The Battle of Havana on 9 November 1870 was an indecisive single ship action between the German gunboat Meteor and the French aviso Bouvet off the coast of Havana, Cuba during the Franco-Prussian War. The battle was the only naval engagement of the war, and showed the inability of either navy to gain a decisive advantage over the other. The Franco-Prussian War was a conflict between the Second French Empire (and later, the Third French Republic) and the various states of the North German Confederation led by the Kingdom of Prussia. Lasting from 19 July 1870 to 28 January 1871, the conflict was caused by Prussian ambitions to expand German unification and French fears of the shift in the European balance of power that would result if the Prussians succeeded. A series of swift Prussian and G