4
At the beginning of 1897, the American consul-general Churchill felt that ‘the present peace of Samoa is but skin deep’.1 Malietoa was feebler and more indecisive than ever and there was a growing campaign by many of the chiefs to press the king to appeal to the powers for the return of Mata’afa and his followers from Jaluit. This movement, Churchill wrote, was inspired by the Germans, who had kept the exiles under close supervision and who obviously reckoned that they were now friendly to German aspirations in Samoa. Feeling that Mata’afa would be ‘a pawn in German colonial policy’, he therefore opposed the return. Cusack-Smith, too, advised the Foreign Office to decline any such appeals, since they had been instigated by Dr Irmer, the governor of the Marshall Islands.2
Churchill and Cusack-Smith possessed much knowledge of Samoan affairs and their opinions were accepted by their respective governments. Unfortunately they were both replaced around the turn of that year by consuls who lacked experience of the islands, and this changeover closely followed upon the arrival of the new chief justice, Chambers, and president, Raffel. Only the German consul, Rose, remained, and he advocated the return of the Jaluit exiles. Moreover, in October, 1897, the Mata’afan family and clan joined the native government and the threat of a rebellion receded. But once within the Malietoan camp, they pressed even more strongly for the release of their leader until the king himself appealed to the powers to this effect. Consequently, when the new British consul, Maxse, reported that this could be ‘a source of strength’ to Malietoa’s administration, London did not oppose the idea. The new American consul, Osborn,1 also urged the return of Mata’afa, since his support for the Samoan government would greatly weaken the rebels’ cause and would perhaps lead to a more effective collection of the head tax.3
After some discussions by the home governments, the consuls were told in July 1898 that the return of Mata’afa and his followers had received the assent of the powers and the German warship Bussard was despatched to the Marshalls to bring them back. Shortly before the vessel left, however, the king’s condition worsened rapidly and he died on 22 August. Possessing no instructions, neither Maxse nor Osborn felt justified in preventing the departure of the Bussard, although both appealed for a warship and predicted that there might be trouble since the Samoans were armed in large numbers and there were several possible candidates for the succession. Maxse telegraphed later that Mata’afa’s return should be delayed until after the election of a new king. Although the consuls and the municipal president joined together in a proclamation enjoining peace and order, there was therefore some doubt whether this state of tranquillity would endure for more than a few weeks. The only way to avert trouble, the British consul believed, would be a swift and unanimous decision on the kingship by the treaty powers.4
That such a decision was not arrived at was solely due to the policy of the United States. Fearing that the possible death of Malietoa could lead to complications, the British government approached Washington on 12 July with the proposal that the powers should consider the arrangements to be made for the selection of a successor. This the State Department declined to do, pointing out that the Berlin Act provided solely for an election by the natives themselves ‘according to the laws and customs of Samoa’. Nevertheless, upon learning of the death of the king, the British renewed their attempts to persuade the Americans to agree to keeping Mata’afa away from Samoa and to instruct the consuls to submit suggestions upon the manner of procedure in a Samoan election. The new secretary of state, John Hay, agreed to the former idea but held firm to his predecessor’s view that the powers should not interfere in the succession question.5
Hay’s interpretation of the Berlin Act was undoubtedly the correct one, and his desire to allow the Samoans as much liberty as possible was commendable and in line with the traditional American policy towards the group; but by ignoring the signs of possible trouble and adhering inflexibly to the treaty, the United States let pass what was probably,. the last chance to prevent an explosion in the islands. Since the monarch created by that act was a virtual figurehead in any case, was there much practically wrong in the powers ensuring a smooth succession by unanimously agreeing upon one of the candidates, as the British and German governments were hinting? Washington should at least have been ready to inform their representatives as to the eligibility of the contenders for the kingship and the attitude to be adopted by the consular body. Left without instructions, the white officials in Samoa quickly arrived at varying interpretations of the clauses of the 1889 treaty. Moreover, the State Department reacted too slowly to allow instructions to be sent to prevent Mata’afa’s return, which occurred on 19 September.
Since the charge was often made later in British, American and Australasian newspapers that the troubles of 1898-99 were a direct consequence of a cunning German plot to re-introduce Mata’afa as the king and their puppet, it may be worthwhile here to consider whether such charges can be substantiated. First of all, as mentioned in a previous section, the Germans were particularly worried about the rapid decline of their commercial paramountcy in the group.6 Although the 1898 harvest gave the D.H.P.G. the opportunity to pay its first dividend for many years, and although the company was still the greatest landowner and taxpayer in Samoa, it remained beset with labour difficulties and the extent of its land under cultivation had shrunk: the German navy referred to it sarcastically as the ‘once promising but now ever decaying company’.7
But the chief concern, at least of the German officials in the group, remained the extent of the influence exerted upon the Samoans by the L.M.S. How effective this really was is difficult to judge, but the belief that Malietoa was in the hands of the English was a constant thought upon the German side, and one which colonial circles strove to combat. In 1897, representatives of the Catholic missionary society, the Marists, had secretly urged Berlin to press for the release of Mata’afa, who was of their confession, and promised in return that they would influence him to be pro-German. This had then been declined by Marschall and was objected to by the D.H.P.G., which feared the unrest that might follow. However, consul Rose strenuously advocated the return of the Jaluit exiles, since it would strengthen the German position in Samoa and combat the growing influence of the British missionaries. It was an idea which attracted members of the centre party, some of them being friends of Bülow; which appealed to the official dealing with Samoan affairs in the Colonial Division of the Foreign Ministry, Schmidt-Dargitz, who was pressing for financial help for the Marist school to the tune of 12,000 marks from the secret funds; and, finally, which persuaded the D.H.P.G. to drop its opposition in 1898.8 There is, however, little concrete evidence that Berlin was planning anything other than a defensive move, aimed at halting the decline of German influence in the group, rather than a plot leading directly to their exclusive control with Mata’afa as their puppet.
What does seem clear, is that some of the local German officials interpreted their instructions to imply that a positive policy was intended. Rose, whose reports reveal a constant obsession about the preservation of Deutschtum in the group, had advocated since 1896 the use of Mata’afa as a ‘tool’ with which to combat the Anglisierung of Samoa and thus automatically he assumed that Berlin had agreed to his scheme. Nor did the Auswärtiges Ami’s directions dispel such ideas, for the admiralty was requested that Mata’afa and his followers be brought back in a German warship ‘for political reasons’ and that the magnanimity of the pardon and the sanctity of the oath the exiles must take should be afterwards reinforced by celebrations.9
As a result, the officials at Jaluit and the crew of the Bussard made much of Mata’afa, stressing also, however, that his release was solely due to the wish of the kaiser. Moreover, such celebrations were repeated in Samoa itself and attended by Rose, although the other consuls were absent; and when the Bussard arrived at Apia, the anthropologist and general intriguer, Dr Kramer, rushed aboard to consult the exiles, causing much annoyance to the British and American consuls, who had arranged that Mata’afa should be first received by all the treaty officials at once. Kramer and several equally indiscreet colleagues then became active participants at Tupua assemblies, and thus objects of much suspicion. It is further worth noting that the same Dr Irmer, who had charge of the exiles in the Marshalls and was the first German to press for their recall, later boasted to Saunders, the Times correspondent in Berlin, ‘that he had trained Mata’afa, when a German prisoner, for the role he was afterwards to play in Samoa’.10
The months following Mata’afa’s return were full of quarrels, not so much between the Samoans themselves as between the treaty officials. From the very outset, the British consul and, to a lesser extent, his American colleague were suspicious of German designs. In fact, unable to ascertain the truth of the rumours that Germany was planning to annex the group and mindful of what was occurring at that time in the Philippines, the British quickly sent a warship from Fiji to Samoa upon the heels of a German vessel.11 Moreover, the senior officer in the islands, Commander Sturdee, had been considerably influenced by the Kruger Telegram and therefore possessed, to use his own words, ‘a firm conviction that the Germans, instead of being regarded with cousinly affection, must be looked on as possible potential enemies in the future’.12 This suspicion was reciprocated upon the German side and Rose sent home reports about the attempts of the L.M.S. to secure a pro-British candidate for the throne.13
The treaty officials were divided over other matters also, especially after Raffel suddenly began to assume an arbitrary and dictatorial attitude which alarmed the Anglo-American community. The truth of the matter was that the president was very ill with malarial fever and, as the other officials soon discovered, had had several fits of insanity.14 Although Berlin quickly made suggestions about his successor, it would clearly be months before Raffel was replaced and his strange and arbitrary actions continued to annoy Maxse and Chambers, neither of whom possessed large quantities of patience and tolerance. Indeed, the British consul argued that the presidency should be abolished altogether and the duties of that office taken over by the consular board.15 Rose vigorously supported his countryman’s actions and at one stage pressed for the abolition of the Samoan monarchy and its replacement by the president, an idea which the British and Americans bitterly opposed. By the end of the year, Rose was attacking Chambers as ‘a corrupt judge and a dishonourable man’, and the treaty officials were thus in no position to present a united front to the native discords which were rumbling under the surface.16
During that month, the German element in Samoa openly began to back Mata’afa’s candidature. The old warrior chief was immensely popular and the clear choice of the majority of the Samoans—but since he was supported by the Tupua clan, he was automatically opposed by the Malietoa districts, who put forward instead the dead king’s nineteen-year-old son, Tanu. This party was joined by Tamasese, who resented Mata’afa’s great influence. Because of the German agitation for Mata’afa, Tanu immediately secured the affection of the Anglo-American community, although they did no campaigning for him. Both Osborn and Maxse recognized Mata’afa’s qualities and believed him to be the best candidate, although they suspected the German backing for him.
