第31章 LAST EXPLOITS OF BECKER(1)

SEPTEMBER -NOVEMBER 1888

BRANDEIS had held all day by Mulinuu,expecting the reported real attack.He woke on the 13th to find himself cut off on that unwatered promontory,and the Mataafa villagers parading Apia.The same day Fritze received a letter from Mataafa summoning him to withdraw his party from the isthmus;and Fritze,as if in answer,drew in his ship into the small harbour close to Mulinuu,and trained his port battery to assist in the defence.From a step so decisive,it might be thought the German plans were unaffected by the disastrous issue of the battle.I conceive nothing would be further from the truth.Here was Tamasese penned on Mulinuu with his troops;Apia,from which alone these could be subsisted,in the hands of the enemy;a battle imminent,in which the German vessel must apparently take part with men and battery,and the buildings of the German firm were apparently destined to be the first target of fire.Unless Becker re-established that which he had so lately and so artfully thrown down -the neutral territory -the firm would have to suffer.If he re-established it,Tamasese must retire from Mulinuu.If Becker saved his goose,he lost his cabbage.Nothing so well depicts the man's effrontery as that he should have conceived the design of saving both,-of re-establishing only so much of the neutral territory as should hamper Mataafa,and leaving in abeyance all that could incommode Tamasese.

By drawing the boundary where he now proposed,across the isthmus,he protected the firm,drove back the Mataafas out of almost all that they had conquered,and,so far from disturbing Tamasese,actually fortified him in his old position.

The real story of the negotiations that followed we shall perhaps never learn.But so much is plain:that while Becker was thus outwardly straining decency in the interest of Tamasese,he was privately intriguing,or pretending to intrigue,with Mataafa.In his despatch of the 11th,he had given an extended criticism of that chieftain,whom he depicts as very dark and artful;and while admitting that his assumption of the name of Malietoa might raise him up followers,predicted that he could not make an orderly government or support himself long in sole power "without very energetic foreign help."Of what help was the consul thinking?

There was no helper in the field but Germany.On the 15th he had an interview with the victor;told him that Tamasese's was the only government recognised by Germany,and that he must continue to recognise it till he received "other instructions from his government,whom he was now advising of the late events";refused,accordingly,to withdraw the guard from the isthmus;and desired Mataafa,"until the arrival of these fresh instructions,"to refrain from an attack on Mulinuu.One thing of two:either this language is extremely perfidious,or Becker was preparing to change sides.The same detachment appears in his despatch of October 7th.

He computes the losses of the German firm with an easy cheerfulness.If Tamasese get up again (GELINGT DIEWIEDERHERSTELLUNG DER REGIERUNG TAMASESE'S),Tamasese will have to pay.If not,then Mataafa.This is not the language of a partisan.The tone of indifference,the easy implication that the case of Tamasese was already desperate,the hopes held secretly forth to Mataafa and secretly reported to his government at home,trenchantly contrast with his external conduct.At this very time he was feeding Tamasese;he had German sailors mounting guard on Tamasese's battlements;the German war-ship lay close in,whether to help or to destroy.If he meant to drop the cause of Tamasese,he had him in a corner,helpless,and could stifle him without a sob.If he meant to rat,it was to be with every condition of safety and every circumstance of infamy.

Was it conceivable,then,that he meant it?Speaking with a gentleman who was in the confidence of Dr.Knappe:"Was it not a pity,"I asked,"that Knappe did not stick to Becker's policy of supporting Mataafa?""You are quite wrong there;that was not Knappe's doing,"was the reply."Becker had changed his mind before Knappe came."Why,then,had he changed it?This excellent,if ignominious,idea once entertained,why was it let drop?It is to be remembered there was another German in the field,Brandeis,who had a respect,or rather,perhaps,an affection,for Tamasese,and who thought his own honour and that of his country engaged in the support of that government which they had provoked and founded.Becker described the captain to Laupepa as "a quiet,sensible gentleman."If any word came to his ears of the intended manoeuvre,Brandeis would certainly show himself very sensible of the affront;but Becker might have been tempted to withdraw his former epithet of quiet.Some such passage,some such threatened change of front at the consulate,opposed with outcry,would explain what seems otherwise inexplicable,the bitter,indignant,almost hostile tone of a subsequent letter from Brandeis to Knappe -"Brandeis's inflammatory letter,"Bismarck calls it -the proximate cause of the German landing and reverse at Fangalii.

But whether the advances of Becker were sincere or not -whether he meditated treachery against the old king or was practising treachery upon the new,and the choice is between one or other -no doubt but he contrived to gain his points with Mataafa,prevailing on him to change his camp for the better protection of the German plantations,and persuading him (long before he could persuade his brother consuls)to accept that miraculous new neutral territory of his,with a piece cut out for the immediate needs of Tamasese.