QUEENSLAND'S GERMAN CONNECTIONS - PAST, PRESENT AND FUTURE

Germany’s “place in the sun”

Hawai’i

Wake Island

Mariana Islands Marianen

German colonies

Guam

Marshall Islands Marshall-inseln

Ponape

Palau

Caroline Islands Karolinen

Bismarck Archipelago Bismarck-Archipel

Gilbert Islands

Nauru

Ellice Islands

Bougainville

Kaiser-Wilhelms Land

Solomon Islands

Apia

Claimed Protectorate

New Hebrides

Samoa

Fiji

Tahiti

Noumea

Queensland

A U S T R A L I A

View across Apia harbour after the cyclone, one of the wrecked American warships on the right; an onlooker stands by the torn off bow of the German gunboa t SMS Eber, and the bottom of the blown-ashore SMS Adler can be seen in the middle distance by the harbour entrance.

nicku / shutterstock.com

Above: This German map of Samoa’s largest islands dates from the 1909 edition of the Meyer Lexicon, and is notable for the insert close-up (top right) of Apia and its harbour, the scene of one of the greatest and most unnecessary disasters of the Colonial era of the 19th century. As Germany, the USA and Britain were jockeying for position in the South Pacific, all three had warships anchored in the exposed bay on 15 March 1889 as a cyclone approached. None of the vessels’ captains, representing their nations, wanted to be the first to make for the relative safety of the open sea, in case the others claimed an opportunity ashore, and they kept their six attendant merchant ships similarly confined in the reef-fringed anchorage. The local inhabitants, with no regard for geo-political issues, had prudently moved themselves and their belongings to higher ground inland. By the time the storm bore down, escape was too late for all but the newer and larger HMS Calliope , which fought and won her titanic struggle out the narrow channel in the teeth of 120km/h winds. She later returned to find every other ship sunk, wrecked or destroyed, the 200 drowned sailors a higher casualty figure than the loss of life on land. One American and one German warship were later repaired, but national pride had taken on Mother Nature and lost.

At the harbour entrance, all 1,000 tons of the five-year-old, 62m long SMS Adler was blown onto the reef after smashing into and disintegrating her smaller compatriot Eber ; 97 drowned on both.

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