1858-1882.
RAISING OF THE SECOND BATTALION: THE WAR IN NEW ZEALAND.
After the Indian Mutiny a considerable increase in the strength of
the army was sanctioned by Parliament, for the reasons stated in
chapter x., and additional units of infantry were raised, not as new
regiments but as second battalions of existing organisations. The
XVIIIth was one of the regiments selected for this augmentation,
and on March 25, 1858, forty-four years after the original second
battalion had been disbanded,[183] the nucleus of a new second
battalion was formed at Enniskillen by the transfer from the first
battalion of a hundred seasoned soldiers.[184] A hundred and fifty
men joined from the Dublin City militia; other militia regiments
contributed volunteers, and recruits came in fast from the north of
Ireland. For the first few months of its existence the new battalion
was in charge of Major A. W. S. F. Armstrong; then Lieutenant-Colonel
A. N. Campbell, on promotion from the first battalion, assumed the
command which he continued to hold until October, 1859, when he
exchanged with Lieutenant-Colonel A. A. Chapman, 48th regiment. In
the same month the battalion was sent to England, and two years
later to the Channel Isles, where the detachment at Alderney did
good service in fighting a great fire which threatened to devastate
the island. Though the greater part of the rank and file was
composed of growing lads, “the ready and willing spirit displayed
by all and their coolness under such circumstances”[185] greatly
impressed the local authorities. This incident proved, if proof had
been necessary, that the task of converting a mass of recruits into
trained and disciplined soldiers had been entrusted to good hands;
and early in 1863, the second battalion was considered to be fit for
foreign service, and was selected to relieve one of the regiments
then garrisoning New Zealand. When the various detachments from
Jersey, Guernsey, and Alderney had concentrated at Parkhurst in the
Isle of Wight, they were inspected by Major-General Lord William
Paulet, who in a complimentary speech commented with pleasure on the
great increase in the height of the men since he had last seen the
battalion eighteen months before.
On April 2, 1863, the headquarters and eight companies under
command of Lieutenant-Colonel Chapman sailed from Portsmouth in
the ship _Elizabeth Anne Bright_, followed on the 12th by the two
service companies under Brevet-Colonel G. J. Carey in the ship
_Norwood_.[186] The depôt companies were stationed at Buttevant.
After a prosperous and, for a sailing-ship, a rapid voyage of
ninety-one days, the _Elizabeth Anne Bright_ on the 4th of July
reached Auckland, where three weeks later the _Norwood_ arrived
also. When the leading ship dropped anchor, the Royal Irish learned
that war had broken out with the natives, and that the battalion
was to take the field at once. Before describing the part played
by the XVIIIth in the campaign a short account must be given of
the Maoris, the enemy at whose hands the second battalion was to
receive its baptism of fire. According to native traditions, New
Zealand was peopled many centuries ago by an adventurous race (said
by ethnologists to be of Malay stock) who, swarming off from the
Melanesian archipelago, crossed the Southern Pacific in war canoes
and landed in New Zealand, which they named the Land of the Long
White Cloud. Either the country was uninhabited or the aborigines
were easily conquered, for no trace of their presence is found in
Maori folklore. The newcomers first occupied the coasts, and then
gradually spread over the whole of the North and South islands,
forming clans which recognised no central authority and held all land
within their borders as the property not of individuals but of the
tribe. Between the tribes there was incessant strife, which hardened
the Maoris into a nation of fighting men, skilled not only in every
wile of savage warfare but also, as we shall see, in the art of
fortifying their strongholds.
The existence of the Maoris and the very position of the country they
inhabited remained unknown to Europeans until 1642, when Tasman, the
great Dutch navigator, sighted the Land of the Long White Cloud. His
government kept the information to themselves; and Captain Cook, a
British explorer even more celebrated than his Dutch forerunner,
rediscovered New Zealand in 1769, established friendly relations
with the natives, and took formal possession of the country for his
sovereign, George III. But neither at that time nor for many years
later was England in the mood to develop her new acquisition. Her
conflict with the American colonists, her struggle with the European
coalition which supported their rebellion, and her gigantic efforts
to save the Continent of Europe from the domination of Napoleon, had
taxed her resources to the utmost; and it was not until seventy years
after Cook had annexed the country that definite official steps were
taken to assert British authority in New Zealand. But long before our
Government decided to occupy the islands, adventurous Britons had
established themselves among the Maoris. The penal settlement, formed
towards the close of the eighteenth century at Sydney, provided a
port from which New Zealand became accessible from the mainland of
Australia, and a brisk trade gradually sprang up between the natives
and ship’s captains in timber, potatoes, and native flax. Nor were
these the only articles of commerce. Collectors of curiosities
in Europe were eager to possess specimens of the tattooing or
face ornamentation for which the Maoris were celebrated, and the
heads of warriors, defeated and slain in battle and preserved as
trophies in the villages of the victors, were eagerly exchanged for
the muskets with which the white strangers were armed. By degrees
little settlements of Europeans grew up at various points along the
coast--each an Alsatia to which escaped convicts, deserters from the
garrison of Sydney, run-away sailors, riff-raff of every kind, sought
a refuge from the trammels of civilisation. Many of these wanderers
threw in their lot with the natives: some perished miserably;
others were well treated and lived with the Maoris for many years.
A few of the survivors were men of some education, and from their
reminiscences, and those of the missionaries and pioneers who arrived
from England in the early “forties,” it is possible to form an
idea of the Maoris before they became tamed by British influence.
Their character as a nation was very complex. Though cannibals, and
bloodthirsty to a degree, their sense of honour was high, and their
word once pledged was considered inviolable. They were by no means
devoid of chivalry; their language was full of poetry; their manners
were dignified; their laws were well defined, and the tenure of land
and the ownership of movable property were regulated by customs,
enforced by the power of the whole clan.
In the course of years the condition of the European settlements
became a serious scandal; law and order were unknown, and there
were constant collisions between the natives and the Europeans, in
which the white men appear to have been frequently the aggressors.
The Governor of New South Wales, who was supposed to exercise a
shadowy authority over the British in New Zealand, reported strongly
to the Colonial Office on the subject, and the missionaries loudly
complained that their efforts among the Maoris were hampered by the
presence of a considerable number of Europeans, whose conduct was
unrestrained by any form of government. In 1840, England yielded to
the pressure of public opinion and formally annexed New Zealand. This
step, ostensibly taken solely for the benefit of the Maoris, was
also influenced by political considerations, for the French had long
desired to establish themselves in the Southern Pacific: ever since
the time of Cook their ships had occasionally visited New Zealand,
and it was known that France was preparing to found a colony in
the South island. An English frigate, the _Druid_, sailed with the
newly-appointed Governor about the same time as _L’Aube_, a French
man-of-war started in charge of a transport full of emigrants for New
Zealand. Our ship outstripped the French vessels, and when _L’Aube_
reached the South island her captain, to his bitter mortification,
found that the Union Jack had been hoisted forty-eight hours before!
The terms upon which New Zealand passed into the hands of the Crown
were almost unique in the history of England. Our possessions in
the East have been won by the sword in wars forced upon us by the
lawlessness of the neighbouring States. In America the presence of a
large French garrison in Canada and at the mouth of the St Lawrence
was a thunder cloud constantly overhanging the New England colonies
until we captured Quebec in the Seven Years’ War. In the southern
hemisphere Australia was a no-man’s land--a wilderness inhabited only
by a few tribes of degraded savages. The necessity of defending the
colonists in South Africa against the attacks of marauding Kaffirs
has caused the gradual extension of British rule from Cape Town on
the Atlantic to Zululand on the Indian Ocean. But in New Zealand
the chiefs were treated as our equals when, at the solemn treaty of
Waitanga in 1840, they ceded on behalf of their clans the sovereignty
of their territories to Queen Victoria, and accepted her protection,
and with it all the rights and privileges of British subjects.
For several years after this treaty was made the country seemed
thoroughly quiet: large numbers of emigrants arrived from England
and prospered greatly in their new homes; and the majority of Maoris
appeared to acquiesce in our presence. Some of the clans were glad to
be saved from internecine strife; others appreciated the increased
demand for their staple productions of flax and timber, which was one
of the results of the European influx; but others again, especially
the tribes in the centre of the North island, grew dissatisfied with
the new order of things, and elected a king to rule over them,
who established a capital at Ngaruawahia, a strategic point at the
junction of the Waikato and Waipa rivers.[187] From a mistaken policy
of non-intervention this movement was not put down, and it rapidly
degenerated into openly expressed antagonism towards the settlers.
