100 Kiwi Stories from WW1: From Boer War to Palestine

Ivanhoe Baigent died in Palestine in 1917. Photo / Auckland Museum

Colonials called to defend British Empire in Africa a prelude to conflict in Europe.

26 Conflict veteran

When World War I came, Kiwis were ready. The first foundations of a homegrown army were already in place.

Men younger than the maximum registration age of 46 would have been born from the 1870s onward, an era in which Pakeha were expected to make up local militia nationwide. There was a lull in fighting against Maori after 1872, but the Second Boer War erupted before the end of the century and dragged on for three years.

Picture the world then: a quarter of the globe answered to the United Kingdom. What was British was Kiwi. Rangers and Territorials crept through the bush with Bowie knives and pistols. After homegrown hostilities had ceased, militiamen constructed harbour defences or were transferred to police - but it wasn't long before colonials were expected to defend the British Empire once more.

New Zealand took its training to the veldt in 1899, when two Afrikaaner republics resisted imperial rule. It was there that Lieutenant Ivanhoe Edward Baigent forded a river amid gunshots to rescue a comrade. Baigent received the Distinguished Conduct Medal for that - but he was called up again. In 1915, Baigent's Mounted Rifles machine-gunners fought at Gallipoli. Two years later, Lt Baigent was still fighting the Turks in what was then the sparse desert of Ayun Kara, Palestine. Baigent died of wounds on November 14, 1917.

A high proportion of those who served in World War I came from settler families expected to be handy with guns, says Kara Oosterman at Papakura Museum.

"Some came to NZ with an obligation to serve in local militia groups, volunteer rifle corps, etc, and to be available if the need [to fight] arose. Boys received military training as cadets in their early teens."

When he died aged 39, Baigent was a few years away from being able to escape conscription.

The obelisk which commemorates the 44 New Zealanders who died fighting to dismantle the Ottoman empire in the name of the British one has since been destroyed, and Ayun Kara is now the Israeli boomtown of Reshon Zion. New Zealand has asked Israel for the memorial to be repaired. Baigent is buried at the British War Cemetery in Ramleh, Israel.