Both parties having proclaimed their chief as king, having claimed for him the necessary four titles and having anointed him, the decision as to who really was king of Samoa was referred to a very reluctant chief justice, as the Final Act of Berlin directed. The court hearings by Chambers went ahead in late December, despite threats of action from the well-armed Mata’afan party should the verdict not be favourable to them, and despite the refusal of the Germans to promise to accept the decision. It was gradually becoming apparent that the phrase ‘according to the laws and customs of Samoa’ was useless when applied to a succession dispute: there were no laws and the customs clearly meant tribal warfare. On New Year’s Eve, Chambers gave his ruling—Mata’afa’s candidacy was invalid for he had been banned from the kingship at the special request of Bismarck in 1889, and the agreement on this formed part of the protocols to the Final Act of Berlin: Tanu, being the only other contender, was therefore adjudged to be king.17
The Germans and the Mata’afans exploded with rage at this, exclaiming that the protocols to the Final Act did not have the validity of that act; that Mata’afa had the support of the majority of the people; that Tanu did not have the requisite number of titles for the Tafa’ifa; and finally that Chambers himself had some months earlier declared that there was no objection to Mata’afa standing for the kingship. The British and American consuls, however, proclaiming that they were bound to accept the chief justice’s decision, at least until the powers unanimously decided otherwise, inclined to accept Tanu as king. On the following afternoon the Mata’afans decided to settle the matter by force. Tanu’s forces were outnumbered about two to one, and were soon retreating in confusion before their much stronger and better-led opponents. That evening Apia was in chaos, with firing going on continuously, bands of natives fighting in the street, and houses being plundered and burned. Early in the morning, Sturdee had Tanu and his vice-king Tamasese passed out to H.M.S. Porpoise. At a meeting of the consular and naval officers on the second, it was agreed that Sturdee would disarm the Tanu natives under his protection, the Germans would persuade the Mata’afans to cease hostilities, and terms of surrender would be arranged for the defeated natives on shore.
On 4 and 5 January, at further meetings of the consuls and naval officers, the British and Americans reluctantly agreed to join their German colleagues in recognizing Mata’afa and twelve of his chiefs as the provisional government with Raffel as their chief executive. However there would be no other changes from the regulations of the Berlin Act. With the followers of Tanu as refugees on board the Porpoise and the Mata’afans in absolute control of the island, there was little else that could be done if peace was to be restored.
Flushed with this success, the Germans affixed a notice on the court-house door on 6 January, declaring the building closed until further notice by the provisional government. Claiming that Chambers had vacated his office by withdrawing to the British warship, Raffel also announced that he was now the new chief justice. This immediately provoked Chambers into calling upon the armed assistance of the Porpoise to help him reopen his court, which Sturdee was quite willing to offer. On the morning of the seventh, he asked for the co-operation of Captain Schoenfelder of the German vessel Falke which was moored nearby in Apia harbour, but this was quickly refused. Preparing for the worst, the Porpoise secretly loaded her guns in case the German ship should interfere, but in fact the Falke remained inactive.18 The reopening party was led by the two consuls and the chief justice, followed by an armed group of sailors. The protesting German officials were thrust out of the way, the locks which Raffel had just put on the court-house were broken off, and the party entered the building, where it held a short meeting before retiring; their point had been clearly made for all in Samoa to see.
Relatively little happened in the following weeks, both because of the withdrawal of the rebel natives (which allowed the Tanu followers to return to Apia), and because Raffel left for San Francisco in mid-February. By March, however, the British activities in attempting to check Mata’afan depredations and recruitment were provoking those natives into prowling menacingly around Apia once again. This was the situation when, on 6 March, the heavy cruiser U.S.S. Philadelphia flying the flag of Rear-Admiral Kautz sailed into Apia harbour. His task was to protect American interests, but he had also been instructed to act in accordance with the views of the majority of the treaty officials if an emergency arose and the consuls were still divided. Kautz was a bluff authoritarian and not inclined to have South Sea islanders disputing his commands. After a few days of enquiries, he gave out his views at a meeting on 11 March of all the consular and naval officers, by declaring that the Berlin Act should be adhered to and that the provisional government should be dissolved; a proclamation to that effect was posted in Apia that day.19
There was little likelihood that the well-armed Mata’afans would accept Kautz’s views in any case, but on 13 March the German consul added fuel to the fire by his counter-proclamation, in which he said Kautz’s claims were ‘absolutely untrue’ and that he would continue to acknowledge the provisional government. This action, the rebel natives’ disregard for the admiral’s messages and, finally, their attempt on the following day to occupy Mulinu’u Point from their war canoes, provoked Kautz into hostilities. Philadelphia promptly opened fire on those vessels, forcing them to retreat along the coast; at the same time Porpoise, at Kautz’s request, weighed anchor and proceeded to bombard several Mata’afan villages in the vicinity. Mata’afa’s answer came that same evening with an attack upon the township, particularly upon the Tivoli Hotel. Rushing to their ramparts and other defensive positions, the bluejackets forced the attacking natives to withdraw but not before they had lost three of their own men. On 17 March, both American and British consulates were subjected to another fierce attack by the Mata’afans. Only one American sailor was killed in this action, but the sniping of the next few days wounded several others, and imposed a great strain upon everyone.
The bombardment of the coastal villages became a daily event from 16 March onwards while sorties were repeatedly made by landing parties led by Sturdee. By 23 March, the British and American forces felt strong enough to put into effect what they had been fighting for all this while, i.e., the chief justice’s decision that Tanu was king of Samoa. At 2p.m. on that day they set out along the coast to Mulinu’u, where the young king was crowned, toasts drunk in his honour, the Samoan flag raised, speeches made and gun-salutes fired. On the following day H.M.S. Tauranga under Captain Leslie Stuart arrived and he now became senior British naval officer.20
As the only immediate way of building up their strength to crush the rebels was to recruit additional friends, the warships were employed in trips to Savai’i and Tutuila from which hundreds of Tanu followers were brought back to Apia in order to be trained. On 30 March, Sturdee led a mixed Anglo-American force of ninety-one bluejackets, plus a hundred natives under Lieutenant Gaunt, in a prolonged sweep along the coastal roads, driving small numbers of rebel warriors before them. On the thirty-first, this tactic was repeated in greater force. That these relatively small numbers of bluejackets were able to operate with virtual impunity against vastly larger forces was due to the rebel natives’ respect for the white man and his better weapons, such as the machine-guns, and to the fact that they were fighting along the coastline and therefore covered by their warships. Yet such was the confidence of the Anglo-American troops that they had no hesitation in pursuing Mata’afan forces inland on I April when returning to Apia from another of their punitive raids along the coast. The result was a fierce attack upon this contingent by thousands of armed Mata’afans, who were angered by the destruction of their villages and eager to take advantage of the freedom offered by the absence of the warships. The casualties of this expedition, seven killed, were remarkably light considering the circumstances, but they included the three senior officers, and many others in the party were wounded.21
This disaster did not put an end to the Anglo-American ‘punitive’ raids, although later expeditions were always planned with more care: on the contrary, it tightened the resolve of both navies to finish the job. Shellings and sorties continued unabated, and both sides attempted to recruit support from the other islands of the group; but on 21 April H.M.S. Torch arrived from Sydney, bringing the news to Maxse and Stuart that the whole matter was to be settled by an international commission which would shortly reach Samoa and that, pending their arrival, a cease-fire should be arranged. This news did not mean the end of the fighting, for the Americans had no instructions to attempt a cease-fire and, in any case, the Mata’afan forces were still very active. Hostilities continued for a further few days. On 25 April, just as the Anglo-American forces with their native allies were preparing another raid, word was brought to Apia that Mata’afa had agreed to withdraw to the cease-fire lines prescribed by the navies. Enforcing the truce proved to be almost as arduous as waging war itself and alarms were common during the days following, but hostilities were virtually at a standstill when the commissioners, transported from San Francisco by U.S.S. Badger, finally arrived on 13 May. At this the conflict ceased altogether.22
The underlying cause of the Samoan civil war of 1899 lay undoubtedly with the faulty phraseology of the Berlin Act, which did not take into account the basically unstable nature of Samoan politics. The future course of the kingship could not be determined by reference to the few trite sentences of the act. If Chambers’ decision in favour of Tanu was judicially irrefutable (and this the Germans strongly questioned) it was disastrous politically: Mata’afa was always a far stronger and more impressive candidate than his young rival. His authority was so great that he did not need to engage in the fighting at all. The immediate cause of the war, however, was the split between the treaty officials. The arbitrary actions and open bias of the Germans for Mata’afa in the weeks prior to the judgement, and their refusal to accept—if only temporarily—the decision of the supreme court, enraged the other nationalities. But mistakes were clearly made upon the Anglo-American side also. Sturdee was, to put it bluntly, ‘trigger-happy’. Maxse also erred, not only by reporting to London too rosy a picture of Tanu’s side, but also by participating in the fighting. Chambers lacked the tact and insensitivity to criticism which his difficult post required. Finally, Kautz’s decision to depose the provisional government and to open hostilities against the Mata’afans was as politically rash as the naval actions were militarily pointless. Only Osborn kept his head, although he felt bound to oppose the Germans and Mata’afans after they had disregarded Chambers’ decision. But working against his calming influence were a host of petty intriguers and agitators upon both sides, and the period January—April 1899 was consequently as full of political quarrels as it was of military actions. Furor Consularis had returned for a second time to the Samoan islands, and it became once again the task of the diplomats to straighten the situation out.
