Samoan crisis

Samoan Crisis
Part of the First Samoan Civil War
A sketch featuring the locations of the wrecked German and American ships.
Date 1887–1889 Location Apia Harbor, Samoa, Pacific Ocean Result Both squadrons wrecked
Belligerents
United States	German Empire
Commanders and leaders
Lewis Kimberly	Frizze
Strength
1 sloop-of-war 1 steamer 1 gunboat	3 gunboats
Casualties and losses
62 killed 1 sloop-of-war sunk 1 steamer sunk 1 gunboat grounded	~73 killed 1 gunboat sunk 2 gunboats grounded
The British in the cruiser HMS Calliope participated as mediators, their ship sustained fair damage. Several merchant ships were also wrecked during the cyclone.

The Samoan Crisis was a confrontation standoff between the United States, Imperial Germany and Great Britain from 1887–1889 over control of the Samoan Islands during the Samoan Civil War. The incident involved three American warships, USS Vandalia, USS Trenton and USS Nipsic and three German warships, SMS Adler, SMS Olga, and SMS Eber, keeping each other at bay over several months in Apia harbour, which was monitored by the British warship HMS Calliope.

The standoff ended on 15 and 16 March when a cyclone wrecked all six warships in the harbour. Calliope was able to escape the harbour and survived the storm. Robert Louis Stevenson did not witness the storm and its aftermath at Apia, however after his arrival in Samoa (December 1889) he wrote about the event.^[1] The Samoan Civil War continued, involving Germany, United States and Britain, eventually resulting, via the Tripartite Convention of 1899, in the partition of the Samoan Islands into American Samoa and German Samoa.^[2]

Gallery

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  Salvaged guns from the wrecked American ships at Apia.

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  A view of the sunken USS Vandalia from the deck of USS Trenton.

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  Apia and the beach covered in driftwood and debris from the wrecked warships.

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  USS Nipsic's wreck

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  SMS Adler, knocked over on the beach, 1889.

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  SMS Adler, view of her deck, 1889.

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  SMS Adler´s wreck, circa 1938

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  Illustrated London News for 27 April 1889; artist’s conception of HMS Calliope being cheered on by the crew of USS Trenton as Calliope escapes from Apia Harbour. Calliope actually passed to Trenton´s port.

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  A memorial at Mare Island Naval Yard for the Americans killed in the cyclone.

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  Wrecked ships in Apia Harbour. German gunboat SMS Eber is on the beach, the stern of USS Trenton is at right, with the sunken USS Vandalia alongside. SMS Adler is on her side in the center distance.

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  Wrecked vessels at Apia Harbor, Upolu, Samoa, during salvage efforts soon after the storm. The view looks about northward, with USS Trenton and the sunken USS Vandalia to the left and the beached German corvette Olga at right.Wreckage just off Trenton's stern may be from the German gunboat Eber, which was destroyed when she struck the harbor reef during the hurricane.

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  Another angle of the wrecked warships.

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  Wrecked warships off Apia

Sources

• Conroy, Robert (2002). "Only luck kept the United States from being occupied by Kaiser Wilhelm II's army between 1899 and 1904". Military History 18 (August). 
• Gray, J.A.C. (1960). Amerika Samoa: A History of American Samoa and Its United States Naval Administration. Annapolis: U. S. Naval Institute. ISBN 0-405-13038-4. 
• "Hurricane at Apia, Samoa, 15–16 March 1889". Events of the 1880s. Naval Historical Center. 2002. Retrieved 1 February 2010. 
• Kimberly, L.A. "Samoan Hurricane". Events of the 1880s. Naval Historical Center. Retrieved 1 February 2010. 
• LaFeber, Walter (1963). The New Empire: An Interpretation of American Expansion, 1860–1898. Ithaca, New York: Cornell University Press. 
• Lind, L.J. "The Epic of HMS Calliope". Naval Historical Society of Australia. Retrieved 1 February 2010. 
• Rousmaniere, John (2002). After the Storm: True Stories of Disaster and Recovery at Sea. Camden, MN: International Marine/McGraw-Hill. pp. 87–106. ISBN 0-07-137795-6. 
• Sisung, Kelle S. (2002). "The Benjamin Harrison Administration". Presidential Administration Profiles for Students (Detroit: Gale Group). 
• Stevenson, Robert Louis (1892). A Footnote to History, Eight Years of Trouble in Samoa. Retrieved 1 February 2010. 
• Wilson, Graham (May–July 1996). "Glory for the Squadron: HMS Calliope in the Great Hurricane at Samoa 1889". Journal of the Australian Naval Institute 22 (2): 51–54. 

Notes

Coordinates: 13°50′00″S 171°50′00″W / 13.8333°S 171.8333°W / -13.8333; -171.8333