Tauranga Campaign
Encyclopedia
The Tauranga
Campaign took place in New Zealand
, from 21 January 1864 to 21 June 1864, during the New Zealand Land Wars
.
, where British Imperial Troops
, on behalf of the New Zealand Colonial Government, were fighting a confederation of Māori tribe
s known as the King Movement. The Kingites were receiving assistance, both materials and recruits, from many of the tribes in the North Island
. In an effort to curb this flow of support the British sent an expedition to Tauranga, a major harbour in the Bay of Plenty
, some 100 km east of the conflict in the Waikato
.
Their intention was merely to establish a base and adopt a defensive posture. However the local Māori, Ngai Te Rangi, could not afford to assume that this would always be the case. They responded with threats, insults, abuse, a programme of increasing provocation and then began raiding the British camp. Finally they built a strong Pā
, a fortress or defensive position only 5 km from the British camp.
The British commander, Colonel Greer, could not ignore this. Not only did it restrict his freedom of movement but it also limited his control of Tauranga Harbour. He applied to Auckland
for reinforcements so he could go on the offensive. His request arrived in Auckland just as the active conflict in Waikato ended. The British commander, General Duncan Cameron
, had just returned to Auckland
where he had been experiencing a lot of criticism from the press and the Colonial government, who saw the Waikato Campaign as a failure. True, they had conquered and annexed a lot of territory but this had always been only the unspoken objective. The ostensible reason for invading the Waikato had been decisively to beat the Māori in battle and draw an end to the King Movement. It is reasonable to assume that Cameron saw Tauranga as a chance to achieve a decisive victory. Whatever the reasons, he immediately sailed for Tauranga with his entire reserve, bringing the garrison up to 1700 men.
Meanwhile fighting had already broken out nearby. A large contingent of East Coast Māori, possibly as many as 700 warriors, were making their way towards the conflict at Waikato. Their route took them through the territory of another tribe which saw themselves as allies of the Pākehā
, the Arawa tribe based around Rotorua
. Forewarned of this, the Arawa chiefs called back their tribesmen, many of whom were working in Auckland or further north. Pausing only in Tauranga to borrow guns from the British, they hastened onward to Rotorua. Four hundred warriors of the tribe were mobilized and they met and held the East Coast
Māori on 7 April in a two day battle on the shores of Lake Rotoiti
.
, a small settlement on the coast south east of Tauranga. A contingent of British troops and Colonial Militia hastily occupied the area and built a substantial redoubt on a nearby hilltop. In the event the enemy did not arrive for two weeks, until 27 April by which time a pair of field guns had also been installed. When they eventually arrived the East Coast Māori surrounded the redoubt and began digging trenches. The rest of the day was spent in desultory gun fire that achieved very little.
The following day reinforcements for the defenders arrived in the form of 300 Te Arawa
warriors and two British naval steamships, one of them a heavily armed corvette. These were able to anchor close in to shore and bombard the attackers at will. The East Coast Māori soon found their position untenable and had to retreat. They tried to dig in further down the coast but were promptly attacked by the militia, the New Zealand Forest Rangers led by Captain Thomas McDonnell. A running fight through the sand dunes ensued and continued until dusk and was then resumed in the morning with the Arawa Māori lending enthusiastic assistance. Meanwhile the two naval ships kept pace with the fighting and any of the enemy Māori coming too close to the shore line was met with cannon fire.
Eventually the East Coast Māori dispersed into the swamps and returned home.
is the name given to a fortress the Māori built only 5 km from the main British base at Tauranga. The name comes from its appearance, the palisade
looked liked a picket fence while a higher part in the middle resembled a gate. By the end of April the British were ready to attack. They had 1700 men and were opposed by merely 230 Māori, it looked like a good opportunity to score a decisive victory.
A heavy bombardment began at daybreak on 29 April 1864 and continued for eight hours. The British had 17 artillery pieces, including one of 110 pounds (50 kg). By mid afternoon the Pā looked as if it had been demolished and there was a large breach in the centre of the palisade. At 4 p.m. the barrage was lifted and 300 troops were sent up to capture and secure the position.
Within ten minutes well over a hundred of them were dead or wounded. There was no second assault. During the night the Māori gave assistance to the wounded and collected their weapons, by day break they had abandoned the position.
Gate Pā was the single most devastating defeat suffered by the British military in the whole of the Māori Wars.
