To be truly British we must be anti-German New Zealand, Enemy Aliens and the Great War experience, 1914-1919

Abstract

'To be truly British we must be Anti-German' was a statement voiced by Mrs Ida Boeufve to the Women's Anti-German League at a 1916 rally in Napier. The attitudes and social forces backing that declaration form the subject of Andrew Francis's recent book on the treatment of New Zealand's German-speaking settlers during the First World War. Adapted from his PhD research, 'To Be Truly British We Must Be Anti-German' approaches the period not simply to catalogue wartime anti-Germanism in its own right, but to consider the extent to which larger developments - immigration patterns, conceptions of collective identity and citizenship - set the tone for wartime reaction. This effort tocontextualize anti-alienism in New Zealand's war effort and larger history is taken one step further by considering the subject within a comparative context.