The true story behind the execution of Lieutenants Harry Harbor Morant and Peter Joseph Handcock at Pretoria Gail on February 27, 1902 has passed into Australian folklore.
Were the two Australian officers, in fact scapegoats for the British Empire? Did the British Government sacrifice their lives to appease the militaristic Germans?
In Closed File Denton describes the circumstances that led to the Boer War; recruiting in Australia: the political situation in Britain at the turn of the century; Kitchener’s tactics; the birth of guerilla warfare: and reconstructs the incidents for which Morant and Handcock were members, was an unorthodox corps; so too was the enemy it was formed to fight. If its tactics were ‘not quite cricket’, its members were provoked to the extreme by a ruthless and unprincipled enemy. Morant and Handcock may well have been guilty of war crimes; but there is strong evidence that they were following both orders and precedent. Their execution, following their conviction by a Court of Inquiry, was swift and summary.
Kit Denton analyses the consequences of the court martial and describes the lives of the rest of the men involved in the affair. He concludes with the line ‘Perhaps now they may rest in peace’.
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