MR. FOX'S HISTORY OF THE WAR IN NEW ZEALAND, REVIEWED FROM A MILITARY ASPECT.

Daily Southern Cross, Volume XXII, Issue 2829, 20 August 1866, Page 4

MR. FOX'S HISTORY OF THE WAR IN NEW ZEALAND, REVIEWED FROM A MILITARY ASPECT.

Me. Fox's book may be regarded from a military and a political point of view. We propose to review it from its military aspect on the present occasion. Regarded as an account of the causes that led to the war, and an exposition of the political relations which hnd subsisted, and which now exist betwevu the Imperial and Colonial government, between the natives and those Oroyerninents respectively, and between the natives and the colonists, Mr. Fox's book is all but faultless ; but as a history of the events of the war itself, it is of little account. The story of the New ZeaJaud war has still to be written. Our countrymen at home have yefc to learn what sacrifices the settlers of this colony made during iheir time of trouble, what hardships their troop endured, what dangers they braved; in the face of what difficulties, and how, and by what means, Sir Duncan Cameron brought the desperate New Zealand savage to acknowledge the mastery of the British soldier. Nor will that chronicle, if faithfully and truly told, be the barren, distasteful record Mr. Fox would fain have us believe. Its pages will be illuminated here and there by tales of deeds of heroism, of selfsacrifice, and of chivalrous devotion achieved by British officers and soldiers, and settlers, which have been never surpassed, and not often equalled. But Mr. Fox makes no mention of these things. His narrative is meagre and\ inaccurate — abounding in omissions and defects. But what we chiefly object to in his book are the sneers at the General and his army with which its pages teem. The settlers of the province of Auckland, the persons most interested in the strife which raged around their doors in 1863-64, ought to be able to form some faint idea as to how that warfare was waged which imperilled their lives and wasted their substance ; and they are not too proud to own that it is to the skill of Sjr Duncan Cameron, aad to the obedience, the discipline, the endurance, and the courage of his soldiers, that they owe it that the length and breadth of this province was not ravaged •with fire and sword, as was the province of Taranaki in the days of General Pratt. They, at least, hare never despised the General and his troops, or been ungrateful to them for their services. But Mr. Fox, who by his own account is a most incompetent judge of military affairs, who, in these days, when almost every one has some smattering of military knowledge, is not ashamed to tell us that "he does not •pretend to have the smallest personal knowledge whatever of military affairs. He knows absolutely nothing of the 'disciplines of the wars,' and is entirely ignorant whether a force should be taken into action at quick march, at the double, in line, in echelon, in fours, or deployed in skirmishing order " — Mr. Fox, we say, after this confession, is bold enough to criticise the conduct of the New Zealand campaigns, and to cavil at the behaviour of her Majesty's troops. Now, that is true, no floubt, which Mr. Fox asserts, that '* green ensigns " did, from time to time, write home to their friends the most absurd and untrue accounts of the colony, and of its European inhabitants. It cannot be denied that older officers, who ought to have known better, deemed it their duty, on various occasions, to represent to their friends and relations in England that the war was an unjust one — a conflict not forced upon us by the natives themselves, but one undertaken to satisfy the colonists' greed for land. These things are too certainly the case, and Mr. Fox is very naturally* and justly indignant at them; but it is no less certain that in the day of battle the greenest ensigns and the most pacific of military scribes ceased to be casuists, and remembered only that they were soldiers. Yet Mr.Fox damns her Majesty's officers and soldiers by words of faint praise. He makes no mention whatever of the numerous deeds of valour performed by single individuals or small bodies of men. But we will not content ourselves with generalities. We have said that Mr. Fox's book abounds in inaccuracies and omissions. "We will proceed to specify some of them. For instance, when speaking of the military resources of the Vlaoris at the commencement of the war, Mr.Fox uses these words :— " Their ■mall arms" (i. c., the natives') " consisted of old Tower muskets, many flint and steel (temporis George the Third), single and double fowling-pieces, such as are made for colonial trade, and a very few rifles, not perhaps one in a thousand." JSow, these words would lead us to suppose that the natives had few, if any, percussion arms ; the fact being, that the number of percussion arms in the hands of the Maoris exceeded by many hundreds of stand the number of flint arms in their possession; whilst, as to the statement about the rifles, anyone who has served against the Maoris will tell Mr. Fox that his ideas