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This might be a list of wars involving New Zealand . New Zealand has participated in many armed conflicts, often alongside its allies such as the United Kingdom.
| Conflict | New Zealand | Opposing Combatant | Result | Casualties |
|---|---|---|---|---|
Flagstaff War (1845–1846) |  British Empire
| Māori | Inconclusive
| 60–94 killed |
First Taranaki War (1860–1861) | British Empire |  Taranaki Māori Kīngitanga | Ceasefire
| 200 killed and wounded |
| Second Taranaki War (1863–1866) | British Empire | Taranaki Māori | Inconclusive
| ~34 killed |
Waikato Wars (1863–1864) | British Empire |  Kīngitanga | Victory | 1000 killed and wounded |
| East Cape War (1865–1866) | British Empire Arawa | Whakatohea Māori Urewera Māori Ngai Tama Māori | Victory | 35 killed |
Titokowaru's War (1868–1869) | British Empire
| Ngāti Ruanui Iwi Ngāruahine tribes | Victory
| 11 killed |
Te Kooti's War (1868–1872) | British Empire
| Māori Iwis
Ringatū adherents | Victory
| ~60 killed |
| Second Boer War (1899–1902)  | British Empire |  Orange Free State  South African Republic | Victory
| 230 killed |
| Boxer Rebellion (1900–1901) | British Empire
|  Yihetuan  Qing China | Victory
| ? |
| Conflict | New Zealand | Opposing Combatant | Result | Casualties |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| World War I (1914–1918)  |  France British Empire
|  Germany  Austria-Hungary  Ottoman Empire  Bulgaria | Victory
| 16,711 to 18,060 killed |
| Armenian–Azerbaijani War (1918–1920) |  FR Armenia RM Armenia British Empire |  Azerbaijan Ottoman Empire  Russian SFSR  Turkish Revolutionaries  Azerbaijan SSR | Defeat
| ? |
| World War II (1939–1945)  |  United States  Soviet Union United Kingdom  China France  Poland  Yugoslavia  Greece  Netherlands  Belgium  Luxembourg  Denmark  Norway  Czechoslovakia  Canada  Australia  New Zealand  India  South Africa  Philippines  Ethiopia  Brazil  Mexico  Mongolia |  Germany  Japan  Italy  Hungary  Romania Bulgaria  Slovakia  Croatia  Finland  Iraq  Thailand | Victory
| 11,700 killed |
| Malayan Emergency (1948–1960) | United Kingdom |  MCP | Victory
| 15 killed |
| Korean War (1950–1953)  |  South Korea United States United Kingdom Canada Australia New Zealand Turkey Philippines Thailand Ethiopia  Greece France  Colombia Belgium South Africa Netherlands Luxembourg |  North Korea  China Soviet Union | Ceasefire
| 45 killed |
| Borneo Confrontation (1963–1966) |  Malaysia  Singapore United Kingdom Australia New Zealand |  Indonesia | Victory
| 12 killed |
| Vietnam War (1965–1973)  |  South Vietnam  United States South Korea Australia New Zealand Thailand Philippines  Laos  Cambodia  Khmer Republic |  North Vietnam  Viet Cong  Pathet Lao  Khmer Rouge China  Soviet Union North Korea | Defeat
| 37 killed |
| Gulf War (1990–1991) |  Kuwait United States United Kingdom  Saudi Arabia  France  Canada  Egypt  Syria  Qatar New Zealand |  Iraq | Victory
| ? |
| War in Afghanistan (2001–2021)  |  Afghanistan  ISAF |  Taliban  al-Qaeda IMU HI-Gulbuddin HI-Khalis Haqqani network Lashkar-e-Taiba  JeM ETIM TTP  IEW TNSM IJU Islamic Emirate of Afghanistan | Defeat
| 10 killed |
| Iraq War (2003–2004) |  Iraq  Iraqi Kurdistan United States United Kingdom South Korea  Italy  Poland Australia New Zealand  Georgia  Ukraine Netherlands  Spain Romania Bulgaria Denmark Thailand |  SCJL Naqshbandi Army  ISI  al-Qaeda  Ansar al-Islam IAI  Mahdi Army  Badr Brigades Kata'ib Hezbollah Ba'athist Iraq | Victory
| ? |
| East Timorese Crisis (2006–2013)  | Australia New Zealand Malaysia  Portugal  East Timor | FTDL Rebels | Victory
| 5 killed |
| War on ISIL (2014–present) | United States Iraq United Kingdom Canada  Jordan  Morocco Australia Belgium Denmark France  Germany Italy Netherlands New Zealand Norway Portugal Spain  Bahrain Saudi Arabia  United Arab Emirates Egypt |  Islamic State of Iraq and the Levant Boko Haram | Ongoing
| ? |
Al-Qaeda is a pan-Islamist militant organization led by Sunni Jihadists who self-identify as a vanguard spearheading a global Islamist revolution to unite the Muslim world under a supra-national Islamic caliphate. Its membership is mostly composed of Arabs, but also includes people from other ethnic groups. Al-Qaeda has mounted attacks on civilian, economic and military targets of the US and its allies; such as the 1998 US embassy bombings, the USS Cole bombing and the September 11 attacks. The organization is designated as a terrorist group by NATO, the UN Security Council, the European Union, and various countries around the world.
