Days Gone By: Scapegoats of the Empire

Given that our military’s highest leadership has taken to charging and imprisoning our soldiers for war crimes in our far flung wars in the Middle East and Central Asia it is time to dust off the lessons of the previous century.

While you read this First Lieutenant Michael Behenna is rotting in jail for shooting an Al Qaeda operative in self defense. A web site dedicated to Lieutenant Behenna’s defense states:

“On March 20^th, 2009, Army Ranger 1^st Lieutenant Michael Behenna was sentenced to 25 years in prison for killing Ali Mansur, a known Al Qaeda operative while serving in Iraq. Mansur was known to be a member of an Al Qaeda cell operating in the lieutenant’s area of operation and was suspected to have organized an attack on Lt. Behenna’s platoon in April 2008 which killed two U.S. soldiers and injured two more. Army intelligence ordered the release of Mansur and Lt. Behenna was ordered to return the terrorist to his home.

During the return of Mansur, Lt. Behenna again questioned the Al Qaeda member for information about other members of the terrorist cell, and financial supporters. During this interrogation, Mansur attacked Lt. Behenna, who killed the terrorist in self-defense. The government subsequently prosecuted Lt. Behenna for premeditated murder.

Not only is this a miscarriage of justice on the behalf of Lt. Behenna, who was acting to prevent further loss of life in his platoon, it is demoralizing to the U.S. troops who continue to fight on behalf of the freedom and security of our nation. Whether it is U.S. border patrol agents, members of the armed forces, or FBI agents, no individual who is serving on the frontlines in the War on Terror should be so blatantly mistreated.”

The imprisonment of Lieutenant Behenna and the recent charges brought against three Navy Seals who are being charged with allegedly punching Ahmed Hashim Abed in the gut and otherwise mishandling him ( gave him a bloody lip) during his capture bring to mind the infamous trial and execution of a couple of junior Australian officers made famous in the 1980 movie “Breaker Morant“.
Let us not forget that Ahmed Hashim Abed planned and executed the ambush of four US civilian security guards in Fallujah Iraq in 2004. In case you have forgotten those men were betrayed, murdered, mutilated, hung from a bridge and set on fire for the amusement of an Iraqi crowd. Personally I think Ahmed deserves more than a punch in the gut and a bloody lip.

The pursuit of empire of course has no end of these little cultural exchanges. It was just over 100 years ago that three young Australian Lieutenants (Harry Morant, Peter Handcock, and George Witton) found themselves on the wrong side of Imperial justice during a dirty guerrilla war being fought against the remnants of the Boer commandos in South Africa. After an embarrassing start to their war against the Boers that led to reorganization, rethinking and massive reinforcements of the British expeditionary forces in South Africa, the main Boer field forces had been defeated and dispersed during the years 1899 and 1900.

A die hard group of Boers vowed to continue fighting the British and the first few years of the 20th Century saw an ugly guerrilla war being savagely fought in the back country of the Transvaal. The Boer insurgents sniped soldiers, blew up trains and ambushed small units while the British responded ruthlessly in kind and then began burning farms and imprisoning the families of the Boers in the centuries first “Concentration Camps”.

Lord Kitchener, the British commander in South Africa, created a number of irregular regiments of light horse troopers to combat the insurgency. The dispersed nature of the war in the bush led to the stationing of these units in small posts often little more than fortified farms. It was in one of these irregular units, the Bushwald Carbineers, that the three Lieutenants found themselves in the situations that would lead to their court marshal and in the case of Morant and Handcock execution by firing squad. The sole survivor of the trio, Lieutenant George Witton, documented his experience in a book, “Scapegoats of the Empire“, published in 1907 in brave defiance of the British Empire at a time when it was the reigning super power of the day.

The actions of the Bushwald Carbineers make fascinating reading and the events that led to the court marshal are still in hot dispute today. It would be beyond the scope of this short article to relate the entire story but just to spark your interest it is a convoluted and confusing story full of ambush, counter-ambush, summary execution of prisoners, atrocity, looting, forced marches, atrocity, sniping and revenge. It is the story of young men with little supervision, little sleep, and much mutual provocation with a resultant hatred and desire for vengeance chasing each other around in the far reaches of the wild Transvaal.

