In 1889 a storm caught three German warships in port at Apia, in Samoa, and in the course of a day the gunboats Adler and Eber were wrecked and the corvette Olga heavily damaged. With the German naval position in the Pacific suddenly in ruins at a time of tension between the colonial powers, a squadron of four Luftschiffewaffe dirigibles was rushed to German New Guinea to plug the gap. The outbreak of war with Britain only a few months later saw these vessels in an ideal position to harass British shipping and colonies. Their mere presence had a tremendous inhibiting effect on the movement of merchant shipping, and when they began bombing raids on Northern Australia there was some panic in the Australian colonies. A squadron from the Royal Navy's Australia Station, under the command of Admiral Fairfax, was despatched from Sydney to take care of the German colony but aerial attacks saw the corvette Royalist sunk and Fairfax's flagship, the belted cruiser Orlando, hit and sent limping back to port. With the RN surface ships licking their wounds in harbour, the Australia Station's trio of RNAS gunboats were detached from their fleet scouting duties to try and stop the German raids. The handful of flyers from the colonial military forces were also placed under Imperial command to supplant the RNAS vessels. At this time the six Australian colonies were self-governing but independent of each other, and negative gravity screw aeronef came from Victoria, New South Wales and Queensland while more than half a dozen military and hastily armed civilian digs were provided by the colonial governments. As they became available, these craft were rushed north to try and stop the German raiders. These British Empire deployments were enough to keep the Germans away from major targets, but the Germans had thousands of square miles of sky to hide in and were only rarely forced to

Then France entered the War. The Armee de l'Aeronef boasted a force of three flyers in New Caledonia, modern R-matter Aeronef being deployed as better able to operate over the vast distances of the Pacific (the poor endurance of the British negative gravity screw 'nefs, on the other hand, was a constant and major limitation on British operations). The French also boasted a pair of armed commercial digs used as auxiliary cruisers. Ranging widely over the Coral Sea and down the Queensland coast, the French were less content that the Germans to stage safe pinprick raids and several notable skirmishes occurred through the 1890-91, leaving the French too depleted to carry on offensively.

Faced by two enemies and with the situation in Europe leaving no possibility of reinforcements, the British Empire forces spent most of the war in the Pacific on the defensive. On the other hand, the Germans and French failed to take full advantage of this. At a time when the Royal Navy's surface ships were still recovering from the early debacle in the Coral Sea and the aerial forces largely incapable of long-range operations, the various British possessions in the Pacific were left alone. Possibly it was believed that victory in Europe would allow France and Germany to snap up the various islands in the post-war negotiations, and there is some suggestion that

When the Great War ground to a halt in 1891, no significant territory had changed hands in the Pacific. But all sides had been impressed by the ability of flyers to operate over vast distances, as had those nations which just looked on with interest. The Australian colonies were left unnerved by the way the British Empire's preoccupation with events in Europe had left them exposed, and proceeded to expand their own aerial forces. Politically, the experience saw the colonies move rapidly towards Federation in 1901, agreeing to the creation of a Commonwealth of Australia to govern the whole continent, with defence among the new federal government's major responsibilities. Without the impetus of the Great War of 1889-1891, the colonies may have carried on independently for much longer.

Australian Flyers of the Great War of 1889-1891:

Colonial flyers carried a variety of prefixes before their names. Victorian Navy craft were HMVA, Her Majesty's Victorian Aeronef (or Airship). Similarly, the Queensland Maritime Defence Force aeronef gunboat was HMQA. Having less established naval organisations, the other colonies used HMCA, C for colonial (HMCA, C for Commonwealth, was later used by the Australian Commonwealth Naval Forces from 1901-1911, when the Royal Australian Aeronef Force was established).

VICTORIA:

The Colony of Victoria never entirely trusted the Royal Navy (whose Australia Station was based in New South Wales) for its defence, purchasing its first warship in 1854 and maintaining easily the largest Australian naval force through to Federation in 1901. This was repeated with aerial warships.

Latrobe Class Cruiser: In 1888 Victoria was looking at purchasing a 1000t protected cruiser when Armstrongs & Co suggested that an aerial warship would be more useful for colonial defence. After some discussion, a Type DA Negative Gravity Screw vessel was purchased from Armstrongs (similar to craft built for Siam and Chile). Latrobe was delivered in a six week flight in early 1889 and a local crew recruited from the ranks of the Victorian Navy.

Although the Victorian Navy was predominantly a part-time force, Latrobe was kept in continuous service for six months to give the crew experience and to allow Victoria to show its new warcraft off to its own citizens and those of the other colonies. Following this period of activity she was to be laid up until the 1890 naval exercises, but war with Germany intervened and she spent less than a month on the stocks before returning to service. Early in the war Latrobe saw substantial use as she was the most powerful available British aeronef, used to chase after sightings of German raiders early in the war and eventually seeing action over Northern Australia, New Guinea, Queensland and the Coral Sea.

Countess of Hopetoun Class Dig: Soon after ordering Latrobe, even before that ship's delivery, Victoria decided to order a second aerial warship, this time a Dig. It was felt that a dirigible would offer low purchase and running costs and could be maintained continuously in service for aerial mapping and similar peaceful duties. Named for the wife of the colony's Governor, the Countess was still in the midst of her delivery flight when war was declared on Germany and although Victoria managed to prevent the RN taking her over she spent the war subordinated to British command anyway.

Yarra Class Dig: Four of these little dirigible gunboats were manufactured in Victoria during the 1890-91, most work done by the Victorian Railways' Newport Workships. They were slow, leaky, had a poor reputation for reliability and were undergunned due to a shortage of guns to arm them with.

Victoria also laid down a pair of negative gravity screw destroyers (Bendigo and Geelong), no R-matter (or the expertise to build with it) being available. Despite being intended for rushed completion, with railway locomotive machinery and guns stripped from Victorian Navy surface ships, a succession of manufacturing problems (most notably the fine copper mesh repulsion rotors) saw them unfinished at war's end.

NEW SOUTH WALES:

New South Wales (NSW) tended to ignore its naval and aerial defense due to the presence of the Royal Navy's Australia Station in Sydney, but was given the older RNAS aerial gunboat Persephone in 1887. She saw virtually no use prior to the war. The most important aerial contributions to the War by NSW were the aeroplanes built to the designs of Lawrence Hargraves. Nearly fifty were built, to steadily improving designs (although their engines were never too good), and they were deployed defensively along the east coast to release aeronef and digs for more aggressive use.

Early Hargreaves Fighter:

Late Hargreaves Fighter:

QUEENSLAND:

The Queensland Maritime Defense Force's two gunboats had the unique honour of flying the White Ensign, even when under local command in peacetime. A single aerial gunboat was purchased in 1888 to maintain the credibility of this force.

Queensland also purchased three squadrons of Hargraves aeroplanes.

AUXILIARY DIRIGIBLES:

A number of these were operated by the Royal Navy, Victoria, New South Wales, South Australia and Western Australia. Some examples follow:

Aeronaut III

Originally owned by Mr Basil Forsythe, who made a living selling joyflights at country agricultural shows.

Melbourne-Sydney Line Transports

Three of these fine vessels were purchased from British builders by the Line, for passenger and fast freight carrying. They made useful auxiliary cruisers and late in the war were used as bombers.