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, Lts. Morant, Handcock, and Witton stood accused of murdering captured enemy combatants and an unarmed civilian in the Northern Transvaal.