General Cameron was an able commander of the Imperial forces; in his past experiences, he witnessed the cost of making a frontal assault on a defended Pā and he was concerned with the safety of his troops. Nevertheless, he ordered such an assault on Gate Pā. It seems likely that he believed the bombardment had been long and intense enough to extinguish all resistance from within the Pa. Revisionist historian James Belich
made the widely-refuted claim that Gate Pā absorbed in eight hours a greater weight of explosives per square metre than did the German trenches in the week long bombardment leading up to the Battle of the Somme
in World War I
. This was patently absurd considering the artillery available to the British forces consisted of 17 field pieces firing over the course of eight hours, while a major German strongpoint in World War I
could potentially be the target of hundreds of the 1,500 guns employed in the eight day preliminary barrage leading up to the Somme offensive.
But Gate Pā wasn't quite what it appeared to be. From the British positions it looked like a fairly large strongpoint occupying the entire hill top. In fact it was much smaller, being two low redoubt
s on either side of the ridge joined by a deep trench about forty metres long and the whole shielded by a strong wooden palisade. It seems likely that British concentrated their barrage towards the centre, that is where the palisade had collapsed and that is where the attack went in. Meanwhile the two redoubts had been very strongly built with deep and effective bombproof shelters. The Māori may have been deafened by the bombardment, but as soon as it ended they were able to unleash a devastating ambush.
To contemporaries Gate Pā was seen as a shattering defeat. Indeed it was. The perception was that 1700 elite British troops had been defeated by 230 half naked savages. The arrogance of the settlers and the hubris of the British Empire took a serious blow. Governor
George Grey
came down to Tauranga and began peace negotiations. Cameron returned to Auckland leaving Colonel Greer in command, with orders to patrol aggressively and, if he found Maori digging in or attempting to create a pa, to attack immediately and disrupt the work.
The success at Te Ranga was hailed as a great British victory, one that wiped out the shame of the defeat at Gate Pa. It certainly did a great deal to restore British morale particularly for the 43rd Regiment which was involved in both engagements and had lost many men at Gate Pa.
On 24 July, 133 Ngai-te-Rangi warriors surrendered to the British. By 29 August the entire tribe with the exception of one Hapu (Piri Rakau) had followed suit. 50000 acres (202.3 km²) of land was confiscated and 81 guns surrendered, although they still maintained a number of firearms in their possession The Government agreed to supply the Māori with food and seed until they got their crops re-established.
The Battle of Te Ranga, 21 June 1864 was the last serious engagement of the Tauranga campaign. Insofar as the Tauranga Campaign was a sideshow of the Waikato War it also marks the tacit end of that conflict.
Tauranga
Tauranga is the most populous city in the Bay of Plenty region, in the North Island of New Zealand.It was settled by Europeans in the early 19th century and was constituted as a city in 1963...
Campaign took place in New Zealand
New Zealand
New Zealand is an island country in the south-western Pacific Ocean comprising two main landmasses and numerous smaller islands. The country is situated some east of Australia across the Tasman Sea, and roughly south of the Pacific island nations of New Caledonia, Fiji, and Tonga...
, from 21 January 1864 to 21 June 1864, during the New Zealand Land Wars
New Zealand land wars
The New Zealand Wars, sometimes called the Land Wars and also once called the Māori Wars, were a series of armed conflicts that took place in New Zealand between 1845 and 1872...
.
Origins
This campaign started as a side show to the Invasion of the WaikatoInvasion of the Waikato
The Invasion of Waikato or Kingitanga Suppression Movement was a campaign during the middle stages of the New Zealand Wars, fought in the North Island of New Zealand from July 1863 to April 1864 between the military forces of the Colonial Government and a federation of Māori tribes known as the...
, where British Imperial Troops
British Armed Forces
The British Armed Forces are the armed forces of the United Kingdom of Great Britain and Northern Ireland.Also known as Her Majesty's Armed Forces and sometimes legally the Armed Forces of the Crown, the British Armed Forces encompasses three professional uniformed services, the Royal Navy, the...
, on behalf of the New Zealand Colonial Government, were fighting a confederation of Māori tribe
Iwi
In New Zealand society, iwi form the largest everyday social units in Māori culture. The word iwi means "'peoples' or 'nations'. In "the work of European writers which treat iwi and hapū as parts of a hierarchical structure", it has been used to mean "tribe" , or confederation of tribes,...
s known as the King Movement. The Kingites were receiving assistance, both materials and recruits, from many of the tribes in the North Island
North Island
The North Island is one of the two main islands of New Zealand, separated from the much less populous South Island by Cook Strait. The island is in area, making it the world's 14th-largest island...
. In an effort to curb this flow of support the British sent an expedition to Tauranga, a major harbour in the Bay of Plenty
Bay of Plenty
The Bay of Plenty , often abbreviated to BOP, is a region in the North Island of New Zealand situated around the body of water of the same name...
