CHAPTER V
THE BATTLE OF MATAUTU
_September_ 1888
The revolution had all the character of a popular movement. Many of thehigh chiefs were detained in Mulinuu; the commons trooped to the bushunder inferior leaders. A camp was chosen near Faleula, threateningMulinuu, well placed for the arrival of recruits and close to a Germanplantation from which the force could be subsisted. Manono came, allTuamasanga, much of Savaii, and part of Aana, Tamasese's own governmentand titular seat. Both sides were arming. It was a brave day for thetrader, though not so brave as some that followed, when a singlecartridge is said to have been sold for twelve cents currency--betweennine and ten cents gold. Yet even among the traders a strong partyfeeling reigned, and it was the common practice to ask a purchaser uponwhich side he meant to fight.
On September 5th, Brandeis published a letter: "To the chiefs ofTuamasanga, Manono, and Faasaleleanga in the Bush: Chiefs, by authorityof his majesty Tamasese, the king of Samoa, I make known to you all thatthe German man-of-war is about to go together with a Samoan fleet forthe purpose of burning Manono. After this island is all burnt, 'tis goodif the people return to Manono and live quiet. To the people ofFaasaleleanga I say, return to your houses and stop there. The same tothose belonging to Tuamasanga. If you obey this instruction, then youwill all be forgiven; if you do not obey, then all your villages willbe burnt like Manono. These instructions are made in truth in the sightof God in the Heaven." The same morning, accordingly, the _Adler_steamed out of the bay with a force of Tamasese warriors and some nativeboats in tow, the Samoan fleet in question. Manono was shelled; theTamasese warriors, under the conduct of a Manono traitor, who paidbefore many days the forfeit of his blood, landed and did some damage,but were driven away by the sight of a force returning from themainland; no one was hurt, for the women and children, who aloneremained on the island, found a refuge in the bush; and the _Adler_ andher acolytes returned the same evening. The letter had been energetic;the performance fell below the programme. The demonstration annoyed andyet re-assured the insurgents, and it fully disclosed to the Germans anew enemy.
Captain von Widersheim had been relieved. His successor, CaptainFritze, was an officer of a different stamp. I have nothing to say ofhim but good; he seems to have obeyed the consul's requisitions withsecret distaste; his despatches were of admirable candour; but hishabits were retired, he spoke little English, and was far indeed frominheriting von Widersheim's close relations with Commander Leary. It isbelieved by Germans that the American officer resented what he took tobe neglect. I mention this, not because I believe it to depictCommander Leary, but because it is typical of a prevailing infirmityamong Germans in Samoa. Touchy themselves, they read all history in thelight of personal affronts and tiffs; and I find this weaknessindicated by the big thumb of Bismarck, when he places "sensitivenessto small disrespects--_Empfindlichkeit ueber Mangel an Respect_," amongthe causes of the wild career of Knappe. Whatever the cause, at least,the natives had no sooner taken arms than Leary appeared with violenceupon that side. As early as the 3rd, he had sent an obscure butmenacing despatch to Brandeis. On the 6th, he fell on Fritze in thematter of the Manono bombardment. "The revolutionists," he wrote, "hadan armed force in the field within a few miles of this harbour, whenthe vessels under your command transported the Tamasese troops to aneighbouring island with the avowed intention of making war on theisolated homes of the women and children of the enemy. Being the onlyother representative of a naval power now present in this harbour, forthe sake of humanity I hereby respectfully and solemnly protest in thename of the United States of America and of the civilised world ingeneral against the use of a national war-vessel for such services aswere yesterday rendered by the German corvette _Adler_." Fritze'sreply, to the effect that he is under the orders of the consul and hasno right of choice, reads even humble; perhaps he was not himself vainof the exploit, perhaps not prepared to see it thus described in words.From that moment Leary was in the front of the row. His name isdiagnostic, but it was not required; on every step of his subsequentaction in Samoa Irishman is writ large; over all his doings a malignspirit of humour presided. No malice was too small for him, if it wereonly funny. When night signals were made from Mulinuu, he would sit onhis own poop and confound them with gratuitous rockets. He was at thepains to write a letter and address it to "the High Chief Tamasese"--adevice as old at least as the wars of Robert Bruce--in order to botherthe officials of the German post-office, in whose hands he persisted inleaving it, although the address was death to them and the distributionof letters in Samoa formed no part of their profession. His greatmasterwork of pleasantry, the Scanlon affair, must be narrated in itsplace. And he was no less bold than comical. The _Adams_ was notsupposed to be a match for the _Adler_; there was no glory to be gainedin beating her; and yet I have heard naval officers maintain she mighthave proved a dangerous antagonist in narrow waters and at short range.Doubtless Leary thought so. He was continually daring Fritze to comeon; and already, in a despatch of the 9th, I find Becker complainingof his language in the hearing of German officials, and how he haddeclared that, on the _Adler_ again interfering, he would interferehimself, "if he went to the bottom for it--_und wenn sein Schiff dabeizu Grunde ginge_." Here is the style of opposition which has the meritof being frank, not that of being agreeable. Becker was annoying, Learyinfuriating; there is no doubt that the tempers in the German consulatewere highly ulcerated; and if war between the two countries did notfollow, we must set down the praise to the forbearance of the Germannavy. This is not the last time that I shall have to salute the meritsof that service.
