Previous Chapter Recap: The Second French Colonial Empire – The Eighth Pacific Hegemon (1849)
Introduction: The Kingdom of Hawaii, located in the North Pacific Ocean and even the entire middle of the Pacific Ocean, has witnessed the encroachment and invasion of one world power after another. However, due to the checks and balances of the major powers, the "Schaefer Incident" in Russia, the "Paulette Incident" in Britain, and the "Tromeland Affair" in France were not completely realized. After the Tromeland Incident, Britain once again gained the dominant position of the Kingdom of Hawaii and the entire Pacific, and then carried out unscrupulous penetration and colonization in the North and South Pacific, until the end of the 19th century, when the two major powers of the Americas on the east coast of the Pacific Ocean rose successively.
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- The Second British Empire's Reconstruction of Hegemony in the North Pacific and Beyond (1849)
- The Peak of Pacific Hegemony of the Second British Empire (1855)
- The gradual collapse of the Pacific hegemony of the Second British Empire (1879-1885)
The Second British Empire's Reconstruction of Hegemony in the North Pacific and Beyond (1849)
The Kingdom of Hawaii, located in the North Pacific Ocean and even in the middle of the Pacific Ocean, has witnessed encroachment and invasion by one world power after another. In 1815, George Schaeffer, the commander of the Navy of the Russian-American Company, invaded the island of Kauai in the Hawaiian archipelago, and then coerced the chief of Kauai to betray the Kingdom of Hawaii and surrender the entire island to Russian protection, which is known as the "Schaefer Incident". Russia became the first Western power to invade the Kingdom of Hawaii. In 1817, the Russian-American Company was forced to withdraw from Kauai due to the fierce resistance of the people of Kauai and the lack of support from the Russian government.
Kauai in the Hawaiian Islands
In 1843, George Paulette, captain of the destroyer USS Carrisburg of the British Pacific Navy, and Richard Charltonley, the British ambassador to the Kingdom of Hawaii, invaded the island of Hawaii in the Hawaiian Islands, and then coerced King Kamehameha III of Hawaii to abdicate and hand over the whole country to the United Kingdom, which is known as the "Paulette Incident". Britain became the second Western power to invade the Kingdom of Hawaii. The following year, although Britain was forced to withdraw its troops from Hawaiian Island under pressure from France and the United States, it usurped the foreign trade monopoly of the Kingdom of Hawaii through the Anglo-Xia Trade Treaty.
The island of Hawaii in the Hawaiian archipelago
In 1849, Tromeland, a French rear admiral and commander of the Pacific Navy, invaded the island of Oahu in the Hawaiian archipelago, and later coerced King Kamehameha III of Hawaii to hand over the whole country to French protection, known as the "Tromerland Incident". France then became the third Western power to invade the Kingdom of Hawaii. In the same year, Britain and the United States put pressure on the French government to issue a statement condemning Tromerland and restoring the sovereignty of the Kingdom of Hawaii. With the Trommerland Affair subsided, Britain restored the foreign trade monopoly of the Kingdom of Hawaii with the Anglo-Summer Trade Treaty, which was still in force. The end of the Tromeland affair marked the return of the short-lived hegemony of the Second French Colonial Empire in the North Pacific and the entire Pacific Ocean to the hands of the Second British Empire. After the Tromerland Incident, Britain began an even more unscrupulous infiltration and colonization campaign in the North and South Pacific.
Oahu in the Hawaiian Islands
The Peak of Pacific Hegemony of the Second British Empire (1855)
In 1853, the Ottoman Empire, with the support of Britain and France, rejected Russia's ultimatum for "protection" of Montenegro, triggering the Crimean War (1853-1856), a major war that engulfed Europe and the world. Among them, Britain, France, the Kingdom of Sardinia, and the Ottoman Empire formed an anti-Russian alliance, while Austria and Prussia formed an anti-Russian alliance, resulting in the almost complete isolation of Russia from European countries.
1853-1856 Crimean War
In 1854, the British Royal Navy, which had already completed industrialization, launched a full-scale attack on Russia from the Baltic, White, Black and North Pacific seas. In 1855, the British Pacific Navy sent four fleets (three in Singapore and one in Hong Kong) to join up with the French Pacific Navy and repelled the Russian Pacific Navy in the Tatar Strait before taking advantage of the victory and besieging its home port, Petropavlovsk. The outbreak of Petropavlovsk meant that the Pacific hegemony of the Second British Empire reached another peak in its history. Although the Anglo-French Pacific Navy finally failed to capture Petropavlovsk, it gave Russia great panic and indirectly prompted the "Alaska Change of Hands Incident" more than ten years later.