In 1862, to quote the words of one of the Ministers of the Crown, it
“presented the following features:--
“An elected king, a very young man of no force of character,
surrounded by a few ambitious chiefs who formed a little mock
court, and by a body-guard who kept him from all vulgar contact
and from even the inspection of Europeans, except on humiliating
terms; entirely powerless to enforce among his subjects the
decisions of his magistrates; an army, if it might be called
so, of 5000 to 10,000 followers scattered over the country, but
organised so that large numbers could be concentrated at any
one point on short notice; large accumulated supplies of food,
of arms and ammunition; a position in the centre of the island
from which a descent could be made in a few hours on any of
the European settlements; roads prohibited to be made through
two-thirds of the island; the large rivers barred against
steamers so that nine-tenths of the country was closed against
the ordinary means of travel and transport; the Queen’s law set
at utter defiance; her magistrates treated with supercilious
contempt; her writs torn to pieces and trampled under foot;
Europeans who had married native women driven out of the King’s
districts, while their wives and children were taken from
them, unless they would recognise and pay an annual tribute to
the King; all this accompanied by an exhibition of the utmost
arrogance and undisguised contempt for the power of the Queen,
the Governor and the Europeans.”[188]
The safety of the colony was threatened seriously by these sullenly
rebellious tribes; and when in 1863, a body of the King’s followers
intervened in a dispute between Maoris and Europeans in the
south-west of the North island, war became inevitable. The King’s
party, which was largely composed of the Waikato tribe, planned to
open the campaign by raiding Auckland and exterminating its white
inhabitants. Lieutenant-General Sir Duncan A. Cameron, who was in
command of the Imperial troops in New Zealand, and Sir George Grey,
the Governor of the colony, decided to anticipate the Maoris by
advancing upon their strongholds in the wild country south of the
Waikato. This river rises in the centre of the North island and winds
its way northwards from its source to within forty miles of Auckland,
when it turns sharply to the south-west at the native village of
Te Ta. Here a tributary, the Mangatawhari creek, joins it from the
north-east, and the two streams marked the northern limit of the
district held by the followers of the King. Civilisation had spread
about twenty-five miles to the south of Auckland, and a metalled
road ran past scores of prosperous farms, tangible proofs of the
success which had attended the colonists in this part of New Zealand.
At the village of Drury the good road was replaced by a rough and
narrow track, which winding through a broad belt of bush known as the
Hunua forest, crossed very undulating country much cut up by deep
ravines, half buried in ferns and scrub. This dense forest, which
a series of almost impenetrable thickets rendered ideal for Maori
offensive tactics, was to be the scene of many skirmishes in which
detachments of the XVIIIth greatly distinguished themselves.
The arrival of the Royal Irish brought up the number of regular
battalions in New Zealand to seven;[189] but by no means all of
these were available for the front. It was necessary to keep up the
strength of the detachments in various parts of both islands; the
line of communication absorbed a great quantity of fighting men, and
garrisons had to be provided for the settlers in lonely hamlets and
isolated farms. Though at one time during the war the armed whites in
the colony reached the respectable total of 15,000 men, the greatest
force of regular and volunteer troops actually under the hand of
the General at any time appears never to have exceeded two thousand
five hundred. To form an accurate estimate of the numbers against us
is impossible, for many tribes remained neutral, others were on our
side, while others again took but a fitful part in the operations and
preferred to plunder settlers rather than to meet soldiers in the
field. One point, however, seems quite clear; on every occasion when
there was serious fighting we greatly out-numbered our savage but
very gallant foes.
As soon as the Royal Irish landed they were sent to Otahuhu, a
camp a little to the south of Auckland, where General Cameron
was concentrating his troops. Here the battalion received their
campaigning kit: officers and men were provided with blue serge
“jumpers,” haversacks, water-bottles and pannikins: all ranks carried
a blanket and waterproof sheet, rolled, and slung over the left
shoulder; the men were armed with Enfield rifles and bayonets. Five
days later the column marched through Drury to the Queen’s redoubt,
a work which commanded the crossing of the Waikato at Te Ta. A
detachment of two hundred of the XVIIIth, under Captain Inman, was
dropped at Drury to hold that post on the line of communication, and
a few days later the whole of the battalion appears to have been
echeloned along the bush track between Drury and the Queen’s redoubt.
On hearing that Cameron was in motion the Maoris divided their
forces: one column was to hold the British at the Waikato while the
other was to turn Cameron’s left, harass his communications, and if
possible swoop upon Auckland. It was with the enemy’s right wing that
the Royal Irish were chiefly engaged for the first few months of the
war, but before giving an account of their doings it is necessary to
sketch very briefly the operations south of the Waikato.
On July 12, 1863, Cameron crossed the river and dislodged the enemy
from the heights of Koheroa above the Mangatawhari creek. He was,
however, unable to follow up this initial success; for nearly three
months difficulties of land transport, the want of steamers of
sufficiently light draught for river work, and the activity of the
Maoris on his rear prevented further movements against the series
of works which at various points commanded the right bank of the
Waikato. The military genius of the Maoris and its limitations
were alike revealed in these fortifications, in which the system
of defence evolved by a long series of inter-tribal conflicts had
been cleverly adapted to new conditions of war. Before firearms were
introduced into New Zealand, the
“Maoris’ _pahs_, or stockaded and entrenched villages, usually
perched on cliffs and jutting points overhanging river or sea,
were defended by a double palisade, the outer fence of stout
stakes, the inner of high solid trunks. Between them was a
shallow ditch. Platforms as much as forty feet high supplied
coigns of vantage for the look-out. Thence, too, darts and stones
could be hurled at the besiegers. With the help of a throwing
stick, or rather whip, wooden spears could be thrown in the
sieges more than a hundred yards. Ignorant of the bow and arrow,
and the boomerang, the Maoris knew and used the sling; with it
red-hot stones would be hurled over the palisades among the
rush-thatched huts of an assaulted village, a stratagem all the
more difficult to cope with as Maori _pahs_ seldom contained
wells or springs of water.”[190]
In the series of skirmishes dignified by the name of the Maori war
of 1860-61 the natives had carefully studied our tactics and our
weapons; and in the war of 1863-66, in order to bring into play the
muskets and double-barrelled guns with which they were armed, and
to minimise the effect of our rifle and shell fire, they selected
positions open in front, with flanks resting on rivers, swamps,
or impenetrable bush. They made great use of earthworks and of
redoubts, square or oblong in shape, flanked at opposite angles by
bastions and surrounded by ditches, in some cases twelve feet wide
and measuring eighteen feet from the bottom of the ditch to the top
of the parapet. Pushed out to the front and flanks were two or three
tiers of rifle-pits or short trenches, connected by sunk roads with
each other and with the main work. The marksmen in these pits were
often protected by head cover, made of trunks of trees or of hurdles
thatched with fern and covered deep with earth; and to break the
force of a bayonet charge, stout palisades were sometimes built in
front of the rifle-pits with spaces left for grazing fire to sweep
over the glacis. Yet though this system of fortification showed that
to their natural cleverness the Maoris added the power of rapidly
absorbing new ideas, their intelligence failed them in one essential
particular. In the selection of a position they never realised the
importance of a good water-supply, and when an attack was threatened
they neglected to store their works with water, trusting to their
young men to bring in by night the quantity required for the next
day’s consumption. Thus after a close investment of a few days they
had no alternative but to cut their way out or to surrender.
While General Cameron was waiting for his river steamers, a rumour
reached the Maoris at Meri-Meri, the position nearest to Cameron’s
encampment, that the General and his soldiers were short of food.
Under a flag of truce the Chiefs sent down the river a little fleet
of canoes laden with potatoes and milch-goats as a present to the
British troops. This was by no means an isolated instance of native
chivalry, for, to use the slang of the present day, the Maoris were
“sportsmen,” and always said that there was no glory in fighting
hungry men. When at length the arrival of river craft enabled Cameron
to move, he threatened the front of the works of Meri-Meri with five
hundred men, among whom were a detachment of Royal Irish, while a
turning party of rather greater strength, in barges mounted with
Armstrong guns, was towed to a landing-place in rear of the enemy’s
works. The Maoris did not await the attack, but fled southwards
across country which recent rains had made impassable for Europeans.
Cameron occupied their position, which the detachment of the XVIIIth
fortified under the direction of the Royal Engineers. In November
the General took an important step towards freeing the line of
communication from the natives who harassed his convoys in the Hunua
forest and ravaged the farms in the neighbourhood of Auckland. Many
of these guerillas came from the country round the estuary of the
Thames river, and thither he sent an expedition under Brevet-Colonel
Carey, XVIIIth regiment, to overawe the district and establish a line
of blockhouses between the Thames and the Waikato. While Carey was
carrying out his mission successfully Cameron pushed up the river,
and on November 20th, attacked the formidable works at Rangiriri,
the Maoris’ second position on the Waikato. Before the enemy had
been thoroughly shaken by artillery the order was given for the
assault, and though repeated and gallant charges were delivered,
the troops that day achieved but a partial success, bought at the
cost of 132 casualties. Under cover of the night several hundred
of the enemy escaped; the remainder, 183 in number, surrendered
at daybreak and were made prisoners of war. In this engagement
the Royal Irish were represented only by one officer, Captain and
Brevet-Lieutenant-Colonel Sir H. Havelock, V.C.,[191] then serving on
the headquarter staff as D.A.Q.M.G., and a few men. The losses at
Rangiriri greatly dispirited the enemy, who allowed Cameron to march
unmolested up the right bank of the Waikato, and on December 9, 1863,
to occupy Ngaruawahia, the capital of the rebellious country.
