Breaker Morant (1980) By F.M. Cutlack
 
Harry "Breaker" Harbord Morant (born Edwin Henry Murrant, 9 December 1864 – 27 February 1902) was an Anglo-Australian drover, horseman, bush poet and military officer, who was convicted and executed for murder during the Second Anglo-Boer War.
 
While serving with the Bushveldt Carbineers during the Second Anglo-Boer War, Lieutenant Morant was arrested and court-martialled for war crimes—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.
 
He was accused of the summary execution of Floris Visser, a wounded prisoner of war, and the slaying of four Afrikaners and four Dutch schoolteachers who had been taken prisoner at the Elim Hospital. Morant was found guilty and sentenced to death.
 
Lieutenants Morant and Peter Handcock were then court-martialled for the murder of the Rev. Carl August Daniel Heese, a South African-born Minister of the Berlin Missionary Society. Rev. Heese had spiritually counseled 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 Floris Visser and the eight victims at Elim Hospital 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 movie by director Bruce Beresford.
 
Upon its release during 1980, Beresford's movie 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 the 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.
 
Soft Cover
176 Pages
Good condition