Home Forums Hunting & Shooting Australia Breaker Morant

One of my favorite movies is "Breaker Morant." How well known, and thought of is he in Australia? Captdavid[u][/u]

Damn good movie

Bryan Brown was also in the WWII movie 'Australia' opposite Nicole Kidman. He's a very good actor.

If it weren't for the movie most people here wouldn't know about him.

Sitting in the DVD collection as we speak.
Reminds me a lot of the movie Gallipoli w/Mel Gibson. Seems like the colonials were always getting crapped on.





"Shoot straight, Ya, Bastards !"

Lieutenant Henry Harboard (Harry) 'The Breaker' Morant was in fact an Englishman,
hence likely why Australians don't care much for such history...on top of the fact that
despite the Boer War being Australias first war as a nation( federation occurred in 1901
during the Boer war) it remains mostly a forgotten war by Australians.

Prior to 1901 federation, the separate colonies independently supplied their own
voluntary militia units for the Boer War.

1864, born Bridgewater Summerset, UK.
1883, arrived in Aus.
1899, signed up to 2nd Contingent, South Australian Mounted Rifles.
Boer war service 1899-1902...his 1899 enlistment ended after 12 months
where he return to UK..then returned to the Boer War under a commission.

He had earned himself a reputation for shooting prisoners, looting and
insubordination even before the incidences that he faced military trial for.

Prior to enlisting he is remembered as a womaniser and frequent welsher on his debts,
and of course a horse breaker.

http://www.smh.com.au/nsw/breaker-morant-relics-found-on-rubbish-tip-20160422-gocn1a.html

Boer War Australian Colonial Imperial forces prior to 1901

Colony of New South Wales:

New South Wales Lancers - Cavalry
New South Wales Army Medical Corps -
'A' Squadron NSW Mounted Rifles -Mounte dinifantry
New South Wales Mounted Infantry (later "E"Sqn) Mounted Infantry (+ 1 machine gun section)
First Australian Horse -Cavalry
'A' Bty. New South Wales Artillery
First New South Wales Mounted Rifles-Mounted Infantry
New South Wales Citizens' Bushmen - Mounted Infantry
New South Wales Imperial Bushmen - Mounted Infantry
Second New South Wales Mounted Rifles - Mounted Infantry (+ 1 machine gun section)
Third New South Wales Imperial Bushmen -Mounted Infantry
Third New South Wales Mounted Rifles Mounted Infantry (+ 1 machine gun section)
Special Service Officers (NSW)

Colony of Queensland

1st Queensland Mounted Infantry -Mounted Infantry
2nd Queensland Mounted Infantry -Mounted Infantry
Queensland Citizen Bushmen (later) 3rd Queensland Mounted Infantry / 2nd Bushmen Regimen -Mounted Infantry
Queensland Imperial Bushmen - Mounted Infantry
5th Queensland Imperial Bushmen -Mounted Infantry / Bicycle Infantry, arrived with 3 mounted squadrons/ 1 cyclist company
6th Queensland Imperial Bushmen - Mounted Infantry
7th Queensland Imperial Bushmen - Mounted Infantry, 7th Contingent was in fact drafts for 5th and 6th Contingents
Special Service Officers (Queensland)

Colony of South Australia

1st South Australian Mounted Rifles - Mounted Infantry
2nd South Australian Mounted Rifles - Mounted Infantry
South Australian Nurses
South Australian Citizens' Bushmen -Mounted Infantry
South Australian Imperial Bushmen -Mounted Infantry
5th South Australian Imperial Bushmen -Mounted Infantry Amalgamated with 6th SA Imperial Bushmen in May 1901.
6th South Australian Imperial Bushmen -Mounted Infantry Amalgamated with 5th SA Imperial Bushmen in May 1901.
Special Service Officers (South Australia)

Colony of Tasmania

Tasmanian Mounted Infantry - Mounted Infantry
Tasmanian Citizen Bushmen Mounted Infantry.
1st Tasmanian Imperial Bushmen -Mounted Infantry
2nd Tasmanian Imperial Bushmen - Mounted Infantry
Special Service Officers (Tasmania)

