Editing Gilbert and Ellice Islands (section)

===Germany===
[[SMS Eber (1887)|SMS ''Eber'']] of the German {{lang|de|[[Kaiserliche Marine]]}} (Imperial Navy), was sent to the Pacific to serve in the [[German colonial empire]]. In 1888 she visited the Gilberts, and also disarmed the inhabitants of [[Nauru]],<ref>{{cite book |last1= Stevenson |first1= Robert Louis |author-link1= Robert Louis Stevenson |title= [[A Footnote to History: Eight Years of Trouble in Samoa]] |date= November 1888 |orig-year= 1892 |publisher= Cassell |isbn= 978-0-8248-1857-9 |oclc= 227258432 |pages= 49 |chapter= VII_The Samoan Camps |chapter-url= https://ebooks.adelaide.edu.au/s/stevenson/robert_louis/s848fh/s848fh7.html |access-date= 2009-10-04 |archive-date= 2008-07-30 |archive-url= https://web.archive.org/web/20080730185043/http://ebooks.adelaide.edu.au/s/stevenson/robert_louis/s848fh/s848fh7.html |url-status= dead }}</ref> ending their [[Nauruan Civil War|civil war]] and annexing the island to the German Empire.

1891, the [[steam corvette]] SMS {{SMS|Alexandrine||2}} visited the Gilberts (Marakei, Tawara, Abaiang, Abemama and Tabiteuea). Also in 1891, the gunboat {{SMS|Wolf|1878}} visited Tawara, Abaiang and Maiana, and the cruiser SMS {{SMS|Sperber|1888|2}} visited Butaritari, Maiana and Tabiteuea.<ref name="JRCD"/>