I know people get mad when others criticize him for being “not an anthropologist” or “not a historian,” but this is exactly the kind of thing that historical or anthropological training teaches you not to do. Primary sources must be employed critically. You cannot assume that any informant is giving you an unbiased account. And in fact, it's probably a good idea to assume that the person writing a document about a historical event that they participated in is giving you a very biased account. The conquistador accounts of the Spanish conquest make it sound like the Spanish were super-human, and did everything by themselves with no outside assistance – defeating entire armies with a flick of their wrist. When you place this in the context of who the conquistadors were, what they were doing, and why they were writing the accounts, then you have to treat this with extreme skepticism. A historian would compare these biased accounts with other historical and archaeological sources, examine the history of their interpretation, and look at how contemporary readers of the accounts reacted to them. Historians have done these things, and concluded that the conquistadors were exaggerating to make themselves look better, and that the majority of the conquest depended on alliances forged with native groups who sought to use the Spanish to advance their own political agenda. Diamond did not do this, took the conquistadors at their word, and concluded that they were victorious through direct application of superior military force, without substantial native assistance.
Diamond extrapolates causes for a conquest that didn’t happen. (Let’s not get into the teleological flaws of such histories.) In a world where conquistadors bested Aztecs with with guns and Spanish friars set up missions in communities devastated by plague, Diamond’s arguments would matter. But this is a world where Tlaxcalans bested Aztecs, and Spanish friars set up many failed missions before gaining a foothold and witnessing entirely disrupted populations fall to disease afterwards.
Thus, even if we validate with absolute certainty that the Eurasian continent gave its residents greater contact with domesticated animals, and that larger wild seed sizes were able to support larger urban populations, and that these in tandem gave Europeans a increased resistance to disease it wouldn't matter. History as Diamond describes it still would not have happened. It never did. The given effects did not happen, so we must question the validity of the causes.
The first verifiable smallpox epidemic arrived on the heels of the indigenous slave trade. Rather than early catastrophic epidemics, the first smallpox pandemic spread from the southern Atlantic Coast to the Mississippi River in the late 1600s, nearly two centuries after contact. The conditions created by the slave trade (breakdown of protective territorial buffer zones, population displacement, overcrowding in fortified towns, malnutrition from limited hunting/gathering/farming range, chronic stress, etc.) then allowed for the spread of smallpox, and like the increased disease impact seen in stressed populations the world over, resulted in yet another source of increased mortality.
簡單的講,其實隨著戰爭的深入,很多英國老牌的前線將領就發現了不對勁,因為毛利人的作戰方式進化了。起初,艦砲可以輕易的擊毀毛利人的堡壘Pa,但是毛利人很快就明白了,要承擔這種不對稱的攻擊,Pa要設在「低調」的位置,而不能設在傳統的天險。
而英國不只艦砲,當時帝國軍隊幾乎把所有1860年代能秀出來的新火力都用上了,最新的機槍、榴彈砲等等。而毛利人對付這種火力的作法極為驚人,便是在「新式堡壘」堆起壕溝跟掩體,其反應跟第一次世界大戰時歐洲各國將領的反應一樣。只不過因為毛利人沒有可以反制的火力,所以帝國軍隊沒有跟著堆而已。
結果是,優勢的火力並沒有辦法第一波擊沉毛利人,總督臉都丟光了,於是下令手下的軍隊「突擊」,要求一場閃電式的勝利。但要在北島狹長的森林突擊談何容易,後勤根本跟不上,而毛利人又常「化整為零」,廢棄剛建好的堡壘,引誘英軍突擊,從而伏擊後勤。
帝國軍隊也不是沒有想過成立菁英突擊小隊,深入敵營去抄掉毛利的村落。但執行起來極不可行。因為毛利人一旦開戰,是舉家老小都住到Pa裡的,整團人跟著動,打仗打起來,村落都跟著動了。派小隊深入森林,常一個影子都沒看到。
時日拖過數月,在 Te Kooti跟Titokowaru等部落首領的領導下,戰局僵持,紐西蘭財政惡化,帝國決定在1864-1865年陸續撤軍,Grey名義上還保留總督,但已接近被炒的邊緣。
奇怪的是,帝國撤軍後,北島的毛利部落反而轉入劣勢。這是紐西蘭戰爭的第二個謎團。James Belich研究後發現,隨著軍隊數量裁減到2000-2500人後,這些帝國軍隊主要是用來守備佔領下來的零星北島土地,並沒有餘力與北島諸部落對抗,但是在1865年開始,毛利部落節節敗退。
原因出自於總督府大量啟用與這些反抗者有世仇的其他毛利部落,這些「Loyalist」,被毛利人稱作Kupapa,這部落包括最大的毛利部落Nga puhi。當中Nga puhi的領袖Ropata Wahawaha早在1863年就「請纓」出戰,但「以毛利治毛利」的戰略,還是等到了帝國撤軍,在「不得不」之下才啟用。
於是乎,就跟清帝國將岸里社等社編組成不同的「屯」,紐西蘭總督府也將Kupapa們不同部落打散,以與部落不一致的軍團單位來編組他們跟訓練。原因有幾個。也跟清帝國將「叛產」交給岸里社一樣,紐西蘭總督府將「戰敗毛利人」的土地分配給Kuapap。一旦這些Kupapa與反抗的毛利人交手,毛利人原先的優勢就盡失了。