Colony of Victoria

1st Victorian Mounted Rifles -Mounted Infantry
2nd Victorian Mounted Rifles -Mounted Infantry
Victorian Citizen Bushmen -Mounted Infantry
Victorian Nurses
Victorian Imperial Bushmen (Australian Imperial Regiment) -Mounted Infantry
5th Victorian Mounted Rifles -Mounted Infantry
Recruits for Scottish Horse -Mounted Infantry
Special Service Officers (Victoria)

Colony of Western Australia

1st Western Australian Mounted Infantry -Mounted Infantry
2nd Western Australian Mounted Infantry -Mounted Infantry
Western Australian Citizen Bushmen' -Mounted Infantry
Western Australian Nurses
4th Western Australian Mounted Infantry (Imperial Bushmen) -Mounted Infantry
5th Western Australian Mounted Infantry -Mounted Infantry
6th Western Australian Mounted Infantry -Mounted Infantry

Post Federation COMMONWEALTH of AUSTRALIA FORCES- Boer War.

1st Australian Commonwealth Horse -Mounted Infantry
2nd Australian Commonwealth Horse -Mounted Infantry
Commonwealth Army Medical Corps recruited from NSW, QLD, SA, VIC, WA
3rd Australian Commonwealth Horse -Mounted Infantry did not see action
4th Australian Commonwealth Horse -Mounted Infantry 5 mounted rifle sqns (3 VIC, 1 SA, 1 WA); did not see action
5th Australian Commonwealth Horse -Mounted Infantry 4 mounted rifle sqns (all NSW); arrived after war ended
6th Australian Commonwealth Horse -Mounted Infantry 4 mounted rifle sqns (all VIC); arrived after war ended
7th Australian Commonwealth Horse -Mounted Infantry 4 mounted rifle sqns, (all QLD); arrived after war ended
8th Australian Commonwealth Horse - Mounted Infantry 4 mounted rifle sqns (2 SA, 1 WA, 1 TAS); arrived after war ended.

VCs awarded:

NSW Medical Corps- Neville Howse
1st Tasmanian Imperial Bushmen- Trooper John Hutton Bisdee, and Lieutenant Guy Wylly.
5th Victorian Mounted Rifles - Lt Leslie Maygar.
6th Western Australian Mounted Infantry - Lt frederick william Bell.

Yeah, he was just a murderous bastard. Didn't deserve being made famous by a movie.
Says a lot about Australia that its two most legendary characters are Breaker Morant and Ned Kelly, both of them actually just thieving murderers to be honest.

Morant is the most or 2nd most legendary Australian character?..where do you draw that conclusion from?
and if it wasn't for the English having their constant hate and mistreatment of the Irish , Kelly might not have
taken exception to it.

If you bother to read up on your British empire Kiwi colonial history, you will find it was the most lawless violent
white settlement in that part of the ocean under the British Empire.- It became so bad because:

1./ the unregulated transient nature of its white european occupants
2./ There was for a good time, no British marines or garrisons stationed there to keep the constant crime, violence,
and decrepit behaviour in check. The rampant violence and lawlessness that took place there was far worse
than what occurred under the martial law controlled British colony in Australia.

It got so bad that the British were forced to send a commanded detachment of military force from the NSW colony
in desperate attempt to try and get some sort of civil order in NZ. -At that time NZ wasn't really recognised as much,
for it was merely part of the Colony of NSW.

What about Peter Handcock? What about the Englishman who was pardoned for the same crime?

You really need to read up on the history of the Kelly's if you think they are cold blooded murderers. Your lack of knowledge is embarrassing.

Two British officers heavily implicated in ordering Morant and his crew to shoot prisoners,
never faced the music. 1) Captain Hunt who was dead, and 2/.Captain Taylor, Lord Kitcheners intel officer.

