Tauranga Campaign The Tauranga Campaign took place in New Zealand , from 21 January 1864 to 21 June 1864 , during the New Zealand wars . Origins . This campaign started as a side show to the Invasion of the Waikato , where British Imperial Troops , on behalf of the New Zealand Colonial Government , were fighting a confederation of Māori tribes 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 . The government intention was 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 fort 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 . They had defeated the kingitanga foreces in 18 battles and confiscated territory under an act of parliament but the kingitanga leaders remained at large . The reason for invading the Waikato had been to decisively to beat the rebel Māori in battle and put an end to the King Movement . Cameron may have seen saw Tauranga as a chance to achieve a decisive victory . He 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 . Maketu . The East Coast Maori invaders fell back towards Maketu , 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 government defenders arrived in the form of 300 Te Arawa warriors and two British naval steamships , one of them a heavily armed corvette . These anchored close in to shore and bombarded 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 and the New Zealand Forest Rangers led by Captain Thomas McDonnell . A running fight through the sand dunes ensued 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 Pā 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 had a deceptive appearance . From the British positions it looked like a fairly large strong point 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 complex 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 rebel 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 . 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 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 defeat at Gate Pa . It restored 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 . 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 . Aftermath . Some hapu such as the Pirirakau , a Waikato hapu had refused to surrender in 1864 and fled into the hills behind Tauranga where they lived in hiding at Kuranui . Also at Kuranui were Ngati Porou Hau hau who arrived in exile about 1869 . Kuranui had become a place of sanctuary for many people of different tribal origins . Together they gave support to Te Kooti when he ventured north to Matamata in early 1870 . Te Kooti , having been rebuffed by King Tawhiao in Western Waikato and the King Country was trying to lay claim to the Eastern Waikato . Two Arawa hapu also joined Te Kooti ' s rebels . However Tauranga Maori were anxious not to renew the war in Tauranga itself and distanced themselves from Te Kooti . Chief Tana Taingakawa , Wiremu Tamihana ' s son from Ngati Haua , wrote to Colonel Moule urging him not to fight Te Kooti in his land .