Kawiti was tired of digging graves, so he started digging trenches.
Amidst a showdown between northern Māori and British forces, the Musket War veteran began construction of an underground fortress. Kawiti’s formidable pā was a never-before-seen bastion, made up of underground bunkers, intricate tunnelways, rifle pits, trenches, and a double stockade to withstand British artillery bombardments. The assemblage took at least 10 months to construct, and was called Ruapekapeka, the ‘Bat’s Nest’. Today, we know these tactics by a different name: trench warfare.
After the smoke lifted, trench warfare remained ingrained in military strategy. And years after the standoff, Pākehā and Māori troops would be fighting together in trenches once again, but this time, they’d be side-by-side on the other side of the world.
The First World War claimed the lives of some 18,000 New Zealanders and wounded a further 41,000. The war took approximately 100,000 New Zealanders overseas, the first time for many of them. On Anzac Day, we remember the sacrifices made by our warriors of all kinds, in battlefields across the globe, and we are thankful that war never visited our shores. But for many Māori, WWI was not their first brush with warfare, especially considering the landmine they were leaving behind.
War had visited Aotearoa before. War between Māori and Pākehā altered the face of New Zealand during the 19th century, with tens of thousands of Māori dying in the intertribal Musket Wars fought during this period. The introduction of muskets revolutionised conflict in Aotearoa, culminating in the battle at Ruapekapeka Pā, where Māori invented what we now know as trench warfare. Then war visited again, with Northland embroiled in the Land Wars. Then it visited yet again, with WWI. Only this time, Māori shipped off to fight alongside the Pākehā, instead of against them. When they returned, though, that brief period of equality came to an abrupt ending.
The generation of Māori who fought in WWI were the children and grandchildren of those who fought against colonists. Their grandkids, in turn, would have been born in the ‘60s and ‘70s, and would have fought against police. And their grandkids are us; everything you are about to read was really not that long ago.
Mikaere (Ngāti Manu, Ngāpuhi, Ngāti Maniapoto) has spent his entire life collecting knowledge of the battles his ancestors fought, both on the battlefield and in their everyday lives. “Sure, Māori have always fought among one another. But the Land Wars symbolised a turning point - a different kind of devastation that they hadn't witnessed before. It's easy to look back and think, 'Oh well, what was another war to these people?' Well, it was everything.”
Muskets changed one thing immediately and forever: discourse. With a ranged weapon, your enemy never had a chance to explain themselves. Attackers never had to fear confrontation, and debate was moot. “It was the sudden shift to distance weapons that washed out our ability to debate and confront one another face to face,” said Mikaere. “And it was the way Māori began fighting alongside these Pākehā, even if they didn't completely agree with their beliefs, but to settle previous unresolved grievances with other Māori.” But it wasn’t all intertribal. One moment of warfare stands out amongst the rest. According to Mikaere, “The greatest, probably most prominent expression of outright Māori resistance to colonial rule was the infamous armed conflict of Ruapekapeka in Northland.”
Situated 30km south of the Waitangi settlement, Ruapekapeka was a purpose-built underground fortress that would go on to shelter hundreds of Northern Māori. The brains behind the masterpiece was the notable Ngāti Hine chief Te Ruki Kawiti, a renowned military tactician and skilled warrior, who earned great mana during the Musket Wars. Kawiti was often referred to as ‘Te Ruki’, a transliteration of ‘The Duke’, as he was often compared to the Duke of Wellington due to his reputation as a masterful battlefield tactician.
According to Mikaere, “We know Kawiti was a veteran of the Musket Wars during the first half of the 19th century, and his close experiences with the British allowed him to learn the impact and power of European weapons and the forthcoming ineffectiveness of traditional pā in the face of distance weapon-armed enemies.” Distance weapons such as muskets would go on to drastically change the face of intertribal warfare, obliterating some tribes and dramatically altering the territorial boundaries of others. With foresight, Kawiti soon turned his attention to enhancing traditional fortress plans, focusing greatly on the design and fortification of defence installations, to develop what is now recognised as modern trench warfare.