Of the kaiser’s personal wish to see Samoa attached to the German Empire there can be little doubt. This distant island group appeared to him to crystallize many of his own hopes and beliefs about Germany’s colonial expansion, her future Flottenpolitik and the need to please the public by securing this most popular object of their desires. It was hardly surprising, therefore, that the group should be included in the list of territorial compensations sent to Hatzfeldt in June 1898 and repeatedly mentioned by Berlin during the Portuguese colonies discussions.23 It was hardly surprising,. too, that Salisbury’s refusal to consider a British withdrawal from the islands on account of Australasian opinion infuriated the kaiser. ‘The brazen scoundrel!’ Wilhelm noted, believing that the prime minister was using ‘either the feelings at home or in this or that Cape or Colony, in order to give us the slip!’24 An appreciation of the British government’s difficulties with public opinion was not one of the kaiser’s strong points.
No sooner had Samoa been dropped out of these African negotiations than it arose again with the news that the United States intended to erect a coaling station at Pago-Pago. Thereupon, Wilhelm demanded that Washington be queried about this scheme and, if the Americans persisted in it, that Germany should proceed to erect a similar station in her own treaty port of Saluafata; but as Holleben insisted that the former course would sharpen American suspicion and as Richthofen pointed out that the latter would only complicate the situation in Samoa itself, it was decided to sound out Salisbury once again as to Germany and the United States dividing the islands while England withdrew and took Tonga. The news of Malietoa’s death and possible complications in Samoa reinforced this decision and Hatzfeldt was instructed to take action accordingly, despite his own doubts.25
These doubts soon proved justified. Finding Balfour still in charge of foreign affairs, Hatzfeldt broached the matter with him on 1 and 2 September and laid particular stress upon the fact that Salisbury had been in favour of such a partition scheme ten years previously. But the acting foreign secretary did not dare become involved in this delicate question and contented himself with promising to tell Salisbury of the German proposals. Already the Australasian newspapers were publishing alarmist reports of an intended coup by Berlin, and Hatzfeldt reported that the Morning Post had strongly attacked the idea of Germany obtaining Upolu. Nevertheless, Bülow requested the ambassador to persist in his soundings, but his optimism was soon shattered when Salisbury learnt of these talks, for Hatzfeldt was then coldly informed that a partition could not be discussed.26 Moreover, the prime minister did not take too kindly to the ambassador’s reminders of his previous compliance over Samoa. That Samoa-Tonga deal, he minuted, was made ‘in reference to the possibility of a larger arrangement. It has no application to the circumstances of the present day’.27 It was a further illustration of the fact that Salisbury had used the group as a diplomatic pawn in his bid to obtain Bismarck’s friendship in the late 1880s, and also that he regarded Anglo-German relations as having changed radically since then.
As the Fashoda crisis loomed nearer and the possibility of a war with France arose, the prime minister had little time for German pesterings about the islands. ‘Samoa must wait until more important people are served’, he ordered.28 During the confrontation on the upper Nile, and because events in the group itself were relatively quiescent while the Samoans were discussing the candidates for the kingship, Samoa slipped again onto the backstage. Wilhelm’s interest also swung to the Anglo-French confrontation, which he firmly believed would lead to a war, during which Germany’s position would be strengthened. On the one hand he told the Russians that he would stay neutral if the continent went to war with England, on the other hand he assured Lascelles that the British could easily beat the French but that Germany would intervene should London be opposed by Russia also. Doubtless his wish was to see France weakened militarily, while perhaps picking up compensations later from London for his neutrality.29 The settlement of the Fashoda question without a war bitterly disappointed the kaiser and he let these feelings be known when criticizing the Russian foreign minister, Muraviev, for advising Paris to give way. At the same time, the German press was instructed to point out to the French what an unreliable ally Russia had proved to be.30
Wilhelm’s actions served only to increase suspicion of Germany in London and to further Salisbury’s determination to avoid armed conflict with France, if that were at all possible. ‘The one object of the German Emperor since he has been on the throne has been to get us into a war with France’ he had told Balfour earlier in 1898.31 Victoria was also incensed at the ‘systematic and hardly concealed attempts’ of the kaiser to set Britain against the Dual Alliance, and both she and Salisbury agreed that Wilhelm, while wishing to keep Anglo-German relations upon a good footing, was never pleased when Britain became friendly with Russia.32 Upon the German side, it was found ‘agreeable’ that France had been humiliated and that many Frenchmen appeared to regard Britain instead of Germany as the natural foe, although the boost to British prestige was regretted. Wilhelm also appreciated more than ever that Germany must possess a large fleet if she was going to play an important role in overseas matters and if she hoped to avoid the humiliation which France had been forced to accept.33
Neither side was in a particularly trusting mood, therefore, when the first news of the disturbances in Samoa reached Europe in mid-January 1899. After reading Chambers and Maxse’s telegrams, which blamed the entire troubles upon German intrigues, Victoria sent Salisbury repeated messages that the ‘atrocious’ conduct of Rose must be strongly protested against and she remained dissatisfied with the prime minister’s calming assurances.34 At this stage, Berlin’s annoyance was much slighter and the sole concern there was to prevent this affair from assuming too large proportions in Anglo-German relations. This desire was possibly strengthened by the German unease at reports of the progress of Anglo-Russian negotiations over China, which could not only restrict the ‘Free Hand’ policy and Britain’s dependence upon Germany but might also make the Yangtse Valley a British sphere of influence.35
When the matter was broached with the British ambassador, Lascelles, on 20 January, the German viewpoint was quite mild. If Chambers had made an impolitic decision, then Rose and Raffel had also erred by attempting to replace the chief justice, and the German consul was promptly told of this. Naturally, Berlin could not resist this opportunity of pointing out once again to the British how unworkable the Samoan tridominium was and how necessary a partition appeared to be. This hint, however, fell upon deaf ears. The Colonial Office refused to hear of such a thing; in fact, they were advocating the annexation of Tonga at this time ‘so that Germany would no longer be in a position to offer us what was really ours or at any rate none of hers for our interests in Samoa’. Chamberlain himself, feeling that ‘We certainly must not do anything to break the present ‘entente’ between the U.S. and ourselves’, disliked the idea of Anglo-German talks just then and he told the Foreign Office that Australasian opinion would not allow Britain to let the strategically-important Samoan group fall into German hands.36 While the Colonial Office was prepared to give Germany only the rather worthless Gilbert and Ellice Islands if she would withdraw from Samoa, Bülow was secretly considering such a withdrawal—but only if the British handed over New Guinea, the Gilberts and a coaling station in Malaya!37
A more important reason for the very conciliatory nature of this approach to Britain was Berlin’s worry about complications with the United States, where rumours that Germany was secretly helping the Filipino rebels had increased the American press agitation. Moreover, the forthcoming meat inspection bill and fruit controls, which the German agrarians pressed for, was arousing great annoyance in American trading circles, who strongly advocated retaliatory measures. Articles, such as the one headlined ‘Is a Clash coming with Germany?’, which the New York Herald printed on 13 January, were a source of great concern to Bülow, who noted ‘We must maintain the Carolines (but) stay far away from the Philippines. The U.S.A. would indeed go to war over the Philippines; over Samoa and the Carolines, only when the bitterness in America against us raises itself to even more incongruous levels.’ Some years later he believed that February 1899 had seen the high point of German-American antagonism.38 Thus, both he and Holstein as well as the kaiser urged the British government to use its supposedly great influence at Washington to secure better German-American relations, arguing that it could hardly be in London’s own interests to see her two natural friends quarrelling among themselves. Salisbury’s reply to this was non-committal, however, and gave Berlin little hope for his supports.39
The United States government was indeed annoyed at the news, passed on by the British embassy, of the forcible rejection of Chambers’ decision by the Mata’afans and the Germans. The Philadelphia was ordered to proceed to Apia immediately, and to follow the majority decision of the consuls. Hay informed White that the president felt the troubles had been chiefly caused ‘through the ill-considered and officious conduct of Dr Raffel, aided and seconded by the German Consul-General Mr. Rose’. Their actions, the despatch continued, ‘were reprehensible and indefensible in the extreme’.40 However, the ambassador preferred to give this protest verbally and in doing so he considerably toned down Hay’s very stiff language. Moreover, Bülow was falsely informed by a private source that the United States was willing to withdraw from the group, which caused hopes to rise in Berlin that Salisbury’s obstructive attitude towards a partition could be circumvented.41 The pliable White was therefore sounded out upon this scheme but even he was shrewd enough to pinpoint for his superiors the real reasons behind the German proposals.
