Scapegoats of the Empire: The True Story of Breaker Morant's Bushveldt Carbineers [Paperback]

The phrase "Scapegoats" was attributed to the prisoners by Morant during his legal defense of the murder charges. He and his fellows never contested that they had executed the prisoners; however, they maintained until the end that they were following verbal orders which had been issued to Morant that all Boer prisoners were to be summarily executed. Unfortunately for the prisoners, the officer who relayed those orders to Morant was killed in combat, and could not testify for the accused.

The trio absolutely denied the killing of the missionary.

Morant, who apparantly was a published Australian newspaperman of some note, and Hancock were executed. Witton was sentenced to life imprisonment - a sentence whch was reduced to a couple of years, following the end of the War.

The principle theme of the book and the story is that the British govenment wanted to end the unpopular war, and wanted to bring Germany to the Brit's side by convicting the prisoners for the murder of the German missionary.

Witton tells us that the missonary was, in deed, murdered by Hancock (on Morant's orders) - while the other prisoners were formally - and legally - executed.

Witton's slender volumn includes numerous photos of the principal characters of the story. His prose is stark in the telling of injustice.

While the truth of Witton's story is much less sympathetic toward Morant than either the film or the Kit Denton play on which it was based, the book still brings home the brutality and savagery of war.

If you liked the movie - you'll love the book.

A couple weeks later the book arrived, and I opened the package wondering what I'd find within. To my delight, I uncovered an extremely well-made book, nicely bound, printed on cream paper, with a handsome sepia dustjacket. Already I was feeling much better, and I hadn't even read the book...

But, oh my goodness! What a story! An eyewitness retelling of the entire incident by one of the participants, the book is like a dagger plunged into the hypocritical heart of an empire on its last legs. For those unfamiliar with the incident, it occurred during the Boer war in South Africa just after the turn of the century, when a unit of the empire's troops comprised of British and Australian soldiers, ostensibly following orders, executed a number of Boer soldiers who had been taken prisoner in the field.

The incident became a cause celebrè, with everyone in power doing their best to distance themselves, and a court-martial resulted. Seven officers were tried, 3 Australian and 4 British. The British all were let go with dishonorable discharges; the three Australians were sentenced to death. Two were executed by firing squad in Pretoria, South Africa and the third, Lt. George Witton, had his sentence commuted to life in prison. Three years later, the British House of Commons overturned Witton's conviction, and he returned to Australia a free but deeply troubled man.

"Scapegoats of the Empire" is his story, a matter-of-fact recounting of the events as he recalled them, and it is in effect a scathing indictment of the supposedly "noble" institution of British Law, and of the men who ran the Empire. The book's extraordinarily relevant right now, in 2004, as we watch our own government going through contortions of self-justifcation over our latest (mis)adventures in Iraq.

There's nothing new under the sun: a must-read!