The defeat and death of Saifaleupolu and the burning of Manono had thuspassed off without the least advantage to Tamasese. But he still heldthe significant position of Mulinuu, and Brandeis was strenuous to makeit good. The whole peninsula was surrounded with a breastwork; acrossthe isthmus it was six feet high and strengthened with a ditch; and thebeach was staked against landing. Weber's land claim--the same that nowbroods over the village in the form of a signboard--then appeared in amore military guise; the German flag was hoisted, and German sailorsmanned the breastwork at the isthmus--"to protect German property" andits trifling parenthesis, the king of Samoa. Much vigilance reigned and,in the island fashion, much wild firing. And in spite of all, desertionwas for a long time daily. The detained high chiefs would go to thebeach on the pretext of a natural occasion, plunge in the sea, andswimming across a broad, shallow bay of the lagoon, join the rebels onthe Faleula side. Whole bodies of warriors, sometimes hundreds strong,departed with their arms and ammunition. On the 7th of September, forinstance, the day after Leary's letter, Too and Mataia left with theircontingents, and the whole Aana people returned home in a body to hold aparliament. Ten days later, it is true, a part of them returned to theirduty; but another part branched off by the way and carried theirservices, and Tamasese's dear-bought guns, to Faleula.
On the 8th there was a defection of a different kind, but yet sensible.The High Chief Seumanu had been still detained in Mulinuu under anxiousobservation. His people murmured at his absence, threatened to "takeaway his name," and had already attempted a rescue. The adventure wasnow taken in hand by his wife Faatulia, a woman of much sense and spiritand a strong partisan; and by her contrivance, Seumanu gave hisguardians the slip and rejoined his clan at Faleula. This process ofwinnowing was of course counterbalanced by another of recruitment. Butthe harshness of European and military rule had made Brandeis detestedand Tamasese unpopular with many; and the force on Mulinuu is thought tohave done little more than hold its own. Mataafa sympathisers set itdown at about two or three thousand. I have no estimate from the otherside; but Becker admits they were not strong enough to keep the field inthe open.
The political significance of Mulinuu was great, but in a military sensethe position had defects. If it was difficult to carry, it was easy toblockade: and to be hemmed in on that narrow finger of land were aninglorious posture for the monarch of Samoa. The peninsula,
besides, wasscant of food and destitute of water. Pressed by these considerations,Brandeis extended his lines till he had occupied the whole foreshore ofApia bay and the opposite point, Matautu. His men were thus drawn outalong some three nautical miles of irregular beach, everywhere withtheir backs to the sea, and without means of communication or mutualsupport except by water. The extension led to fresh sorrows. TheTamasese men quartered themselves in the houses of the absent men of theVaimaunga. Disputes arose with English and Americans. Leary interposedin a loud voice of menace. It was said the firm profited by theconfusion to buttress up imperfect land claims; I am sure the otherwhites would not be far behind the firm. Properties were fenced in,fences and houses were torn down, scuffles ensued. The German example atMulinuu was followed with laughable unanimity; wherever an Englishman oran American conceived himself to have a claim, he set up the emblem ofhis country; and the beach twinkled with the flags of nations.