Although the German suggestions received no answer and Hay had informed the British that he would not consider them until the local difficulties were solved, Bülow persisted in this course throughout February, raising the scheme on several occasions with White. On the American side, however, communications were restricted to a defence of their consul and the chief justice against the German complaints. Nevertheless, Berlin believed that the high point in German-American bitterness had passed after Bülow’s very conciliatory speech to the Reichstag on 11 February, during which he denied that Germany had been anything other than strictly neutral during the Spanish-American war and attacked those who attempted to cause bad blood between Berlin and Washington.43 It was a theme which government-influenced papers such as the Kölnische Zeitung had already taken up, and fierce attacks were launched upon Reuter and the Associated Press for their biased news coverage. Moreover, a certain Dr Haedicke was appointed to work for the Wolff’s Bureau in New York to combat this anti-German propaganda, while Dr Witte, a member of the embassy in Washington, was given a similar task and busied himself with writing to various American newspapers. Although this helped their case somewhat, the greater part of the press still regarded Germany with suspicion and Pauncefote, the British ambassador, sarcastically reported that Holleben was ‘making comical efforts to win the U.S. over to the German side in the Samoa complications and has met with nothing but snubs.’44
The Germans continued to be disappointed in Salisbury’s cool attitude to the whole affair. Like the Americans, he refused to accept Berlin’s criticism of the chief justice’s decision and their defence of Rose’s actions, at least not until fuller reports from Maxse had arrived in London. Hatzfeldt’s report that the prime minister had agreed with Bülow that all the treaty officials had erred was promptly and sharply denied. More disheartening still was Salisbury’s refusal to consider any British withdrawal from the group. Tonga had no value for England, he declared, and while affairs in Samoa were bad they would have to become much worse before Australia would recognize the necessity for a partition. With the prime minister in this mood and his regard for Australian opinion made very obvious, the ambassador could only repeat the suggestion that the Americans be persuaded to agree to a Samoan partition first of all.45
Hatzfeldt approached the subject in a more indirect manner on 23 February, when he attempted to convince the prime minister that all powers of the world were in need of allies. Recognizing this as a German opening bid to discuss London’s dependence upon Berlin’s friendship, Salisbury stoutly maintained that the time for alliances in general was past. He also added that Britain would only accede to a partition arrangement if she obtained the main island of Upolu. Annoyed at this intransigence, Hatzfeldt recommended that Berlin should try to give the impression that Franco-German friendship was not impossible. To Holstein’s naive questions as to whether the prime minister could be circumvented by other members of the Cabinet or whether Cecil Rhodes could exert his influence in the matter, the ambassador was quite pessimistic.46
In the event, his pessimism proved justified. Rhodes was visiting Berlin in March 1899 in order to obtain permission to extend British telegraph and railway lines northwards through German East Africa as part of his Cape-to-Cairo schemes. Since this proposal also promised to further the economic development of the German colony itself and was advocated by governor Liebert, it received the support of the German government. But this cannot adequately explain the enthusiastic reception which the kaiser gave to Rhodes, whom he had considered as little more than a brigand three years earlier. With grandiose utterances about world empires and Germany’s future, and especially with a ‘judicious use of the blessed word Mesopotamia’, this businessman-cum-politician completely won over Wilhelm. By the end of his visit, the telegraph arrangement was secured and the kaiser was openly saying that he wished that Rhodes was his prime minister, a remark which must have irritated Bülow considerably.47
However, the hopes of the Auswärtiges Amt that Rhodes possessed sufficient influence over the government in London to produce a change of mind in their Samoan policy were misplaced, and it soon became clear that Rhodes had little influence over Chamberlain and none at all over Salisbury. Nor did he succeed in persuading the British government to drop its opposition to the German requests for permission to alter radically its telegraphic cable lines to North America. These requests, which involved an abandonment of the use of British cables by Germany in an attempt to lessen her dependence upon Britain for her communication with the United States, led to years of quarrelling between the two governments and the matter is too complex and voluminous to allow anything other than a brief mention of them at this point, where it became momentarily involved with the Samoan dispute. Sufficient to note that Salisbury rejected Rhodes’ pressure, minuting: ‘I rather flinch from the idea of selling one British trader (the cables companies) in order to promote the speculations of another’ (Rhodes).48
Apart from these private negotiations in Berlin, Samoa was hardly discussed during almost the whole of March. Salisbury bent his entire energies towards achieving a final agreement over the Nile watershed and towards preventing the clash over the French attempt to obtain a coaling station at Muscat from reaching serious proportions. He was also seeking to clinch the Anglo-Russian agreement regarding railway spheres in China and since all these matters were much more important to him than the periodic internal troubles of Samoa, he made no move upon the subject.49 Brodrick, the parliamentary under-secretary, wrote disapprovingly of this negative attitude: ‘I cannot get Lord Salisbury to take a strong line about Samoa. I think it will come to partition in some form but this is not favoured here.’50
Upon the German side, too, matters were fairly quiet, although Bülow was very keen to get all the officials withdrawn from Samoa. Even if the other powers could not be persuaded to agree to a partition of the group, it was not dissatisfying to Berlin to know that a chief backed by German influence was in charge in Samoa. Germany’s general position also appeared to be very satisfactory, and rumours of a lasting Anglo-Russian agreement over China were now discounted. The sole disturbing factors were the disputes with the United States, which Bülow hoped to avoid by an amicable commercial agreement and by avoiding arousing American suspicion with any rash moves in the Philippines and Samoa; and the Anglo-American entente, which existed despite the conflicting policies of those two nations over a variety of issues in the western hemisphere. Germany’s task was therefore to avoid clashes with either power, since these drove it closer towards the other. All in all, however, things looked good.51
This attitude of complacency and self-satisfaction was rudely shattered by the incoming flood of news about the fighting in Samoa. Already, by 16 March, Berlin had learnt that Kautz had instructions to act according to majority decisions should that prove to be necessary. At this, Bülow clearly feared a further deterioration in German-American relations and warned Hay that an ‘incorrect’ action by Kautz could bring about ‘an unfavourable reaction as regards the more general relations’: at London, he begged for Salisbury’s support. Worried most of all about the roars of protest which would come from the kaiser and the colonial pressure groups if German influence and interests in Samoa were undermined by Anglo-American armed action, Bülow pressed for the immediate despatch to the group of an impartial, all-powerful investigating commission, a suggestion first made by Pauncefote somewhat earlier.52
In London, Hatzfeldt sought to obtain Chamberlain’s help in the affair, hinting that a rash step by the two navies would so enrage public opinion in Germany that her government ‘would be unable to maintain its hitherto friendly attitude towards England’.53 The colonial minister laid all the blame upon the German consul, however, and emphasized that Britain would never accept a partition which did not give her Upolu; and that all Germany would receive for completely withdrawing would be the Gilbert Islands. Moreover, Salisbury left the Foreign Office for a holiday in the south of France near the end of March without giving an answer to the German suggestion, for he was waiting first to learn of Washington’s reaction to it. As Sanderson noted, the prime minister was surveying ‘the whole question with the most complete calm’: he had, after all, borne German pesterings and proposals about Samoa intermittently for fourteen years and was not inclined to get excited about them now.54
On 29 March, with the arrival in Berlin of a Reuter’s message about the fighting and shellings, the matter suddenly became more serious. By the following day, many German newspapers were violently criticizing the Anglo-American actions, and the right-wing Deutsche Tageszeitung appealed wildly for an alliance with the Boers and with Russia against England. Many of these vitriolic attacks were directed against the German government itself, including one by the Deutsche Zeitung on the following day, which stung Bülow to the quick by castigating his foreign policy in comparison with Bismarck’s. Fearing great unpopularity at home and complications abroad, Bülow also cabled the press bureau that ‘The tone of our official press over Samoa must be firm, calm and clear: otherwise the country will not know what to make of us.’ Hammann’s efforts, catalogued in a special report to Bülow, deserve quotation:
Despite these endeavours of his press bureau, Bülow realized that the matter demanded immediate diplomatic attention also. The kaiser was incensed at the news, calling it ‘entirely unheard of’. Ships of the Royal Navy, of which service he was a proud admiral of the fleet, had joined those insolent ‘Yankees’ in shooting at German property and damaging her consulate! Doubtless his currently painful lumbago, and the fact that he was at this time much in the company of Tirpitz and other naval officers, did not alleviate his irritation with the British.56 Bülow therefore ordered that London be informed ‘that the further behaviour of England precisely in the Samoa matter will be of decisive and far-reaching importance for the political relations between England and Germany.’57
On 31 March, Berlin received news of McKinley’s ‘surprise and deep regret’ at the reported collision and his assent to the German proposition to send a commission to Samoa. With America apparently eager to placate Berlin, German anger at the British government redoubled: in Holstein’s words, London was regarded as ‘the centre of the Samoan evil’. Bülow considered that in the fighting England had driven and the United States been driven, and that Salisbury was trying to cause trouble between the governments of Washington and Berlin in the hope of becoming the tertius gaudens—a place Germany reserved for herself. If satisfaction was not achieved, then the kaiser should withdraw Hatzfeldt from London. Once again, the need for a powerful navy had been shown. (Wilhelm: ‘What I have been continually preaching to those oxen in the Reichstag for ten years.’) Moreover, the German press was to avoid attacks upon the United States and to focus instead upon Britain’s intransigence, while Holleben was to attempt to wean the Americans away from the British.58