The Royal Irish were hard at work on the line of communication during
this time. Tracks had to be cut through virgin forest and garrisons
provided for settlers’ farms; convoys needed large escorts, while the
road along which the waggons lumbered had to be strongly piquetted
and constantly patrolled. In these duties detachments of the XVIIIth
met with many exciting adventures; they alternately rescued parties
of other regiments from imminent danger or were themselves saved from
destruction by the timely arrival of reinforcements. Many laurels
were won in these skirmishes, of which the details, as far as they
have been preserved, are here recorded.[192] Six days after the
headquarters of the battalion had reached the Queen’s redoubt Captain
Ring, with Ensign Bicknell, two sergeants, and forty-seven rank and
file, was sent in charge of a convoy to Drury. The track passed
through a forest, thus described by an officer of great experience of
campaigning in the forests of many parts of the British Empire: “The
bush of New Zealand is wonderfully dense and entangled. A European
going into it about twenty yards and turning round three times is
quite at a loss to find his way out again unless he is somewhat of an
Indian path-finder and can judge of the points of the compass by the
bark of the trees, the sun, &c. Trying to run through the bush one
is tripped up by the supplejack and other creepers.”[193] While on
the march Ring fell into an ambuscade of about 140 Maoris; fire was
opened by invisible enemies upon his advance-guard, his right flank,
and his rear; a driver and two horses in the centre of the convoy
fell wounded; the line of waggons was thrown into confusion, and the
Maoris attacked his left flank. He retired immediately with as many
men as he could concentrate, and, in skirmishing order, kept the
enemy at bay for some time; then seeing himself nearly surrounded he
retreated into a settler’s farm, which he held until some of Inman’s
detachment at Drury extricated him from his dangerous situation. In
this affair four men were killed and ten wounded.[194]
Soon after this affair Ring found himself in charge of a mixed body
of troops at Keri-Keri, on the road which runs north-east from
Drury through the Wairoa country to the coast. With him were five
officers and about two hundred rank and file of the battalion, and
two officers and a hundred men of a New Zealand militia regiment. In
the morning of the 22nd of July he learned that a number of natives
had murderously attacked two settlers, and immediately afterwards
heard heavy firing about two miles off near Pukekewereke, where
sixteen volunteers were defending themselves against very heavy odds.
Leaving the militia and two officers and a hundred of his own men to
hold the post, he hurried to the rescue with Lieutenant Wray, Ensigns
Jackson and Butts, and the remainder of the Royal Irish. On reaching
the scene of the skirmish Ring opened fire, and, to use the words of
his report, “the natives retreated to my former entrenchment above
the _wharé_[195] at Keri-Keri; the fire of the skirmishers drove them
down the side of the hill into the brushwood; the leading skirmishers
on the right, under Lieutenant Wray, took possession of the hill and
kept up fire on them; I, with another body of skirmishers, proceeding
to take that on the right flank, but found that the natives, who
mustered a strong force, nearly surrounded me; here I lost a man
killed, whose rifle and bayonet were taken possession of by the
natives, though not without serious loss to them. I then concentrated
my men on the entrenchment, and having heard from a Royal Artillery
officer who rode up to my position that the 65th regiment was in my
immediate vicinity, I requested that he would inform the officer
commanding the 65th that there was a track in the enemy’s rear, and
that if an attack were made in that direction it would be of great
service. As it was quite impossible for me to follow so strong a
force of the enemy into the bush with my small force, I remained
in the entrenched position until close on sunset, keeping a steady
fire on the enemy, who were endeavouring to obtain the body of the
private who was killed and whom I would not leave. I repeatedly tried
to obtain possession of the body by sending out volunteers of the
man’s company, but desisted, finding it would entail greater loss. I
was about to retire, leaving a rear-guard in the entrenchment, when
the mounted artillery arrived.” The gunners were closely followed by
a party of the 65th, who threw themselves into the fray with great
spirit. On the appearance of these fresh troops the natives drew off
into bush so thick that no pursuit was possible, and after the body
of the dead soldier had been recovered the whole force returned to
their entrenchments. This affair cost the battalion one man killed
and four wounded.[196] For Ring’s conduct and good judgment on this
occasion General Cameron recommended him for a brevet-majority, to
which he had been gazetted in England before he fell mortally wounded
at the engagement of Orakau on March 31, 1864. The detachment was
commended for the firmness with which they had held their ground
against superior numbers.
The next time any of the XVIIIth were in action seems to have been on
the 25th of August. The attack on Ring’s convoy had shown how easily
traffic could be stopped in the Hunua forest. To make communication
safer through this belt of bush the Government of New Zealand set
a large number of men to cut down the scrub on either side of the
road. Soldiers as well as civilians were employed on the work;
among the former were a party of a corps which appears not only to
have been ignorant of the first principles of warfare, but grossly
disobedient to orders. General Cameron had officially reminded the
troops that axe-men should always be protected by a covering party;
but the detachment disregarded this order and, far from taking
precautions for their safety, piled arms near the road under charge
of a single sentry. The Maoris crawled through the bush, rushed the
sentry, and before the detachment could regain their rifles nearly
all the arms had fallen into the enemy’s hands. Several of the ----
were hit; the remainder, defenceless without their rifles, had
fallen back for shelter into the forest, when the guard of a convoy,
chiefly composed of a company of the Royal Irish, under Captain R. P.
Bishopp, appeared on the scene, and after an hour’s sharp skirmishing
succeeded in driving away the enemy. In this affair one man of the
XVIIIth was wounded.[197] Early in September the headquarters of
the Royal Irish were moved to Drury, leaving two companies under
Captain Noblett to man the Queen’s redoubt. During the month three
detachments of the battalion had brushes with the enemy. Half a mile
from the village of Pokeno, near the Queen’s redoubt, a party of
62 non-commissioned officers and men, under Ensign C. Dawson, were
attacked by a body of natives, who fired into them from the rear. A
bayonet charge drove the enemy into a gully, down which the Royal
Irish pursued them for half a mile, when a burst of war-whoops and
yells from the village warned Dawson to collect his men to meet a
fresh danger. Making his way back to Pokeno, he was received by a
volley from Maoris hidden among the stumps and logs of timber in a
clearing in front of the village, and from another party on his left
flank. Dawson had his men well in hand, kept them in skirmishing
order, and maintained a steady fire from all available cover, until
he was extricated from this unpleasant situation by the arrival of a
party of the 40th, and later by a further reinforcement, the escort
to a convoy commanded by Captain Noblett, XVIIIth regiment. The
Maoris fled before the levelled bayonets of the combined detachments
and took refuge in the bush, into which the soldiers could not
follow. A few days later, a convoy in charge of a body of volunteers
broke down at Pukekohe, near Drury; some of the Royal Irish, under
Captain Inman, were sent to its assistance, and found the waggons
stuck in deep mud, while the Maoris were attacking the stockade which
contained the garrison of the post. Inman’s party rescued the convoy;
then, reinforced by the volunteers, they went in with the cold steel,
and received praise from General Cameron for “the gallant manner in
which they charged the enemy, driving him back into the bush with
severe loss from the position he had taken up near the stockade.” For
his services on this and other occasions Captain Inman received a
Brevet-Majority.
About the same time another party of the XVIIIth were in action on
the Wairoa road, along which various blockhouses had been built to
cover the approach to Auckland. One of these works, the Galloway
redoubt, was in charge of Major Lyon, an ex-imperial officer, under
whose orders some of the battalion were placed. On the 15th of
September the Maoris attacked the redoubt, but were beaten off, after
an affair in which the steadiness of the Royal Irish was conspicuous.
Two days later Lyon, who had been reinforced by another party of
the XVIIIth under Lieutenant Russell, took the offensive, and under
cover of darkness led his troops towards Otau, a native village
occupied by local insurgents. It was found to be on the far side of
a river, and while Lyon searched for a ford, he engaged the enemy
with musketry--according to a well-known historian, with unexpectedly
important results--
“Across the stream at early dawn a detachment of the XVIIIth
regiment poured concentrated fire upon the _wharés_ [huts]. They
did not know that within them was a band of Maoris, who had come
to join the fighting, and who, under the volleys poured upon the
huts, fell like sheep. The troops, unable to cross the stream,
withdrew, unconscious of what they had done. Major Lyon, who
made a circuit by a bridge, found the settlement deserted. ‘The
_wharés_,’ he said, ‘were riddled with shot, blood in profusion
both inside and out. They were unmistakably taken by surprise.’
In after years a Maori who was present told how extensive was the
slaughter unwittingly inflicted by the XVIIIth, who exercised
themselves by firing at the huts without knowing how they were
occupied. As the wounded and dead were carried away before Major
Lyon reached the spot, he also was ignorant of the severity of
the blow inflicted.”[198]
In October, the battalion were again fortunate enough to rescue
a party of New Zealand volunteers from a dangerous situation. An
officer of the irregulars while reconnoitring a large body of natives
near his post at Manku, was drawn into an engagement, forced back
into his stockade, and closely surrounded. The news reached Drury
in the evening, and a strong party of the XVIIIth under Captain
Noblett was at once sent, with some of the 70th, to the relief of the
volunteers. Pushing on throughout the night the troops early in the
morning reached Manku, from which the Maoris decamped promptly, thus
depriving the Royal Irish of the excitement of a skirmish. They at
once returned to Drury, where they arrived after twenty-two hours’
continuous marching. At the end of the month two companies in charge
of Captain Noblett reinforced Ring’s post in the Wairoa country; and
in November an expedition, largely composed of the Royal Irish, was
sent to avenge outrages committed on the settlers in this district.
