Shoot Straight Ya Bastards!
The war should've been over. The enemy had been defeated; his armies dispersed and his cities occupied. Unfortunately the enemy refused to acknowledge defeat, and continued the struggle through unconventional means. Instead of divisions of artillery and infantry, the enemy waged war in groups of ragged guerrillas using hit-and-run tactics. The guerrillas struck at outposts, patrols in the field, supply lines... and then vanished into the forbidding countryside.
Faced with a war they had not prepared to fight, the occupiers also resorted to unconventional methods. A special unit was established, intended to combat the guerrillas on their own terms - fire with fire. Like the guerrillas they opposed, this special unit spent most of their time in the field, living off they land. They operated independently, largely free of the direct oversight from superior officers. The unit's unorthodox tactics were successful, and soon they became greatly feared by the guerrillas.
Trouble began when the unit's commander was wounded in an ambush and left behind by his men, forced to withdraw under heavy fire. When the soldiers returned they found the body of their commander - he had been mutilated, castrated and killed. They went in hot pursuit of the guerrillas, capturing and executing one of them found wearing their late commandeers uniform. Later, a group of guerrillas coming in to surrender were taken aside and shot. A foreign clergyman, sympathetic to the guerrillas and the native population, was killed under mysterious circumstances after leaving the unit's encampment. Now faced with an international incident, the commander-in-chief launched an investigation into the unit's conduct, resulting in it's officers being brought to court martial, charged with murder...
It would be understandable if you thought that I drew the above narrative from today's headlines. In fact, the events described occurred over a hundred years ago and are depicted in the superb Australian film Breaker Morant, which came out in 1980. The film is set during the later stage of the Boer War, fought between the forces of the British Empire on one hand, and the forces of the Boer Republics on the other. At this point in the war, the Boers had been, by most standards, beaten - their armies defeated in the field, their countries overrun and occupied. But they refused to concede defeat and continued the using guerilla tactics, to the great frustration of the British.
An irregular unit, the Bushveldt Carbineers, was established to combat the Boers on their own terms. The Carbineers met with great success, becoming greatly feared by the Boers, but on August 5, 1901 the commander of the Carbineers, Capt. Percy Hunt, was wounded in an ambush, captured, mutilated and killed. Lt. Harry Harbord 'Breaker' Morant took over command of the Bushveldt Carbineers; grieving for his dead friend (Morant was in fact engaged to Hunt's sister) he oversaw the execution of some 12 Boer prisoners over the next six weeks. A German clergyman suspected of aiding the Boer Kommandos (at this time German sympathies lay with the Boer Republics) was also killed on Morant's orders. As a result Lt. Morant, along with Lt. Peter Handcock and Lt. George Witton, were brought up on charges of murder. The three men never denied executing the Boer prisoners. Their defense rested on their claim that they were acting under instructions form their superior officers, that Lord Kitchener, in the face of the Boers' guerilla methods, had decided that the 'gentleman's war' was over and given orders that no prisoners were to be taken - a claim he denied.
The narrative of Breaker Morant centers around the court martial, with details filed in through the use of flashbacks. Many viewers will no doubt be reminded of another military court room drama, A Few Good Men, but Breaker Morant is different; it does not have the black and white characters answering black and white questions with moral certainty of the former film. Though Breaker Morant has an undercurrent of the same sentiment later expressed in Gallipoli, i.e. see how Australian soldiers were callously used and discarded in the course of doing the Empire's dirty work, the film is mostly couched in shades of gray. Kitchener and his circle are the villains of the piece, but their motivations are clearly explained. They are acting, not out of sheer malice or stupidity, but out of desire to avoid an international incident and bring about an end to the war. The three accused accused are also drawn in hues of gray. The cold-blooded executions of the Boer prisoners at their hands are clearly depicted - as is the brutal nature of the unconventional war they are fighting, and their anger over the torture and killing of their commander. Breaker Morant is not a morality play, with archetypal characters spewing out various philosophical points - viewers will come to know and care about the characters as genuine individuals. But 'big' questions are raised by the flow of the story: how far up the chain of command does responsibility lie for questionable actions by soldiers in the field? How does an army successfully wage war against an opponent that does not abide by the conventional rules of war? Does winning such a conflict entail abandoning the rules of war altogether? How far should you go in fighting 'fire with fire?' Breaker Morant does not presume to answer these questions with neatly tied-up solutions - it only raises them.
This an excellent film, far better in my mind than Gallipoli which I found to be overly melodramatic. Edward Woodward, probably best known to American audiences as The Equalizer, gives an excellent performance in the role of 'Breaker' Morant, albeit one that is strongly reminiscent of Michael Caine. Bryan Brown (of F/X and Cocktail fame) also stands out. If you can get your hands on a copy (Yay Netflix!) Breaker Morant is a movie well worth your time.