, some 100 km east of the conflict in the Waikato
Waikato
The Waikato Region is a local government region of the upper North Island of New Zealand. It covers the Waikato, Hauraki, Coromandel Peninsula, the northern King Country, much of the Taupo District, and parts of Rotorua District...
.
Their intention was merely to establish a base and adopt a defensive posture. However the local Māori, Ngai Te Rangi, could not afford to assume that this would always be the case. They responded with threats, insults, abuse, a programme of increasing provocation and then began raiding the British camp. Finally they built a strong Pā
Pa (Maori)
The word pā can refer to any Māori village or settlement, but in traditional use it referred to hillforts fortified with palisades and defensive terraces and also to fortified villages. They first came into being about 1450. They are located mainly in the North Island north of lake Taupo...
, a fortress or defensive position only 5 km from the British camp.
The British commander, Colonel Greer, could not ignore this. Not only did it restrict his freedom of movement but it also limited his control of Tauranga Harbour. He applied to Auckland
Auckland
The Auckland metropolitan area , in the North Island of New Zealand, is the largest and most populous urban area in the country with residents, percent of the country's population. Auckland also has the largest Polynesian population of any city in the world...
for reinforcements so he could go on the offensive. His request arrived in Auckland just as the active conflict in Waikato ended. The British commander, General Duncan Cameron
Duncan Cameron (general)
General Sir Duncan Alexander Cameron GCB was a British Army officer who fought in the Crimean War , commanded troops during part of the New Zealand Land Wars and was Governor of the Royal Military College Sandhurst from 1868 to 1875.- Career :Cameron was a 42nd Regiment of Foot officer General Sir...
, had just returned to Auckland
Auckland
The Auckland metropolitan area , in the North Island of New Zealand, is the largest and most populous urban area in the country with residents, percent of the country's population. Auckland also has the largest Polynesian population of any city in the world...
where he had been experiencing a lot of criticism from the press and the Colonial government, who saw the Waikato Campaign as a failure. True, they had conquered and annexed a lot of territory but this had always been only the unspoken objective. The ostensible reason for invading the Waikato had been decisively to beat the Māori in battle and draw an end to the King Movement. It is reasonable to assume that Cameron saw Tauranga as a chance to achieve a decisive victory. Whatever the reasons, he immediately sailed for Tauranga with his entire reserve, bringing the garrison up to 1700 men.
Meanwhile fighting had already broken out nearby. A large contingent of East Coast Māori, possibly as many as 700 warriors, were making their way towards the conflict at Waikato. Their route took them through the territory of another tribe which saw themselves as allies of the Pākehā
Pakeha
Pākehā is a Māori language word for New Zealanders who are "of European descent". They are mostly descended from British and to a lesser extent Irish settlers of the nineteenth and twentieth centuries, although some Pākehā have Dutch, Scandinavian, German, Yugoslav or other ancestry...
, the Arawa tribe based around Rotorua
Rotorua
Rotorua is a city on the southern shores of the lake of the same name, in the Bay of Plenty region of the North Island of New Zealand. The city is the seat of the Rotorua District, a territorial authority encompassing the city and several other nearby towns...
. Forewarned of this, the Arawa chiefs called back their tribesmen, many of whom were working in Auckland or further north. Pausing only in Tauranga to borrow guns from the British, they hastened onward to Rotorua. Four hundred warriors of the tribe were mobilized and they met and held the East Coast
Gisborne, New Zealand
-Economy:The harbour was host to many ships in the past and had developed as a river port to provide a more secure location for shipping compared with the open roadstead of Poverty Bay which can be exposed to southerly swells. A meat works was sited beside the harbour and meat and wool was shipped...
Māori on 7 April in a two day battle on the shores of Lake Rotoiti
Lake Rotoiti, Bay of Plenty
Lake Rotoiti is a lake in the Bay of Plenty region of New Zealand. It is the northwesternmost in a chain of lakes formed within the Okataina caldera. The lake is close to the northern shore of its more famous neighbour, Lake Rotorua, and is connected to it via the Ohau Channel. It drains to the...
.
Maketu
The invaders fell back towards MaketuMaketu
Maketu is a small town on the Bay of Plenty Coast in New Zealand. It is located on Okurei point and has an estuary from which the Kaituna River used to flow out of, it is also adjacent to Newdicks Beach located on the south eastern side of Okurei point. The name is sometimes informally abbreviated...
