Fighting by nationals of the three powers with their factional local allies led to a conflict that was only tempered by the Apia hurricane of 1889 that wrecked warships on the verge of hostilities.

[2] Bismarck's pragmatic approach proposed protection for life, property, and commerce of the treaty participants and relegated native government and their unstable "kings" to the Samoans, with which the British concurred.

By the end of the 19th century, the failure of the arrangement was freely admitted by the governments of the three powers, since the principal protagonists in Samoa acted directly for their own respective interests, frequently overruling the officials of the condominium.

The German government "had never made a secret of their belief that international control of Samoa was visionary and impractical ... and they began a series of diplomatic moves intended to eliminate it altogether.

The United Kingdom was then embroiled in the Second Boer War and therefore viewed as in a weakened bargaining position;[6] however, the German desire to rapidly conclude the negotiations and bring the western Samoan islands into their colonial empire had a balancing effect that was clearly evidenced in the agreement as signed.