Perceiving the way matters were going in Berlin, Lascelles appealed for conciliation to be shown in London and perhaps also for an expression of regret similar to McKinley’s, pointing out ‘that the extreme importance which the emperor and the German public attach to Samoa did not appear to be fully realised in England’. Wilhelm, he reported, was ‘highly incensed’ at the whole question, while Bülow might be forced to adopt a policy less friendly to Britain.59 The ambassador’s urgings were, however, ignored. Being on holiday, Salisbury failed to grasp the urgency of the situation and he was in any case resentful of the German pressure. Feeling that German officials had provoked the entire troubles and that McKinley had only apologized because it was a faulty shell from U.S.S. Philadelphia that had struck the German consulate, the prime minister declined to cable any expressions of regret. Moreover, he would only agree to a commission which would make majority decisions and he opposed the idea of a joint and unanimous report, since it would ‘enable the Germans to prevent a free and full expression of opinion either as to the past or the future on the part of the other two.’ And when Lascelles reported on 3 April that Bülow had declared that many in Germany believed that Britain and America were seeking to drive her out of Samoa, Salisbury replied with a very stiff note which sharply criticized the German consul.60
Although the kaiser became infuriated and believed that Hatzfeldt should be immediately sent on holiday as a sign that Germany regarded full diplomatic relations with Britain as being useless and unnecessary, Bülow preferred instead to increase the pressure upon Salisbury, particularly by drawing the Americans upon their side. It proved to be a fierce struggle of wills. The state secretary dared not relax his demands, since the arrival of further reports in Berlin about the crowning of Tanu, the shell damage to the German consulate and the arrest of several Germans upon suspicion of helping the Mata’afans had enraged all of the press. The false rumour that Kautz had threatened the German cruiser Falke unless it moved out of Apia harbour so worried the naval authorities in Berlin that an enquiry was called for; and, if Bülow’s account is to be believed, Tirpitz at that time thought that Britain and America were trying to cripple the German navy before it could emerge as a threat to them.61 For twelve days, therefore, the German government pressed the British to agree to a commission which could only act by unanimous decision: anything less would have made them too open to the criticism that they were allowing themselves to be outvoted. Yet the prime minister continued to raise objections and alterations to the proposed outline of the commission’s tasks and declined to be hurried. By 12 April, Bülow felt that he could stand it no more: Hatzfeldt was told that he was temporarily to break off relations with Britain if he judged that Salisbury would not accede to their wishes.62 Almost immediately afterwards, however, Lascelles informed the Auswärtiges Amt that the prime minister had regretfully agreed to unanimous decision, the result of which he felt would be ‘of little value’: and Holstein rushed off a telegram to the ambassador in London, instructing him not to deliver the ultimatum.63 The crisis was over, at least momentarily, although Salisbury was very bitter, cabling testily afterwards that
Salisbury’s attitude to the German worries had been certainly very lackadaisical, not to say derogatory. Although his absence from London partly explains this, there were perhaps other reasons for his unconcern. Brodrick privately felt that ‘He thought he could get U.S. and Germany to knock their heads together and keep us out of the line of fire’65—a view Berlin also took. Such an interpretation is possible, but Sanderson was probably nearer the mark when he wrote: ‘Hatzfeldt is constantly asking why Lord S. does not move quicker. The real answer which however it is rather difficult to give is that Lord S. always declined to regard the question as having any serious importance or requiring any great hurry.’66 The staff of the Foreign Office, pestered daily by a near-frantic ambassador and unable themselves to comprehend many of the prime minister’s stylistic modifications, were also glad to see the matter of the commission settled. No one, however, thought that it meant the end of the affair. As the French ambassador in Berlin shrewdly noted, ‘England has given way; but with enough bad grace as it seems, and perhaps the last word is not yet said.’67
The immediate task of the Samoan commission was to undertake the provisional government of the islands. To effect this, it was to exercise supreme authority over all the treaty officials, consuls and naval officers, each commissioner being responsible for his own nationals. Each action taken had to be unanimously agreed upon, and they also had to ‘consider the provisions which they may think necessary for the future Government of the islands or for the modification of final Act of Berlin’.68
These few sentences, simple in appearance, were, as mentioned previously, the result of some twelve days of argument between Salisbury and the German government: for it was not merely upon the question of unanimity, but upon many smaller technical and legal details, that the prime minister raised objections. He firmly refused to forbid further military actions should the naval commanders deem such to be necessary for defensive purposes, and he declined the German suggestion of disarming the natives since he believed that this would only benefit the rebels. Moreover although Bülow was very eager to replace all five officials in Samoa and urged this upon the British government many times, Salisbury always turned the proposal down: ‘I am averse to treating Maxse and Rose upon the same footing...’, he minuted, and regarded it as a great concession to Berlin that the British commissioner would control the consul.69
In fact, Salisbury appears to have been much readier to accept without question all of Maxse’s complaints against the Germans—perhaps because the British consul was a distant relation of his—than the permanent officials, many of whom questioned the chief justice’s decision and the necessity for the shellings.70 He also declined to let the consuls draft their own cease-fire proclamations lest it be ambiguous—‘the Germans will lay hold of any slip of that kind’,—and he disliked the idea of the commissioners meeting before they reached Samoa, remembering perhaps the German attempts to ‘arrange’ matters with Thurston in 1886.71 His hopes that the commissioners would be able to arrange a final settlement of the Samoan question cannot have been very great, therefore.
It is doubtful, in fact, whether any side expected that the commission would solve the roots of the crisis. Nevertheless, much faith was placed by all three governments in their respective commissioners to bring about at least temporarily a restoration of peace and harmony. All were adjured to work closely with their colleagues and to take steps in unison to prevent a further recurrence of the troubles.72 Certainly, the choice of Baron Speck von Sternburg (counsellor of the German embassy at Washington), Mr C.N.B. Eliot (second secretary of the British embassy there) and Mr Bartlett Tripp (a former U.S. minister at Vienna) as the three commissioners was calculated to ensure as little friction as possible: all were chosen because of their unbiased and conciliatory natures.
The instructions to the German commissioner deserve special attention. Despairing of ever persuading Salisbury to agree to a partition of Samoa and wishing to calm German public opinion, Bülow informed Sternburg that their aim was ‘to find an honourable way out of the difficulties without encroachment upon our rights and interests and to restore peace in the sense of the still valid Samoa Act’. To achieve this aim, the commissioner was advised upon how to deal with the many important individual questions. But he was also instructed to forestall possible future attempts of the British to call into question the unanimity principle by endeavouring to work with the American commissioner. By suggesting that Tripp, because of his age, should be the chairman of the commission, he should be able to win him over to the German side.73
These few sentences were, in fact, a small part of a persistent campaign to detach the United States from Britain, particularly over Samoa. London, Bülow felt, would never agree to a partition of Samoa unless Washington was persuaded first: then Salisbury’s obstructionism would be exposed and the prime minister would no longer be able to hide behind the objections of the United States. In March, Berlin attempted to persuade the State Department to instruct their consul to act with Rose against Maxse but this the anglophile Hay declined to do, although Osborn was warned to take ‘no inconsiderate step’.74
In the same way, the German government seized upon McKinley’s expressions of regret with great delight and attempted many times to point out to Washington that Salisbury alone was preventing a satisfactory arrangement about a commission—Wilhelm even summoned White personally to tell him this, while Bülow insinuated that Germany ‘was even more desirous of working hand in hand with America in this matter than with Great Britain.’75 Moreover, Holleben was instructed to get in touch with Kasson, the U.S. delegate to the Berlin conference, whom Bülow believed was sympathetic to Germany’s position, and to ask him to use his influence to effect a German-American arrangement over Samoa. Encouraged by Holleben’s reports that Kasson was indeed sympathetic, the foreign minister urged that he be appointed the American commissioner, upon which he would also be the chairman and possess the power to decide all unsettled questions.76 Although Kasson was not in fact appointed, the Germans hoped to use Tripp to a similar extent.
Berlin’s attempts to influence the American press provide further evidence of this policy. When the German-American Review first started up in 1899, Bülow ensured that it was helped financially by ordering a large number of copies; and Tirpitz was encouraged to lend his support with a letter and a photograph. Holleben managed to get an article in the Washington Post, which called for Chambers’ withdrawal if the German officials went, and he later persuaded the New York Tribune to publish an inspired article which attacked Kautz’s actions. Particularly helpful was a magazine called Uncle Sam’s American Eagle, which regularly called for good relations with Germany: for his pains the writer, together with the press attaché and Norddeutsche representative, Dr Witte, received large fees from the 10,000 marks available to Holleben for this purpose. The German consuls throughout the United States were all encouraged to influence the newspapers, and the consul in Chicago succeeded in persuading the great German-American meeting there in June to petition McKinley for good relations with Germany and a satisfactory solution of the Samoan difficulties (kaiser: ‘Bravo!’). When joined by the Irish-Americans also, such assemblies became purely anti-British focal points.77
How successful these endeavours were, it is difficult to say. Later in the year, the anti-British agitations of the German-Americans and Irish-Americans were to give some worry to McKinley’s administration, which had its eye upon the impending elections. Yet the American policy certainly remained firm upon the main points in the Samoan controversy. Although secretary of the navy Long felt that Kautz had acted far too rashly, and a number of highly critical despatches from Osborn later shared this view,78 Hay’s attitude never wavered. While he questioned many of Chambers’ actions, the secretary of state maintained that ‘the conduct of Raffel has been that of a madman’ and he felt that Rose’s had been little better. There was no intention upon his part of re-establishing the provisional government.79 Moreover the savage attack upon the United States of the pan-German, Dr Lehr, and his call in the Reichstag debate of 14 April for commercial reprisals in return for the Samoa humiliation, tended to blot out the good impression which Bülow attempted to make with his soothing and conciliatory words upon all sides. Finally, although sympathetic to the German request for Chambers’ dismissal, Hay confided to McKinley that ‘The hyphenated Germans are so frantically unjust towards us that nothing we could do would have any effect upon their howling, so that I think we will have to decide the matter without much reference to them.’80 This was hardly the language of one being tempted into the pro-German camp, while Hay’s invitation to the British to supply the next chief justice indicated how much Washington now trusted London in comparison to 1889.
