Treaty of Kingston

The Treaty of Kingston, signed 10 April 1912, resolved a dispute between Britain, France, Germany, and to a more limited extent, Russia, and the Netherlands, over sovereignty and areas of influence in the Azazian Archipelago.

Since the 16th century, European colonisation had claimed almost the entirety of the islands save for small enclaves of the remnants of the indigenous Azazia Empire. By the beginning of the 20th, however, the growing pressures upon the European powers forced matters to a head in a series of incidents from Tangier, Agadir, and the city of Caliz on the western tip of New Australia.

Caliz, like the remainder of Spain’s Pacific Ocean empire, had been transferred to Germany in 1899. However, French ships across the Straits of Caliz continued to call at Caliz despite German protests. In 1905, with the creation of a Pacific Squadron based at nearby Qingdao, a German cruiser sailed into the harbour trapping a French merchantman to the protest of the French government—who then dispatched a cruiser of their own.

Eager to resolve the crisis, Britain organized a conference in Caliz with a small British squadron arriving off the coast of Caliz, in view of the German warships, the ministers and diplomats agreed to grant their prospering colonies independence. According to the terms of the treaty, the newly formed republics united into a commonwealth of nominally independent states. This new state was the Commonwealth of Azazia.