FAQ

After Britain banned slavery in South Africa settlers of Dutch descent ("Boers") began their "Great Trek" to establish their own independent homelands in the interior. After the discovery of gold deposits these areas were flooded with prospectors from all over the world. This was bitterly resented by the Boers who feared their culture of separation ("apartheid") would be overwhelmed by the new arrivals and they would eventually be assimilated into the British Empire. Britain demanded that all South African citizens be given equal rights but the Boers not only refused but demanded all British garrisons neighbouring their territory be removed. When Britain declined Boer forces launched a series of attacks against them in June 1899.

Britain initially suffered a series of stinging defeats but forces were rushed to the battlefield from all over the Empire and eventually weight of numbers prevailed. The Boers then switched to guerrilla tactics with Britain adopting a controversial "scorched earth" policy to counter it. Boer farms were burned and their inhabitants relocated to concentration camps so they could not shelter and supply the Boer fighters in the field. This eventually succeeded with the last Boer "bitter enders" surrendering in May 1902. However in addition to those killed by combat during the conflict devastating epidemics swept through South Africa between 1900-1901, resulting in the deaths from disease of tens of thousands of Boer civilians in the overcrowded and hastily improvised concentration camps and over 14000 British troops in the field (as opposed to only 8000 killed in action). South Africa would be eventually granted semi-independent dominion status within the British Empire in the same way as Canada, Australia and New Zealand and all would eventually become fully independent, South Africa providing invaluable support for Britain and the Allies in both world wars.

The Boers used fast moving, lightly equipped "Flying Columns" or "Commandos" composed of irregular horse borne guerrillas, using hit and run tactics and exploiting the vastness of South Africa's wilderness. To counter this Britain fenced off vast areas of the South African bush, defending the barbed wire with countless "blockhouses", small forts manned by a handful of men and supplied by armoured trains. They also aped the Boers tactics, creating their own small units of highly mobile cavalry tasked with hunting down their opposite numbers, the Bushveldt Carbineers one such force.

This caused some controversy in Australia at the time. However Morant was actually English, born in Somerset in 1864 and only moving to Australia at age 19, living there for 16 years before leaving to spend the last 3 years of his life split between South Africa and the UK. He never took Australian citizenship and according to his defence lawyer always considered himself English. Equally Captain Alfred Taylor was portrayed as English in the film but was actually an Irishman, from Dublin.

Yes, but... The history of the affair is somewhat muddled. The trial transcript was lost, so the only good source of information is Lt. Witton's book, "Scapegoats of the Empire". News accounts of the events and trial were censored until months after the execution. Further problems were created by a fictionalized account published in the 60's, pieces of which were subsequently reported as fact in other histories. see

for a longer discussion.