Richly-layered history of Boer War
Our First Foreign War: The impact of the South African War 1899-1902 on New Zealand Nigel Robson, Massey University Press, $55. Reviewed by Alister Browne
If you like your history richlylayered then this is just the title for you, with the added bonus that it covers a part of the New Zealand story not much explored.
For the Boer War, as it used to be called, came after the New Zealand Wars and not long before the Great War, both ofwhich cast long and deep shadows over the period.
Nor did the South African War last terribly long, although it did involve about 6500 Kiwi troops, of whom perhaps 182 died in South Africa–yet more died from typhoid than bullets, it seems. The exact number of deaths may never be known, adds author Robson, a senior Ma¯ori Crown Relations historian.
But he writes that because he has been able to identify and contact families of some of those who served in South Africa, he has gained access to information not previously mentioned in the historical record.
That means in addition to the usual kinds of sources that historians use, such as letters, newspaper reports and archive records, he has been able to integrate material, which brings a flavour to the work not always felt in such accounts of the past.
The upshot is he has also been able to shine a light on awide range of New Zealand life and times as they were shaped by the war and the mentalities that drove Kiwis to so warmly embrace the British imperial cause – while at the same time developing a nascent sense of national identity.
There was a tension between the two sides of the coin that fuelled the engine of New Zealand life for decades, one that to this day still hasn’t been finally resolved, and which is to be found echoed in many of the public policy debates we hear today.
The position of Ma¯ori during the war, for instance, is one such familiar-sounding issue, for what was occurring in South Africa was deemed by London to be a ‘‘white man’s’’ conflict, meaningma¯ori were forbidden to join in.
New Zealand prime minister Richard Seddon tried to get this policy reversed, but to no avail even though many Ma¯ori wanted to go to demonstrate their fealty to flag and empire.
This didn’t stop Ma¯ori language and culture from being appropriated during the conflict, Robson writes, and soldiers with European names and mixedma¯ori-pa¯keha¯ ancestry fought in the war all the same.
There was also the ‘‘khaki fever’’ that swept through ma¯ori women in Northland, one result of which saw horses and money donated to the cause. Robson writes that experience of the war brought New Zealand and Australia closer together in a preAnzac kind of way, with the military relationship of the two countries coalescing in South Africa.
The two nations displayed an adaptability in the fight against the common Boer foe that differentiated them from the tradition-bound British, although the limited training of many Kiwi soldiers, with weapons, for example, did them no favours.
There was a tension between the two sides of the coin that fuelled the engine of New Zealand life for decades.