St Clair, a notable and senior lawyer responsible for reviewing inquiries and proceedings involving
breaches of the Army Act was convinced by the evidence he reviewed against the accused,
including Captain Taylor. His findings about Captain Taylor are significant. He confirmed that
he as the superior officer of BVC officers and men, was responsible for issuing orders not to take prisoners.

Taylor and Hunt as British officers were superior to Morant and gave directions that they expected be
followed. Morant and his co-accused were merely irregular volunteer soldiers .It is also clear from St Clair’s
findings that it was Captain Taylor who took the initiative to issue orders not to take prisoners. It was not
at the instigation of Morant, who earlier had been reprimanded by Captain Hunt for refusing to obey the order.

Morant eventually followed the order when he found his friend Captain Hunt had been tortured/killed by Boers.


Major Thomas, Morants legal representative delivered this statement to the court concerning the accused persons
assigned task of dealing with guerrillas operating under no rules of engagement or protocols of laws of war:

" the prisoners’ defence is that, no matter in what way the charge against them has been, or might have been framed,
the action they respectively took in the summary execution of these eight Boers was justifiable, or, at any rate, not criminal’.
‘That which would be a crime, a felony, or a malicious act in time of peace may be quite justifiable in time of war, and doubly
so in guerrilla warfare, waged against men who cannot be regarded as lawful belligerents, but only as lawless bands of
marauders, who carry on desultory hostilities, combined with train wreckings and other uncivilised practices. Upon such an
enemy I maintain our troops are justified in making the severest reprisals, and are entitled to regard them, not as lawful
belligerents at all, but as outlaws."

re: N.Kelly, from what little I've read, Neds gang surely sealed their own fate after conducting a brazen pre-emptive ambush
on the police patrol encamped at Stringybark creek, killing three of the four police in an ensuing shootout. If I read correctly,
It was only after that incident , that they were then officially declared outlaws and rewards posted. Following that the gang
then robbed a bank.

Police of those times were to a degree like a mercenary force where people could not necessarily expect fair and just dealings
with them. But the Kelly family and associates were no angels themselves. Unfortunately things escalated to tragic ends for both
sides...and both rightfully should bear some blame for that. Those were no doubt different and harsher times.

From the beginning,forms of law and order enforcers be it military or civil in the early colonies were rather corrupt.The NSW Corps
under officer McCarthur being a prime example. McCarthur and men were also later charged with insurrection. When the first civil
police force was formed in the first British colony in Aus. it was made up of 12 or so, of the best behaved convicts.

When the First Fleet arrived in late Jan. 1788 to settle on Aus soil, included were 212 Royal Marines to keep the convicts in check...
Governor Phillip later ordered and conducted the hanging of 6 Royal Marines for stealing from gov. stores, the seventh survived
by being an informer.

The men that the Royal Marines and NSW Corps were recruited from, in some cases had backgrounds no better than the convicts
they were assigned to guard. Of course that problem wasn't exclusive to those two groups, you could say much the same for many
of the more regular British garrisons.

Breaker Morant and Ned Kelly are the first two legendary Aussie characters. The third one is the jolly swagman by the billabong.

You just made up that entire post about NZ history as you were typing it. And I'm not sure what that's got to do with Breaker Morant and the Ned Kelly. Neither of them ever went to NZ.

I'm not going to bother explaining 19th century New Zealand history to you. If anybody is interested there are some excellent books out there about it. Start with the musket wars and go forward from there.

Yeah I ve read about them. It only reinforced my opinion on Australian police officers and made me observe that nothing has changed much. And the Kellys are still murderers too.

You Aussies have to stop blaming everything on the English. You would have though that after the genocide of the Tasmanian abo's and the general oppression of the rest, the utter corruption of your politicians and police force, you would just come clean and admit that the entire colony was founded with criminals and just give up.
When I lived there the nations pastimes were drinking and racism.

That is an utterly uncovincing defence for murdering prisoners and civilans. The court thought so too obviously, because they shot him.