, a small settlement on the coast south east of Tauranga. A contingent of British troops and Colonial Militia hastily occupied the area and built a substantial redoubt on a nearby hilltop. In the event the enemy did not arrive for two weeks, until 27 April by which time a pair of field guns had also been installed. When they eventually arrived the East Coast Māori surrounded the redoubt and began digging trenches. The rest of the day was spent in desultory gun fire that achieved very little.
The following day reinforcements for the defenders arrived in the form of 300 Te Arawa
Te Arawa
Te Arawa is a confederation of Māori iwi and hapu based in the Rotorua and Bay of Plenty areas of New Zealand, with a population of around 40,000.The history of the Te Arawa people is inextricably linked to the Arawa canoe...
warriors and two British naval steamships, one of them a heavily armed corvette. These were able to anchor close in to shore and bombard the attackers at will. The East Coast Māori soon found their position untenable and had to retreat. They tried to dig in further down the coast but were promptly attacked by the militia, the New Zealand Forest Rangers led by Captain Thomas McDonnell. A running fight through the sand dunes ensued and continued until dusk and was then resumed in the morning with the Arawa Māori lending enthusiastic assistance. Meanwhile the two naval ships kept pace with the fighting and any of the enemy Māori coming too close to the shore line was met with cannon fire.
Eventually the East Coast Māori dispersed into the swamps and returned home.
The Battle of Gate Pa
Gate PāGate Pa
Gate Pā was the name of a Māori Pā or fortress built in 1864 only from the main British base of Camp Te Papa at Tauranga, during the Tauranga Campaign of the New Zealand Land Wars...
is the name given to a fortress the Māori built only 5 km from the main British base at Tauranga. The name comes from its appearance, the palisade
Palisade
A palisade is a steel or wooden fence or wall of variable height, usually used as a defensive structure.- Typical construction :Typical construction consisted of small or mid sized tree trunks aligned vertically, with no spacing in between. The trunks were sharpened or pointed at the top, and were...
looked liked a picket fence while a higher part in the middle resembled a gate. By the end of April the British were ready to attack. They had 1700 men and were opposed by merely 230 Māori, it looked like a good opportunity to score a decisive victory.
A heavy bombardment began at daybreak on 29 April 1864 and continued for eight hours. The British had 17 artillery pieces, including one of 110 pounds (50 kg). By mid afternoon the Pā looked as if it had been demolished and there was a large breach in the centre of the palisade. At 4 p.m. the barrage was lifted and 300 troops were sent up to capture and secure the position.
Within ten minutes well over a hundred of them were dead or wounded. There was no second assault. During the night the Māori gave assistance to the wounded and collected their weapons, by day break they had abandoned the position.
Gate Pā was the single most devastating defeat suffered by the British military in the whole of the Māori Wars.
General Cameron was an able commander of the Imperial forces; in his past experiences, he witnessed the cost of making a frontal assault on a defended Pā and he was concerned with the safety of his troops. Nevertheless, he ordered such an assault on Gate Pā. It seems likely that he believed the bombardment had been long and intense enough to extinguish all resistance from within the Pa. Revisionist historian James Belich
James Belich (historian)
James Christopher Belich, ONZM is a New Zealand revisionist historian, known for his work on the New Zealand Wars.Of Croatian descent, he was born in Wellington in 1956, the son of Sir James Belich, who later became Mayor of Wellington. He attended Onslow College.He gained an M.A...
made the widely-refuted claim that Gate Pā absorbed in eight hours a greater weight of explosives per square metre than did the German trenches in the week long bombardment leading up to the Battle of the Somme
Battle of the Somme (1916)
The Battle of the Somme , also known as the Somme Offensive, took place during the First World War between 1 July and 14 November 1916 in the Somme department of France, on both banks of the river of the same name...
in World War I
World War I
World War I , which was predominantly called the World War or the Great War from its occurrence until 1939, and the First World War or World War I thereafter, was a major war centred in Europe that began on 28 July 1914 and lasted until 11 November 1918...
. This was patently absurd considering the artillery available to the British forces consisted of 17 field pieces firing over the course of eight hours, while a major German strongpoint in World War I
World War I
World War I , which was predominantly called the World War or the Great War from its occurrence until 1939, and the First World War or World War I thereafter, was a major war centred in Europe that began on 28 July 1914 and lasted until 11 November 1918...
could potentially be the target of hundreds of the 1,500 guns employed in the eight day preliminary barrage leading up to the Somme offensive.
