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South Australian Mounted Rifles training near Adelaide, c. 1900, prior to deploying to South Africa. The military history of Australia during the Boer War is complex, and includes a period of history in which the six formerly autonomous British Australian colonies federated to become the Commonwealth of Australia.
Major James Francis Thomas (25 July 1861 – 11 November 1942), was a solicitor from Tenterfield, New South Wales.. As Major Thomas, he defended Lieutenants Peter Joseph Handcock, George Ramsdale Witton, and Harry "Breaker" Morant, of the Bushveldt Carbineers (BVC) of the British Army, in their trial for the murder of nine Boer prisoners-of-war during the Second Boer War.
In 1900, he led a Victorian contingent during the Second Boer War, and was the only Australian officer during that war to command a force of British regulars. He remained in the Australian military after the war, serving in Queensland until 1904 when he was medically discharged. He retired to Victoria again and died in 1911 at the age of 68.
The 1980 film Breaker Morant portrays the unit in which Australian Lieutenants Harry "Breaker" Morant and Peter Handcock were serving when they were court martialed.They were executed on 27 February 1902 by a firing squad of Cameron Highlanders, having been convicted by the British army of murdering a civilian and Boer prisoners of war.
The 1976 book The Australians at the Boer War by Australian writer R.L. Wallace gives a concise and reasonably detailed account of Morant's military career, trial and execution although it contains almost no information about Morant's earlier life and omits a number of significant details contained in Witton's account of the events resulting in ...
The South African War Memorial (also known as the Boer War Memorial or, prior to 1931, the National War Memorial) is an equestrian memorial dedicated to the South Australians who served in the Second Boer War of 11 October 1899 to 31 May 1902. It was the first war in which South Australians fought, and 1,531 men were sent in nine contingents ...
Peter Joseph Handcock (17 February 1868 – 27 February 1902) was an Australian-born veterinary lieutenant and convicted war criminal who served in the Bushveldt Carbineers during the Boer War in South Africa.
On the front plinth is a piece of poetry about the Boer War, written by Australian poet Banjo Paterson in 1902, that mentions the Monaro region in which Canberra is sited. When the dash and the excitement and the novelty are dead, And you've seen a load of wounded once or twice, Or you've watched your old mate dying, with the vultures overhead,