According to a British observer, "The fence round the pā is covered between every paling with loose bunches of flax, against which the bullets fall and drop; in the night they repair every hole made by the guns.” Kawiti had sighted the pā carefully: it was isolated and distanced from supplies, a site that could be occupied and abandoned easily. Even from the trenches in the pā, you could still have a line of sight to the two coasts of Taumārere and Hokianga - an intentional move by Kawiti to unify the once warring neighbours of the North against the British.
Ruapekapeka Pā represents the pinnacle of military pā construction and subsequently provided the blueprint for modern trench warfare - a claim that has been massively disputed by the British, often in denial that natives could ever do anything so clever. In fact, the pā was so impressive that the British initially thought Englishmen must have constructed it. “It’s interesting to learn that the British were almost totally shocked at Kawiti’s structural masterpiece, which was clearly ahead of its time for a bunch of savages,” said Mikaere. “Ruapekapeka Pā was the first of its kind - tough to tackle and basically indestructible as most of the fortress was underground. It spoke volumes about the capabilities of Māori as more than just warriors, but as strategists and great tacticians. It’s no wonder that many have claimed Ruapekapeka to have inspired WWI trench warfare.”
The debate about whether Māori invented trench warfare has circulated since the 1980s. Historian James Belich argued in the favour of Māori, crediting Northern Māori for what would go on to inspire aspects of the First World War. However, Belich’s claim has been heavily criticised by other academics, with Gavin McLean dismissing it as “baseless revisionism”. And while we can’t say if Māori were the first warriors ever to develop this strategy, it is undeniable that Māori advanced trench-based defences without external aid.
Ruapekapeka, meaning the ‘Bat’s Nest’, refers to the underground network that the fortress served for Māori of all ages. A colony of bats, living in underground tunnels for weeks. Some British observers recounted hearing haka and waiata from Ruapekapeka Pā in the early mornings - an obvious expression of lament, fear, and courage to keep going. “I suppose even despite the battle at Ruapekapeka being the first massive conflict between Māori and Pākehā, Māori still utilised any spare moment to express their fears of the battle. There were some families present at the pā, with their many children, and I can imagine that a lot of that fear was for the future of those tamariki - those waiata kept people going.”
Unlike the British military, who at Ruapekapeka only had men in the camp, Ruapekapeka Pā had an overwhelming presence of women and children on the battlefield - the fortress took a village to build, and even more to defend it. The role of women in particular was of equal importance as the men, as many women were matakite (seer) and healers, they were non-negotiable members of the war party. One of the several responsibilities women held on the battlefield was “to finish off the wounded British soldiers” - typical Victorian-era values saw women as unworthy and lesser than. According to Peeni Henare in an RNZ documentary, it was “the ultimate insult [for a British man] to be killed by a woman.”
Even children as young as ten were required to do their part. Many of them were tasked with the loading of ammunitions, and to defuse those of the enemy: they would keep an eye for incoming bombs and shells, running out to remove the wicks before they could detonate, they also were in charge of reloading the guns for those on the front lines. The unused munitions were then emptied of gunpowder to be used for muskets from Ruapekapeka Pā - an ironic symbol of how Māori were continuously using Pākehā inventions against them. “There are several elements of irony to the whole Northern War campaign. The first was the English nicknaming Kawiti ‘Te Ruki’ in comparison to the Duke of Wellington. They perceived it as a friendly nickname, but underestimated just how skilled he really was,” Mikaere explained. “Ruapekapeka is likely the best example Māori outsmarting Pākehā with their own shit. You mean to tell me that British soldiers bombarded the pā for weeks and still couldn’t crack the place? And the only time they managed to pass through was when the fort was empty? That speaks for itself - Māori observed, learned and outperformed the English in their own game.”
