Breaker Morant
A scapegoat
Sometimes, the line between war hero and criminal, is settled by who wins the war, not so with the case for Breaker Morant during the Boer Wars.
I watched on Netflix a series from Serbia about a newspaper, and the battles an editor faces, during the Serbo - Croat war, the man was a hero for the Serbians, but when the Croatians took over, he became a reviled criminal on the run.
The case against Morant was clear as glass, he did commit war crimes, he admitted it. His defence rested on his assertion he was following verbal orders, no written orders have been found.
What were his crimes?
A few days prior to the events which lead to his trial, a bothched raid lead by his friend, Captain Simon Hunt ended with Hunt's men being killed during a raid on a supposed Boer position. News, not only of the killings, but of Hunt's body being dismemberred shook Morant, to the extent, without official orders he ordered the deaths of EIGHT Boer prisoners.
This lead to a raid on the camp by the Boers, in which Morant and Lt. Peter Hancock fought valiantly. The problem was the unlawful killing of the Boers had been witnessed by a German priest, who had to be silenced, along with a coloured rider who saw the incident. Morant had now ordered the deaths of two innocent people to protect his actions.
The trial was a farce, there is no doubt Morant was guilty, but his lawyer was a civillian, who until the night before knew nothing of the case. Morant was a scapegoat, the government didn't want to drag Germany into a conflict they were already losing. It would have caused a royal scandal, Queen Victoria had stong links to the throne of Germany
No comments:
Post a Comment