If you're interested in learning more about the history behind the movie, you can go here and here.
Faced with a war they had not prepared to fight, the occupiers also resorted to unconventional methods. A special unit was established, intended to combat the guerrillas on their own terms - fire with fire. Like the guerrillas they opposed, this special unit spent most of their time in the field, living off they land. They operated independently, largely free of the direct oversight from superior officers. The unit's unorthodox tactics were successful, and soon they became greatly feared by the guerrillas.
Trouble began when the unit's commander was wounded in an ambush and left behind by his men, forced to withdraw under heavy fire. When the soldiers returned they found the body of their commander - he had been mutilated, castrated and killed. They went in hot pursuit of the guerrillas, capturing and executing one of them found wearing their late commandeers uniform. Later, a group of guerrillas coming in to surrender were taken aside and shot. A foreign clergyman, sympathetic to the guerrillas and the native population, was killed under mysterious circumstances after leaving the unit's encampment. Now faced with an international incident, the commander-in-chief launched an investigation into the unit's conduct, resulting in it's officers being brought to court martial, charged with murder...
It would be understandable if you thought that I drew the above narrative from today's headlines. In fact, the events described occurred over a hundred years ago and are depicted in the superb Australian film Breaker Morant, which came out in 1980. The film is set during the later stage of the Boer War, fought between the forces of the British Empire on one hand, and the forces of the Boer Republics on the other. At this point in the war, the Boers had been, by most standards, beaten - their armies defeated in the field, their countries overrun and occupied. But they refused to concede defeat and continued the using guerilla tactics, to the great frustration of the British.
An irregular unit, the Bushveldt Carbineers, was established to combat the Boers on their own terms. The Carbineers met with great success, becoming greatly feared by the Boers, but on August 5, 1901 the commander of the Carbineers, Capt. Percy Hunt, was wounded in an ambush, captured, mutilated and killed. Lt. Harry Harbord 'Breaker' Morant took over command of the Bushveldt Carbineers; grieving for his dead friend (Morant was in fact engaged to Hunt's sister) he oversaw the execution of some 12 Boer prisoners over the next six weeks. A German clergyman suspected of aiding the Boer Kommandos (at this time German sympathies lay with the Boer Republics) was also killed on Morant's orders. As a result Lt. Morant, along with Lt. Peter Handcock and Lt. George Witton, were brought up on charges of murder. The three men never denied executing the Boer prisoners. Their defense rested on their claim that they were acting under instructions form their superior officers, that Lord Kitchener, in the face of the Boers' guerilla methods, had decided that the 'gentleman's war' was over and given orders that no prisoners were to be taken - a claim he denied.
The narrative of Breaker Morant centers around the court martial, with details filed in through the use of flashbacks. Many viewers will no doubt be reminded of another military court room drama, A Few Good Men, but Breaker Morant is different; it does not have the black and white characters answering black and white questions with moral certainty of the former film. Though Breaker Morant has an undercurrent of the same sentiment later expressed in Gallipoli, i.e. see how Australian soldiers were callously used and discarded in the course of doing the Empire's dirty work, the film is mostly couched in shades of gray. Kitchener and his circle are the villains of the piece, but their motivations are clearly explained. They are acting, not out of sheer malice or stupidity, but out of desire to avoid an international incident and bring about an end to the war. The three accused accused are also drawn in hues of gray. The cold-blooded executions of the Boer prisoners at their hands are clearly depicted - as is the brutal nature of the unconventional war they are fighting, and their anger over the torture and killing of their commander. Breaker Morant is not a morality play, with archetypal characters spewing out various philosophical points - viewers will come to know and care about the characters as genuine individuals. But 'big' questions are raised by the flow of the story: how far up the chain of command does responsibility lie for questionable actions by soldiers in the field? How does an army successfully wage war against an opponent that does not abide by the conventional rules of war? Does winning such a conflict entail abandoning the rules of war altogether? How far should you go in fighting 'fire with fire?' Breaker Morant does not presume to answer these questions with neatly tied-up solutions - it only raises them.
This an excellent film, far better in my mind than Gallipoli which I found to be overly melodramatic. Edward Woodward, probably best known to American audiences as The Equalizer, gives an excellent performance in the role of 'Breaker' Morant, albeit one that is strongly reminiscent of Michael Caine. Bryan Brown (of F/X and Cocktail fame) also stands out. If you can get your hands on a copy (Yay Netflix!) Breaker Morant is a movie well worth your time.
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.
-Harry 'Breaker' Morant
If you're interested in learning more about the history behind the movie, you can go here and here.
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