The marauders had stockaded themselves in a position surrounded by
dense bush, swamps, and precipitous ravines, but after a skirmish the
_pah_ was captured and destroyed.
In war opportunities of distinction do not come to every officer, and
such in a marked degree was the case in New Zealand, where much good
work was done by some of the officers of the XVIIIth whose names do
not appear in General Cameron’s reports. Though the vigorous action
of the troops on the line of communication and in the Wairoa country
prevented the Maoris from raiding Auckland itself, it was impossible
for Cameron with the small number of men at his disposal to carry
the war into the enemy’s country, and at the same time protect all
the outlying farms cleared in the bush by enterprising settlers. In
most cases the colonists abandoned their farms, sent their women and
children to Auckland, and turned themselves into a militia, which
proved a valuable asset in the British force. Occasionally, however,
the entire population of a settlement held its ground, and required
help from the troops. Thus, in September, Captain Kemp[199] with 150
of the Royal Irish was sent to the relief of one of these outposts
of civilisation; a forced march through virgin forest, past many
farms which the Maoris had looted and burned to the ground, brought
him to his destination, where he found the colonists had thrown up
stockades round their tiny church, in peaceful times used by various
denominations as a place of worship, but now turned into the keep
of the primitive fortress. Leaving these brave pioneers a supply
of provisions and cartridges, and a small party of troops to give
backbone to the defence, he returned to Drury, where his next duty
was to form a post at a deserted farm on the line of communication.
With his own company and fifty men under Lieutenant Briggs he cut
down tree ferns, and with their trunks, lashed together with wild
vines (locally known as supplejack), built a strong palisade, eight
feet in height, enclosing not only the farm buildings but also
space enough for the tents of his detachment. As soon as the farm
had been placed in a state of defence, the British instinct of
cleanliness asserted itself, and the house and outbuildings were
thoroughly cleansed; then parties of men were sent out to “round up”
the farmer’s cattle which had strayed into the forest, while others
improved the defences and escorted the convoys to the next post on
the way to the front. Encouraged by the presence of the detachment
the farmer returned with his family to his house, which can hardly
be described as a peaceful home, for, to quote Captain Kemp’s diary,
“Our nights were disturbed by seeing lights in the bush. I burned
all the low scrub (near the farm), and twice a-week took out a
skirmishing party and scoured the forest: we saw a few natives but
they always escaped us in the thick undergrowth. However we were not
further molested.” Kemp’s diary then briefly records a succession of
escorts to convoys and to prisoners taken at the fight of Rangariri;
much road-making, and marches knee-deep in swamps.
In January, 1864, the Royal Irish were employed in various ways.[200]
Part of the battalion was sent to guard the line of communication
from the Queen’s redoubt southward to Ngaruawahia; the remainder
formed the garrisons of the chain of works which Brevet-Colonel Carey
had established between the Waikato and the estuary of the Thames.
Thanks to Captain Kemp, we know something of the hard work done by
those of the XVIIIth who were in charge of these posts. On the 7th of
January, with two hundred men, he
“marched to the Surrey redoubt; it was very hot as we skirted the
swamps and many men fainted from the heat. We placed a detachment
in the redoubt, slept in the open outside it, and marched at 5.30
A.M. next day eight miles to the Esk redoubt on high ground in
open fern-covered country. Here I left Briggs and a detachment
and took my company down to the Miranda redoubt, four miles
farther on, situated at the edge of a steep cliff overlooking
the estuary of the Thames and defended by a small river on the
north side. Here I had command of two hundred men, one half being
Waikato militia. We enlarged the redoubt and made a road down to
the landing-place (previously all stores were dragged up the face
of the cliff and the Commissariat suffered heavy losses). We made
a floating bridge over the small river, sunk a well for drinking
water, and built a small redoubt on the approach from the south
in which a strong piquet was posted at night. Boats being unable
to come in at low water we made a causeway across the mud flats
to a deep-water landing-place.... We were annoyed at first by
spies and small parties of the enemy at night, so I sent out
scouring parties and destroyed their villages, bringing in large
quantities of beautiful peaches, potatoes, and other vegetables.”
At the end of January, General Cameron had accumulated enough stores
at Ngaruawahia to warrant his advancing farther to the southward.
He therefore worked up the right bank of the Waipa, building and
garrisoning redoubts as he advanced, and in a few days reached the
village of Te Rore, where for nearly three weeks he was brought to
a halt--not by the enemy, but by the eternal difficulty of supply
and transport. Shoals in the rivers made water-carriage uncertain,
and though the crews of the little steamers, the flat-bottomed
row-boats, and the other craft specially built for the expedition
did their best, this mode of transport was always liable to break
down. By land things were no better. In the plain between the Waikato
and Waipa rivers there were hardly any roads, and the native paths,
winding through forests of tree ferns, were so narrow that men could
only march in single file. These paths crossed innumerable creeks
running in deep watercourses, impassable for guns or waggons till
roads had been cut down the steep banks and bridges thrown over
the streams. The difficulty of keeping supplied even the small
number of men--less than 2500--who were concentrated at Te Rore was
enormous, for though Cameron’s headquarters were only eighty miles
from his base at Auckland, every box of “stores had to be shifted
twelve or fourteen times on account of changes of land and water
carriage.”[201] To relieve this strain Cameron cut a road through the
bush to Raglan, a port twenty miles distant on the west coast, and
thus gained a second or subsidiary base, but as a set-off to this
advantage a considerable number of men were necessarily withdrawn
from active operations to guard the new line of communication.
While the advance depôt at Te Rore was being gradually filled up, the
Maoris threw up a formidable chain of works to bar farther advance
into their country; but after a few skirmishes they were manœuvred
from these positions and disappeared into the mountains in the centre
of the island. To prevent their return down the Waikato river, a
post was formed on its left bank at Pukerima, and manned by the
headquarter companies of the XVIIIth from Ngaruawahia. The stay of
the battalion at the Maori capital had been uneventful, though to
celebrate the temporary reunion of most of the companies pony races
and sports for the men were organised, and made a welcome break in
the monotony of the campaign, for in the long intervals between
active operations amusements for all ranks were not to be obtained.
An officer writes: “There were very few opportunities during the war
for gymkhanas and that sort of thing, and a ‘sing-song’ over the
camp-fire was as much as could be attempted. Occasionally a little
duck-shooting from canoes was obtainable if we were stationed near a
river, or more rarely a raid on the semi-wild boar sometimes to be
met with in the bush. Pigeon-shooting was sometimes to be had, but
this was about all.”
Not all the companies went with headquarters to the new post;
some held the works on the lower reaches of the river, and a
detachment of four companies under Captain Ring was at Te Awamutu,
where Colonel Carey, recently promoted to be Brigadier-General
and second-in-command of the forces in New Zealand, was throwing
up strong redoubts. Here everything appeared to be quiet until a
scouting party of colonists discovered that a number of Maoris had
slipped back to the Waikato plain, and were vigorously entrenching
themselves a few miles off near the native village of Orakau.
Carey at once reconnoitred the _pah_, and decided to move on the
enemy’s position during the night; the main column was to advance on
Orakau,[202] while smaller parties were to place themselves by forced
marches on the enemy’s flank and rear. Like a good soldier, Carey
did not issue his orders till the last moment, and it was not till
after dark on the 30th of March that the officers of the detachment
of the XVIIIth heard the news, which reached them in a very dramatic
manner. They were sitting at mess in a native hut, dimly lighted by
a few camp lanterns, when the voice of a staff officer was heard
calling for Ring, who in a few minutes returned, looking pale and
depressed. Waiting until the soldier servants had left the hut to
reply to his comrades’ inquiries as to the cause of his sudden gloom,
he explained that the detachment was to march that night to attack
the _pah_, and he added in confidence that he had a presentiment that
his last hour was close at hand. “I have taken part in many affairs
of this kind,” he said, “but I have never felt as I do now.” When his
friends “chaffed” him and tried to cheer him up, he answered, “Oh!
never fear. I’ll do my duty.” After issuing the necessary orders to
the detachment he wrote his farewell letters, hastily put his affairs
in order, and then marched off with the advance-guard, which he had
the honour on this occasion to command.
The column reached Orakau at dawn on March 31. The Maoris, though
evidently taken by surprise, opened fire on the advance-guard,
composed of 120 Royal Irish and a party of 20 men of an irregular
corps, known as the Forest Rangers. Ring extended his men into
skirmishing order, and, supported by a company of the 40th, led
them to the attack. The position, which apparently had not been
reconnoitred adequately, proved very formidable. On a swelling down
the Maoris had thrown up an “earthwork with good flank defences, deep
ditches, with posts and rails outside, and nearly covered from view
by flax-bushes, peach-trees, and high fern.”[203] Though repulsed by
the fire of their unseen enemies Ring’s men re-formed quickly, and
reinforced by a second company of the 40th, made another but equally
futile effort to storm the works, being again beaten back with the
loss of several officers and men, among whom was Brevet-Major Ring,
mortally wounded. When Captain Baker, XVIIIth, D.A.A.G., saw that
Ring was down, he flung himself off his horse, and calling for
volunteers led a third assault. This failed also, but though these
three attacks were unsuccessful, they served their purpose by so
completely occupying the attention of the enemy that he did not
realise that the British troops were hemming him in on every side;
and though the cordon was at first but slender it sufficed to prevent
reinforcements from throwing themselves into the _pah_. At midday
a large party of Maoris tried to break through our lines from the
outside, but a few shells and the musketry of the outposts kept
them at a respectful distance, unable to do more than excite their
besieged comrades to further resistance by shouts and war dances.
