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  • Samoan crisis
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  • The Samoan Crisis was a confrontation standoff between the United States, Imperial Germany and Great Britain from 1887–1889 over control of the Samoan Islands during the Samoan Civil War. The incident involved three American warships, USS Vandalia, USS Trenton and USS Nipsic and three German warships, SMS Adler, SMS Olga, and SMS Eber, keeping each other at bay over several months in Apia harbour, which was monitored by the British warship HMS Calliope.
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Strength
  • 1
  • 3
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Partof
  • the First Samoan Civil War
Date
  • 1887
Commander
  • 23
  • Frizze
Caption
  • A sketch featuring the locations of the wrecked German and American ships.
Casualties
  • 1
  • 2
  • 62
  • ~73 killed
Result
  • Both squadrons wrecked
Notes
  • *The British in the cruiser HMS Calliope participated as mediators, their ship sustained fair damage. *Several merchant ships were also wrecked during the cyclone.
combatant
Place
  • Apia Harbor, Samoa, Pacific Ocean
Conflict
  • Samoan Crisis
abstract
  • The Samoan Crisis was a confrontation standoff between the United States, Imperial Germany and Great Britain from 1887–1889 over control of the Samoan Islands during the Samoan Civil War. The incident involved three American warships, USS Vandalia, USS Trenton and USS Nipsic and three German warships, SMS Adler, SMS Olga, and SMS Eber, keeping each other at bay over several months in Apia harbour, which was monitored by the British warship HMS Calliope. The standoff ended on 15 and 16 March when a cyclone wrecked all six warships in the harbour. Calliope was able to escape the harbour and survived the storm. Robert Louis Stevenson witnessed the storm and its aftermath at Apia and later wrote about what he saw. The Samoan Civil War continued, involving Germany, United States and Britain, eventually resulting, via the Tripartite Convention of 1899, in the partition of the Samoan Islands into American Samoa and German Samoa.