Court martial of Breaker Morant

The Court martial of Breaker Morant was the 1902 court-martial of six officers – Lieutenants Harry "Breaker" Morant, Peter Handcock, George Witton, Henry Picton, Captain Alfred Taylor and Major Robert Lenehan – of the Bushveldt Carbineers (BVC), an irregular Regiment of mounted rifles during the Boer War.

The charges, which were in part prompted by a "letter of complaint" signed by James Christie and 14 other members of the BVC, were that Lieutenant Morant had incited the co-accused to murder some 20 people, including the Boer commando Visser, a group of eight Boer prisoners of war (POWs), Boer civilian adults and children, and a German missionary named Heese. Morant and Handcock were acquitted of killing Heese, but were sentenced to death on the other two charges and executed within 18 hours of sentencing. Their death warrants were personally signed by Lord Kitchener.

It was not until 1907 that news of the trial and executions were made public in Australia when Witton published Scapegoats of the Empire. The Australian government ensured that none of its troops would be tried by the British military during World War I. The official court records have never been found, prompting accusations of a British cover up.

On 4 October 1901, a letter signed by 15 members of the Bushveldt Carbineers (BVC) garrison at Fort Edward was secretly dispatched to Col. F.H. Hall, the British Army Officer Commanding at Pietersburg. Written by BVC Trooper Robert Mitchell Cochrane, a former Justice of the Peace from Western Australia, the letter accused members of the Fort Edward garrison of six "disgraceful incidents":

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