Guest Post: Māori and Pacifika in the Middle East during WW1
Hon Alfred Ngaro and Chris Archer at the Ayun Kara Memorial
As we approach yet another ANZAC day, it is appropriate that we pause to consider the sacrifice of our Māori and Pasifika people who played a significant part in the Great War. The official statistics do not explain the enormous upheaval in these communities which were the consequence of a global conflict. Official records show that 2227 Māori and 458 Islanders served with the Pioneer battalion during WW1. Of these, 336 men were killed or died overseas, and a further 24 died in New Zealand of injuries sustained during the war. Many others served in regular regiments and remain unidentified.
When war was declared in August 1914, it was only four months since veterans of the last major battle in the Waikato campaign had gathered at Ōrākau to commemorate the 50th anniversary. This historical reality explained the resistance of many Taranaki and Waikato-Tainui Māori who opposed any participation in, what they perceived, was a European War.
Politics is shaped by the people in control, and there is no lack of influential players in the unfolding story of Māori leadership during the War. Perhaps the three most Māori influential men who were in favour of Māori involvement were Sir Maui Pomare (from Ngāti Mutunga), Sir Peter Buck (also known as Te Rangi Hīroa, (also from Ngāti Mutunga), and Sir Āpirana Ngata (from Ngāti Porou). These men were leaders, particularly in the area of Māori health reform. Pomare and Ngata joined forces to encourage young Māori to join the armed forces, and both believed that by participating strongly in the war, and by fighting to defend the country, Māori would demonstrate to Pākehā that they were full citizens. Pōmare angered many of his constituents, however, by extending conscription to Māori under the Military Service Act. Buck helped in the recruitment of a Māori volunteer contingent and joined this contingent as medical officer, travelling to the Middle East in 1915. He took part at Gallipoli, later being awarded a Distinguished Service medal.
The first Māori contingent departed from NZ in February, 1915. They were initially denied the opportunity to fight because of British opposition to native people taking up arms. However, on 3 July 1915, the contingent landed at Anzac Cove where they joined the New Zealand Mounted Rifles, who were being deployed as unmounted infantry on the peninsula.
Monty Soutar tells the story of Māori and Pākehā, and of Cook Islanders, Niueans, Fijians, Sāmoans and Tongans, transported to unfamiliar places. It is a story of elation and despair; of candour, courage, and comradeship. Even a fundamental Pākehā assumption that “Men do the fighting and women and children stay home,” is contrasted with the disdain of Māori women who were denied the right to fight alongside their menfolk as they had done in previous wars. In his introduction to Monty’s book, Sir Jerry Mateparae, a former Governor-General of New Zealand observed, that this is just one reminder that different norms apply in different eras.
After the withdrawal from Gallipoli, the Māori contingent was formed into the Pioneer Battalion. These men went on to serve in a support role in Europe as part of the NZ expeditionary force. They distinguished themselves winning, three Distinguished Service Orders, Nine Military Crosses, four Distinguished Conduct Medals, 29 Military Medals, and 39 mentions in despatches.
Māori involvement in the Palestine Campaign
Some Māori enlisted in other regiments while others chose to stay with the Mounted Rifles Brigade. One of these men was Walter (Tohe) Haeata. Haeata had moved to Auckland from Hawkes Bay for his primary schooling and entered St. John College for his secondary education where he was football and cricket captain.
Following his schooling, Walter went farming at Karaka and enlisted in the Auckland Mounted Rifles, departing for Egypt together, with 6000 men and 4000 horses, as part of the Main Body which sailed for Egypt in October 1914. Haeata enrolled as a second lieutenant and rose to the rank of brevet major in the Auckland Mounted Rifles which served, unmounted, at Gallipoli in 1915 and, after the brigade’s return to Egypt, he served in the AMR as part of the ANZAC Mounted division in the Sinai and in Palestine.
Haeata was mentioned in dispatches for his courageous action during the battle of Ayun Kara on 14 November 1917. Historians consider this battle to have been the most costly engagement of the Palestine campaign for the New Zealanders. It was a battle fought at close range, with machine guns and artillery between a reinforced division of entrenched Ottoman troops who occupied the sandy dunes near the Jewish settlement of Rishon LeZion, and three regiments of the New Zealand Mounted Rifles brigade who were advancing up the Coastal Plain towards Jaffa.
