“We New Zealanders pride ourselves most of all upon loyalty to our Empire, our country, our flag”

For all the Great War’s frequently cited centrality in the story of New Zealand’s historical development, the related historiography remains noticeably underdeveloped, with outdated cultural nationalist readings still influential. Especially in public understandings, Gallipoli still reigns supreme, read as a moment of ideological disjuncture from the British Empire, towards independent New Zealand nationalism. ¹ Despite overarching challenges to this sort of teleological approach to New Zealand identity by the likes of James Belich, ² and more specific recent challenges in First World War historiography ³ – most important, challenges to the concept of soldiers’ rejection of imperial identities ⁴ – Gallipoli continues to dominate cultural understandings of the war in New Zealand. We certainly should not understate the importance of Gallipoli as a, perhaps even the, key moment of New Zealand’s war experience. As contemporary F. C. Rollett explained:

It was not until the cables announced that great landing on Gallipoli, and the long lists of killed and wounded were made public, that they realised to the full that their own country was taking part in the war. ⁵