The Boer Wars
A life of Crime
The popular view of Harold "breaker" Morant is coloured by his invented history, and the 1980 movie by Bruce Beresford, starring Edward Woodward.
According to Morant, he was the illegitimate son of a lord, a claim the lord denied vehemntly. His father ran a workhouse in Devon, England.
Morant was a serial bigamist with several wives. He had massive debts from gambling, and joined the British Army to escape debtors prison.
In some ways, he was a scapegoat, his execution kept Germany out of the Boer Wars, wars the British were losing. But, before you feel sorry for him, he was responsible for the deaths of EIGHT Boer prisoners, a nuetral German priest, who was going to report the killings, and an innocent Black boy, who happened across the murders. So, he was responsible for the actions which lead to his execution, even if the trial was only a show trial

No comments:
Post a Comment