on that point are entirely incorrect. Then, Mr. Fox informs us that LieutenantColonel Austin died of the wounds he^ received at the Koheroa, when that much-lamented officer, in reality, expired from the effects of the injuries he sustained at Jlangiriri five months later. Mr. Fox informt us that the actual military force serving under General Cameron was, in round numbers, " 10,000 Queen's troops, including a troop of field artillery ; 5,000 military settlers, enlisted for three years, under regular training, and, if rightly handled, capable of being formed into a first-rate Zouave force ; several small corps of Volunteers and Bushrangers ; five frigates and sloops of war of the JKoyal Navy, which furnished a naval brigade of more than 300 men, and were constantly employed in shelling pas on the coast, blockading harbours, carrying troops, and other operations ; two steamers belonging to the Commissariat, and seven or eight sea and river-going steamers belonging to the Colonial Government -one an iron-clad with turrets, another ball-proof against small arms. Besides the field artillery, one large 1101b. Armstrong and two 401b. Armstrongs, with a great number of smaller guns, mortars, and cohorns, were used by us whenever necessary." Now this passage would lead us to suppose that from the very first commencement of the war Sir Duncan Cameron had at his disposal the force above mentioned. Yet what is the truth ? On the 9th July, the day on which the General commenced his operatioas against t!ie Waikatos, he had under his command, in the whole of JN ew Zealand, only some 6,000 regular troops, and not one military settler. He had but one river steamer, namely, the 'Avon.' The 'Curagoa,' the largest of the frigates, had not at that time arrived ; nor did the 1101b. and 401b. Armstrong guns, or the iron-clad steamer, come into this country till a later period than the 9th of July. Therefore, perhaps unintentionally, Mr. Fox has made statements in this part of his work which must, if uncontradicted and unexplained, mislead his readers as to the available means at the disposal of the General during many months 'of the war. Moreover, Mr. Fox_ complains very much of the delay which took place between the fight at the Koheroa and the occupation of Meremere. But Mr. Fox is aware, as well as ourselves, of the cause of that delay. It arose from the want of an efficient flotilla on the Waikato ; and Mr. Fox is aware — or, if he is not, he should be — that there is a correspondence on record whereby it appears that, so far back as 1862, General Cameron urged upon the Government and the Ministry of the day the necessity for the immediate formation of a flotilla capable of navigating the Waikato. Had the General's advice be»n followed, Meremere would have fallen many weeks earlier than it did. It was not attended to ; and thus it came to pass that, through no fault of his own, Sir Duncan Cameron was condemned to a long season of inaction, which chafed the fiery spirit of the old soldier, aa only those can tell who saw him i

pacing up aud down, with, short, impatient steps, in front, of the Queen's .Redoubt during the months of Auguit, September, and October, 1863. Nor are Mr. Fox's sins of omission less numerous than his blunders and misstatements are glaring. Thus the ably-planned and gal-lantly-executed assault on the native position at theKaitakara,inTaranaki,isnot described at all by Mr. Fox, though it was the first, and one of the most successful engagements of the war. He contents himself with stating the bare fact that such an affair took place. The action at shepherd's Bush between the escort and the rebel natives is related in a lew brief lines, which, few us they are, yet serve to give a false notion of the encounter which then took place- The sharp engagement at Kerikeri on the 22nd July, when Captain Ring's detach* mentof the 18th vr&s surrounded by the enemy, and only extricated from its perilous situation at nightfall by the 65th .Regiment, under Colonel Wyatt, >ia passed over in total silence. So is that bitter fight at Cameron Town, between j Captain Swifta handful of men and the natives, though anyone would think that the courage and the discipline displayed on that occasion by the stubborn old soldiers of the 65th, the forward gallantry of Lieutenant Butler, and Sergeant, afterwards Ensign, McKenn*, and the devotion of Corporal Uyan, who remained by his dying captain when the others left him, are things which a person professing to write a history of the New Zealand War might take some notice of. Neither does Mr. Fox condescend to give us an account of the attack on the stockade at Pokekohe, where a few settlers— scantily supplied with ammunition, and having the disadvantage of an unfinished fortification, with walls so low that they had to keep in a stooping posture, whilst the natives, sheltered by stumps of trees, and having the advantage of the ground, fired volleys at them— yet contrived to maintain themselves for the space of two hours, until aid came in the shape of a strong detachment of troops, under the command