A PETITION for the pardon of Harry ''Breaker'' Morant and Peter Handcock, Australian soldiers executed by the British for the murder of prisoners in the dying days of the Boer War, has been forwarded to the Queen by the Attorney-General, Robert McClelland.
Prepared by the military lawyer Commander James Unkles, with the writer Nick Bleszynski, the petition argues that the convictions of lieutenants Morant and Handcock, and that of Lieutenant George Witton, whose sentence was commuted, were unsafe; that their trial was unfair; that mistakes were made by the judge advocate; that the men's right to petition for mercy to the king was ignored, and that the Australian government was deliberately kept ignorant of the trial until after the executions.
According to Unkles and Bleszynski, the petition is the first comprehensive legal analysis of the case, though much of the history surrounding it is well known.
Morant was born in England but found fame as a horse-breaker and poet in Australia in the 1890s. He was known as something of a scoundrel, a charming man but a heavy drinker, poet and womaniser, a man not to lend money to.
There is still a Breaker Bar at the Renmark Hotel in South Australia, named for the time Morant rode his horse into the upstairs bar on a bet.Having volunteered to fight with the English against the Boers in South Africa, Morant was one of many Australians drafted into irregular units to fight.
Morant's unit was known as the Bushveldt Carbineers and by the time he was attached to it it was known to be an ill-disciplined and even murderous mob. Perversely, Morant was credited with returning it to military order.By then the war had turned ugly. In 1900 the British commander, Lord Roberts, had declared it almost over, yet it dragged on.
The new commander, Lord Kitchener, ordered ruthless tactics to quell the Boers, including sending their families to concentration camps and, according to the Australian officers' defence, shooting prisoners.According to Bleszynski's book, Shoot Straight, You Bastards!, Morant ignored the order until after his friend, Lieutenant Hunt, was killed and his body mutilated.
The three were arrested in October 1901 and charged with the murder of 12 Boer prisoners and a German missionary, Reverend Daniel Hesse.Their court martial found them not guilty of Hesse's murder but guilty of the other charges. Despite that it recommended mercy. Against tradition, Kitchener ignored the recommendation and had them shot.
''The most aggravating and painful feature of the trial is that the last court martial was completed on February 19,'' says Unkles.
''Kitchener reviewed the trial, confirmed the orders and signed the death warrants on the 25th. They were not told until that night, 12 hours before they were executed. They never had a chance to appeal.''Edmund Barton, Australia's prime minister, was not informed until April when he received a brief cable from Kitchener.
Bleszynski and Unkles are among those who believe Kitchener wanted Morant and Handcock shot to discredit their claims that he had ordered the execution of prisoners, to facilitate peace talks with the Boers, and to appease Germany, which was considering entering the war.But theirs is not a unanimous view.
Historian Craig Wilcox wrote last year: ''Whether Morant and Handcock deserved to die is open to question, but only on the grounds of whether capital punishment is moral or not.''
Just or not, the executions probably saved the 119 Australian soldiers charged with desertion in the Great War. So great was the outcry that no Australian government ever again allowed a foreign power to shoot its men.
Morant's view is perhaps best understood by a poem he wrote while in the Pretoria stockade:
If you encounter any Boers
You really must not loot 'em,
And, if you wish to leave these shores,
For pity's sake, don't shoot 'em.
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