The Samoan disputes came most fortuitously for Anglo-American relations. In February, the Cabinet had reluctantly agreed to defer the negotiations over the Alaskan boundary begun with Washington in August 1898, and with this Salisbury also declined to discuss an abandonment of British rights regarding a Central American canal which the 1850 Clayton-Bulwer treaty gave to her.81 Although both governments were eager for a settlement, and both saw the Canadian attitude as being the chief obstacle, matters were less promising than in 1898 and Hay confessed that ‘these troubles, although intrinsically insignificant, are likely at any moment to embitter the relations between our two countries’.82 Nevertheless, discussions for a modus vivendi were taken up during the summer of 1899 and were to achieve success in October; clearly, neither side wanted to see the good relations disappear. West coast newspapers, however, were hardly so tolerant but, luckily, their attention was now switched elsewhere. As Professor Campbell puts it:
Small wonder, then, that Bülow deplored the Samoan troubles, attempted to minimize their importance upon the American side, and endeavoured to entice the United States away from Britain. In the work of the commission, he was to believe that he had partially succeeded.
Despite Salisbury’s fears, the commissioners travelled together to Samoa, since the United States government had offered the services of a vessel to assist their work. Leaving San Francisco on 26 April and sailing via Hawaii, they arrived off Apia on the morning of 13 May.84 The three men set to work immediately, commencing with the tricky problem of disarming the natives, although all experience and the advice of those with a knowledge of Samoan affairs indicated that this would be virtually impossible. Receiving Tanu on 19 May and Mata’afa on the following day, the commissioners pleaded with both sides to give up their rifles. Doubtless the offer to compensate fairly for each weapon surrendered was the decisive factor, although neither chief seemed inclined to continue the fighting. Eventually, some 3,631 guns were handed over—a fair comment upon the effectiveness of the ban imposed under the Berlin Act—and a total of $41,245 was promised in return. The rifles which the British had given to Tanu’s warriors were also withdrawn, although 100 remained with the native police force, which came under the control of the commissioners and was the only armed body allowed on Upolu.85 By these moves alone, much of the future peace of the islands was secured.
The commission then turned to the crux of the dispute—the kingship question. Both Eliot and Tripp found themselves ‘unable to see upon what grounds the decision of the chief justice can be overturned even though the reasoning by which he came to the conclusion may be open to objection’.86 Since the Berlin Act gave the final decision in a contested election to the Supreme Court, enjoined all treaty officers to obey the court judgement, and specified that there was no right of appeal to the powers on this, Tanu was clearly the legal king and the action of the Germans and the Mata’afans was equally clearly rebellious. The so-called ‘laws and customs of Samoa’ only applied when they were not in conflict with the act. As Eliot explained to Salisbury:
Confronted with this impeccable legal logic, neither Sternburg nor Dr Solf, the newly-arrived president of the municipality, could make any reply. Tanu was the legal monarch of Samoa.
This was, however, a victory without practical consequences. Investigation by the commission soon revealed that the powers of the monarchy were very few indeed. It was, according to Tripp, ‘at best a mere bauble, of value only as a prize for competition’. This was hardly true, but the commissioners could only arrive at decisions based upon information given to them locally and apparently all the white residents had declared that the kingship should be abolished. Moreover, both Tanu and Mata’afa had expressed their willingness to abandon any claim to the post. Finally, Sternburg declared that his government’s instructions ‘precluded him from allowing Tanu to exercise even nominal authority as King’. Although Eliot and Tripp had hoped this would be temporarily permitted, in order to emphasize the legality of Chambers’ decision, they gave way upon the point in reply to the German commissioner’s greater concession. Summoning the nineteen-year-old youth before them, they asked him to give up his title, to which he readily assented in return for a promise of a formal education in New Zealand.88
Smaller disputes were eliminated, usually with a great deal of give and take upon both sides. Kautz sailed away abruptly, despite the commission’s fear that disturbances might follow. Rose left also, and was accompanied by Maxse. The latter was fairly ill and therefore quite willing to give up his post to ease the exit of the German consul. Some bitterness was caused, however, at the resignation of the chief justice: for, while Eliot acknowledged that Chambers’ departure would also contribute to the peace, he found Sternburg’s demand for this to take place immediately to be ‘monstrous’.89 In fact, the German commissioner had been ordered by his government to insist upon the removal of the chief justice and this was paralleled by formal requests from Bülow to London and Washington. The Wilhelmstrasse, sensitive to press criticism of the commission’s decision upon the kingship and to attacks upon Chambers, was striving for his departure.
According to the British commissioner, Sternburg then became less pleasant as a result of a reproof from Berlin, and made objections to the appointment of the acting British consul, Hunter, as ‘Native Commissioner’. Eliot, with Tripp assenting, consequently declined the German proposal that Dr Solf assume the posts of native commissioner, acting chief justice and municipal president. Eventually, therefore, the American consul Osborn assumed the post of acting chief justice, while Solf took the remaining offices. On other smaller matters, too, such as the position of the Malietoans and an old quarrel over the true boundaries of the municipality, the British and German commissioners tended to differ. Sternburg reported that the former was completely in the hands of Maxse and the L.M.S. missionaries and by 9 June Richthofen was complaining of Eliot’s attitude. A month later, Holleben attempted to persuade Hay to join the German government in asking Salisbury to caution his commissioner. This the secretary of state refused to do until he had heard from Tripp and, when a despatch from the latter arrived on 5 July and contained no criticism of Eliot, he turned down the German request finally.90 Moreover, when Hatzfeldt raised the matter with Salisbury himself, the prime minister noted sarcastically that if Eliot was out of step with his colleagues, this ‘justified the course, which I had earnestly, though in vain, pressed upon the German Government, of allowing the decision of the Commission to be decided by a majority’.91 He also refused to send any messages to Eliot.
When the British commissioner later learnt of the German complaints, he put them in a better perspective. Since there were few American citizens in Apia, the smaller rivalries there had chiefly been Anglo-German and had consequently caused their respective commissioners to have more to discuss. Furthermore, Tripp had openly declared that America’s interest was really concentrated in the harbour of Pago-Pago and had therefore kept out of most of the quarrels, ‘although either his instructions or personal political bias led him to generally take the German side’.92 Doubtless little note would have been made of all this had not the Germans, in their anxiety to detach the United States from Britain, exaggerated the matter out of all proportion, so that Hay himself later noted:
In fact, Hay had been somewhat misled. The various arrangements made by the commission had been agreed upon by all three members, working harmoniously together, for the most part. While socially very friendly to this German colleague, Tripp had supported Eliot as many times as he had Sternburg, particularly over major issues such as the holding of the various offices after the commission left. Upon the most important question of all, the validity of Chambers’ decision and Tanu’s claim to the kingship, agreement had only been reached because the German commissioner gave way to the Anglo-American arguments. In any case, Tripp’s reports confirmed Hay in his opinion that the German and Mata’afan refusal to accept the judgement of the chief justice had been the main cause of the troubles. There was never any real possibility of a German-American coalition over Samoa to the detriment of Britain, and Hay’s ‘amazement’ at the Tripp-Sternburg co-operation in some way indicates this.
By the middle of July, as the commissioners were drafting a joint report and preparing to leave the islands, they set about establishing a provisional form of government until their final recommendations had been agreed upon by the treaty powers. With some misgivings, the commission vested power in the Consular Board, which would be assisted by the municipal president. To prevent ‘the troubles of last winter’, the three consuls would be able to act by a majority except in cases where the Berlin Act expressly required unanimity; and solemn oaths to keep the peace were taken from both Samoan factions before the commission left. Nevertheless, the members pressed their governments to implement their new scheme of administration as quickly as possible in order to replace this provisional arrangement.94
The new scheme of the commission was only, as they themselves declared in the first sentence of their joint report, ‘a modified and amended version of the act of Berlin’. In the place of the monarchy, a system of native government upon the Fijian model was proposed:—each district would be ruled by a chief and these would meet together annually to decide larger matters. Samoan affairs were to be left to the Samoans as far as possible. To centralize and unify the islands, an administrator chosen by a neutral government would be appointed to work with three delegates of the treaty powers. Together they would form a legislative council, while the three national members would take over whatever consular functions were necessary in Samoa—but the administrator would have ‘a large measure of authority’. To eradicate the lawless nature of the islands, the powers of the chief justice were to be enlarged to cover cases between natives and foreigners. More important still, the extraterritorial jurisdiction of the consular courts was to be abolished and all such cases transferred to the Supreme Court in an attempt to reduce the rivalries and bitterness among the various white communities.95
The commission admitted that their scheme was a compromise, forced upon them by the need to prevent one power from gaining political predominance in the group. Despairing of ever being able to solve fully the national rivalries, they bluntly declared ‘that the only natural and normal form of government for these islands, and the only system which can assure prosperity and tranquility, is a government by one power’.96 In their private reports, the commissioners repeated this point. While Eliot blamed the inopportune return of Mata’afa and the German refusal to recognize Tanu as the immediate causes of the crisis, he pointed out that ‘The curse of Samoa is the rivalry existing between the subjects of the three Powers, whether they are officials or private persons’, and advocated annexation by one nation if that were possible.97 Tripp felt that the United States should endeavour to make known the fact that her interests were focussed entirely upon Tutuila and should welcome any chance to free herself from the affairs of the rest of the group.98
The commission had been sent to Samoa to restore order, to report upon the troubles and to suggest ways for the better government of the group. This they had done. They had upheld the decision of the chief justice, and condemned the efforts of those who had opposed that judgement. Legally, it had been a defeat for the German point of view: politically, it had been nothing of the sort. The abolition of the kingship, the harmony between Tripp and Sternburg, and also a general reservation about the necessity for the military actions of the two navies had obscured this German reverse. Most important of all, however, the commission had confirmed the opinion of Berlin that rule by one nation was urgent and necessary. All three governments knew this already, of course, and it was only out of regard for Australasia that London had preferred to continue with the tripartite rule. But now that their position was even more exposed, their excuses made even weaker and their cover torn away by the open and unanimous recommendations of the commissioners, the British could expect further heavy pressure for a settlement of the entire question from an impatient German government.