As soon as the detached columns detailed to surround the _pah_ were
in their places, Carey began to sap up to the works, covering his
movements with artillery fire. In defending themselves against this
bombardment the Maoris showed great resource. “Long bundles of fern
were cut and bound with strips of green flax until an enormous mass
of yielding fern received the harmless cannon-balls and guarded the
earthworks.”[204]
Throughout the afternoon and night the besieged kept up a heavy
fire upon the troops, who “dug themselves in” so effectually with
their bayonets that the casualties were few. The sap was pushed on
vigorously, and on the 1st of April various small reinforcements,
snatched up from the line of communication, reached Carey. Among
them was a party of the XVIIIth under Captain Inman, composed of 1
captain, 2 subalterns, 8 sergeants, 2 drummers, and 110 rank and
file, and 70 officers and men of the 70th; after marching all night,
they were sent at once into the trenches and rifle-pits with which
the _pah_ was being rapidly encircled. Though the enemy kept up a
heavy fire upon the men digging in the sap, the work went on without
intermission until the morning of the 2nd, when Lieutenant-Colonel
Havelock brought into camp a quantity of hand-grenades, which
a brave artilleryman, at the risk of his life, hurled into the
enemy’s rifle-pits. Under cover of the confusion produced by these
missiles Carey ran into the sap a 6-pr. Armstrong gun, whose fire
breached the palisades, and beat down the musketry directed upon
the working-parties. The situation had improved so much that he was
preparing to assault, when General Cameron ordered him to stay his
hand. The General had recently arrived on the scene, but not wishing
to deprive Carey of his command announced that he was present as
a spectator only; learning, however, that many women and children
were in the _pah_, he desired that the garrison should be given the
chance to surrender before the attack was pressed home. The condition
of the Maoris was now desperate. When surprised by our sudden swoop
on Orakau, they had little or no water in the _pah_; our line of
outposts and rifle-pits proved impenetrable to the parties who sought
for water in the night; their only food was raw potatoes; their
losses in fighting men had been considerable, and their supply of
bullets was almost exhausted. Yet they disdained to yield, and when
an interpreter addressed them, saying, “Hear the word of the General:
you have done enough to show that you are brave men; your case is
hopeless; surrender, and your lives will be spared;” they haughtily
replied, “This is the word of the Maori: we will fight for ever and
ever and ever.” They were then invited to send away the women, and
answered, “The women will fight as well as we.”
After this abortive negotiation fire was reopened on both sides, and
some of the troops appear to have lost their heads and attempted
to storm the _pah_ without orders.[205] One of these unauthorised
assaults was led by a soldier in the XVIIIth, Private Hannon, who,
throwing his forage cap over a partially breached spot in the
defences, dashed after it with some twenty men, for the most part
belonging to New Zealand corps. After clambering over a stout fence
they dropped into a ditch, where Hannon and nine other brave men
were mown down by a volley fired at point-blank range. But though a
similar attack by a party of regulars and volunteers also failed to
carry another weak spot in the fortifications, every hour saw the
Maoris less able to face the storm of grape-shot, hand-grenades,
and rifle-bullets poured upon them on every side. Suddenly Rewi,
their war chief, decided to cut his way out or to perish in the
attempt. While his followers mustered among the huts round which
their works were built, they sang one of the hymns taught them by the
missionaries, and then, remembering the old days before white men had
settled in New Zealand, chanted invocations to their ancient gods.
“Their voices,” says Rusden, “were heard by the wondering
English, who were to marvel still more at their daring. At the
rear a double line of the investing troops had been thrown back
under cover to enable a gun to open fire. Through that opening,
about four o’clock in the broad day, chanting their appeal to the
God of battles and moving steadily as in scorn of their foes,
the Maoris marched towards the narrow neck of swamp between
the ridge and mound. Carey (in his official report) said they
rushed. Mr Fox writes that an eye-witness told him ‘they were in
a great column, the women, the children, and the great chiefs in
the centre, and they marched out as cool and steady as if they
had been going to Church.’ Rewi ordered that no shot should be
fired. The little ammunition left was needed for defence in the
desperate course through the swamp.... Some accounts state that
as if to deceive the troops and gain time for the fugitives, a
Maori, while his countrymen departed, sprang up with a white
flag on the parapet and was riddled by bullets. One chief, more
successful, diverted the English for a few moments; he walked
coolly towards the troops and surrendered.”[206]
The regiment (not the XVIIIth) charged with the defence of the ground
across which the Maori column was moving, was disposed in two lines,
the foremost lying under a bank which, while it covered the men from
fire from the _pah_, prevented their watching the ground in front
of them. The Maoris marched towards this bank, and, incredible as
it seems, passed through these two lines of British regular troops,
apparently without opposition. It was rumoured at the time that
before the men in the first line discovered that the natives were out
of their trenches, the Maoris had actually jumped over their heads
and were well on their way towards the second line! Thanks to the
energy of the General and his staff and the zeal of the remainder of
the troops, the natives did not escape in a body, but were headed off
by a handful of mounted men, who punished them severely in a pursuit
which lasted until nightfall. Thirty-three prisoners fell into our
hands; more than a hundred bodies were found on the field; it was
known that at least twenty men had been buried in the _pah_, while
traces in the bush proved that a considerable number of killed and
wounded had been carried away after the troops had been recalled to
camp. The natives themselves acknowledged to a loss of two hundred,
out of a strength considered by General Cameron not to exceed three
hundred fighting men. Well might the British General in his despatch
say that it was impossible not to admire the heroic courage and
devotion of the Maoris in defending themselves so long against
overwhelming numbers.[207]
When the Royal Irish were let loose, the men were wild to avenge the
death of Captain Ring, who was deservedly respected and admired by
all ranks in the regiment. Though the officers did all they could to
prevent unnecessary slaughter, more than one Maori was slain in the
belief that it was he who had fired the shot which laid Ring low.
When a fugitive was overtaken the cry arose, “That’s the man that
killed the Captain!”--then came a wild yell, a bayonet thrust, and
all was over. Not all the XVIIIth, however, were believers in such
stern methods: two instances of clemency are recorded, one of which
unhappily ended fatally to the poor Irishman. A soldier overtook and
seized a Maori and spared his life; the prisoner was lying on the
ground exhausted and apparently harmless, and his captor had turned
away for a moment, when the native seized a rifle and shot him dead.
The savage’s triumph was short-lived, however, for other men of the
XVIIIth were on the spot and silenced him for ever. In the other case
there was no such tragedy. Early in the pursuit a Maori was taken
prisoner and placed in the charge of two privates, who, as they heard
the shouts of their comrades dying away in the distance, cursed their
bad luck in being obliged to remain behind. An officer came up when
their impatience reached its climax, and overheard this conversation.
“Shall we kill him, Barney?” Barney thought for a moment, and then
shook his head. “I couldn’t kill the craytur in cold blood, Pat, but
I wish we were quit of him.” “Kick him and let him go,” was the ready
response. No sooner said than done; the prisoner disappeared into the
bush, while Pat and Barney hurried after the regiment!
The British losses were sixteen killed and fifty-two wounded. The
casualties among the Royal Irish were one officer (Brevet-Major
Ring) and eight of the other ranks killed or mortally wounded, nine
non-commissioned officers and men wounded.[208] In his official
report Brigadier-General Carey, after expressing his deep regret at
the death of Brevet-Major Ring, brought the services of Captain Inman
to the notice of the General Officer commanding in New Zealand.
After the capture of Orakau the enemy retired again into the
mountains, whither Cameron did not deem it prudent to follow him;
and when the disaffected tribes in other parts of the North island
heard how inconclusively the campaign on the Waikato had ended, there
was an insurrection in the east, chiefly memorable for our defeat at
the Gate _pah_, while in the south-west (the Taranaki country) there
were frequent skirmishes between the troops and hostile natives.[209]
To neither of these scenes of action were the Royal Irish summoned;
after occupying Ngaruawahia for three months the regiment marched to
Otahuhu camp, where it formed part of the garrison of Auckland during
the remainder of the year.