Every soldier has the duty to refuse to obey an illegal order, but the characterisation of Morant as 'simply following orders' is not convincing motivation, not for him or his men, who initially objected to shooting prisoners but later were happy enough to shoot people out of hand, including civilians and black Africans who just happened to be there.
But the Breaker Morant story certainly seems to sum up the that whole war as far as English behaviour and attitude towards colonial peoples go. (I dont mean towards him - he was an agent of British arrogance.)

So?

You must be an Aussie. Hows the drinking and racism coming along?

You are a pathetic looser. The Kelly's were Irish, police were Irish. Seeing as you know so much, why don't you tell us what happened when Fitzpatrick went to the Kelly homestead? It was soley on his word that the warrants for attempted murder were issued. Why were the police out of uniform in the Wombat rangers, why did 8 men in 2 parties search for what they thought were only 2 people? Why did the Mansfield boot maker make up a heap of long leather straps to carry out the bodies? Why didn't the police carry the warrants on them like they were legally obliged to? I'll tell you why smart arse, the police went to murder the Kelly bots and lost.

As for once living here, all I can say is thank God you have gone. 1 less whining cuzzy bro over here thieving jobs of us. Maybe you could get a few thousand more to head home with you?

There is 1 thing I never understood about Kiwi's. You will all fight for NZ, you will die for NZ, you will barrack for NZ, but none of you will bloody live there.

Ok, I will ask again...what source(s) do you draw that conclusion about Morant from?



Then its highly evident you as a KIWI really don't know your NZ-British colonial empire history....since NZ was indeed
part of the Crowns colony of NSW, and thus came under the administrational and durastictional laws of such.

https://nzhistory.govt.nz/letters-p...d-a-colony-separate-from-new-south-wales

The below map link shows in pink, the basic boundary of NSW lands as first defined and claimed by Cpt. Cook for the Crown
on Possession Island 22nd August 1770 and as it still remained when the First Fleet arrived in Australia 1788, with NZ remaining
part of the same till 1840.
When in Jan 1788 the actual colony of New South Wales had been founded, Its Governor, Captain Arthur Phillip had amended
the Commission to alter the boundary not of the crown lands claimed by Cook, but of the colony itself. -- Dated 25 April 1787,
the colony of New South Wales now included all the islands adjacent in the Pacific Ocean within the latitudes of 10°37'S and 43°39'S
which encompassed most of New Zealand except for the southern half of the South Island.

https://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/5/55/Australia_history.gif


Colonial NZ lawlessness:

https://nzhistory.govt.nz/politics/treaty/treaty-timeline/treaty-events-1800-1849

"1831 Māori petition the British government
Growing lawlessness among Europeans in New Zealand and fears of a French annexation of the country led 13 northern chiefs
to ask King William IV for his protection. Missionary William Yate helped the chiefs draft the letter to the King. The Crown
acknowledged the petition and promised protection."


Below: Read both sections p.55 " British Sovereignty" and " Treaty of Waitangi" that mention the issue with lawless white sailors
and adventurers, as well as the ongoing problem with lawless white settlers:

https://books.google.com.au/books?i...;q=nz%20colony%20lawlessness&f=false



For that we can all be rather thankful ,for you could not possibly convey important established historical facts about British colonial NZ
that you were blatantly unaware of.

First major thing we discovered about you is your highly embarrassing lack of knowledge of British colonial NZ,
now you try to show readers your analytical military lawyer skills regarding the legal provisions of the British Army Act.





British military law it appears didn't care for the three Boer children shot near Fort Edward...Morant and crew were not indicted on those.

Yet those killings were listed on a letter signed by Bushveldt Carbineers (BVC) at Fort Edward and dispatched to Col. F.H. Hall at Pietersburg.
(written by BVC Trooper Robert Mitchell Cochrane), a former Justice of the Peace from Western Australia, that accused members of the
Fort Edward garrison of six "disgraceful incidents"
Another being the fatal shooting of Reverend Heese of the Berlin Missionary Society... yet Cochrane who drafted the letter
made no mention of the fact, Rev. Heese's driver, a member of the Southern Ndebele people, was also shot and killed.

So there you have it, both British and colonials deciding that some murders of civilians by BVC were worthy of military justice
and others not.