ANSWER: The British and Apia Samoan alliance were defeated in Western Samoa at "The Battle of Apia Harbor in 1899" by a Samoan and German alliance and were forced to sign The Tripartite Convention Treaty of 1899. A Samoan King and his British allies having lost to battle, gave up claims to the Apia area. Afterwards neighboring European nation's media published political cartoons of the Samoan-English alliance being defeated by Samoans and Germans. To keep from violating The Tripartite Convention Treaty 'directly' a proxy force from Aotearoa New Zealand (British allied) was sent to attack the German Radio station which was sending radio updates through several channels to Germany.
The British-NZ proxy attack on the Radio station in 1914 violated The Tripartite Convention of 1899 and so started the first World War in the Pacific, over Samoa. The Germans before the NZ unit could raid the station, burned the equipment and dispersed.
Afterwards that same year in 1914 Imperial Germany attacked the Imperial British, first attempting to find the NZ force in Western Samoa. German battleships the SMS Scharnhorst and SMS Gneisenau under command of Vice-Admiral Graf Maximilian von Spee, docked into Apia Harbor hoping to trap the New Zealand Expeditionary Force’s escort squadron. A small schooner was the only ship in the harbor so German Vice-Admiral von Spee sailed along the coast to Mulifanua where he conversed with a German-Samoan plantation before sailing toward to the Falkland Islands. The Imperial German Navy attacked the Imperial British Navy at the "Battle of Coronel" in the Pacific Ocean where the British were found between Rapa Nui and Chilean waters (far-point of the Eastern Polynesian Triangle) which occurred in 1914 November 1st.
The German Naval force who attacked the British was led by Vice-Admiral Graf Maximilian von Spee and defeated the British West Indies Squadron commanded by Rear-Admiral Sir Christopher Cradock. The Coronel Battle was a complete win for Germany and historically called the first German win in "The Great War", over 1,600 soldiers (919 HMS Good Hope, 735 HMS Monmouth) were lost on the British side while the Germans had only a few wounded.