At the beginning of 1865, the Royal Irish were sent to the
south-west coast of the North island, to reinforce the small number
of regular troops holding the Taranaki (or New Plymouth) district,
where since the war began the British had been able to do little
more than to hold redoubts round a few settlements, and to send
occasional punitive expeditions into the enemy’s country. In the
beginning of the campaign the rebel tribes, the adherents of the
King, had fought us solely on political grounds; they objected to
our presence and wished to drive us out of New Zealand, but no
question of religion entered into the quarrel. Many of the Maoris
had embraced Christianity, and had become such strict Sabbatarians
that on one occasion the garrison of a besieged _pah_ left their
works on a Sunday morning to attend chapel, with results disastrous
to themselves. But early in 1864, the British learned that a set
of fanatics had arisen, named Hau-Haus, whose tenets, appealing to
all that was worst in the Maori character, were a weird mixture
of cannibalism, paganism, and Christianity.[210] In April 1864,
a detachment of the 57th was badly cut up near New Plymouth; an
officer, Captain Lloyd, and six men were killed by the Hau-Haus,
who cut off their heads and drank their blood. A few days later,
according to the native accounts, the Angel Gabriel appeared and
ordered Lloyd’s head to be exhumed and carried throughout New
Zealand, to serve as the medium of Jehovah’s communication with
man. As soon as the head was disinterred it appointed priests, and
announced that thanks to the protection of Gabriel and his angels
the followers of the new religion would be invulnerable: the Virgin
Mary would be constantly present with them: the religion of England
was false and its scriptures must be burned; men and women were to
live together promiscuously; the priests would obtain victories by
shouting the word “Hau,”[211] and could invoke the help of legions of
angels for the extermination of the whites. As soon as New Zealand
had rid itself of the English, men would arrive from heaven to
teach the Maoris all the arts and sciences known to Europeans. This
extraordinary creed is believed to have been evolved by educated and
unscrupulous natives, who realised that the Maoris had been shaken in
their allegiance to the “King movement” by the result of the Waikato
campaign, and that a stronger bond of union was required than a
purely political organisation, the fortunes of which were not then in
the ascendant.
Though in several affairs with the 57th the Hau-Haus learned by
bitter experience that they were by no means invulnerable to Enfield
bullets, the new religion found many converts. The tribes in the
south-west of the North island had always been turbulent and hostile.
They had committed grave and unprovoked outrages, such as the murder
of a party of soldiers in 1863, which heralded the outbreak of the
war. They were now in a state of open hostility, and almost the only
part of the district which acknowledged the Queen’s rule was the
ground enclosed by the redoubts round the settlements of Taranaki and
Wanganui. The Government of New Zealand decided that there could be
no peace until the tribesmen had been chastised, their power broken,
and their country opened up. To accomplish these objects General
Cameron had about five thousand troops, a thousand white volunteers,
and a thousand native auxiliaries. His plan of campaign was that two
columns, one based on Taranaki, the other on Wanganui, should force
their way along the coast until they joined hands on the road between
these two settlements.
On January 2, 1865, a detachment of seven companies (about 500 of
all ranks) of the Royal Irish, under Major J. H. Rocke, embarked for
Wanganui in H.M.S. _Falcon_ and _Eclipse_, the remainder of the
battalion being left under Lieutenant-Colonel Chapman at Otahuhu
camp. On the voyage the _Eclipse_ ran ashore on a sandbank, but the
soldiers were transhipped to another vessel, and on reaching their
destination took their place in a column commanded by Colonel Waddy,
50th, consisting of the Royal Irish; 50th; detachments of Royal
Artillery and Royal Engineers, and a small party of extemporised
cavalry, in all 963 officers and men. On January 24, Waddy moved
up the coast towards the Waitotara river. The route first led past
settlers’ farms, well-planted and rich in clover-fields, and then
skirted native villages, deserted by the Maoris, who had left their
peach-groves and patches of tobacco, Indian corn, and water-melons
to the mercy of the troops. Next came a weary stretch of steep
sandhills, and it was late in the afternoon when Waddy halted near
a lake close to the Maori village of Nukumaru. During the march
no enemies had shown themselves, and from Colonel Waddy’s report
it appears that the camp was formed before the outposts were in
position. When the tents were pitched piquets were sent out; among
them was a party of the Royal Irish, under Captain Hugh Shaw, with
orders to take up ground half a mile to the north of the camp. Shaw
moved off in skirmishing order and cautiously approached a patch
of bush close to the village, which it was necessary to occupy. It
was not until he was within thirty yards of this bush that a large
number of Maoris, lurking in the thicket, disclosed their presence by
a heavy fire. Though surprised, Shaw kept his head, and remembering
that he had just passed a small ditch with a fence in front of it,
rallied his party behind this meagre cover, which was but sixty yards
from the Maoris’ position. As soon as he had set his rifles to work
he counted his men, and found that one was missing, lying hard hit
half-way between the piquet and the natives in the bush. Shaw was in
a dilemma. To leave the man where he was would condemn him to certain
death, for at nightfall he would inevitably be tomahawked by the
Maoris: to order a few of the piquet to bring him in was to expose
the rescue party to very great danger, nor did Shaw wish to send men
on a forlorn hope unless he himself led them. Yet, if he did head a
rescue party, he was technically abandoning his post, and, during
his absence, throwing upon his subordinates the responsibility not
only for the lives of the piquet but for the safety of the whole
camp. Shaw decided to face this risk--a very grave one, as the events
of the next day proved--and called for volunteers to help him save
the wounded man. Four private soldiers, Brandon, Brien, Kearnes,
and Clampitt sprang to their feet and dashed headlong after their
officer. In a few moments these five gallant men were bending over
their comrade, whom they found still living. The air around them
seemed alive with bullets, for the piquet was firing viciously at the
puffs of smoke which marked the lairs of the Maori sharpshooters,
while the enemy concentrated his musketry upon the rescuers. There
was no time to consult how best to move the wounded man: Shaw caused
him to be hoisted upon his own back, and, staggering under the
weight, carried him back in triumph to the piquet. Incredible as it
may seem, neither Shaw nor any of his companions were hit in this
adventure. Shaw was awarded the Victoria Cross, while privates James
Kearnes, George Clampitt, and John Brandon were presented with the
silver medal for distinguished conduct in the field.[212]
The sound of the firing brought up Major Rocke with a hundred men
of the battalion, and thanks to this reinforcement the piquet was
able to maintain so hot a fusilade that the enemy did not attempt
either to surround, or to close in upon them. For some hours the
fire-fight raged, the natives returning shot for shot; then the
musketry died down, and the Maoris stole away to the shelter of a
neighbouring _pah_. Early on the morning of the 25th, the piquet was
relieved by Captain Noblett with seventy-five of his own men, and
twenty-five of the 50th regiment. On the right he posted his party
of the XVIIIth near the village, while on the left his detachment of
the 50th watched a deep watercourse, with banks covered by a thick
growth of wild flax. On the far side of this watercourse was another
piquet, also of the 50th, but not under Noblett’s command. During the
forenoon not an enemy was seen; the bush seemed absolutely deserted,
but it was the lull before the storm. In the middle of the day the
Maoris suddenly abandoned their traditional policy of standing on
the defensive in carefully fortified positions, and two columns, in
all about 600 men, falling simultaneously on the flanks of Noblett’s
piquet swept it before them, and pushed forward so vigorously
through the breach thus made in the outpost line that for a time the
safety of the camp was seriously imperilled. From the scanty details
preserved of this interesting fight it appears that about two P.M.
Captain Noblett heard firing on his left, where Enfield bullets
were falling among his detachment of the 50th. On hurrying to the
point of danger, he discovered that these badly directed bullets
came from the far side of the watercourse, where the distant piquet
of the 50th was trying to stem a Maori rush. After making necessary
dispositions he ran back to the right of his ground, to find that
there also the natives were attacking in strength; they had set fire
to the bush, and under cover of the smoke were pushing fast through
the village, and driving the piquet of the XVIIIth backwards towards
the camp. When the alarm was given all the troops not on outpost
fell in and hurried up to the front. The first party ready to move
was Captain Daubeny’s company of the XVIIIth; in a short time they
met Captain Noblett’s piquet in full retreat; Noblett rallied his
men upon the reinforcement, and then the two detachments, extending
into skirmishing order, by their steady front and well-sustained
fire effectively checked the enemy. Elsewhere, however, things did
not go so well, and the natives were almost in the camp before the
combined effect of a charge of mounted men and the shells of 6-pr.
Armstrong guns drove them back into the bush. In their retreat the
Maoris abandoned twenty-two killed and two wounded, and succeeded
in carrying away about seventy dead or injured warriors. In the two
days’ fighting the British casualties were--officers, one killed and
two wounded; other ranks, fifteen killed and thirty wounded. The
losses of the XVIIIth were three private soldiers killed and twelve
wounded, one mortally.[213] The General in his report favourably
mentioned the names of Major Rocke, Captain Shaw, and Captain Dawson.
After this repulse the Maoris retired to a _pah_ close by at Wereroa,
a position which they deemed impregnable. This opinion General
Cameron appeared to share, for he did not attack, but, hoping to
entice the enemy out of his works, moved slowly up the coast. At the
mouth of the Waitotara river Major Rocke and four companies of the
Royal Irish were left to guard a bridge of casks, while the remainder
of the battalion, recently joined by the three headquarter companies
under Lieutenant-Colonel Chapman, marched with the rest of the column
to Patea. Here they remained for many months in charge of a line of
posts on the road between Wanganui and Taranaki, sharing in only one
of the few operations which took place in this part of the country in
1865.[214]
The state of affairs in New Zealand at this time was very
unfortunate. General Cameron, who commanded the Queen’s troops, was
at daggers drawn with Sir George Grey, the Governor of the colony.
