Occupation of German New Guinea

Australian occupation of German New Guinea
Part of the Asian and Pacific theatre of World War I
Australian Fleet entering Simpson Harbour in 1914.
Date September – November 1914 Location German New Guinea Result Australian occupation successful
Belligerents
Australia	German Empire German New Guinea
Commanders and leaders
William Holmes George Patey	Carl von Klewitz Robert von Blumenthal
Strength
2 000	500
Casualties and losses
39 killed and 12 wounded	85 killed and 15 wounded

 German Empire

The Australian occupation of German New Guinea was the takeover of the Pacific colony of German New Guinea in September – November 1914 by an expeditionary force from Australia, called the Australian Naval and Military Expeditionary Force.

German New Guinea (German: Deutsch-Neuguinea) was an Imperial German protectorate from 1884. German New Guinea consisted of the territories of the northeastern part of New Guinea (German: Kaiser-Wilhelmsland) and the nearby Bismarck Archipelago, consisting of New Britain (German: Neu-Pommern) and New Ireland (German: Neu-Mecklenburg). Together with the other Western Pacific German islands, excluding German Samoa, they formed the Imperial German Pacific Protectorates. The protectorate included the German Solomon Islands, the Caroline Islands, Palau, the Mariana Islands (except for Guam), the Marshall Islands and Nauru.

At the outbreak of World War I, the German East Asia Squadron, consisting of the armored cruisers Scharnhorst and Gneisenau and the light cruisers Nürnberg, Leipzig, Dresden and Emden, under the command of Vice-Admiral Maximilian von Spee, was cruising in the Pacific Ocean. The threat posed by the German squadron caused concerns about possible attacks against Allied merchant shipping in the region. Accordingly, Britain requested that Australia destroy the German wireless stations and coaling stations in the Pacific. Britain had already severed all German undersea cables passing through British controlled areas.

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