battle of the somme

Events In History

  • 1 March 1916
    New Zealand Division formed

    After the evacuation from Gallipoli in December 1915, New Zealand troops returned to Egypt to recover and regroup. In February 1916, it was decided that Australian and New Zealand infantry divisions would be sent to the Western Front. On 1 March, the New Zealand Division was formed. Read more...

Articles

1916: Armentières and the Battle of the Somme

  • 1916: Armentières and the Battle of the Somme

    Following the Gallipoli withdrawal, the newly formed New Zealand Division left for France in early April 1916. Sent to the Flanders region to gain front-line experience, they spent the next three months guarding a ‘quiet’ or ‘nursery’ sector of the line at Armentières before moving south to the Somme battlefields and their first large-scale action on the Western Front.

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  • Page 1 - The Battle of the SommeFollowing the Gallipoli withdrawal, the newly formed New Zealand Division left for France in early April 1916. Sent to the Flanders region to gain front-line experience, they

Māori in the NZEF

  • Māori in the NZEF

    More than 2000 Maori served in the Māori Contingent and Pioneer Battalion during the First World War

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  • Page 4 - On the Western FrontThe New Zealand Pioneer Battalion arrived in France in April 1916. It was the first unit of the New Zealand Division to move onto the bloody battlefield of the

British Empire

Hospital ships

  • Hospital ships

    The Maheno and Marama were the poster ships of New Zealand's First World War effort. Until 1915 these steamers had carried passengers on the Tasman route. But as casualties mounted at Gallipoli, the government - helped by a massive public fundraising campaign - converted them into state-of-the-art floating hospitals.

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  • Page 6 - Later service and legaciesThe Marama missed Gallipoli, reaching the Mediterranean a few weeks after the Allies abandoned the peninsula. The ships’ service pattern would now be dominated by long voyages

NZ's First World War horses

  • NZ's First World War horses

    Between 1914 and 1916 the New Zealand government acquired more than 10,000 horses to equip the New Zealand Expeditionary Force. They served in German Samoa, Gallipoli, the Middle East and on the Western Front. Of those that survived the war, only four returned home.

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  • Page 7 - Western FrontMore than 3000 horses and mules went from Egypt to France with the New Zealand Division in April 1916. Most of these horses had probably come from New Zealand

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