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The Markomannia incident was a conflict between Haitian rebels and the German Empire in 1902, sparked by the boarding of the Hamburg steamer Markomannia by rebel naval forces.
The Markomannia (3335 BRT, 1890) was a steamer of the Hamburg America Line on the West Indies-Hamburg route, commanded by Captain Nansen. On 2 September 1902 she was stopped off the Haitian port of Cap-Haïtien by the Haitian gunboat Crête-à-Pierrot and searched for contraband. The Crête à Pierrot was under the control of Anténor Firmin's faction, which was rebelling against the provisional government of president Boissond Canal. The commander of the Pierrot was rebel admiral Hammerton Killick. Killick assumed that the Markommania was carrying weapons and supplies to government forces. She was thus searched by a boarding party and, despite protests from Nansen and the German consul in Cap-Haïtien, transferred the weapons and supplies on board to the Pierrot. The Markomannia was then allowed to continue her voyage, delayed but undamaged.
German residents had already been harmed in Haiti's civil war and so after the incident the German minister-resident in the Haitian capital Port-au-Prince, Francsen, immediately called in a German warship. The Kaiserliche Marine sent the SMS Panther to find the rebel ship. Admiral Killick evacuated his crew and blew up the aft magazines of Crête-à-Pierrot, which was by then under fire from the Panther commanded by Richard Eckermann. Killick and four crewmen went down with the ship. There were concerns about how the United States would view the action in the context of the Monroe Doctrine. But despite legal advice describing the sinking as "illegal and excessive", the US State Department endorsed the action. The New York Times declared that "Germany was quite within her rights in doing a little housecleaning on her own account".
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The seventh USS Washington (ACR-11/CA-11/IX-39), also referred to as "Armored Cruiser No. 11", and later renamed Seattle and reclassified CA-11 and IX-39, was a United States Navy Tennessee-class armored cruiser. She was laid down on 23 September 1903 at Camden, New Jersey, by the New York Shipbuilding Corporation, launched on 18 March 1905, sponsored by Miss Helen Stewart Wilson, daughter of United States Senator John L. Wilson of Washington state, and commissioned at the Philadelphia Navy Yard on 7 August 1906, Captain James D. Adams in command.
Cap-Haïtien often referred to as Le Cap or Au Cap, is a commune of about 190,000 people on the north coast of Haiti and capital of the department of Nord. Previously named Cap‑Français and Cap‑Henri during the rule of Henri I, it was historically nicknamed the Paris of the Antilles, because of its wealth and sophistication, expressed through its architecture and artistic life. It was an important city during the colonial period, serving as the capital of the French Colony of Saint-Domingue from the city's formal foundation in 1711 until 1770 when the capital was moved to Port-au-Prince. After the Haitian Revolution, it became the capital of the Kingdom of Haiti under King Henri I until 1820.
Pierre Nord Alexis was President of Haiti from 17 December 1902 to 2 December 1908.
Sylvain Salnave was a Haitian general who served as the President of Haïti from 1867 to 1869. He was elected president after he led the overthrow of President Fabre Geffrard. During his term there were constant civil wars between the various factions. Eventually, he was overthrown in a coup by his eventual successor Nissage Saget, and Salnave was tried for treason and executed.
In international politics, the term gunboat diplomacy refers to the pursuit of foreign policy objectives with the aid of conspicuous displays of naval power, implying or constituting a direct threat of warfare should terms not be agreeable to the superior force.
SMS Panther was one of six Iltis-class gunboats of the Kaiserliche Marine and, like its sister ships, served in Germany's overseas colonies. The ship was launched on 1 April 1901 in the Kaiserliche Werft, Danzig. It had a crew of 9 officers and 121 men.
Charles Moravia was a Haitian poet, dramatist, teacher, and diplomat.
SS Antilla was a Hamburg America Line (HAPAG) cargo ship that was launched in 1939 and scuttled in 1940.