In a series of heroic advances by the Wellington Regiment, and by the Aucklanders, they had routed the Ottoman defenders by late afternoon. Throughout the engagement the Canterbury regiment covered the right flank and drove the advancing Turkish reinforcements The Turkish defenders retreated leaving as many as 400 dead behind them. The cost to the New Zealanders was recorded as 50 dead and 140 wounded. This battle was significant in the eventual overthrow of the Ottoman Empire.
Not much is known about Haeata’s life after his return to New Zealand in 1919. His family recalls that he was later appointed batman to Sir Bernard Freyberg, and said of him, "He will always be remembered as one of nature's gentlemen.”
Hon Alfred Ngaro pointing out Tpr Francis Leopold Flavell 31/1027
Francis Leopold (Leo) Flavell
On the roll of honour which is located in the grounds of the Ben Gurion High School in Ness Ziona, Israel, the names of New Zealanders who were killed, or who died as a result of wounds in the Battle of Ayun Kara, are recorded. Among the names that are listed is that of Trooper (13/1027), Francis Leopold (Leo) Flavell (1890 - 1917). During 2018, an Israeli historian, Ullah Hadar, researched the stories of the men who had died in the battle and who were interred in the Ramlah War Cemetery. What follows here is an unpublished extract from her research.
Francis Flavell was born on 31 July 1890 in Kaeo, Northland, New Zealand. His parents were Margaret Sheehan (from Kerry Ireland) and Robert Henry Flavell, (from Waiuku). His paternal great grandparents were Patu Ngaehera (1781-) and Chief Te Heke Ururoa (1780-1862 ), a Māori chief of Whangaroa, who was closely related by blood and marriage to Hongi Hika, a rangatira and chief of the Ngāpuhi iwi. Margaret and Robert had 13 children of whom Francis was the seventh.
Prior to embarking for the Middle East, Flavell worked as a farm labourer in Waiuku. He enlisted with the Auckland Mounted Rifles and embarked with the 5th reinforcements on the 13 July 1915. Flavell was posted to Mudros, Turkey, on 15 October 1915 and served at Gallipoli until December 1915. On his return to Egypt, he served as a machine-gunner and cook in the NZMR brigade and on 25 August 1917, he was transferred to machine gun squadron in Moascar, Egypt. One month later Flavell was transferred to the AMR in Palestine and was killed in action at the Battle of Ayun Kara on 14 November 1917.
It is one of the strange coincidences of history that the two Māori troopers that we know were members of the NZMR Brigade are forever linked by their participation in this almost forgotten, yet highly significant battle. As a machine gunner Flavell would have been in the forefront of the battle before he was killed. Haeata was mentioned in dispatches for his part in the same battle and, in his role as brigade Major, it would have fallen to him to write the official Regimental War diary account of his compatriot’s death in the battle.
Raratongan Contingent
The story of the Rarotongan contingent was quite different. Records show that the Cook Islands sent 45 men to the war in October 1915, and a second contingent of 120 men, with representatives from every island in the group, left Rarotonga for Auckland in July 1916. The European winter proved too difficult for the Pacific Islanders, so they were attached to the Mounted Rifles in the Sinai, and served as auxiliary support. Once the Egyptian Expeditionary Force had advanced to El Arish it became possible to land supplies for the army from the sea. This task was usually handled by the Egyptian Labour Corps, but the heavy surf conditions made it difficult for the smaller Egyptians to manage the boats. In these difficult conditions the Rarotongans excelled, Competitions were organised between boats to see which one had the superior skills and the winner was awarded a flag to display in recognition of their prowess. The Cook Islanders proudly carried the flag up the coast. As the campaign extended into Palestine and beyond Gaza during 1917, the Rarotongans were given responsibility for handling munitions which became their major task for the rest of the campaign.
While various accounts have been written about Māori and Pacifika involvement in WW1, two things stand out. Firstly, that despite the barriers which New Zealand and the wider British Empire erected to prevent, or restrict, native people from enlisting in the Great War, large numbers chose to identify with the imperial cause - for a multitude of reasons. Some, who still held grievances resulting from conflicts of a previous century, chose to remain apart from the conflict. Secondly, that apart from the Māori contingent, which later reformed to become the Pioneer brigade, many other Māori and Pacifika men enlisted alongside their Pākehā brothers to serve in conventional regiments.
Christopher Archer, Saviours of Zion-the ANZAC story from Sinai to Palestine 1916-1918 (2017)
Monty Soutar, Whitiki! Whiti! Whiti! E!: Māori in the First World War, Bateman Books, 2019.