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The Bombardment of Papeete occurred in French Polynesia when German warships attacked on 22 September 1914, during World War I. The German armoured cruisers and entered the port of Papeete on the island of Tahiti and sank the French gunboat and freighter ''Walkure'' before bombarding the town's fortifications. French shore batteries and a gunboat resisted the German intrusion, but were greatly outgunned. The main German objective was to seize the coal piles stored on the island, but these were destroyed by the French at the start of the action. The German vessels were largely undamaged but the French lost their gunboat. Several of Papeete's buildings were destroyed and the town's economy was severely disrupted. The main strategic consequence of the engagement was the disclosure of the cruisers' positions to the British Admiralty, which led to the Battle of Coronel where the entire German East Asia Squadron defeated a Royal Navy squadron. The depletion of ''Scharnhorst''s and ''Gneisenau''s ammunition at Papeete also contributed to their subsequent destruction at the Battle of the Falklands. ==Background== Word of war reached Admiral Maximilian von Spee—of the German East Asia Squadron—while at Ponape (17 July – 6 August). He concentrated the majority of his squadron at Pagan Island in the nearby Mariana Islands, and then steamed off into the Pacific with the ''Scharnhorst''-class armored cruisers and , the ''Königsberg''-class light cruiser , the auxiliary cruiser SMS ''Titania'', and several colliers at his disposal. ''Nürnberg'' and ''Titania'' were sent to gather intelligence at Hawaii and raid the cable station at Fanning Island.〔Halpern, p. 88〕 Von Spee then learned that Australian and New Zealand forces had captured German Samoa, and he sailed off in his flagship ''Scharnhorst''—along with her sister ship ''Gneisenau''—to engage what Allied forces they could find there. Failing to catch the Samoa Expeditionary Force at Apia and having seen no action at all since leaving Pagan Island, the men of Admiral von Spee's armored cruisers were eager to meet the enemy in battle.〔Strachan, p. 472〕 Von Spee decided to raid Papeete in Tahiti on his way to rendezvous with the rest of his squadron at Easter Island. The French held over of high-quality Cardiff coal at the port, and von Spee hoped to seize the coal piles to replenish his squadron's supply. Additionally, von Spee aimed at destroying what allied shipping he could find in the harbour, and thought the raid might help raise his men's morale. Von Spee intended to coal at Suwarrow Atoll before sailing to Papeete, but was prevented by foul weather.〔 Instead, von Spee decided to take ''Scharnhorst'' and ''Gneisenau'' and attempt to resupply at Bora Bora while ''Nürnberg'' and ''Titania'' were dispatched to Nukuhiva to guard the fleet's colliers. The German admiral intended to keep his vessels' identities secret by disguising them as French ships, flying French flags, and only allowing French- and English-speaking members of his crew contact with the Frenchmen present there.〔 Von Spee managed to replenish his food stores using gold seized by ''Titania'' and ''Nürnberg'' during their raid of Fanning, and was able to discover the strength of the French military in the region as well as the exact size and positions of the coal piles at Papeete.〔Hough, p. 47〕〔Jose, p. 558〕 The French had no heavy defenses at Papeete but had been warned that von Spee's squadron might raid Tahiti and that a German squadron had been sighted off Samoa. Although Papeete was the capital of the French Settlements in Oceania, by 1914 it had become a colonial backwater, lacking a wireless station and having a garrison of only 25 colonial infantry and 20 gendarmes.〔 In order to bolster the town's defenses, Lieutenant Maxime Destremau—commander of the old wooden gunboat and the ranking officer at Papeete—had his ship's stern gun and all of her and guns removed from his vessel and placed ashore to be used in place of Papeete's antiquated land batteries.〔 Several Ford trucks were turned into impromptu armored cars by mounting them with ''Zélée''s 37-mm guns and 160 sailors and marines drilled in preparation to repel any German attempt at landing.〔 ''Zélée'' retained only her 100-mm bow gun and 10 men under the ship's second in command. In addition to the gunboat and harbor fortifications, the French also had at Papeete the unarmed German freighter ''Walkure'', which had been captured by ''Zélée'' at the start of the war.〔American Forestry, p. 559〕 Despite the French preparations, the two German cruisers were more than a match for the forces Destremau commanded at Papeete. Both ''Scharnhorst'' and ''Gneisenau'' heavily outgunned ''Zélée'', each being armed with eight guns, six guns, eighteen guns, and four torpedo tubes. Von Spee's forces also outnumbered the French with over 1,500 sailors aboard their vessels, more than enough to form a landing party and overwhelm the forces Destremau had to oppose them.〔Gröner, p. 52〕 抄文引用元・出典: フリー百科事典『 ウィキペディア（Wikipedia）』 ■ウィキペディアで「Bombardment of Papeete」の詳細全文を読む スポンサード リンク
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