Breaker Morant: The Epic Story of the Boer War and Harry ‘Breaker’ Morant: Drover, Horseman, Bush Poet – Murderer or Hero? by Peter Fitzsimons

Book Description

Secondhand. Very good condition. Ex library copy with no external stickers. No stamps or stickers on inside pages. A piece of sticky tape on the front page. Minor wear to book corners and edges. Minor marks on foredges. Dust jacket has light creasing to top and tail edges. Body text and binding are excellent.

Most Australians have heard of the Boer War and of Harry 'Breaker' Morant, a figure who rivals Ned Kelly as an archetypal Australian folk hero.

But Morant was a complicated man. Born in England and immigrating to Queensland in 1883, he established a reputation as a rider, polo player and poet who submitted ballads to The Bulletin and counted Banjo Paterson as a friend.

Travelling on his wits and the goodwill of others, Morant was quick to act when appeals were made for horsemen to serve in the war in South Africa. He joined up, first with the South Australian Mounted Rifles and then with a South African irregular unit, the Bushveldt Carbineers.

The adventure would not go as Breaker planned. In October 1901, Lieutenant Harry Morant and two other Australians, Lieutenants Peter Handcock and George Witton, were arrested for the murder of Boer prisoners. Morant and Handcock were court-martialled and executed in February 1902, just as the Boer War was in its closing stages. The debate over their convictions, however, continues to this day.

With his masterful command of the story, Peter FitzSimons takes us to the harsh landscape of southern Africa and into the bloody action of war against an unpredictable force using modern commando tactics.

The truths FitzSimons uncovers about 'the Breaker' and the role he played in the Boer War are astonishing, and, finally, we will know whether the Breaker was a hero, a cad, a scapegoat, or a criminal. (book flap)