The New Zealand ministry was wrangling fiercely with the Cabinet at
home, for at the very time that Cameron announced he could not carry
out Grey’s policy without considerable reinforcements of regular
troops, the Colonial Office intimated that the War Office was about
to withdraw five battalions from New Zealand.[215] The General
was already worn out by physical fatigue and mental anxiety: the
threatened withdrawal of the troops was the last straw on the camel’s
back; on the ground of ill-health Cameron asked to be relieved of his
command, and in August, 1865, was succeeded by Major-General Trevor
Chute. About a month before the new Commander-in-Chief arrived, Sir
George Grey, who had in vain urged Cameron to attack the _pah_ at
Wereroa, remembered that before entering the service of the Colonial
Office he had been a captain in the army, and determined to prove
to the Maoris that their vaunted stronghold was not impregnable. On
the morning of July 20, he assembled a small column, consisting of
a hundred of the 14th regiment, an equal number of the Royal Irish
under Captain Noblett, and about four hundred and seventy colonists
and friendly natives. In his plan of attack Grey allotted a duty to
the regular troops which required great discipline and steadiness:
they were to demonstrate, and threaten an attack upon the front, the
best defended face of the fortification, while the colonists and
“friendlies,” by a long and circuitous march, established themselves
on ground from which the rear of the Maori works could be commanded.
The two hundred regular troops pitched their tents well within view
of the natives, threw out posts, marched and counter-marched, and
successfully “bluffed” the enemy into the belief that a large body of
soldiers were preparing for an assault. The irregulars succeeded in
placing themselves unseen in rear of the _pah_; there was some work
with the rifle, and then the Maoris, seized with panic, swarmed down
a steep cliff and abandoned their fortress, almost without firing a
shot in its defence. A reinforcement of fifty of the XVIIIth were
brought up from the line of communication by Major Rocke, who was now
in command of the regiment,[216] but they took no part in the affair.
The enemy lost fifty men and many stores: in Sir George Grey’s column
there appear to have been no casualties.
For the rest of the year 1865 the headquarters of the battalion
remained at Patea, with detachments along the coast. In December,
General Chute was directed by the Governor to prepare an expedition
against the Hau-Haus who infested the country between Taranaki and
Wanganui. He drew a hundred officers and men under Major Rocke
from the posts held by the Royal Irish; 139 of all ranks from the
14th regiment; about 100 from the 50th, and with 45 of the Forest
Rangers and 300 native auxiliaries, took the field at the beginning
of January, 1866. After making himself master of the strongly
palisaded village of Otahuhu,[217] he led his column on a more
difficult enterprise, the capture of the Putahi _pah_, which stood
in a clearing on the top of a hill, 500 feet in height, with sides
rough with spurs, seamed in every direction by watercourses, and
covered with dense jungle. Only one path led from the plain to the
summit through this labyrinth, difficult in itself and rendered
almost impassable by the stockades and other defences with which
it was known to bristle. Chute decided to avoid this death-trap by
attacking the _pah_ from the rear. Long before dawn on the 7th of
January, 1866, his troops had begun a march, which in his despatch
he described as “one continued struggle through a dense primeval
forest and bush, over ravines and gullies which could in most cases
only be ascended and descended by the aid of supple jack, and then
only with great difficulty. The distance to be traversed could not
have exceeded four miles, but the obstacles and obstructions opposed
to us made it a severe task for four hours.” General Chute’s method
of attacking the Maori works was rough but effective. “There was
usually,” writes General Alexander, “an open plateau in front of the
_pahs_; he brought his men there to the edge of the bush, and when
his line and supports and natives in reserve were all ready he made
his bugler sound a single G; the men advanced from under cover, and
on the double G being given a rush was made at the _pah_, hatchets
were drawn from the belts of the men, the withes of the outer fence
were suddenly cut, the palisading broken through, and the _pah_
stormed with cheering in the smoke.” Such was his plan at the capture
of Putahi. As soon as the Forest Rangers reached the plateau they
opened out into skirmishing order, lying down within 400 yards of the
enemy to cover the formation of the remainder of the troops, who as
they emerged gradually from the bush were extended--the detachment of
the XVIIIth on the right, the 14th in the centre, and the 50th on the
left, with the native contingent in reserve. It was more than an hour
before the soldiers at the rear of the column, breathless from their
exertions in scaling precipices, had found their places in the ranks.
During that time the Hau-Hau garrison, about two hundred strong, had
first performed a war dance to keep up their spirits, and then fired,
but with little effect, upon the troops. When Chute’s line was in
order he gave the word to advance. Under a heavy but almost harmless
fusilade the soldiers moved forward, as steadily as on an ordinary
parade; when they were within eighty yards of the enemy the double
G was sounded; they charged and burst into the _pah_, driving the
enemy before them headlong into the bush. A general pursuit followed,
in which the Hau-Haus are said to have lost considerably; then the
troops were called off; the _pah_ was destroyed and the column
marched back to camp. In this affair the British casualties were two
men killed and ten wounded, none of them belonging to the XVIIIth.
In the course of the next few days General Chute captured several
more of the Hau-Hau strongholds, and wound up his punitive expedition
by marching round the east of Mount Egmont to Taranaki, by a
track believed to be impracticable for civilised troops. In these
successes, however, the XVIIIth had no share, for Rocke’s party was
ordered back to Patea the day after the Putahi _pah_ was captured.
With Chute’s march the war, as far as most of the regular army
was concerned, came to an end. The British Government decided that
the Imperial forces should no longer be actively employed, as it
considered that the Maoris had been sufficiently weakened for the
colonists to finish the struggle without further help from the mother
country.[218] Nearly all the troops were accordingly withdrawn from
the neighbourhood of Wanganui; the Royal Irish, however, remained
in their old posts in the Patea-Wanganui district, which continued
to be much harassed by rebellious tribes. Communication along
the coast road was interrupted; small parties of colonists were
frequently surprised and murdered; and the local forces were twice
rudely handled in operations in the bush. Occasionally the garrisons
of the posts made sorties against the insurgents, but nothing of
importance occurred until October, 1866, when the Governor arrived
at Patea and called upon Major Rocke for the help of his regiment
in quelling disturbances in the country round Wanganui. Major Rocke
was in the happy position of being his own commanding-officer,
with no senior present to whom the question had to be referred.
He joyfully responded to Sir George Grey’s appeal by organising a
mobile column of three hundred Royal Irish and an equal number of
New Zealand militia, and led the combined force to Waingongoro,
where the Governor at an interview with the rebel leaders failed to
persuade them to lay down their arms. Sir George Grey at once moved
towards Papoia, a native village buried in the heart of the forest,
believed to be strongly fortified, and known to be approachable only
by difficult paths. He determined to surprise this village by an
attack at dawn, and Rocke accordingly paraded his men at midnight on
the 17th-18th of October. The Royal Irish led the march, preceded
by a storming party under Lieutenant Pringle, who had volunteered
for this dangerous duty. Silently, and with every precaution to
avoid giving the alarm to their watchful enemy, the Royal Irish
slowly followed the friendly natives who guided them along a steep
and narrow track. At daybreak the men at the head of the column
noticed that the path was leading into a glen, and a few minutes
later discovered that across this glen the Hau-Haus had thrown a
huge barricade, nine feet in height, made of the trunks of trees
and crowned with a stiff “post and rails” fence. At this moment a
number of natives, hidden in the bush, opened a heavy fire upon the
storming party, but Pringle disregarded this flank attack, and with
his men rushed at the barricade, breached it with axes, and drove the
defenders into the bush. The rest of the column poured through the
gap and swarmed into the village, which the Maoris hastily abandoned,
leaving several dead behind them. This success, obtained without loss
to the XVIIIth, was quickly followed up by Rocke, who, making his
way across country hitherto believed to be impassable to Europeans,
raided several hostile villages, which the Hau-Haus, cowed by the
capture of Papoia, abandoned without resistance. At the conclusion
of this three weeks’ campaign, the gallantry of Lieutenant Pringle
in his charge on the barricade was brought to the notice of the
officer commanding the troops in New Zealand; and two of the men who
accompanied him, privates Acton and Hennigan, were awarded the medal
for distinguished conduct in the field.[219] It may here be mentioned
that although this affair was the last in which regular soldiers took
part, it was not until 1869 that the issue of a medal for the New
Zealand war was sanctioned, while not until 1870 was leave given to
the regiments which had been engaged in the war to add the words “New
Zealand” to the battle honours on their Colours. For their services
Brevet-Colonel G. J. Carey and Brevet-Lieutenant-Colonel Sir H. M.
Havelock, Bart., V.C., were created Companions of the Order of the
Bath; Major J. H. Rocke received a Brevet-Lieutenant-Colonelcy; and
Captains J. Inman and T. D. Baker were promoted to Brevet-Majorities.
During the time the Royal Irish were engaged in active operations
against the Maoris their casualties were--
_Officers_--
Died of wounds, Brevet-Major J. T. Ring.
Died from accident or disease, Lieutenants F. P. Leonard and
O. R. Lawson.
Ensign G. B. Jenkins.
_Other ranks_--
Killed or died of wounds, 17; died from accident or disease, 39;
wounded, 36.[220]
Until March 1867, the regiment continued to hold the line of posts
between Patea and Wanganui; then the condition of the country
warranted the concentration of the Royal Irish at the latter
place, where they remained till December, when headquarters and
six companies were sent to Auckland, with two detachments, each
of two companies, at Napier and Taranaki. When the headquarter
companies reached Auckland the command of the battalion was assumed
by Lieutenant-Colonel G. A. Elliot, who had arrived from England on
promotion from the first battalion, _vice_ Colonel Chapman, retired
on half-pay. At this time the effective strength of the battalion was
861, all told.[221]
[Illustration: MAP N^o. 7.