All this, it will be observed, was going forward in that neutralterritory, sanctified by treaty against the presence of armed Samoans.The insurgents themselves looked on in wonder: on the 4th, trembling totransgress against the great Powers, they had written for a delimitationof the _Eleele Sa_; and Becker, in conversation with the British consul,replied that he recognised none. So long as Tamasese held the ground,this was expedient. But suppose Tamasese worsted, it might prove awkwardfor the stores, mills, and offices of a great German firm, thus bared ofshelter by the act of their own consul.
On the morning of the 9th September, just ten days after the death ofSaifaleupolu, Mataafa, under the name of Malietoa To'oa Mataafa, wascrowned king at Faleula. On the 11th he wrote to the British andAmerican consuls: "Gentlemen, I write this letter to you two very humblyand entreatingly, on account of this difficulty that has come before me.I desire to know from you two gentlemen the truth where the boundariesof the neutral territory are. You will observe that I am now at Vaimoso[a step nearer the enemy], and I have stopped here until I knew what yousay regarding the neutral territory. I wish to know where I can go, andwhere the forbidden ground is, for I do not wish to go on any neutralterritory, or on any foreigner's property. I do not want to offend anyof the great Powers. Another thing I would like. Would it be possiblefor you three consuls to make Tamasese remove from German property? forI am in awe of going on German land." He must have received a replyembodying Becker's renunciation of the principle, at once; for he brokecamp the same day, and marched eastward through the bush behind Apia.
Brandeis, expecting attack, sought to improve his indefensible position.He reformed his centre by the simple expedient of suppressing it. Apiawas evacuated. The two flanks, Mulinuu and Matautu, were still held andfortified, Mulinuu (as I have said) to the isthmus, Matautu on a linefrom the bayside to the little river Fuisa. The centre was representedby the trajectory of a boat across the bay from one flank to another,and was held (we may say) by the German war-ship. Mataafa decided (I amassured) to make a feint on Matautu, induce Brandeis to deplete Mulinuuin support, and then fall upon and carry that. And there is no doubt inmy mind that such a plan was bruited abroad, for nothing but a belief init could explain the behaviour of Brandeis on the 12th. That it wasseriously entertained by Mataafa I stoutly disbelieve; the German flagand sailors forbidding the enterprise in Mulinuu. So that we may callthis false intelligence the beginning and the end of Mataafa's strategy.
The whites who sympathised with the revolt were uneasy and impatient.They will still tell you, though the dates are there to show them wrong,that Mataafa, even after his coronation, delayed extremely: a proof ofhow long two days may seem to last when men anticipate events. On theevening of the 11th, while the new king was already on the march, one ofthese walked into Matautu. The moon was bright. By the way he observedthe native houses dark and silent; the men had been about a fortnight inthe bush, but now the women and children were gone also; at which hewondered. On the sea-beach, in the camp of the Tamaseses, the solitudewas near as great; he saw three or four men smoking before the Britishconsulate, perhaps a dozen in all; the rest were behind in the bush upontheir line of forts. About the midst he sat down, and here a woman drewnear to him. The moon shone in her face, and he knew her for ahouseholder near by, and a partisan of Mataafa's. She looked about heras she came, and asked him, trembling, what he did in the camp ofTamasese. He was there after news, he told her. She took him by thehand. "You must not stay here, you will get killed," she said. "The bushis full of our people, the others are watching them, fighting may beginat any moment, and we are both here too long." So they set off together;and she told him by the way that she had came to the hostile camp with apresent of bananas, so that the Tamasese men might spare her house. Bythe Vaisingano they met an old man, a woman, and a child; and these alsoshe warned and turned back. Such is the strange part played by womenamong the scenes of Samoan warfare, such were the liberties thenpermitted to the whites, that these two could pass the lines, talktogether in Tamasese's camp on the eve of an engagement, and pass forthagain bearing intelligence, like privileged spies. And before a fewhours the white man was in direct communication with the opposinggeneral. The next morning he was accosted "about breakfast-time" by twonatives who stood leaning against the pickets of a public-house, wherethe Siumu road strikes in at right angles to the main street of Apia.They told him battle was imminent, and begged him to pass a little wayinland and speak with Mataafa. The road is at this point broad andfairly good, running between thick groves of cocoa-palm and breadfruit.A few hundred yards along this the white man passed a picket of fourarmed warriors, with red handkerchiefs and their faces blackened in theform of a full beard, the Mataafa rallying signs for the day; a littlefarther on, some fifty; farther still, a hundred; and at last a quarterof a mile of them sitting by the wayside armed and blacked. Near by, inthe verandah of a house on a knoll, he found Mataafa seated in whiteclothes, a Winchester across his knees. His men, he said, were stillarriving from behind, and there was a turning movement in operationbeyond the Fuisa, so that the Tamaseses should be assailed at the samemoment from the south and east. And this is another indication that theattack on Matautu was the true attack; had any design on Mulinuu been inthe wind, not even a Samoan general would have detached these troopsupon the other side. While they still spoke, five Tamasese women werebrought in with their hands bound; they had been stealing "our" bananas.
