The Neglected War

In the summer of 1914 Germany’s Pacific colonies were a quiet backwater of its empire. But the shots of Sarajevo shattered the Pacific as well as Europe. Within weeks of the outbreak of World war I Western Samoa - German territory to be taken in the war - New Guinea, and the Micronesian lands, were occupied by Australian, New Zealand, and Japanese forces. Current historiography claims that World War I made little difference to the indigenous populations of the Pacific and that this change in col