Of all the military campaigns fought in Greece during the second world war, the Battle of Crete is remembered as one of the strongest acts of defiance against Nazi aggressors.ĭuring ten days of fighting, 274 Australians and 671 New Zealanders were killed, and more than 3000 captured. THE GERMANS called it Operation Mercury we, the Hellenes of Cretan descent, know it as the Battle of Crete. I hope that our future generations will study Bernard’s poetic work for its insight into the political forces at play and how this piece of history has played its part in our national identity.Īuthor, The Last Maopo, and Member, Waitangi Tribunal He captures the clash and collision of our Treaty cultures within this tale of tragedy. This poem presents a story which both Greeks and New Zealanders need to recover for themselves from the myths that British writers have created around the Battle of Crete.īERNARD TAKES a unique approach to describing the emotions, the sounds, the players and the stage of the Battle of Crete within a poetic saga. Sfakia on Crete is where the revolutionaries began the struggle for a Hellenic republic in 1821, while in 1941 it was where Allied troops were evacuated from New Zealand’s Dunkirk. Crete is where the famed 28th (Māori) Battalion found its feet in battle. It is astonishing, in retrospect, that New Zealanders led the defence of the island against a great power such as Germany.
The failure to repel the German landings embroiled Cretans in more than three years of bitter occupation. The defence of the island of Crete in the second world war was a mission which Allied forces could have won. In this poem, Bernard Cadogan tells the story of what small nations such as Greece and Aotearoa New Zealand have had to do to uphold international law, and of the extraordinary extent which indigenous citizenship, such as Māori possess, contributes to the international personality of a country. The poem is a life-changing reflection on the virtue of good small nations, on the contribution of indigenous people such as Māori and Cretans to international developments, and on the fragility that both peace and its disruptors share. More than just a war story, Crete 1941 brings women back into the historic struggle for Crete.
As geopolitical tensions rise in the Pacific today, it’s timely to look back to when New Zealand last went to war and defended another small nation – Greece – on its last redoubt, in a battle that ended in a Dunkirk-style evacuation.