Osama bin Laden was a Saudi Arabian-born Islamist dissident and militant leader who was the founder and first general emir of al-Qaeda. Ideologically a pan-Islamist, he participated in the Afghan jihad against the Soviet Union and supported the activities of the Bosnian mujahideen during the Yugoslav Wars. In the mid-to-late 1990s, Bin Laden masterminded terrorist attacks in several countries which led to him being indicted for international crimes and being sought for by the United States government. Later, Bin Laden oversaw al-Qaeda’s planning and execution of the September 11 attacks in the United States in 2001.
The human history of New Zealand can be dated back to between 1320 and 1350 CE, when the main settlement period started, after it was discovered and settled by Polynesians, who developed a distinct Māori culture. Like other Pacific cultures, Māori society was centred on kinship links and connection with the land but, unlike them, it was adapted to a cool, temperate environment rather than a warm, tropical one. The first European explorer known to have visited New Zealand was the Dutch navigator Abel Tasman, on 13 December 1642. In 1643 he charted the west coast of the North Island, his expedition then sailed back to Batavia without setting foot on New Zealand soil. British explorer James Cook, who reached New Zealand in October 1769 on the first of his three voyages, was the first European to circumnavigate and map New Zealand. From the late 18th century, the country was regularly visited by explorers and other sailors, missionaries, traders and adventurers. The period from Polynesian settlement to Cook's arrival is New Zealand's prehistoric period, a time before written records began. Use oe otherwise of indigenous oral history as recorded history is a matter of academic debate. Depending on definitions, the period from 1642 to 1769 can be called New Zealand's protohistory rather than prehistory: Tasman's recording of Māori was isolated and scant.
Māori culture is the customs, cultural practices, and beliefs of the Māori people of New Zealand. It originated from, and is still part of, Eastern Polynesian culture. Māori culture forms a distinctive part of New Zealand culture and, due to a large diaspora and the incorporation of Māori motifs into popular culture, it is found throughout the world. Within Māoridom, and to a lesser extent throughout New Zealand as a whole, the word Māoritanga is often used as an approximate synonym for Māori culture, the Māori-language suffix -tanga being roughly equivalent to the qualitative noun-ending -ness in English. Māoritanga has also been translated as "[a] Māori way of life." The term kaupapa, meaning the guiding beliefs and principles which act as a base or foundation for behaviour, is also widely used to refer to Māori cultural values.
The New Zealand Wars took place from 1845 to 1872 between the New Zealand colonial government and allied Māori on one side, and Māori and Māori-allied settlers on the other. Though the wars were initially localised conflicts triggered by tensions over disputed land purchases, they escalated dramatically from 1860 as the government became convinced it was facing united Māori resistance to further land sales and a refusal to acknowledge Crown sovereignty. The colonial government summoned thousands of British troops to mount major campaigns to overpower the Kīngitanga movement and also conquest of farming and residential land for British settlers. Later campaigns were aimed at quashing the Pai Mārire religious and political movement, which was strongly opposed to the conquest of Māori land and eager to strengthen Māori identity. Māori religious movements that promoted pan-Māori identity played a major role in the Wars.
The First Taranaki War was an armed conflict over land ownership and sovereignty that took place between Māori and the Colony of New Zealand in the Taranaki region of New Zealand's North Island from March 1860 to March 1861.
The invasion of the Waikato became the largest and most important campaign of the 19th-century New Zealand Wars. Hostilities took place in the North Island of New Zealand between the military forces of the colonial government and a federation of Māori tribes known as the Kingitanga Movement. The Waikato is a territorial region with a northern boundary somewhat south of the present-day city of Auckland. The campaign lasted for nine months, from July 1863 to April 1864. The invasion was aimed at crushing Kingite power and also at driving Waikato Māori from their territory in readiness for occupation and settlement by European colonists. The campaign was fought by a peak of about 14,000 Imperial and colonial troops and about 4,000 Māori warriors drawn from more than half the major North Island tribal groups.
