Kaiser-Wilhelmsland

Most of the islands were very quickly notified they were effectively under new management, and the practical reality was that it made no difference to the lives of the indigenous populations.

There was a significant exception with German New Guinea, known as Kaiser-Wilhelmsland, and the Bismarck Archipelago to the north of Australia, which we'll come to in a bit.

Firstly, the occupation of German Samoa by New Zealand in late August 1914.

The ink was barely dry on the European war declarations when the New Zealand government authorized the creation of an expeditionary force in response to a British request to seize the new wireless station on the island of Samoa.

This left a long-term legacy of distrust and animosity towards New Zealand.

It wasn't until 2002 that the then New Zealand Prime Minister Helen Clark formally apologized to the Samoan islanders for this administrative neglect and preventable tragedy.

So we now move across the Pacific to the occupation of German New Guinea, which consisted primarily of the northeastern part of the island of today we know it as Papua New Guinea, known then as Kaiser-Wilhelmsland and the Bismarck Archipelago.

At the time, the island had been split into three zones of administration.