‘…Prussians came from Auckland’

Invincible Strangers 24 Chapter 11

On 28 August 1914, Richard Deeken was killed in a French artillery barrage. For the man who wanted Sāmoa to be a German settler realm, it was a tragicomic death in a place Germans had annexed 44 years earlier. In the Battle of the Trouée de Charmes, the French sought to recover their lost province of Lorraine. The Germans lost 2500 men, among them Deeken, at the hamlet of Arracourt 20 kilometres east of Nancy. Solf could be forgiven for not noticing; that week Germany killed or wounded 78,000 Russians in the Battle of Tannenberg. 

Sixteen thousand kilometres away, the New Zealand invasion convoy carrying seasick soldiers slowed to 11 knots (20 kilometres an hour) in heavy seas and strong easterly winds. Pyramus and Monowai struggled. On the eve of the landing, Moeraki’s radio operator heard Āpia radio exchanging traffic with what was assumed to be a German ship. Āpia radio operators, on the other side, were listening to the New Zealand fleet. 

At dawn on Saturday 29 August, the convoy rounded the eastern end of ‘Upolu and Fanuatapu Island. Five o’clock reveille was followed with breakfast of corned beef, bread and tea. By sunrise at 6.40 am, it was calm and clear. It was, inevitably, hot.