While many politicians, newspapers and even Cabinet ministers believed the British Empire at the end of the nineteenth century to be in a position so precarious that she would one day be forced to align herself with some of the other great powers, it is clear that her prime minister felt otherwise.99 Salisbury never wavered in his belief that, given patience and coolness upon both sides, every problem in world affairs could be met with and surmounted without Britain ever needing to assume the burdensome obligations of specific alliances. Despite his famous ‘dying nations’ speech of 1898, he did not view the world through the Darwinist-tinted spectacles which affected the political thought of Tirpitz, Chamberlain and others, and he was free from that sense of urgency which influenced the actions of many statesmen of this period. Through steady and undramatic negotiations, he hoped to be able to reach an agreement with France over Africa, with Russia over Asia, and with the United States over various western hemisphere questions. But having no direct conflict of vital interests with Germany, he was never possessed of the same need to settle any problems which arose with her. Nor, for that matter, did he ever believe that Berlin would endanger her eastern borders by assisting Britain in China, the only area where her help was really sought.
Believing an alliance with Germany to be neither necessary nor possible, he consequently declined to further its prospects by making territorial sacrifices in overseas matters. Every colonial dispute had to be settled upon terms fair to both sides, and in this he differed from the view held by Berlin and also by Chamberlain, who felt in principle moved to purchase Germany’s alliance by some such concessions although he found it very hard to do it in practice. This basic position explains his attitude towards the German proposals regarding Samoa, although it cannot be denied that he was extremely unsympathetic to Berlin’s pleas that the question required a definite settlement and was also, perhaps, too careless about his treatment of the touchy Wilhelm.
A further factor was Salisbury’s self-confidence in the first eight months of 1899 i.e., during the time of the agreements with France and Russia, and before the Boer War was seen to be inevitable. Brodrick reported in mid-March that ‘He is in splendid spirits just now & thinks he has done first rate business with Cambon & Fr(ench) agreement. Also the Russian thing is going through, though slowly.’100 Moreover, in the middle of the crisis over the unanimity of the commission, Salisbury sent a private letter to Curzon in which he argued that France and Russia would only act together in a war against Germany. Holding such a view, and hoping to achieve a ‘mutual temper of apathetic tolerance’ with the French, he was in no desperate mood to acknowledge any need for Germany’s friendship. A few months later, refusing to worry about the negotiations in Madrid for an anti-British coalition, Salisbury noted ‘The German Emperor is looking round for allies, but he cannot get any on what he considers to be reasonable terms.’101
Much of this, too, explains the kaiser’s dislike of him. Wilhelm naturally shared the belief of all those directing German policy that Salisbury’s chief aim, as revealed in the Turkish question of 1895 and the Cretan affair of 1897, was to embroil the continental powers with each other; but this suspicion was augmented by a fierce antipathy and disgust when the prime minister continually endeavoured to come to better terms with France and Russia, repeatedly obstructed the securing of overseas territories so necessary to please the German public, and declined to recognize the importance of Germany in world affairs. This last factor was the most important of all to the kaiser and his complaint in March, 1899, that he was being treated as a ‘quantité négligeable’ was an all-too-common utterance for English ears.102 They found it hard to understand that this strutting, bombastic, excitable, immature emperor of the Germans secretly yearned for the respect of England, the country he most admired. They also did not realize the sensitivity behind his bombast, nor the deep personal feeling of humiliation when he believed that he was being ignored.
The most sensitive aspect of all was Wilhelm’s relationship to the English royal family. To visit Britain, to participate in the Cowes Regatta, to talk with his revered grandmother, all these things possessed a great attraction for him and he deeply regretted that the coolness between the two countries following the Kruger telegram had forced him to forego these joys. Nevertheless, he persistently sought to be invited there or, if that proved impossible, to invite Victoria to call upon him during her annual trip to the Riviera; but these efforts, too, proved unsuccessful.103 However, his hopes arose again at the end of 1898 over the possibility of attending Victoria’s eightieth birthday celebrations in the following May. This the queen refused to permit, although she relented sufficiently to invite the kaiser to visit her later in the year. In vain Bülow attempted to cool Wilhelm’s eagerness but on II March Lascelles reported that the kaiser even nourished the idea of arriving unannounced in England a few days before Victoria’s birthday.’104
More annoying still to Wilhelm was the way in which he was treated over the Saxe-Coburg-Gotha succession, when the Duke of Connaught became heir to the duchy after the death of the young prince in February 1899. The news that the English royal family had decided that the title should go to Connaught’s son but that it was not yet agreed whether he should be educated in Germany provoked an angry reaction in the German press. Wilhelm was amazed that the matter had been settled outside the country most concerned and was furious when Connaught issued a proclamation to the people of Coburg without consulting him. Throughout April the German newspapers increased their demands that foreign princes should be legally excluded from inheriting such titles and an explanation from the Gotha minister of state of the negotiations he had conducted with Connaught received a barrage of contradiction and abuse from the kaiser. Bülow explained to Hatzfeldt that ‘His Majesty could hardly have spoken otherwise in view of the present feeling in Germany caused by the unexpected and equally unmotivated action of England against us in Samoa.’105 There was little doubt that the two crises reacted upon each other and in a later letter Bülow anxiously wondered if the proposed anti-foreign law would annoy Victoria and British opinion, thus intensifying the Samoan dispute.106 Here was another matter in which the kaiser believed he was being treated as a quantité négligeable.
Using his own peculiar logic, Wilhelm blamed everything upon Salisbury. Although he had given way over the unanimity question, the prime minister’s later conduct in the Samoan affair did not restore him to favour. When Hatzfeldt reported that the Foreign Office itself had also not understood Salisbury’s tactics and that Britain had probably only given way because America had not stood with her, Wilhelm noted: ‘Excellently written: And strengthens me in my opinion that I cannot henceforth think of going to England, at least so long as Salisbury is in office.’107 The prime minister’s cheery chaffing to Hatzfeldt at the end of April that he could not understand why the German public became so excited over Samoa did not go down well in Berlin. Nor could the Germans seriously entertain his idea that the treaty powers cast lots for the three major islands in the group: for what would happen if Upolu did not fall to Germany? In fact, Salisbury told Chamberlain that it would be ‘undignified’ to carry out this scheme. Yet, to the Germans, this joking seemed to show that he refused to take them and Samoa seriously. Hatzfeldt could only suppose that the diplomatic victory over the French and the security engendered by the great naval increases of 1898 and 1899 had led to the prime minister’s ‘unbounded arrogance’, at which Wilhelm noted: ‘(That) will only fall when we increase our fleet again.’108 For the kaiser, the British recalcitrance over Samoa and elsewhere was becoming inextricably connected with Germany’s need for a larger navy.
Wilhelm naturally found it impossible to conceal this irritation from the British. The military attaché in Berlin, Colonel Grierson, reported that he had been subjected to ‘some rather unpleasant chaff about Samoa’ in the full hearing of many Germans during the army manoeuvres on 14 April. With the Coburg affair becoming more serious and Salisbury showing little repentance about Samoa, the kaiser returned to the topic on 1 May, subjecting Grierson to a long tirade over British ingratitude and complaining that
Lascelles, in his covering letter to this extraordinary report, hit the nail upon the head when he suggested that Wilhelm’s pique was caused by a combination of the Coburg controversy, the Samoan events and the queen’s refusal to allow him to attend her birthday celebrations. As for the prime minister, he repudiated these charges, privately informing Lascelles that ‘My feelings towards him (the Kaiser) have never been very acute in any direction’. Moreover, his own suspicions had now been raised:
The chances of the kaiser regretting his hasty utterances were then completely wrecked by the news that the Grand-Duke of Hesse was travelling to England for the queen’s birthday.111
With his ‘Free Hand’ policy somewhat deranged by these personal quarrels, Bülow strove to conciliate, at the same time believing that only a quick settlement of the Samoan question could soothe Wilhelm’s hurt pride. He was therefore interested to hear that Chamberlain had been talking about an Anglo-German alliance again, and he urged Hatzfeldt to maintain close contact with the colonial secretary since ‘as a result of his outstanding cleverness he is more susceptible to rational arguments than many other English statesmen.’112 He should thus appreciate that as the word Samoa implied for all Germans ‘the beginning and starting-point of our colonial strivings’ while it meant very little to the British, it should not be difficult for London to relinquish her claims to the group. Once again, Chamberlain was to be encouraged to prepare the path for an alliance by offering colonial concessions—but even if he did this, of course, no alliance would be concluded. Just before he sent instructions to Hatzfeldt, Bülow had minuted that ‘If England shows herself prepared for a fair settlement of the Samoan affair, we will be able to pursue our present independent policy du juste milieu.’113 If she did not, however, Germany would be forced ‘to draw closer to Russia and even to France’, for the feelings of the kaiser and the public towards Samoa were so high that it had become decisive for Anglo-German relations.
