[ Contents | Search | Post | Reply | Next | Previous | Up ]
From:
Date: 9/27/00
Time: 11:07:46 PM
Remote Name: 210.141.67.85
And how many of those 'incompetent officers' were ever called to account for the results of their incompetence? 'Lack of hygeine' on the Boers' part is a laughable an excuse used by the British and cannot begin to account for the shher number of deaths that occurred. Besides which, the situation would never have arisen in the first place had the Boers' homes and crops not been burnt, and they themselves been herded into concentration camps. 'Blaming the victim' may be a time-honoured pastime in cases such as this, but doesn't make it accurate, excusable or right.
As for Witton, maybe he was trying to justify himself. Wouldn't any reasonable person have doen the same if he'd been 'railroaded' as he was? It could equally as reasonably be argued that it would have been in Thomas's interests to have painted the defendants in a less-than-favourable light after the event. After all, he did fail to get them acquitted. Sound ridiculous? Well who can say. My whole point here is that anyone who claims to know what Witton was thinking, or what Thomas, or Morant, or the guy who lived next door to them in high school was thinking, is fooling themselves because it's just plain guesswork.
It's nothing more than speculation to suggest someone was doing this or that with some purpose in mind when we really don't know, and implying that this person or that MUST have been thinking this or trying to do that - merely because we say so - is as arrogant as it is meaningless.
Kitchener was in command. He was the one who should have taken responsibility. He went on to pretty much single-handedly ensure the defeat of the Gallipoli campaign before being mercifully drowned in 1916. If only someone had treated him the same way Morant was treated - for far lesser crimes - maybe the whole history of the world would have worked out differently.
But that of course, like what Witton was 'trying to do', is just idle speculation.