SMS Vineta was a protected cruiser of the Victoria Louise class, built for the German Imperial Navy in the 1890s. Vineta was laid down at the AG Vulcan shipyard in 1895, launched in April 1897, and commissioned into the Navy in July 1898. The ship, named for the semi-legendary medieval town of Vineta, was armed with a battery of two 21 cm guns and eight 15 cm guns and had a top speed of 19 knots.
USS Galatea was a large steamer acquired by the Union Navy during the American Civil War.
USS Galena was a wooden armed steamer in commission in the United States Navy from 1880 to 1890. She had an active career in which she operated in the North Atlantic Squadron and South Atlantic Squadron, seeing duty in the Mediterranean Sea and Aegean Sea, along the east coast of South America, in the Caribbean, in the waters of Canada, and along the United States East Coast and United States Gulf Coast.
The Saint-Domingue expedition was a French military expedition sent by Napoleon Bonaparte, then First Consul, under his brother-in-law Charles Victor Emmanuel Leclerc in an attempt to regain French control of the Caribbean colony of Saint-Domingue on the island of Hispaniola, and curtail the measures of independence taken by the former slave Toussaint Louverture. It departed in December 1801 and, after initial success, ended in a French defeat at the battle of Vertières and the departure of French troops in December 1803. The defeat ended forever Napoleon's dreams of a French empire in the West.
Killick is the Haitian Coast Guard base in Port-au-Prince. It is the main base for the Coast Guard. It is the other port for the city, aside from the main Port international de Port-au-Prince. It is located about 10 miles outside of downtown Port-au-Prince, and is about a century old. The base is named after Admiral Hammerton Killick of the Haitian Navy, who scuttled his own ship, the Crête-à-Pierrot, a 940-ton screw gunship, by igniting the magazine, and went down with the ship, instead of surrendering to German forces, in 1902, at Gonaïves, Haiti.
The Haitian Coast Guard, officially the Haitian Coast Guard Commission or G-Cd'H, is an operational unit of the Haitian National Police. It is one of the few law enforcement organisations in the world to combine water policing and coast guard duties while remaining as a policing unit. It operates primarily as a law enforcement agency, with secondary responsibilities in search and rescue.
The Armed Forces of Haiti, consisted of the Haitian Army, Haitian Navy, the Haitian Air Force, Haitian Coast Guard, Agence Nationale d'Intelligence (ANI) and some police forces. The Army was always the dominant service with the others serving primarily in a support role. The name of Haiti's military was changed from the Garde d'Haiti to the Forces Armées d'Haïti—FAd'H in 1958 during the rule of François Duvalier. After years of military interference in politics, including dozens of military coups, Haiti disbanded its military in 1995.
The Venezuelan crisis of 1902–1903 was a naval blockade imposed against Venezuela by Great Britain, Germany, and Italy from December 1902 to February 1903, after President Cipriano Castro refused to pay foreign debts and damages suffered by European citizens in recent Venezuelan civil wars. Castro assumed that the American Monroe Doctrine would see Washington intervene to prevent European military intervention. However, at the time, United States president Theodore Roosevelt and his Department of State saw the doctrine as applying only to European seizure of territory, rather than intervention per se. With prior promises that no such seizure would occur, the US was officially neutral and allowed the action to go ahead without objection. The blockade saw Venezuela's small navy quickly disabled, but Castro refused to give in, and instead agreed in principle to submit some of the claims to international arbitration, which he had previously rejected. Germany initially objected to this, arguing that some claims should be accepted by Venezuela without arbitration.
Heinrich Paul Christian Richard Eckermann was an officer of the German Imperial Navy, rising to Vizeadmiral in the First World War.
Hammerton Killick was an admiral in the Haitian Navy. He was killed in the 1902 Firmin rebellion when he refused to surrender his ship to the German warship SMS Panther. A naval base in Port-au-Prince is named after him. A 1943 Haitian postage stamp commemorated his role in the rebellion.
Brandenburg is a Brandenburg-class frigate of the German Navy, and the lead ship of her class.
Crête-à-Pierrot was a gunboat in the Haitian Navy. It was destroyed by Admiral Hammerton Killick in 1902 to prevent it falling into the hands of a German warship.