All morning the town was strangely deserted, the very children gone. Asense of expectation reigned, and sympathy for the attack was expressedpublicly. Some men with unblacked faces came to Moors's store forbiscuit. A native woman, who was there marketing, inquired after thenews, and, hearing that the battle was now near at hand, "Give them twomore tins," said she; "and don't put them down to my husband--he wouldgrowl; put them down to me." Between twelve and one, two white menwalked toward Matautu, finding as they went no sign of war until theyhad passed the Vaisingano and come to the corner of a by-path leading tothe bush. Here were four blackened warriors on guard,--the extreme leftwing of the Mataafa force, where it touched the waters of the bay.Thence the line (which the white men followed) stretched inland amongbush and marsh, facing the forts of the Tamaseses. The warriors lay asyet inactive behind trees; but all the young boys and harlots of Apiatoiled in the front upon a trench, digging with knives and cocoa-shells;and a continuous stream of children brought them water. The youngsappers worked crouching; from the outside only an occasional head, or ahand emptying a shell of earth, was visible; and their enemies looked oninert from the line of the opposing forts. The lists were not yetprepared, the tournament was not yet open; and the attacking force wassuffered to throw up works under the silent guns of the defence. Butthere is an end even to the delay of islanders. As the white men stoodand looked, the Tamasese line thundered into a volley; it was answered;the crowd of silent workers broke forth in laughter and cheers; and thebattle had begun.
Thenceforward, all day and most of the next night, volley followedvolley; and pounds of lead and pounds sterling of money continued
to beblown into the air without cessation and almost without result. Colonelde Coetlogon, an old soldier, described the noise as deafening. Theharbour was all struck with shots; a man was knocked over on the Germanwar-ship; half Apia was under fire; and a house was pierced beyond theMulivai. All along the two lines of breastwork, the entrenched enemiesexchanged this hail of balls; and away on the east of the battle thefusillade was maintained, with equal spirit, across the narrow barrierof the Fuisa. The whole rear of the Tamaseses was enfiladed by thisflank fire; and I have seen a house there, by the river brink, that wasriddled with bullets like a piece of worm-eaten wreck-wood. At thispoint of the field befell a trait of Samoan warfare worth recording.Taiese (brother to Siteoni already mentioned) shot a Tamasese man. Hesaw him fall, and, inflamed with the lust of glory, passed the riversingle-handed in that storm of missiles to secure the head. On thefarther bank, as was but natural, he fell himself; he who had gone totake a trophy remained to afford one; and the Mataafas, who had lookedon exulting in the prospect of a triumph, saw themselves exposed insteadto a disgrace. Then rose one Vingi, passed the deadly water, swung thebody of Taiese on his back, and returned unscathed to his own side, thehead saved, the corpse filled with useless bullets.
At this rate of practice, the ammunition soon began to run low, and froman early hour of the afternoon, the Malietoa stores were visited bycustomers in search of more. An elderly man came leaping and cheering,his gun in one hand, a basket of three heads in the other. A fellow cameshot through the forearm. "It doesn't hurt now," he said, as he boughthis cartridges; "but it will hurt to-morrow, and I want to fight whileI can." A third followed, a mere boy, with the end of his nose shot off:"Have you any painkiller? give it me quick, so that I can get back tofight." On either side, there was the same delight in sound and smokeand schoolboy cheering, the same unsophisticated ardour of battle; andthe misdirected skirmish proceeded with a din, and was illustrated withtraits of bravery that would have fitted a Waterloo or a Sedan.
