On the 21st the OLGA came before Matafangatele,ordered the delivery of all arms within the hour,and at the end of that period,none being brought,shelled and burned the village.The shells fell for the most part innocuous;an eyewitness saw children at play beside the flaming houses;not a soul was injured;and the one noteworthy event was the mutilation of Captain Hamilton's American flag.In one sense an incident too small to be chronicled,in another this was of historic interest and import.
These rags of tattered bunting occasioned the display of a new sentiment in the United States;and the republic of the West,hitherto so apathetic and unwieldy,but already stung by German nonchalance,leaped to its feet for the first time at the news of this fresh insult.As though to make the inefficiency of the war-ships more apparent,three shells were thrown inland at Mangiangi;they flew high over the Mataafa camp,where the natives could "hear them singing"as they flew,and fell behind in the deep romantic valley of the Vaisingano.Mataafa had been already summoned on board the ADLER;his life promised if he came,declared "in danger"if he came not;and he had declined in silence the unattractive invitation.These fresh hostile acts showed him that the worst had come.He was in strength,his force posted along the whole front of the mountain behind Apia,Matautu occupied,the Siumu road lined up to the houses of the town with warriors passionate for war.The occasion was unique,and there is no doubt that he designed to seize it.The same day of this bombardment,he sent word bidding all English and Americans wear a black band upon their arm,so that his men should recognise and spare them.The hint was taken,and the band worn for a continuance of days.To have refused would have been insane;but to consent was unhappily to feed the resentment of the Germans by a fresh sign of intelligence with their enemies,and to widen the breach between the races by a fresh and a scarce pardonable mark of their division.The same day again the Germans repeated one of their earlier offences by firing on a boat within the harbour.Times were changed;they were now at war and in peril,the rigour of military advantage might well be seized by them and pardoned by others;but it so chanced that the bullets flew about the ears of Captain Hand,and that commander is said to have been insatiable of apologies.The affair,besides,had a deplorable effect on the inhabitants.A black band (they saw)might protect them from the Mataafas,not from undiscriminating shots.Panic ensued.The war-ships were open to receive the fugitives,and the gentlemen who had made merry over Fangalii were seen to thrust each other from the wharves in their eagerness to flee Apia.I willingly drop the curtain on the shameful picture.
Meanwhile,on the German side of the bay,a more manly spirit was exhibited in circumstances of alarming weakness.The plantation managers and overseers had all retreated to Matafele,only one (Iunderstand)remaining at his post.The whole German colony was thus collected in one spot,and could count and wonder at its scanty numbers.Knappe declares (to my surprise)that the warships could not spare him more than fifty men a day.The great extension of the German quarter,he goes on,did not "allow a full occupation of the outer line";hence they had shrunk into the western end by the firm buildings,and the inhabitants were warned to fall back on this position,in the case of an alert.So that he who had set forth,a day or so before,to disarm the Mataafas in the open field,now found his resources scarce adequate to garrison the buildings of the firm.But Knappe seemed unteachable by fate.It is probable he thought he had "Already waded in so deep,Returning were as tedious as go o'er";it is certain that he continued,on the scene of his defeat and in the midst of his weakness,to bluster and menace like a conqueror.
Active war,which he lacked the means of attempting,was continually threatened.On the 22nd he sought the aid of his brother consuls to maintain the neutral territory against Mataafa;and at the same time,as though meditating instant deeds of prowess,refused to be bound by it himself.This singular proposition was of course refused:Blacklock remarking that he had no fear of the natives,if these were let alone;de Coetlogon refusing in the circumstances to recognise any neutral territory at all.In vain Knappe amended and baited his proposal with the offer of forty-eight or ninety-six hours'notice,according as his objective should be near or within the boundary of the ELEELE SA.
It was rejected;and he learned that he must accept war with all its consequences -and not that which he desired -war with the immunities of peace.
This monstrous exigence illustrates the man's frame of mind.It has been still further illuminated in the German white-book by printing alongside of his despatches those of the unimpassioned Fritze.On January 8th the consulate was destroyed by fire.
Knappe says it was the work of incendiaries,"without doubt";Fritze admits that "everything seems to show"it was an accident.
"Tamasese's people fit to bear arms,"writes Knappe,"are certainly for the moment equal to Mataafa's,"though restrained from battle by the lack of ammunition."As for Tamasese,"says Fritze of the same date,"he is now but a phantom -DIENT ER NUR ALS GESPENST.