We are learning to identify and summarize key information in a report.
In the year 1914 the war against Germany began. This war was named WW1. Adolf Hitler was the leader of the Nazis (The German Army). After the assassination of Archduke Franz Ferdinand (who was heir to the Hungarian throne) the Germans invaded Belgium, Britain declared war against Hitler and his army of Nazis. Hitlers motive was to drive the Jewish people to extinction. Because the war had begun New Zealand as part of the British Empire had to take part in the war. Within four days of the announcement 14,000 New Zealanders had volunteered to become soldiers. In the 16th of September the Government announces there will be a Maori Contingent, hundreds of Maori had joined up. In the 16th October the New Zealand Expeditionary Force left Wellington and went to war. Aboard the ships were 8454 soldiers and 3000 horses. The NZEF (New Zealand Expeditionary Force) joined up with the AIF (Australian Imperial Force) together they were ANZAC (Australia New Zealand Army Corps). During the war supposedly 103,000 New Zealand soldiers went to war overseas. There were many casualties, more than half of the soldiers died and those that came back their lives had changed dramatically.
On the 3rd of February New Zealand soldiers saw their first battle fighting of Ottoman Turks at the Suez Canal. William Ham was the first person to be KIA. On the 25th April at Gallipoli, turkey Wiremu Moeke was the first Maori to be KlA. On the 6 - 10th of August New Zealand battled and won in the Battle for Chunuk Bair,Gallipoli but they won at the cost of many lives. On the 15 - 19 of December Allied soldiers are evacuated from Gallipoli One fifth of the New Zealand army had died in the battle at Gallipoli(A poem was written about it called In Flanders Field). After training in Auckland the first soldiers from Niue and the Cook Islands sailed for Egypt In February as part of the New Zealand Pioneer Battalion (from their they were sent to the western front). In April New Zealand soldiers traveled to France and from there went to the Western Front where they stayed and fought for most of the war. On the 25th of April the first anniversary of the battle in Gallipoli people came together for an Anzac Day service for the people that died and those that survived. On the first of August Conscription became a way for people to become soldiers. On the 4th of August The New Zealand Mounted Machine Gun Brigade fought the Ottoman Turks in the Sinai Desert. The brigade consisted of 1800 men. In September 6000 New Zealand Soldiers were wounded and 2000 died in the battle of Somme. In November Archibald Baxter is called up for military service but he refused and became famous in New Zealand for being a conscientious objector. 3000 men wounded and 700 killed when New zealand soldiers fought to capture the village of Messines from the 7th to the 9th of June. The soldiers were shelled by Germans. On the 12th of October New Zealand faced 2700 casualties, with 845 men dead or dying in the battlefield of Passchendaele. All of that happened in three years. 1915 - 1917.
1918
In January 5000 New Zealand soldiers were killed on the Western Front in the last year of the war and In march the Germans unleashed a major offensive power as a last resort to win the war. In the 4th of November New Zealand troops stormed and liberated a French town occupied by Germans. They took 2000 German prisoners and on the 11th of November named Armistice Day the war was over. Adolf Hitler committed suicide, the British Empire with the help of the Colonies and other countries won the war.
1919
From the 15th to the 16th of march New Zealand caused riots at Sling Army Camp in the Salisbury Plain. They were angry at having to stay at England, they wanted to go home and be with their families.
Over 500 public war memorials have been made for the troops that died and the troops that survived in WWI.