of Major Inman, Again, those of our readers who have not perused Mr. Fox's book \t ill scarcely credit us when we tell them that ifc does not contain one word about the combat at the Mauku, where 50 Victorian Military Settlers and Mauku Volunteers assailed upwards of 400 Maoris 4 with a desperate audacity, and defeated them, with a loss to themselves of Lieutenants Perceval and Norman and nine men killed and one wounded. But it would be flat, stale, and not very profitable if we were to expose all Mr. Fox's blunders, omissions, and misrepresentations. We may perhaps, whilst on this subject, be reminded chat Mr. Fox offers us an explanation of the circumitance that he has failed to record some of the chief events of the war, in these words : "In recording the events of the Waikato campaign, I have so far confined myself entirely to a relation of the principal sieges (if they may be so called) and engagements on the main line of operations. It would have been impossible within any reasonable limits to record all the skirmishes, the attacks on escorts or redoubts, the demolitions of homesteads, and isolated murders of old men, women, and children, which occurred chiefly in the rear of our forces, and to within 17 miles of the town of Auckland, during the first four months of hostilities. Some of the skirmishes were very gallant affairs, and well deserve to hare been recorded in detail if it could only have been done. But to have done so would only have distracted the attention of the reader from that main line of operations by which the rebels were driven backfrom their attempted invasion, and the country occupied." This is all very plausible, like everything which Mr. Fox asserts, but it is nevertheless fallacious. For, in the war 1863-4, the smaller skirmisheshad an important bearing on the issue of the strife, as well as the most considerable general actions. It is to the moral effect of the success which invariably attended our arms in every encounter that the withdrawal of the Maoris from the cultivated European territory in the rear of the General's field force is to be attributed. It is to the moral effect so produced that we owe it that Auckland was spared the horrors of a night attack during the winter and spring of 1863. We do not scruple to assert that during the months of July, August, September, and October, 1863, two hundred natives only, falling vehemently and suddenly upon us in the dead of the night, would have made us look very queer, whilst 500 natives could have entirely possessed themselves of the city for a short time. And though it is also certain that not one of them could have escaped to tell the tale, yet in the interim between the onslaught of the natives and their utter extermination, what scenes would have been witnessed in our streets ! What terror, what anxiety, what confusion, what despair would there have prevailed ! That we were spared a night of such fearful and almost unimaginable horror, is due to the courage and the constancy of the men who fought in those very skirmishes which Mr. Fox passes over in contemptuons silence. Therefore, we charge Mr. Fox with sending forth a book to the world, professing to be a true, full, and faithful account of the last New Zealand war, which in reality is only a distorted and a garbled narrative of that untoward strife. We charge him with accusing General Cameron of incompetency, whilst he endeavours to shelter himself from animadversion by stating that he has no knowledge of military affairs ; and we charge him with keeping out of sight important facts, and with asserting as his excuse for such a suppressio veri that those facts had no bearing on the general issue of the various campaigns. When Mr. Fox shall have written a complete and truthful history of the New Zealand war, and thereby placed his readers in a situation to judge for themselves (if they choose to do so) of the me/its and the position of a general officer suddenly called upon to defend a long line of frontier, and to answer for the safety of numerous isolated settlements, and at the same time expected, without preparation or means of transport, fco occupy the territory of a foe who had been suffered to mature his plans for years, until they were ripe for execution, perhaps more importance will be attached to Irs remarks on the conduct of the war by persons qualified from their local and military knowledge to form an opinion on the same, than they are likely to receive in their present shape. In the meantime we would recommend to Mr. Fox, should he have occasion again to relate the assault on the Gate Pa in any fresh edition of his work, to transcribe in toto the account of that disastrous business given by our special correspondent in our issue of the sth May, 1864, and not to content himself —as in the book before^ us—with copying out, nearly word for word, one paragraph only of our correspondent's narrative. If Mr. Fox adopts our suggestion he will be saved from the perpetration of the many inexcusable and grossblunders of which he has been guilty in the present edition of his work.