I have said how little I regard the alleged plan of battle. At least itwas now all gone to water. The whole forces of Mataafa had leaked out,man by man, village by village, on the so-called false attack. They wereall pounding for their lives on the front and the left flank of Matautu.About half-past three they enveloped the right flank also. The defenderswere driven back along the beach road as far as the pilot station at theturn of the land. From this also they were dislodged, stubbornlyfighting. One, it is told, retreated to his middle in the lagoon; stoodthere, loading and firing, till he fell; and his body was found on themorrow pierced with four mortal wounds. The Tamasese force was nowenveloped on three sides; it was besides almost cut off from the sea;and across its whole rear and only way of retreat a fire of hostilebullets crossed from east and west, in the midst of which men weresurprised to observe the birds continuing to sing, and a cow grazed allafternoon unhurt. Doubtless here was the defence in a poor way; but thenthe attack was in irons. For the Mataafas about the pilot house couldscarcely advance beyond without coming under the fire of their own menfrom the other side of the Fuisa; and there was not enough organisation,perhaps not enough authority, to divert or to arrest that fire.
The progress of the fight along the beach road was visible from Mulinuu,and Brandeis despatched ten boats of reinforcements. They crossed theharbour, paused for a while beside the _Adler_--it is supposed forammunition--and drew near the Matautu shore. The Mataafa men lay closeamong the shore-side bushes, expecting their arrival; when a silly lad,in mere lightness of heart, fired a shot in the air. My native friend,Mrs. Mary Hamilton, ran out of her house and gave the culprit a goodshaking: an episode in the midst of battle as incongruous as the grazingcow. But his sillier comrades followed his example; a harmless volleywarned the boats what they might expect; and they drew back and passedoutside the reef for the passage of the Fuisa. Here they came under thefire of the right wing of the Mataafas on the river-bank. The beach,raked east and west, appeared to them no place to land on. And they hungoff in the deep water of the lagoon inside the barrier reef, feeblyfusillading the pilot house.
Between four and five, the Fabeata regiment (or folk of that village) onthe Mataafa left, which had been under arms all day, fell to bewithdrawn for rest and food; the Siumu regiment, which should haverelieved it, was not ready or not notified in time; and the Tamaseses,gallantly profiting by the mismanagement, recovered the most of theground in their proper right. It was not for long. They lost it again,yard by yard and from house to house, till the pilot station was oncemore in the hands of the Mataafas. This is the last definite incident inthe battle. The vicissitudes along the line of the entrenchments remainconcealed from us under the cover of the forest. Some part of theTamasese position there appears to have been carried, but what part, orat what hour, or whether the advantage was maintained, I have neverlearned. Night and rain, but not silence, closed upon the field. Thetrenches were deep in mud; but the younger folk wrecked the houses inthe neighbourhood, carried the roofs to the front, and lay under them,men and women together, through a long night of furious squalls andfurious and useless volleys. Meanwhile the older folk trailed back intoApia in the rain; they talked as they went of who had fallen and whatheads had been taken upon either side--they seemed to know by name thelosses upon both; and drenched with wet and broken with excitement andfatigue, they crawled into the verandahs of the town to eat and sleep.The morrow broke grey and drizzly, but as so often happens in theislands, cleared up into a glorious day. During the night, the majorityof the defenders had taken advantage of the rain and darkness and stolenfrom their forts unobserved. The rallying sign of the Tamaseses had beena white handkerchief. With the dawn, the de Coetlogons from the Englishconsulate beheld the ground strewn with these badges discarded; andclose by the house, a belated turncoat was still changing white for red.Matautu was lost; Tamasese was confined to Mulinuu; and by nine o'clocktwo Mataafa villages paraded the streets of Apia, taking possession. Thecost of this respectable success in ammunition must have been enormous;in life it was but small. Some compute forty killed on either side,others forty on both, three or four being women and one a white man,master of a schooner from Fiji. Nor was the number even of the woundedat all proportionate to the surprising din and fury of the affair whileit lasted.
The Works of Robert Louis Stevenson - Swanston Edition, Vol. 17 Page 6
