clearly,had direct orders from Captains Hunt and Taylor that no prisoners were to be taken and,furthermore,were told by Hunt and Taylor that those orders were straight from the Commanding General of all British and Colonial forces in SA himself.There was also the matter of Colonel Hall and his transfer to India,among many other things.
The problem is that Morant did take prisoners, and then he executed them. Yes, he probably had orders not to take prisoners - but if so, he violated them. He accepted the surrender of the Boers and then had them shot.
There were actually four charges levelled against Morant - the "eight Boers case" "the three Boers case" "the Visse case" and "the Hesse case."
Morant was found guilty over the deaths of the "eight Boers" and "Visse". He was found not guilty of the murder of Hesse. The "three Boers" case was never concluded, but acquittal in that case was likely as the "three Boers" had never been taken prisoner - and that made a big difference. The eight Boers had surrendered and their surrender had been accepted. They were prisoners.
With regards to the execution of Visse, Visse was wearing British Khaki, and as the senior officer on the scene, Morant might have had the convene a drumhead court martial, and then shoot him if he was found guilty (whether Morant had that right depends on judgements as to how practical it was to send Visse for trial elsewhere - if it was totally impractical, Morant had the right). Morant had sufficient officers available to him to do that. He didn't. At Morant's trial, a very serious question was asked that the movie tends to gloss over - whether the 'court martial' Morant held followed the rules. If Morant had made every reasonable effort to hold his court martial properly (as properly as such a trial could be held in the field) he'd have probably been acquitted. The fact he didn't make even a minimal effort to do so destroyed his defence.
Morant said himself at his trial: "You can't blame the young 'uns. They only did as I told them. They just carried out their orders and that they had to do. They obeyed my orders and thought they were obeying Lord Kitchener's. Captain Hunt told me not to bring in prisoners. I did not carry out those orders until my best friend was brutally murdered. Then I resolved to carry out orders. But if anybody is to blame it is me."
He was right.
A damn good movie. One of the most shocking endings to a movie.
It is a great movie and Woodward was terrific in it.
Agreed and agreed.As I always say..."the Brits have the theater in their blood".And,from what I've seen,so do the Aussies.If you ever get the chance,check out "A Town Like Alice" starring Bryan Brown (Lieutenant Handcock).It's about 5 hours long but it's *outstanding*!
I write this message while sitting in the front garden of the former home of Neville Shute, author of “A Town Like Alice” and “On the Beach.”
Interesting.But please don't tell us that it's 80 degrees and sunny now.Here in New England it's pouring outside and as cold as a witch's...handshake.
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