Were Morant and Handcock murderers or "scapegoats" of the empire?"

Authors Avatar

Raffael Maestri

Mr St. Julian

Were Morant and Handcock murderers or “scapegoats” of the empire?”

Morant and Handcok were depicted by the media as being “scapegoats” of the empire although it is hard to assess the facts portrayed without taking bias into account.  Some of the sources assert that the soldiers were scapegoats of the empire, however when looking in depth at the vast amount of primary evidence, one can establish that Morant and Handcock were cold-blooded killers.  “The legend that Morant and Handcock were Australians wronged by the British army, is indeed, a legend.”  Morant and Handcock shot innocent Boer prisoners driven by revenge for the death of their Captain Hunt, and killed the missionary Hesse in cold blood.  Furthermore their admission to their involvement in the deaths of twelve unarmed Boers, with the excuse that they had received orders to shoot Boers wearing British uniform has little bearing on their actual guilt as murderers.

A desire for revenge of the death of Captain Hunt was the motivation which drove Morant and Handcock in to the killing of unarmed Boers.  The death of Captain hunt stressed and angered Morant to the point where he took the law into his own hands – “Morant had been badly affected by the discovery of the disfigured body of his friend Hunt.”  The order to kill Boers wearing khaki uniform, which Kitchner is responsible of, had no major influence on Morant and Handcock’s decision to shoot the Boers.  Until Hunt was murdered, the order to kill Boers in British uniform had been ignored. “The tragedy was Morant went crazy and took the law in his own hands when he learned his best friend and commanding officer Captain Hunt had been wounded and literally kicked to death by the Boers”. An example of his behavior in regards to this order can be seen when Morant found Visser, a Boer, wearing Hunt’s clothes.  Morant ordered his death immediately.  Such behavior and decision making out of revenge is not of a professional standard, whilst the reality of the situation is that Morant was a murderer, and not a scapegoat.

Join now!

Also, people in support of Morant and Handcock have stated that they were only following orders from their superior Captain Hunt, of which they were to take no prisoners.  The orders weren’t issued by headquarters, but were issued by Kitchener who had commanded these orders essentially to remove spying Boers, as they were becoming an increasing problem in the Boer war.   However this is no excuse for professional soldiers to murder unarmed men.  Morant and Handcock surely knew that their acts and decisions were unjust, as Morant falsified reports and Handcock murdered Hesse, who was thought to be a ...

This is a preview of the whole essay