Meanwhile, on the other side of the valley and barely a kilometre away, was the British camp. Here, the English soldiers were subject to barbaric mistreatment from their superiors: cruel living conditions and physically challenging work. Kawiti had strategically selected Waiōmio Valley, a place of no strategic value to the British, and lured them to set up camp. It took them three weeks to crawl through the dense Northland bush, hauling heavy artillery and supplies with them over 20km from the Bay of Islands. “Looking at the records, I don’t really blame any of the British soldiers, just their overseers and the government. Most of these men were not well-off, and they too were separated from their families. We have to remember that if our tūpuna struggled, why would these men have had it any better?” Mikaere argued, sharing that healing comes with acknowledging the suffering of both parties and that, while Māori in the pā came from a culture built around the importance of interpersonal relationships, “the English, at the time, had no concept of emotional connection with one another, especially without alcohol. And it certainly showed.”
The victors of the battle are still debated, but at the time Governor Grey decided the Brits had won. He utilised the apparent British success at Ruapekapeka to reaffirm his control of Pākehā settlers. James Belich strongly argued that Grey won the propaganda war while Kawiti and Heke won the war on the battlefield - and while the battle at Ruapekapeka cooled the flames of the Northern Wars, it fanned the fires of Māori resistance across the rest of Aotearoa. “It is very evident that Ruapekapeka Pā acted as a blueprint for forthcoming Land Wars, going on to inspire the plans for Rangiriri in Waikato. I recently read that the engineers for Rangiriri, Te Wharepū, and Te Uriuri, learned techniques for the battle site from Te Noorta who had fought at Ruapekapeka Pā - it only made sense to utilise the tactics that Ngāpuhi, who had experienced land confiscation before Waikato, used to fight off the British,” Mikaere said. “They were extensively outnumbered and suffered few casualties. The pā and Kawiti’s strategies are due for these credits… But Northland was never the same after the fight.”
The Northland region, the place of first European presence and settlement in the country, and home to the capital Kororāreka, surged into extreme, never-before-seen poverty following the battle at Ruapekapeka. A once prosperous and abundant region, booming with Māori-led business, turned barren after all resources were squandered on the wars between Pākehā and Māori. This poverty is still observed in Northern towns today, as it remains one of the country’s poorest regions.
Some decades later, after innumerable battles between Pākehā and Māori and the British confiscation of Māori land, the First World War broke out. Eventual conscription policies meant all able-bodied men had to serve their country, including Māori who had, in living memory for many, been treated as anything but equals to the British. Tribes who had land confiscated as punishment for supposed rebellion against the Crown were the leading crowd of resistance to conscription - Te Puea Hērangi was a prominent figure of anti-conscription, particularly for Māori, in support of men who were imprisoned for refusing to serve in the war.
According to Richard S. Hill in First World War - State Authority, Indigenous Autonomy, Te Puea Hērangi was clear about her opposition to Māori in active service in the name of the British, and that her people would struggle fiercely for the independence of their political culture within the New Zealand polity. “No Waikato volunteered, a lesson for the Crown in the power of Maori control mechanisms.” And while the Kīngitanga and its stance did focus minds on the many grievances held across numerous tribes, other established Māori leaders feared that this would detract from their efforts to convince Pākehā of a new place for Māori in New Zealand society. When conscription was introduced in 1916, the Crown proposed to exempt Māori, partly in order to avoid a showdown with oppositional tribes. But Māori MPs and other Māori leaders remained hostile to exemption. Over 2000 Māori served in the Māori Contingent and Pioneer Battalion, which would later become the Māori Pioneer Battalion.