Whether Chamberlain would have responded to these urgings seems doubtful but in any case Anglo-German relations were further disturbed by monarchical differences. On 20 May, Wilhelm received a prim letter from his grandmother, indicating her annoyance that people in Germany were apparently speculating wildly upon the fact that he had not been invited to Cowes that summer, a rumour she held to be a complete untruth. Believing Victoria’s letter to have been caused by ‘evil intrigues’ or an error on the part of her secretary, the kaiser became very excited. Most annoying of all, he told Bülow, was the fact that while the queen ‘speaks to me for the first time in my life about Germany’s public opinion, to which she apparently attaches great value, she makes no mention of the Samoan affair, which has become so enormously exciting and offensive for our public’.114
Two days later, the kaiser despatched his reply, adding fuel to an already blazing fire with some very tactless remarks. After dismissing Victoria’s comments upon rumours in Germany upon the Cowes visit as mistaken, he launched straight into a fierce diatribe upon Salisbury’s incomprehensible policy towards Germany in the Samoan affair, concluding that
Of course, the letter was outrageous and exaggerated, and its only possible effect could have been to provoke the annoyance of the queen and her minister further; but the most astonishing thing about it, as Professor Eyck points out, is that Bülow was consulted before it was sent. The desire to avoid annoying his master and the German public was too great, and the chance of exploiting the antagonism against Britain for further fleet increases too tempting, for Bülow to employ some honeyed words and persuade Wilhelm to abandon his insulting letter.116
Two days after sending this letter, Wilhelm burst forth again, and this time to Lascelles at a banquet in Berlin to mark the queen’s birthday. A continuous barrage of criticism of the British government’s Samoan policy, from an attack upon Sturdee to an accusation that they were bribing the American press to be anti-German, was directed towards the unfortunate ambassador; and when the latter attempted to pass on Salisbury’s reply that he could hardly be considered an ‘enemy’ the kaiser merely sniffed. Bülow and Tirpitz would have been horrified to hear him warn that
The mutual bad feeling continued into June and any chance of Wilhelm visiting England for the Cowes Regatta collapsed in these recriminations. The queen sent a very sharp and reproving letter to her grandson, obviously intended to put him in his place: in contrast, Salisbury’s letter was very formal, coldly refuting point by point every exaggerated accusation of the kaiser and concluding with the opinion that ‘it is quite unintelligible to him on what grounds the Emperor can maintain that British action in regard to Samoa has been in any sense unfriendly to the German Government.’118 The prime minister’s refusal to caution Eliot was also regarded in Berlin as a further proof of hostility. Worse still, whenever Hatzfeldt attempted to sound out Salisbury regarding a possible agreement upon the partition of Morocco, he met with a stolid resistance. Britain preferred to keep the status quo in that land, the prime minister declared, and disliked the idea of prearranged colonial ‘deals’.119
After the middle of June, however, matters began to change upon both sides and the high point of the antagonism had clearly passed. A little earlier, the Coburg succession had been settled in a manner satisfactory to German feelings, and Victoria had written to Wilhelm, renewing her invitation for him to visit her later in the year. Both these gestures had been made before the British replies to the kaiser’s letter but only now did they have effect. Salisbury, too, attempted to restore better relations with Berlin by having his private secretary write a letter to Paul Metternich, the kaiser’s friend, assuring him that the prime minister was in no way hostile to Wilhelm and had in fact often expressed ‘the warmest admiration for H.I.M.’s talent and industry’.120 Furthermore, the relative peace which prevailed within Samoa during the visit of the commission naturally caused the German press to become less excited about this problem and to turn their attention to the internal struggles over the Hard Labour Bill and the Prussian Canal Bill. Upon the British side, the breakdown of the Bloemfontein Conference on 5 June switched all attention to South Africa and outlined the need to subordinate smaller matters to this increasingly threatening point.
Another important factor in the restoration of better relations was Salisbury’s agreement to allow claims for damages incurred during the naval actions in Samoa to be submitted for arbitration to the king of Sweden and Norway. He had naturally emphasized that ‘a corresponding obligation attaches to the German Government’ and seemed fairly convinced that an objective examination of the facts would justify the Anglo-American forces—but it was a useful concession, in view of the German concern over the damage their nationals had suffered. Since Salisbury had also not opposed the recall of Chambers and had expressed the hope that he and Wilhelm would be able to remove their differences through a personal meeting, Bülow felt justified in regarding these as healthy signs of British repentance. He hurriedly cabled the kaiser that ‘I see a new success for Your Majesty by this declaration’, and ordered the newspapers which the government influenced to emphasize very fully the great achievement secured by German diplomacy in this matter.121
Bülow’s great relief at these signs of British friendship was not solely due to his regard for the kaiser and public opinion: equally important was the rise of an alarming series of differences between Berlin and St Petersburg in the spring and summer of 1899. These quarrels enraged the kaiser, who never possessed so high a regard for Russia as either Bülow or Eulenburg, and they threatened to embitter the good relations between the two countries for which the Wilhelmstrasse so earnestly strove. Wilhelm had a dislike of the Russian foreign minister which possibly exceeded his feelings towards Salisbury and when he learned that Muraviev had been talking of a continental coalition against Britain, he scornfully rejected it. Nevertheless, Berlin listened carefully when Muraviev made diplomatic soundings as to a Russo-German agreement upon the Turkish Empire. These talks were swiftly exploited by Bülow to strengthen his hand in the Samoan negotiations—Rothschild and other political figures supposed to have an influence upon the prime minister were warned that if the British drove Germany out of Samoa, Berlin would respond by joining Russia.122 For a short while at the beginning of April, perhaps, Bülow actually believed that what he was saying might turn out to be true.
As the meaning of the Russian proposals became clearer, Berlin’s tone altered. Muraviev’s sole wish appeared to be to prevent the German economic penetration of Asia Minor, since Russia found it understandably hard to believe that the Bagdad railway and other projects would not give Germany a great political influence at Constantinople. However, the Wilhelmstrasse also had to bear in mind that any major agreement with Russia would alarm Austria-Hungary and so annoy the British that no further colonial concessions could be expected from them. It is nevertheless interesting to see how Bülow, while threatening London that he would join Russia, was at the same time informing St Petersburg that Germany had to act carefully to avoid provoking the British into hostility and was emphatically denying that there was any parallel between Fashoda and Samoa.123 In Berlin’s view, the only possibility of a Russo-German alliance lay in a permanent mutual guarantee of the existing boundaries of Germany, Russia and France, which would dissolve at one blow the danger of the French revanche and a two-front war. At this, the Russians backed away, protesting that France would not permit such an agreement. At the same time, their warships were sent to Beirut, provoking Wilhelm to minute, ‘Under no circumstances will I allow us to be pushed out of Syria (Palestine is the same to me) by Russia or at all hindered in our work.’124 The kaiser was infuriated that the grandiose schemes dreamt up during his Palestine journey and the talks with Rhodes were being opposed by the Russians, who even threatened to come to an agreement with Britain, ‘Muraviev is a completely brazen rascal!’, he scribbled on one despatch.125
At this time, the Russian press violently attacked Berlin for sending a scientific expedition to Bear Island. Although the German government quickly denied any wish to annex the place, such criticisms riled the kaiser, who was also annoyed at the Russians for the way the peace conference at the Hague was developing. Most infuriating of all was the suggestion that Russia would not only stop Germany from moving into the Turkish Empire but also prevent her from taking over Austria-Hungary if that state should collapse. For such a ‘Napoleonic’ policy, Wilhelm minuted, Russia might receive the same fate as Napoleon III’s Second Empire. With his imperial master upon such bad terms with both Britain and Russia, Bülow must have doubted if the ‘Free Hand’ was such a glorious policy after all, and Eulenburg wondered whether ‘it is finally better to run after Russia and England than to anger both of them’.126
Nevertheless, they did not lose their nerve. It was agreed to handle Muraviev’s soundings very dilatorily while proceeding silently with their schemes for Asia Minor. Meanwhile, Eulenburg engineered a spectacular gesture towards better Franco-German relations when he persuaded the kaiser to visit the French Schoolship-cruiser Iphigenie, which they met on their Norwegian cruise, to decorate its captain and to send a friendly telegram to President Loubet. For some weeks afterwards the press of Europe speculated upon a new rapprochement, which Eulenburg regarded as rather exaggerated, since the chief aim had been to improve Germany’s standing with both Britain and Russia. At the same time, he strove to prevent a similar gesture being made to the Royal Navy schoolship in those waters. He need not have worried: still angered by the letters of Victoria and Salisbury, the kaiser treated the bewildered English commodore to a fierce denunciation of the events in Samoa.127
Shortly afterwards, the news of Salisbury’s conciliatory moves and of the queen’s second invitation to the kaiser reached them. Wilhelm, furious at Muraviev’s obstructive attitude, suddenly but not unpredictably reversed, course. His hopes once again rose that he might after all be able to visit England, while Bülow felt that this could help to restore his ‘Free Hand’: ‘The main point remains that the relations between our all-highest Master and Lord Salisbury be divested of their previous bitterness, which is so disadvantageous for our relations with England and so very crippling for our overall policy.’128 Although the prime minister was still regarded with deep suspicion, Bülow pressed for better relations with him since ‘to our enemies on the Neva and Seine, Tiber and Danube, scarcely anything less desirable could happen.’129 A visit by the kaiser to Windsor was therefore tentatively agreed upon.
Faced with a number of disputes with Russia, which Bülow naturally tried to keep secret, the German anger at Britain’s inconsiderate policy towards them had substantially modified. Their suspicion was further erased by the settlement of the Coburg affair, the departure of Chambers from Samoa, Salisbury’s agreement to refer damages claims to arbitration and the prospect of Wilhelm’s future visit to England. On the British side, too, it was realized that bad relations with Germany were a handicap to the overall policy. For positive and negative reasons, therefore, the bitterness was slowly dissolving. Only one major obstacle to the restoration of friendly relations remained: a satisfactory and final solution of the Samoan question.