SCAPEGOATS OF THE EMPIRE - The Story of the Bushveldt Carbineers (1907)

Publisher's beige cloth binding.

Contents clean. Binding solid and square. Corners sharp. Apart from a former owner's name stamp on the front paste down this copy remains in a supreme state of preservation.

x + 240pp + 1p (press reviews).

The only surviving eye-witness account of events during the Anglo-Boer War which resulted in the death sentence being imposed on the author (Lieutenant George Witton) and two of his fellow officers (Lieutenants Harry "Breaker" Morant and Peter Handcock). Witton's sentence was subsequently commuted to penal servitude for life.

The first and second editions of this book, both published in 1907, were successfully suppressed by the Australian government directly after publication, owing to perceived criticism of Lord Kitchener. It was only in 1982, seventy-five years after publication, that this book was reprinted for the first time.

Captain de Bertodano, the man who initiated the investigations into the suspicious activities of the Bushveldt Carbineers in the Northern Transvaal, denounced Witton's account, saying, "It is mostly a garbled and untrue version of the facts" and added that, "When the book was published, it was largely bought up by the Govt. as a false presentation of what occurred."

It is believed that all the copies were pulped after seizure, which would account for its extreme rarity today. 

'In the absence of the original trial records - the Civil Service having destroyed almost all trial transcripts from between 1850-1914 - three primary sources remain. The first is the report of the trial printed in The Times during April 1902; the second is George Witton's account of the events of 1901–02, contained in his book Scapegoats of the Empire. The third is a letter about the case, written by Witton to Major Thomas during 1929, which was kept secret at Witton's request until 1970.'