Tainui is a tribal waka confederation of New Zealand Māori iwi. The Tainui confederation comprises four principal related Māori iwi of the central North Island of New Zealand: Hauraki, Ngāti Maniapoto, Ngāti Raukawa and Waikato. There are other Tainui iwi whose tribal areas lay outside the traditional Tainui boundaries – Ngāi Tai in the Auckland area, Ngāti Raukawa ki Te Tonga and Ngāti Toa in the Horowhenua, Kāpiti region, and Ngāti Rārua and Ngāti Koata in the northern South Island.
Sir George Grey, KCB was a British soldier, explorer, colonial administrator and writer. He served in a succession of governing positions: Governor of South Australia, twice Governor of New Zealand, Governor of Cape Colony, and the 11th premier of New Zealand. He played a key role in the colonisation of New Zealand, and both the purchase and annexation of Māori land.
KīngiTāwhiao, known initially as Matutaera, reigned as the Māori King from 1860 until his death. After his flight to the King Country, Tāwhiao was also Paramount Chief of Te Rohe Pōtae for 17 years, until 1881. A rangatira, and a religious figure – a tohunga ariki – Tāwhiao amassed power and authority during a time of momentous change, to become de facto leader of the Waikato tribes. He was a member of the Ngati Mahuta hapū and the kāhui ariki, the Kīngitanga royal family.
The Musket Wars were a series of as many as 3,000 battles and raids fought throughout New Zealand among Māori between 1806 and 1845, after Māori first obtained muskets and then engaged in an intertribal arms race in order to gain territory or seek revenge for past defeats. The battles resulted in the deaths of between 20,000 and 40,000 people and the enslavement of tens of thousands of Māori and significantly altered the rohe, or tribal territorial boundaries, before the signing of the Treaty of Waitangi in 1840. The Musket Wars reached their peak in the 1830s, with smaller conflicts between iwi continuing until the mid-1840s; some historians argue the New Zealand Wars were a continuation of the Musket Wars. The increased use of muskets in intertribal warfare led to changes in the design of pā fortifications, which later benefited Māori when engaged in battles with colonial forces during the New Zealand Wars.
Michael King was a New Zealand historian, author, and biographer. He wrote or edited over 30 books on New Zealand topics, including the best-selling Penguin History of New Zealand, which was the most popular New Zealand book of 2004.
The King Country is a region of the western North Island of New Zealand. It extends approximately from Kawhia Harbour and the town of Ōtorohanga in the north to the upper reaches of the Whanganui River in the south, and from the Hauhungaroa and Rangitoto Ranges in the east to near the Tasman Sea in the west. It comprises hill country, large parts of which are forested.
The Māori King movement, called the Kīngitanga in Māori, is a Māori movement that arose among some of the Māori iwi (tribes) of New Zealand in the central North Island in the 1850s, to establish a role similar in status to that of the monarch of the British colonists, as a way of halting the alienation of Māori land. The first Māori king, Pōtatau Te Wherowhero, was crowned in 1858. The monarchy is non-hereditary in principle, although every monarch since Pōtatau Te Wherowhero has been a child of the previous monarch. The eighth monarch is Ngā Wai Hono i te Pō, who was elected and crowned in September 2024.
Rewi Manga Maniapoto (1807–1894) was a Ngāti Maniapoto chief who led Kīngitanga forces during the New Zealand government Invasion of Waikato during the New Zealand Wars.
The September 11 attacks were carried out by 19 hijackers of the Islamist militant organization al-Qaeda. In the 1990s, al-Qaeda leader Osama bin Laden declared a militant jihad against the United States, and issued two fatawa in 1996 and 1998. In the 1996 fatwa, he quoted the Sword Verse. In both of these fatawa, bin Laden sharply criticized the financial contributions of the American government to the Saudi royal family as well as American military intervention in the Arab world.
This is a bibliography of selected works on the history of New Zealand.
The 'fertile and most beautiful fields' [...] and the river itself [...] provided the incentive and the means for an invasion of the Waikato. Auckland was swelling with new settlers; government ministers and land purchase officers were determined to acquire the fruitful acreage south of the city; the fact that it was controlled by a movement pledged not to sell land damned the Kingites in the eyes of most Europeans [...].
George W. Bush gambled on surging thousands more troops to the embattled country. It paid off. Al-Qaeda in Iraq is now a diminished force without territory.
Al Qaeda in Iraq was decimated by the end of the Iraq War in 2011