Kamchatka and Petropavlovsk
8 September 1855 British Second Empire
After the end of the Crimean War, the British Pacific Navy withdrew from Russia's Far East coast, but further usurped the interests of the semi-colonies in the Northwest Pacific (Qing Dynasty and Japan, etc.) through the Second Opium War (1856-1860), the Treaty of Security (1858), and the Sath-British War (1863). In 1874 and 1877, Britain added Fiji and Tuvalu to its colonies.
1856-1860 Second Opium War
The gradual collapse of the Pacific hegemony of the Second British Empire (1879-1885)
Britain's hegemony in the Pacific was mainly achieved through the Southwest Pacific Colonies (Australia and New Zealand, etc.), the Northwest Pacific Semi-Colonies (Qing Dynasty and Japan, etc.), the Northeast Pacific Colonies (Canada), and the Central Pacific Semi-Colonies (Hawaii, etc.). Of these, only the Southwest Pacific Colonies had strong British control due to their large size and direct territories, while the rest of the Pacific, which either had shorter coastlines (Canada) or were semi-colonies, were often checked and challenged by other powers, not to mention the untouched Southeast Pacific. At the end of the 19th century, with the rise of Chile, a coastal country in the southeast Pacific, and the United States, a coastal country in the northeast Pacific, Britain's already fragile control of the eastern Pacific was even worse.
Santiago, the capital of the Republic of Chile
In 1879, Chile fought the South American Pacific War (1879-1883) with Peru and Bolivia for control of saltpeter, guano and other resources. At the beginning of the war, the Chilean Navy preemptively defeated the Peruvian Navy at the Battle of Angamos, thereby blockading all the coastlines of Peru and Bolivia. Judging from the trend in the future, Chile has successively annexed or controlled Bolivia, Peru, Colombia and Easter Island on this basis, and dragged the newly rising United States into the Dark Ages, gradually developing into the largest coastal country in the Southeast Pacific and one of the world's emerging powers, known as the "Chilean Empire" in history. The outbreak of the Battle of Angamos and the rise of the Chilean Empire marked to a certain extent the indirect disintegration and replacement of the hegemony of the Second British Empire in the South Pacific and even in the entire Pacific Ocean.
October 8, 1879 Battle of Angamos
In 1887, U.S. troops stormed Honolui Olani Palace, where King Kalakaua of Hawaii was located. Under bayonet coercion, Kalakaua was forced to sign a new constitution drafted by 13 Western businessmen, transforming the absolute monarchy into a cabinet-led constitutional monarchy, while enacting a draconian policy of fiscal and ethnic restrictions, known as the Bayonet Constitution. It is worth mentioning that the Hawaiian cabinet at that time had long been controlled by the Americans, and the rights and interests of the indigenous Hawaiians, Han Chinese, Japanese and other ethnic minorities were completely deprived, which undoubtedly made the Kingdom of Hawaii objectively a vassal state of the United States, and at the same time made the former "Anglo-Xia Trade Treaty" a dead letter. The signing of the Bayonet Constitution and the invalidation of the Anglo-Summer Trade Treaty marked to some extent the indirect disintegration and replacement of the North Pacific hegemony of the Second British Empire by the United States.
The capital of the Kingdom of Hawaii - Honolulu Iolani Palace
Despite this, Britain continued to expand in the south-west Pacific in which it was dominant, in places such as the southeastern part of the island of New Guinea (1884), the Solomon Islands (1885), Vanuatu (1887), the Cook Islands (1888), Tokelau (1889), Tonga (1900), and Samoa (1914), until the outbreak of the two worlds and the collapse of the old colonial system after the war. Today, Britain still owns the Pitcairn Islands, the last Pacific colony, the last testimony of its former hegemony in the Pacific.
Pitcairn Islands
Conclusion: In the nearly one century of Britain's domination of the Pacific Ocean and even the global oceans, all countries in the world have more or less joined the race to catch up with Britain, and even launched direct or indirect challenges to Britain's maritime supremacy. At the end of the 19th century, in the eastern Pacific Ocean, where British control was limited, Chile in South America, and the United States in North America rose successively. Among them, Chile not only launched the South American Pacific War to seize the sea supremacy in the Southeast Pacific, but also dragged the newly rising United States into the Dark Ages, and gradually developed into the largest coastal country in the Southeast Pacific and one of the emerging powers in the world, known as the "Chilean Empire" in history.
Resources:
- "The Law of the Jungle: Four Crises in the Kingdom of Hawaii";
- ["Bukharin"] "Global Historical Map";
- Baidu Encyclopedia, pictures.