On 1 September 1917, Māori troops were granted their own separate battalion with the formation of the New Zealand (Māori) Pioneer Battalion, and by the end of the year it had 928 members. The Māori Battalion was the only one in the Expeditionary Force to return as a complete unit, but the welcome was a far cry from what Pākehā received. In Apirana Ngata: E Tipu e rea, Michael King discusses that “when the war ended, the Government refused to help Māori soldiers back into civilian life as it did Pākehā soldiers, paying them money to buy farms, and training them in trades.” Furthermore, Philippa Mein Smith wrote in A Concise History of New Zealand that “the men of the [Māori] Pioneer Battalion, who fought for equality, found themselves excluded from Soldier Settlement Schemes to assist men to purchase homes and farms.” To add to the offence, Māori had provided land for soldier settlers, which is what Mikaere was quick to define as “blatant, ignorant separatism. Our tūpuna caught the same ships over, fought the same battles, and suffered the same wounds as Pākehā did, but were not acknowledged in the same way Pākehā were.”
Alison Fletcher discusses in an article that Sir Peter Buck, Te Rangihīroa, highlighted the military capabilities of Māori, arguing for much more than the recognition of Māori as just “a fighting race”. “If the presence of the Māori contingent in Egypt was able to develop further authenticity to the NZEF because they were recognised as the ‘old New Zealanders’, then by inference Māori were intrinsic to any understanding of national identity.” By 1914, with a few prominent exceptions, Māori were both economically and socially marginalised. This was recognised by Māori leaders who encouraged the mass-enlistment of Māori to form a separate Māori contingent, believing that a specifically-Māori military would increase the visibility of Māori support for the war, and hopefully result in recognition that they should be treated as full citizens of New Zealand. Then-Captain Peter Buck wrote from Egypt during the war and explained his observations of prejudice: “Though living side-by-side, the Pākehā knows very little about the Māori and in many cases he thinks the Māori has degenerated.”
But their endeavours in the Pākehā world was not appreciated by all Māori. The wars of the 19th century, including the somewhat fresh invasion of Parihaka and land confiscations, remained established in the memories of many Māori. When news of war reached New Zealand, the race relations between Pākehā and Māori were at their worst. “Pākehā blamed Māori for many of the liabilities during those days - the news titled smallpox as ‘the Māori epidemic’ and even school boards instructed both Māori and ‘half-caste’ kids to be denied of schooling until further notice,” Mikaere said, further explaining the clear divide between Māori and Pākehā. “The health board established regulations to entirely prevent Māori from the Auckland region, and even restaurant owners barred Māori from their places. The irony behind this is that smallpox was brought to New Zealand by a European missionary.”
So considering the way Māori were continuously shunned from society, why should they serve for a country that put its best efforts into excluding them?
"When we think about Anzac Day, we think of young, bright-eyed Pākehā men in their military greens, experiencing their first plight with war. But for our Māori ancestors, a people who resisted the constant mind-fucking from the colonial government through countless battles - from the Musket Wars, the Northern Campaign, the Waikato Wars, the siege at Taranaki - to then be thrust into WWI in living memory of these battles alongside Pākehā who suddenly saw us as ‘good enough’ to fight with them, is ironic,” Mikaere explained. “Many of our men struggled and sacrificed, to ‘do their part’ and be seen as equals in their own home - and so many of them would never see that home again.”
“I remember that Te Ao with Marama interview with Sir Bom Gillies, and how he said that some of the boys from the battalion, who never complained about receiving no assistance from the government, would return home and drink themselves to death to deal with that hurt. These days you can read short summaries of Māori soldiers who fought in these wars, described as 'broken men' and 'desensitised by the war', but they were deprived of support in every form and so they sought healing in alcohol. And you wonder why Māori struggle with the drink these days. At the centre of every Māori issue is the Pākehā."
The Māori Battalion would go onto become a well-known, widespread contingent, with Field Marshal Erwin Rommel, the Commander of the German Afrika Korps, famously promising, “Give me a Māori Battalion and I will conquer the world.”
Today, we look at our forebears with gratitude for their sacrifice. But for Māori, it is bittersweet. Their enlistment was the ultimate price of citizenship, paid in full with blood.