'Uttermost Ends: New Zealand and the Great War' is a subpage of the larger site, First World War.com. The article here by Peter Hoar is a 2001 contribution to the sparse publications online regarding New Zealand's participation in World War I. It recounts the author's investigation of battlefield and museum memorials related to New Zealand's losses including: French battlefield tourist authorities; the Caterpillar Valley Memorial at Longueval; the Commonwealth War Graves Commission; New Zealand domestic memorials; ANZAC day ceremonies; and the Auckland War Memorial Museum. Of real note here is the author's assessment in retrospect of the presentation of New Zealand's military contributions and losses, especially at the Battle of the Somme in 1916, as the perception of World War I shifts from direct personal memory to history. This is really an article about problems of commemoration and war memory, which will serve a wider scholarly audience as much as it will New Zealand military historians and interested members of the public. The historiographical comment here shares its tone with Australian and Canadian historians who look similarly to World War I to isolate the emergence of separate national identities in these countries, even as those nations arguably confirmed the height of their British colonial existence through loyalty and sacrifice during this conflict. This divided and painful colonial experience of simultaneous devotion to ...
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