But Gate Pā wasn't quite what it appeared to be. From the British positions it looked like a fairly large strongpoint occupying the entire hill top. In fact it was much smaller, being two low redoubt
Redoubt
A redoubt is a fort or fort system usually consisting of an enclosed defensive emplacement outside a larger fort, usually relying on earthworks, though others are constructed of stone or brick. It is meant to protect soldiers outside the main defensive line and can be a permanent structure or a...
s on either side of the ridge joined by a deep trench about forty metres long and the whole shielded by a strong wooden palisade. It seems likely that British concentrated their barrage towards the centre, that is where the palisade had collapsed and that is where the attack went in. Meanwhile the two redoubts had been very strongly built with deep and effective bombproof shelters. The Māori may have been deafened by the bombardment, but as soon as it ended they were able to unleash a devastating ambush.
To contemporaries Gate Pā was seen as a shattering defeat. Indeed it was. The perception was that 1700 elite British troops had been defeated by 230 half naked savages. The arrogance of the settlers and the hubris of the British Empire took a serious blow. Governor
Governor-General of New Zealand
The Governor-General of New Zealand is the representative of the monarch of New Zealand . The Governor-General acts as the Queen's vice-regal representative in New Zealand and is often viewed as the de facto head of state....
George Grey
George Edward Grey
Sir George Grey, KCB was a soldier, explorer, Governor of South Australia, twice Governor of New Zealand, Governor of Cape Colony , the 11th Premier of New Zealand and a writer.-Early life and exploration:...
came down to Tauranga and began peace negotiations. Cameron returned to Auckland leaving Colonel Greer in command, with orders to patrol aggressively and, if he found Maori digging in or attempting to create a pa, to attack immediately and disrupt the work.
The Battle of Te Ranga
Colonel Greer continued the campaign by conducting patrols in strength with 594 men of the 43rd Regiment and 68th Regiment On 21 June he came upon a force of about 500 Māori building a new Pā at Te Ranga, some seven kilometres from his base. They had done little more than dig a rifle pits and trenches, with no outer works. However Greer had sufficient respect for his enemy that he immediately called for reinforcements. This was the opportunity Cameron had always been looking for, to be able to meet the Māori in the open. The Māori fought desperately but they were overwhelmed by the British soldiery, with 106 Maori dead buried in their own earthworks.The success at Te Ranga was hailed as a great British victory, one that wiped out the shame of the defeat at Gate Pa. It certainly did a great deal to restore British morale particularly for the 43rd Regiment which was involved in both engagements and had lost many men at Gate Pa.
On 24 July, 133 Ngai-te-Rangi warriors surrendered to the British. By 29 August the entire tribe with the exception of one Hapu (Piri Rakau) had followed suit. 50000 acres (202.3 km²) of land was confiscated and 81 guns surrendered, although they still maintained a number of firearms in their possession The Government agreed to supply the Māori with food and seed until they got their crops re-established.
The Battle of Te Ranga, 21 June 1864 was the last serious engagement of the Tauranga campaign. Insofar as the Tauranga Campaign was a sideshow of the Waikato War it also marks the tacit end of that conflict.
Further reading
- Jenkins, Jenny (2008) "Battle at the Gate". Penguin. (Children's picture book)
- Belich, JamesJames Belich (historian)James Christopher Belich, ONZM is a New Zealand revisionist historian, known for his work on the New Zealand Wars.Of Croatian descent, he was born in Wellington in 1956, the son of Sir James Belich, who later became Mayor of Wellington. He attended Onslow College.He gained an M.A...
(1988). The New Zealand wars. Penguin. - Belich, James (1996) Making peoples. Penguin Press.
- Cowan, J., & Hasselberg, P. D. (1983) The New Zealand wars. New Zealand Government Printer. (Originally published 1922)
- Maxwell, Peter (2000). Frontier, the battle for the North Island of New Zealand. Celebrity Books.
- Simpson, Tony (1979). Te Riri Pakeha. Hodder and Stoughton.
- Sinclair, KeithKeith SinclairSir Keith Sinclair, CBE was a poet and noted historian of New Zealand.Born and raised in Auckland, Sinclair was a student at Auckland University College, which was then part of the University of New Zealand. He was awarded a Ph.D...
(ed.) (1996). The Oxford illustrated history of New Zealand (2nd ed.) Wellington: Oxford University Press. - Vaggioli, Dom Felici (2000). History of New Zealand and its inhabitants, Trans. J. Crockett. Dunedin: University of Otago Press. Original Italian publication, 1896.
- "The people of many peaks: The Māori biographies". (1990). From The dictionary of New Zealand biographies, Vol. 1, 1769-1869. Bridget Williams Books and Department of Internal Affairs, New Zealand.