WARFARE IN NEW ZEALAND.
The following letter from Field Marshal Sir J. F. Burgoyne, appeared in The Times oi December 9 :— Sir,— The recent intelligence from New Zealand is very distressing, and very discreditable to us; that is not so much to the parties concerned as to the system we adopt. With every superiority of arms, and of military means and knowledge, we are worsted by a set of savages. Where the country is tolerably open our superiority may be and : is maintained ; but where, as in large districts in New Zealand, it is wild and rugged, and covered with bush and brake, the advantage is all on the side of the savage, who can assail his victim, and move in any direction unseen himself, and without a possibility of being followed by our soldiers. The- remedy would appear obvious — namely, to establish a body of men for that species of . warfare 'who should combine ' the advantages of the European soldier and the savage. This must, be done by organising a botry from the natives . themselves, plenty of whom would be found well disposed for the purpose. These tn'en, I accustomed to the ,ways of the natives, and possessed of the superior arms, and combined action,' and organisation ; Of the Europeans, 1 would be able to efficiently cope with the Maori, and could follow and Contend with' hitn. in his native 7 haunta. : Whatever expense might be incurred in the maintenance bf : such' a body,' the outlay vvould' be trifling' compared with that of British troops, and in their own country and climate- provision could be far more easily made for their bodily wants, and ■other requirements. But, besides the absence of 'levies qualified to follow the ienemy into his haunts, our system of warfare is very often unsound in principle. The usual account of our military operations in that country consists of a long and toilsome ; marcli of many miles through scrub and brushwood in order to attack a stockade or pah, situated in one of the most inaccessible points of the theatre of warfare. The position, selected for theae stockades is usually the extremity of a spur of land approachable only by a narrow ridge, and having on either side and in rear of it steep inaccessible ground covered with bush, by which the enemy mean to make good their retreat. Now, the first question whic't arises is, why should these pahs be attacked at all? They cost the enemy little labour in their erection ; they do not occupy a strategical point in the country, such as would give them the command of a ford or mountain pass or other communication ; their possession by the enemy is no detriment to us, and their capture no advantage. It is a great fallacy to confound these positions with the military stations of civilised warfare. Having dragged a force of men, j and; perhaps, some rockets or i mountain guns for many miles l through the bush, we attack the stockade on the only side on which it can be assailed, lose a great many men in the operation, and when we take possession of it find it deserted by our foe, who have scrambled down the reverse side of the hill into the thick bush, where we are unable to follow them. In this way the enemy obtains all the substantial advantages if not the honour of the contest. He has caused us more loss than we have
been "able to inflict upon" I*lm, and fie retires, nearly unharmed, to erect another stockade on a neighbouring* ' hill, at which the same operation ig-re-peated a few weeks later. Military men are often accused of clinging too much i to routine and military rules in their ' dealing with savage tribes, but in this case we violate the primary maxim of war by attacking the enemy without cause and with all the conditions of the contest most in his favour— in fact, we attack him at his strongest. It may be confidently asserted that this method of warfare has never reduced the Maoris to obedeince, and never will. After one or two years of fighting our enemy begins to suffer from scarcity of food, and perhaps, of ammunition, and in this way a temporary truce is patched up, to be violated as soon as a few years of good harvests and a fresh stock of gunpowder enable him again to take to the bush and defy us. The true method of fighting the New Zealander I take to be this — to drive him into the bush and keep him there, by occupying the open country and destroying or carrying off all the crops which are in the vicinity of the theatre of warfare, by withdrawing our own settlers as far as possible out of his reach, and, above all, by employing' native levies against him, to follow him into his haunts, whenever necessary. Jf trustworthy information is obtained that the enemy have erected a stockade, and is likely to make a stand in it, it should be attacked if our force is sufficiently large to invest it on all sides, so that the enemy cannot escape ; but not otherwise. The object in this is not to obtain possession of the post, which as already explained, is of no value whatever, bub to give a lesson to the enemy. Arrangements should be made to bring up such a force that surrounding it on all sides, not a single man among the Maoris should be able to escape.' The mode of attack should be by rockets or mountain guns, if they can be procured ; if neither of these can be, brought up to the post, it would probably be .advisable riot to attack in open daylight, but having completely surrounded the stockade, "to approach under coyer of darkness, and breach the stockade by attaching to it a bag of gunpowder. There are usually places to be, found near the salient angles of these stockades where a bag of .gunpowder can be' applied ' without causing much loss to the assailants. If thefce principles of warfare were effectually carried out in New .Zbaland^'we should, ,1 apprehend, find little difficulty in repressing at small cost the outbreaks which ;must inevitably occur when a civilised community is brought into contact with savage "or half civilised tribes.— Your obedient servant, J. F. B.
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Bibliographic details
Star (Christchurch), Issue 249, 1 March 1869, Page 3
Word Count
1,063WARFARE IN NEW ZEALAND. Star (Christchurch), Issue 249, 1 March 1869, Page 3
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