Sketch Map
of part of the
NORTH ISLAND
of
NEW ZEALAND
1863-67
W. & A.K. Johnston Limited, Edinburgh & London.]
There is little of interest to chronicle in the doings of the
battalion during the year 1868. The headquarters remained at
Auckland, with detachments in various parts of the colony. The
armament of the Royal Irish was modernised by the issue of Snider
breech-loading rifles to replace the muzzle-loading Enfields with
which the men had hitherto been provided. In December Colonel
Beatson, the officer who for a year and a half had commanded the
troops in New Zealand, left the colony; before sailing he issued
farewell orders in which he expressed his “unqualified satisfaction
with the correct and soldierly conduct of the 2nd battalion,
XVIIIth Royal Irish regiment, which reflects credit not only on
themselves alone but also on the British army of which they are
now almost the only representatives in this distant colony.” Early
in 1869, the battalion was warned to be in readiness to relieve
the 50th in Australia. The European population, however, strongly
opposed the departure of the Royal Irish: officers and men were
alike popular with all classes of society, and while on personal
grounds the colonists wished to retain the regiment among them,
from the political point of view they deprecated the withdrawal of
the XVIIIth, who were the rear-guard of the British army in New
Zealand. As a concession the Ministry at home reluctantly postponed
the departure of the battalion, but after a few months again ordered
it to Australia. The Government of New Zealand remonstrated warmly
against this decision, and offered to guarantee for five years any
annual payment which the War Office might fix as the price of the
retention of the XVIIIth. But as the Imperial Government had decided
to throw upon the settlers the responsibility for the defence of
the colony, it decided that no regular troops should remain in New
Zealand, and at the beginning of 1870 the battalion embarked, the
headquarters and four companies for Sydney, and detachments of two
companies each for Melbourne, Adelaide, and Hobart.
How highly the Royal Irish were appreciated in New Zealand will be
seen by the following extracts from official documents, newspaper
articles, and farewell speeches on the subject of their departure.
Sir George Bowen, who succeeded Sir George Grey as Governor of the
colony, recorded his “sense of the important service rendered by the
2nd battalion, XVIIIth Royal Irish during the present rebellion,
and also of the admirable conduct of the officers and men, who
have invariably maintained the most cordial relations with their
fellow-subjects. Their approaching departure is viewed with deep and
general regret both on public and on personal grounds.”[222]
In a speech made by Sir George Arney, Chief Justice of the Colony, on
the 16th of February 1870, the following passage occurs:--
“I believe that every inhabitant of New Zealand has heard often
of the 18th Royal Irish--has heard not only of that gallant and
distinguished regiment, but also of the society of gentlemen who
have won the affections, I believe, and certainly have commanded
the respect, of the whole colony. And that which I have said of
the Officers, I may in some degree also say of the men. As the
head of one special department, I can say that during my long
sojourn here, I have known no other regiment which has been so
distinguished by its freedom from crime; and the men of this
regiment have themselves thus become respected, not only by those
of their immediate class, but by all classes of society in the
Colony. That circumstance must be taken as due not only to the
efficient command of the Officer at the head of the regiment,
but also to the temper and discretion with which his orders have
been carried out by the Officers of the regiment. I will say but
little on the fact that this Colony is now losing the presence
of this gallant regiment; it is a subject which, I believe, is a
painful one to the hearts of the whole of the colonists in New
Zealand. I believe that the 18th will be universally regretted,
as they are now universally respected.”
The Ministers of the New Zealand government also gave their testimony
to the good conduct of the regiment in a communication to the
Governor.
“MEMORANDUM FOR HIS EXCELLENCY.
“Ministers cannot permit the last detachment of Her Majesty’s
18th regiment to leave the Colony without expressing the regret
which they feel at the departure of the regiment, and bearing
testimony of the uniform good conduct of the force under the
command of Lieutenant-Colonel Elliot, during the period of its
service in the Colony; the sentiment which the Government thus
places on record is that of the whole community.
“The Government also desires to express the feeling which it
entertains of the readiness which Lieutenant-Colonel Elliot,
and the Officers commanding detachments under him, have always
displayed to aid the Colony as far as lay in their power.
“The Government also desires to record its appreciation of the
uniform courtesy and consideration which they have experienced
on the part of Lieutenant-Colonel Elliot in their communications
with him through His Excellency the Governor.
“(Signed) WILLIAM FOX,
“_Premier_.”
By the beginning of March, 1870, the various detachments of the
regiment had settled down in their new stations, but they were not
destined long to enjoy the pleasures of life in the capitals of the
Australian colonies,[223] for very soon came orders for the regiment
to return to England. The policy of withdrawing all Imperial troops
from New Zealand had been carried out. It was now Australia’s turn
to be denuded of her garrison, and in August 1870, after hundreds of
men had taken their discharges in order to settle in Australasia,
the Royal Irish embarked for Plymouth. The sailing ship _Silver
Eagle_ left Sydney on the 21st of August with the four headquarter
companies; Lieutenant-Colonel Elliot was in command, and with him
were one captain, four subalterns, two surgeons, and one hundred and
thirty-five other ranks. On board the sailing ship _Corona_, which
left Melbourne about the same time, were Brevet-Lieutenant-Colonel
Rocke and two other field-officers, five captains, nine subalterns,
and two hundred and forty-six other ranks. The _Corona_ arrived at
Plymouth on November 16; the _Silver Eagle_ made so long a voyage
round Cape Horn that before she reached port on December 5th, it was
currently reported that she had been lost at sea.
* * * * *
The Australians were profoundly moved when the Royal Irish left their
shores. The XVIIIth was already very popular, and apart from this
personal feeling, the settlers were deeply wounded at the removal of
this, the last British regiment of the garrison of Australasia. While
all men regarded this step as the breaking of one of the few visible
links between the mother country and her offshoots in the southern
hemisphere, many pessimists hinted that the policy of the Home
government was intended to force all the colonies into a declaration
of independence. When the _Corona_ sailed from Melbourne fifty
thousand people crowded to the beach to wave a sad farewell to the
XVIIIth, gloomily comparing the departure of the regiment with the
abandonment of Britain by the Roman legions. Happily these prophets
of evil were mistaken. The loyalty of the colonies to the Empire is
unimpaired, and the tie of sentiment has been strengthened by the
presence in three African campaigns of large bodies of volunteers
from Canada, Australia, and New Zealand, who fought shoulder to
shoulder with Imperial troops in quarrels with which the colonists
were concerned solely as members of the British race. Though the
offer of two thousand Australasian militia and volunteers to serve
against the Boers in the war of 1881 was refused by Mr Gladstone’s
government, four years later eight hundred men from New South Wales
were fighting at Suakim, and four hundred Canadian _voyageurs_
were steering whale-boats upon the Nile in the expedition towards
Khartoum: while in the recent struggle with the Boers for the
possession of South Africa, nearly thirty thousand men from Greater
Britain represented the oversea provinces of the Empire in the army
of the old country.
* * * * *
When the second battalion landed in England, it was quartered at
Devonport, where the energies of the officers and non-commissioned
officers were devoted to welding into shape the recruits enlisted to
fill its depleted ranks. These youths were of poor physique and small
stature, and only three hundred were finally accepted as suitable
for the Service, but good food and systematic training did wonders
for them: in a year their average height had increased an inch,
while they had grown two inches wider round the chest. The burden of
drilling and disciplining this mass of raw material fell upon the
adjutant, Lieutenant H. B. Moore; his success was so conspicuous
that when he left the army in 1873, Lieutenant-Colonel S. Wilson,
who in 1871 had succeeded Colonel Elliot in command, warmly thanked
him for his work in a regimental order. During the six years spent
by the battalion at various garrison towns in England nothing of
interest occurred, except that the Royal Irish were represented in
the Ashantee war by Major T. D. Baker and Lieutenant I. W. Graves,
both of whom were mentioned in despatches.[224] In June, 1876,
the retirement of Colonel Wilson placed Lieutenant-Colonel R. H.
Daniel in command; and in the following month began a tour of duty
in Ireland, as barren of events as had been that in England. The
battalion was at Kilkenny in the spring of 1878, when in anticipation
of a possible war with Russia part of the reserve was called out, and
four hundred men from the Kilkenny and Wexford militia were poured
into the ranks of the Royal Irish, whose officers led a strenuous
life during the three months of the embodiment. On the death of
Colonel Daniel in May, 1882, Lieutenant-Colonel C. F. Gregorie
arranged an exchange with Lieutenant-Colonel M. J. R. M‘Gregor, first
battalion, and was gazetted to the command of the second battalion on
September 14, 1878. After passing three years in Ireland, the home
battalion of the Royal Irish spent two years at Aldershot, and then
was moved to Chatham where the marching-in state showed a strength of
15 officers, 37 sergeants, 12 drummers and 356 rank and file. Here
it remained until August, 1882, when it embarked for Egypt on active
service.