Despite all the controversy it is clear that “Breaker” Morant did indeed shoot down some Boer prisoners in cold blood. Yet it is also true that these type incidents were common on both sides of the conflict and that Kitchener himself had issued an order calling for the shooting of any Boer found wearing bits of British uniform. Since the Boer guerrillas at this stage were practically in rags, many of them wore “khaki” taken from the British and so could have been shot per the orders of the day. Also lest we forget remember that Kitchener himself not only countenanced the shooting of prisoners taken wearing “khaki” but he also created the concentration camps where some 27,000 Boer old men, women and children died from malnutrition, exposure and disease.

The three Australians were tried by court marshal by the British in Pietersburg, South Africa in January 1902. The principle charges were related to the murder of a German missionary, Daniel Hesse, who had witnessed the summary execution of some Boer prisoners, and the murder of that same group of Boer prisoners. All three men were found guilty and Lieutenants Morant and Handcock were sentenced to death. George Witton was initially sentenced to death also but the sentence was commuted to life in prison. On February 27th, 1902 Morant and Handcock were marched out in front of a firing squad drawn from the mostly Scottish Cameron Highlanders. Both men refused blindfolds and looked their executioners in the eye. One account says that “Breaker” Morant’s last words were, “Shoot straight you bastards! Don’t make a mess of it.”

Lieutenant George Witton in “Scapegoats of the Empire” did a great job identifying the base hypocrisy involved in the prosecution of men after the fact who go out under great duress to carry out the killing missions of empire:

“War is calculated to make men’s natures both callous and vengeful, and when civilized rules and customs are departed from on one side, reprisals are sure to follow on the other, and the shocking side of warfare in the shape of guerilla tactics is then seen. At such a time it is not fair to judge the participants by the hard and fast rules of citizen life or the strict moral codes of peace. It is necessary to imagine one’s self amidst the same surroundings–in an isolated place, with the passions of war aroused, men half-starved, dangers constantly threatening from all quarters, and responsibilities crowding one upon another–to enable fair decision to be reached.”

Our senior military leadership should know this and thus their prosecution of our men today is politically expedient betrayal of the very men and women they should be protecting. Since they seem to be focusing on the “big political picture” instead of the trying to protect the men we send in to do our dirtiest jobs in the world’s most dangerous places perhaps they could also look back at history and remember the lessons of the execution of the Lieutenant’s “Breaker” Morant and Lieutenant Peter Joseph Handcock.

The more the Australian people and the leaders of the Australian military forces found out about the court marshal of the Australians the angrier they became. It soon became clear that English officers were also implicated and had the charges dropped or never even brought and that the “colonials” were indeed scapegoats to assuage world opinion. The furor was roused in part because Harry “Breaker” Morant was a well known public figure in Australia who was famous as a breaker of horses and was a widely read writer of poetry. Since the execution he has become a folk hero in Australia and a warning against blindly serving the cause of empire.

Never again did the Australian government allow any of its soldiers to be tried by British authorities. The discontent with Britain by her white colonies in the 20th Century started with this trial and the results of that long ago dirty counter insurgency. Their experiences during the First World war with a brutal and criminally stupid British military high command would lead to even greater disillusionment with the British Empire.

George Witton started off highly motivated to serve King and country stating, “When war was declared between the British and Boers, I , like many of my fellow-countrymen, became imbued with a warlike spirit, and when reverses had occurred among the British troops, and volunteers for the front were called for in Australia, I could not rest content until I had offered the assistance one man could give to our beloved Queen and the great nation to which I belong.” Winton was sentenced to life imprisonment but was released by an act of the British House of Commons August 11, 1904 after serving 28 months in a British prison. He returned to Australia where he wrote his controversial book “Scapegoats of the Empire.”

After his experience with being almost shot and then incarcerated for the good of the empire he changed his personal philosophy. During the mobilization period prior to the First World War former Prime Minister of Australia, Andrew Fisher, vowed during the 1914 elections to defend Britain “to the last man and the last shilling”. On hearing Fisher’s declaration Witton quipped that he volunteered to be “the last man”.

One wonders how many of our currently serving members of the military must be rethinking their dedication to a national and a military leadership so willing to turn on them for the crime of doing the dirty work for us all.