Fort Jervois
Lyttelton, New Zealand

You will be relieved to learn that there's a whole page dedicated to the pā right here at this very website, but in brief, the first pā were essentially fortified villages with lots of tunnels arranged beneath. This fortification system came about as a result of the way the Maori conducted warfare amongst themselves (as they were perfcectly happy to fight one another without any outside influence), and when Europeans introduced the musket to Maori culture at the start of the 19th century, thus began an even more vicious series of intertribal warfare known today as the Musket Wars (1806-1845).

The unintended consequence of supplying the Maori with muskets was the gunfighter pā. Developed to protect against a musket-armed enemy, the gunfighter pā looked and acted a whole lot like a starfort, with the mutually supporting bastions that are the calling card of any self-respecting starfort.

Christchurch developed into a major exporter of various agricultural products, and the little port of Lyttelton, to the city's south on Cavendish Bay, became the area's main shipping portal. Settlers were landing at Lyttelton at a steady clip by the 1870's, many of whom brought diseases along with them. The first thing to be built on Ripapa Island (which was appropriately if temporarily renamed Humanity Island) after the untimely death of Taununu's pā 40 years previously was a quarantine station, which function the island served from 1873 to 1885.

This article detailed the sneaky night arrival of the unstoppable Russian warship Kaskowiski at Auckland, which disgorged troops that captured the city, taking many of its leading citizens for ransom and emptying all of the city's banks of gold. The dastardly Russians overpowered a Royal Naval vessel in the harbor with some sort of nefarious death ray/water vapor that had been designed by "the late General Todtleben," and the article concluded with the lament, Where Is The British Navy?

This article was of course the Southern Cross' idea of a funny gag, which readers were assumedly supposed to realize by the byline at the very tail end of the article: "From the DAILY SOUTHERN CROSS of Monday, the 15th May, 1873"...three months into the future. The newspaper posted a semi-retraction of this article the following day, suggesting that the Kaskowiski had actually steamed into New Zealand's waters to peacefully inspect an Auckland clothier, the famous quality of whose wares had intrigued the Emperor or Russia. Quite a bunch of wags, those Southern Cross writers! Whether or not Auckland's readers should have realized this whole thing was a hoax (Kaskowiski indeed), many did not, and for at least one day New Zealanders' worst nightmare seemed to be at hand.

England and France had been at war with the Russian Empire in the Crimean War (1853-1856), and while nobody really came out of that conflict covered in glory, the Russians had been humbled by the destruction of their Black Sea Fleet and subsequent demilitarization of the Black Sea, both terms of the Treaty of Paris (1856) that ended the war. The Russian Empire had begun using Vladivostok as its naval base on the Pacific in 1871, which was a mere 6143 miles from Auckland, and many in New Zealand and Australia were not unreasonably convinced that the Nautical Russian Bear would love to steam down and wreak revenge on Great Britain's relatively defenseless colonies.

Lieutenant General Sir William Francis Drummond Jervois (1821-1897) was a engineer in the British Army, and considered an expert on coastal fortifications. While in Australia in 1877 to inspect its non-existent coastal defenses, Jervois was appointed Governor of South Australia: Surprise! He served in this position until 1883, at which time he made it to New Zealand, where he was appointed governor there! One might think Jervois was just automatically appointed governor everywhere he went, but he had visited Canada in 1864, where he was not appointed governor.

In 1885 Imperial Russia, which had been grinding inexorably southward for the past century, captured a fort on its border with Afghanistan at a place called Panjdeh. That border was of intense interest to Britain because they perceived that Russian encroachment into Afghanistan spelled imminent diaster for the British Raj. Britain's colony of India was considered the jewel of their crown, whence came a steady flow of untold riches that was ever under threat by Russian expansion: Great Britain and Russia came perilously close to war over the Panjdeh Incident. Surely it was just a matter of time before the Kaskowiski or even worse, its sister ship the Kegobrandi came to attack Auckland for real.

To be clear, Fort Jervois, though endearing, is no starfort but a fortified battery. Meant to operate semi-independently and robustly fortified, it wasn't really designed to defend itself from an attack by a notional landing force. Jervois' suggestions for coastal defense in New Zealand and Australia included not only fortifications but supporting troops, roadways, cavalry and naval elements. In theory this would be cheaper and quicker to implement than a full-blown, self-supporting starfort.

But if it was cheap that they wanted, why wouldn't Jervois have suggested the implementation of an array of Martello Towers, the darling of English seacoast defense earlier in the century? Because no Martello Tower would be stout enough to support the big 8" BL (breechloader) guns that were deemed necessary in the ultramodern 1880's, that's why, smartypants.

Fort Jervois was one of at least three fortifications built for the defense of Lyttelton Harbor: Battery Point mounted two 7" RML (rifled muzzeloading) guns and a 6-pounder QF (quick-firing) gun; and Spur Point Battery mounted a 64-pounder RML gun.

Our fort was manned by steely-eyed New Zealanders through the First World War (1914-1918), during which conflict some POWs were incarcerated behind its walls: One of these prisoners was der Seeteufel himself, Felix von Luckner (1881-1966).

Intercepted and returned to captivity, Luckner spent the rest of the war, and some time thereafter, in various prisoner of war camps...one of which was Fort Jervois. There, I've gotten us back to the semistarfort of our current interest! As if there were ever any doubt.

Our fort was also manned during the Second World War (1939-1945), when New Zealand had moved on from Russian Scare Forts to Japanese Scare Forts! With Japan spreading its tendrils through an alarming amount of the South Pacific in the first year of the war, the threat of a Japanese invasion was probably much more viable than a Russian invasion had ever been, and between 1942 and 1944, 42 batteries had been added to New Zealand's shores, both new and upgrades of Russian Scare fortifications. Fortunately, the Japanese never made it as far south as Australia, much less New Zealand.

The other two guns have been removed from the mounts and helpfully placed just outside their respective gunpits...as though the effort of getting them off the mounts was enough for one workday, and there was never another workday.

A 2011 earthquake damaged our fort, but it was reparied enough to reopen to the public in 2019, and today Black Cat Cruises will ferry you to Ripapa Island for a self-guided tour for $20 in New Zealand money, which is around 14 bucks American. Please be advised that the island is still considered sacred to the Maori, so if you bring any food you'll have to swiftly and respectfully consume it on the dock before setting foot on the island.

And lastly, I simply cannot conjure enough thanks for Brigitte Knapp, a New Zealander who is presently of the Canadian persuasion, and who alerted us to the wonders of Fort Jervois.