Treaty of Berlin (1889)
The Berlin Samoa Conference 1889 took place from April 29 to June 14, 1889 at the invitation of the German Foreign Minister, Count Herbert von Bismarck in Berlin. On the Samoa Conference, the long-standing power struggle between the German Empire, Great Britain and the United States were settled by the Samoa islands first. Through the Samoan agreement a jointly exerted by the three interested powers government authority over the islands was established. Samoa was declared a formally independent, neutral kingdom under the protectorate of the three powers (Three Powers). The final document of the conference, the Samoa Act, formed the basis for the administration of the island group in the following ten years.
Background
The Hamburg-based trading firm Godeffroy had gained considerable influence since 1855 on the South Sea Islands by founding several factories. 1879/80 the company went into the German trade and plantation society of the South Sea Islands to Hamburg ( DHPG ). In addition to the DHPG, American and British merchants settled on the Samoa Islands. While in the east of the island group outweighed the American influence, competed in the West of Great Britain and the German Empire for supremacy in the lucrative trade in copra. The three Great Powers tried to exploit the rivalries within Samoa to exert influence over the battle for the leader of the Samoans and supported each have their own candidates.
On September 2, 1879, the Three Powers declared the capital Apia on the north coast of the island of Upolu and surrounding the urban area to a neutral zone under the equal and joint management of the consuls of these states. These municipal administration 's task was to protect the trade of the Europeans and to arrange the relations between Europeans and Samoans.
1881 occurred in connection with the election of a king again to conflicts. The British supported Malietoa Laupepa, while the Germans spoke out Tupua Tamasese for Titimaea. When it during a Kaiser- birthday party came to a clash between the Germans and Samoans 1887 Laupepa was captured and sent into exile in the later German - Cameroon. The British and American representatives called by this diplomatic defeat offended Mataafa Josefo on the neighboring island of Savaii as anti-king out.
On 26 July 1887, the three rival powers met in Washington, DC to a first Samoan conference. She remained without result, since the other powers refused to recognize a German mandate over Samoa.
While the Samoan crisis in 1889 were for the first time American and German warships against. It is likely that it would have come in this tense situation to fight, if not a cyclone prior to Apia from 13 to 17 March 1889 destroyed in the bay at anchor lying, already embattled warships and 54 American and 92 German sailors life would have lost. The USS Trenton, the USS Vandalia and the USS Nipsic as well as the SMS Eber, SMS and SMS Olga Adler collided, stranded or wrecked on the reef. Only the British HMS Calliope escaped the eye of the hurricane. The natural disaster brought the weakened competitors back to the negotiating table.
Samoa Conference 1889
The Samoan conference was proposed by German Foreign Minister Herbert von Bismarck, to resume negotiations after the failed attempt again. The conference convened in Berlin on 29 April 1889. Germany was by Herbert von Bismarck and the members of the Foreign Office: represented Friedrich von Holstein and Richard Krauel. The embassy of the United Kingdom consisted of the Ambassador Edward Malet, Charles Stewart Scott and Joseph Archer Crowe; of the United States Special Envoy John A. Kasson, and William Walter Phelps and George H. Bates were sent.
The three great powers decided to convert the neutral territory to Apia in a Munizipaldistrikt. The president of the municipal administration as the chief justice of the United Kingdom, the United States and Germany jointly determined. If no agreement can be achieved in the occupation of government offices, the King of Sweden was provided as an arbitrator.
The municipal council standing in front of a German officer. First president of the municipal council of Apia was Arnold Freiherr Senfft of Pilsach, who arrived in Apia in April 1891. His successor in 1894 Ernst Schmidt- Dargitz, the 1897 John Raffel and 1899 Wilhelm Solf followed.
The case law was in the hands of the British and Americans. English was a court language, it was Anglo-Saxon law in its Australian expression. The Chief Justice ( Chief Justice ) was appellate jurisdiction in international and referee in succession matters. As the first Chief Justice of the Swede Otto Waldemar Conrad Cedercrantz on January 2, 1891, took office. On November 3, 1893 he was succeeded by Henry Clay Ide, who was replaced on May 13, 1897 William Lee Chambers. Last Chief Justice was from July 1899 to March 1, 1900 Luther Wood Osborn.
The Berlin Conference preserved the fiction of an autonomous Samoan government. The independence and impartiality of the Government of Samoa has been guaranteed, the three major powers decided the guarantee of a free choice of Tupu and the disarmament of all Samoans. In addition, the public finances were reorganized. In the fall of 1887 defeated by Mataafa Josefo Malietoa Laupepa was reinstated.
The contract was signed in Berlin by the Three Powers on June 14, 1889; Ratifications were exchanged on 12 April 1890, the Samoan government agreed on April 19, 1890 the contract.
This Tridominium worked more bad than good until 1899. There were continual unrest and turmoil, tribal quarrels and feuds dealer. After the bombing of Apia, capital of Samoa, by the British and Americans beginning of 1899, which was directed against their former protege Mataafa, the Samoan treaty was concluded on 14 November 1899. The Samoan Islands were divided between Germany and America along the 171st meridian. Germany received the islands of Upolu and Savaii the greater part of the island group of the colony of German Samoa was formed in 1900. Great Britain renounced its sphere of influence in Samoa, but settled for his rights in Tonga recognize and received from Germany the Solomon Islands Ysabel, Choiseul, Ontong Java and the Shortland Islands and border corrections in German - Togoland. The Samoan agreement of 1889 was canceled in 1899.
The Berlin conference was the first in which not been used in the traditional diplomatic language French, but it was agreed as a negotiating language proposals made by Otto von Bismarck English.