Australians to attend unveiling of memorials for civilian Boer War victims

An Australian press release dated April 12 states that the group of Australians will follow the footsteps of Breaker Morant, the most famous Australian soldier to fight in the Boer War.

“They will also attend the unveiling of a monument to at least one civilian Morant killed and to other civilians who died in the war over a century ago,” reads the statement.

Dr Wilcox, who will lead the first commemorative Australian battlefield tour to South Africa, said his group will enjoy a fascinating insight into Australia’s involvement in the Boer war, following the Breaker Morant story in the very place where Morant and his colleagues fought.

Dr Wilcox emphasized that attending the unveiling will not constitute some kind of Australian apology for Breaker Morant’s crimes.

“Our tour has no official backing. It’s about history, not politics”, said Dr Wilcox.

“But it’s about the hard truths of history and one of those hard truths is that a small minority of Australians who have gone to war have done evil things.”

Local historian Charles Leach said on Monday that this was significant. It was the first time that an Australian writer or historian referred to some members of the Australian Bushveldt Carbineers (BVC) in terms other than military heroes. Leach prefers to use the term serial murders when reiterating the deeds of infamous members of the BVC, such as lieutenants Breaker Morant and Peter Hancock. He said that the group of Australians have the same attitude towards murders and deeds that are not justifiable.

“As a lieutenant in the Bushveldt Carbineers stationed in the Soutpansberg region in the far north of South Africa, Morant carried Lord Kitchener’s scorched-earth policy into the realm of serial murder,” Dr Wilcox said.

Wilcox wrote that Morant joined other Carbineer officers in killing a Boer prisoner of war, more than a dozen unarmed local men, a German missionary, Daniel Heese, and his African servant, and even one of their own soldiers whom they feared would reveal what was going on.

Leach was quoted in the Australian press where he said that the memorial, built entirely from donations from people of the Soutpansberg region, was to bring honour and remembrance to innocent civilians, both known and unknown, black and white, who had perished in the area during the Boer War.

It is a noted fact that the Boer war was the longest and most difficult colonial war in which Australians had fought. Around 20 000 Australians fought in this war, and an estimated 1 000 of them lost their lives. It was also the first war in which proper Australian units served – the first unit to carry an Australian name was formed in South Africa in the build-up to the war.