Breaker Morant is a 1980 Australian war drama film directed by Bruce Beresford, who co-wrote the screenplay based on Kenneth G. Ross's 1978 play of the same name.

[4][5][6] The film concerns the 1902 court martial of lieutenants Harry Morant, Peter Handcock and George Witton—one of the first war crime prosecutions in British military history.

Australians serving in the British Army during the Second Anglo-Boer War, Morant, Handcock, and Witton stood accused of murdering captured enemy combatants and an unarmed civilian in the Northern Transvaal.

The film is notable for its exploration of the Nuremberg Defence, the politics of the death penalty and the human cost of total war.

Breaker Morant remains the movie with which Beresford is most identified and has "hoisted the images of the accused officers to the level of Australian icons and martyrs".

[9] Breaker Morant concerns the murder trial of three Australian soldiers, officers of the elite Bushveldt Carbineers, in South Africa.

Though there are great complexities associated with charging active-duty soldiers with murder, Kitchener is determined to have a guilty verdict, and the chief of the court supports him.

Morant's execution of the Boer prisoners was revenge for the mutilation and death of his friend and commanding officer, Captain Hunt.

Ironically, it transpires that while Morant acted under orders by shooting the prisoners, he and Handcock were in fact responsible for the murder of Hesse.

As a final insult Handcock's coffin is built too small for his tall frame, and the soldiers are forced to clumsily cram his body in.

Witton serves three years of his sentence, but is released after a national outcry and writes a book entitled Scapegoats of the Empire, an account of the Morant affair.

[1] In conversation with Bolton, Lord Kitchener states that Kaiser Wilhelm II has formally protested about the murder of Hesse, whom he describes as a German citizen.

According to the South African historian Charles Leach, the legend that the German Foreign Office protested about the murder of Hesse "cannot be proved through official channels".

Despite being attached to the Berlin Missionary Society, Hesse had been born in Cape Colony and "was, technically speaking, a British subject, and not a German citizen".

Leach writes, "Several eminent South African historians, local enthusiasts, and commentators share the opinion that had it not been for the murder of Hesse, none of the other Bushveldt Carbineers would have been brought to trial".

Hall, the officer commanding at Pietersburg, is depicted as fully aware and even complicit in the total war tactics of the Fort Edward garrison.

The letter, dated 4 October 1901, was written by BVC Trooper Robert Mitchell Cochrane, a former justice of the peace from Western Australia and signed by 15 members of the Fort Edward garrison.

According to the Australian historians Margaret Carnegie and Frank Shields, Morant and Handcock rejected an offer of immunity from prosecution in return for turning king's evidence.

Military prosecutors allegedly hoped to use them as witnesses against BVC Major Robert Lenehan, who was believed to have issued orders to take no prisoners.

[18] Towards the end of the film, Taylor informs Morant that the British Army will never dare to prosecute him, as he really can implicate Kitchener in war crimes.

According to the South African historian Charles Leach, Captain Hunt "was an Englishman, a former Lieutenant in Kitchener's Fighting Scouts, and a fine horseman".

[26] After the success of Breaker Morant, Beresford was offered dozens of Hollywood scripts including Tender Mercies, which he later directed.

The 1983 film earned him his only Academy Award nomination for Best Director to date, even though Driving Miss Daisy (1989) which he directed, won Best Picture.