Japan's military, taking advantage of the great distances and Imperial Germany's preoccupation with the war in Europe, seized German possessions in the Pacific and East Asia, but there was no large-scale mobilization of the economy.[1] Foreign Minister Katō Takaaki and Prime Minister Ōkuma Shigenobu wanted to use the opportunity to expand Japanese influence in China. They enlisted Sun Yat-sen (1866–1925), then in exile in Japan, but they had little success.[2] The Imperial Japanese Navy, a nearly autonomous bureaucratic institution, made its own decision to undertake expansion in the Pacific area. It captured Germany's Micronesian territories north of the equator, and ruled the islands until they were transitioned to civilian control in 1921. The operation gave the Navy a rationale for enlarging its budget to double the Army budget and expanding the fleet. The Navy then gained significant political influence over national and international affairs.[3]
Japanese seaplane carrier Wakamiya (1913)Japanese troops landing near Qingdao
In the first week of World War I Japan proposed to the United Kingdom, that Japan would enter the war if it could take Germany's Pacific territories.[4] On 7 August 1914, the British government officially asked Japan for assistance in destroying the Imperial German Navy in and around Chinese waters. Japan sent Germany an ultimatum on 15 August 1914, which went unanswered; Japan then formally declared war on Germany on 23 August 1914 in the name of the Emperor Taishō.[5] As Vienna refused to withdraw the Austro-Hungarian cruiser SMSKaiserin Elisabeth from Qingdao, Japan declared war on Austria-Hungary, too, on 25 August 1914.[6]
Japanese forces quickly occupied German-leased territories in the Far East. On 2 September 1914, Japanese forces landed on China's Shandong province and surrounded the German settlement at Tsingtao. During October, acting virtually independently of the civil government, the Imperial Japanese Navyseized several of Germany's island colonies in the Pacific - the Mariana, Caroline, and Marshall Islands - with virtually no resistance as while they were part of German New Guinea the islands were administered by German colonial officers with only small police forces of local Pacific islanders to defend them. There were small clashes between the defenders and the landing Japanese troops, but this did little to stop the Japanese takeover. The Japanese Navy conducted the world's first naval-launched air raids against German-held land targets in Shandong province and ships in Qiaozhou Bay from the seaplane-carrier Wakamiya. On 6 September 1914 a seaplane launched by Wakamiya unsuccessfully attacked the Kaiserin Elisabeth and the German gunboat Jaguar with bombs.[7]
The Siege of Tsingtao (Qingdao) concluded with the surrender of German colonial forces on 7 November 1914.
In September 1914, by request of the Imperial Japanese Army, the Japanese Red Cross Society put together three squads, each composed of one surgeon and twenty nurses, which were dispatched to Europe on a five-month assignment. The teams left Japan between October and December 1914 and were assigned to Petrograd, Paris, and Southampton. The arrival of these nurses received wide press coverage, and their host countries subsequently asked for these teams to extend their assignment to fifteen months.[8]
Japan also sent its armored cruiser Ibuki to assist with the protection of the Australian Imperial Force (AIF) troop convoy (which included contingents from New Zealand) as it sailed from Western Australia to Egypt on 1 November 1914.[9]
With Japan's European allies heavily involved in the war in Europe, Japan sought to further consolidate its position in China by presenting the Twenty-One Demands to Chinese President Yuan Shikai in January 1915. If achieved, the Twenty-One Demands would have essentially reduced China to a Japanese protectorate, and at the expense of numerous privileges already enjoyed by the European powers in their respective spheres of influence within China. In the face of slow negotiations with the Chinese government, widespread and increasing anti-Japanese sentiments, and international condemnation (particularly from the United States), Japan withdrew the final group of demands, and a treaty was signed by China on 25 May 1915.
Throughout 1915–1916, German efforts to negotiate a separate peace with Japan failed. On 3 July 1916, Japan and Russia signed a treaty whereby each pledged not to make a separate peace with Germany, and agreed to consultation and common action should the territory or interests of each in China be threatened by an outside third party. Although Russia had a claim to Chinese territory by the Kyakhta and other treaties, Japan discouraged Russia from annexing Heilongjiang and began to slowly push the other powers out, such as the Germans in the Twenty-One Demands (1915). The delineating line between Russian (north) and Japanese (south) spheres of influences in China was the Chinese Eastern Railway.[10]
On 18 December 1916 the British Admiralty again requested naval assistance from Japan. The new Japanese cabinet under Prime Minister Terauchi Masatake was more favorably inclined to provide military assistance, provided that the British government back Japan's territorial claims to the newly acquired German possessions in the South Pacific and Shandong. When Germany announced the resumption of unrestricted submarine warfare on 1 February 1917, the British government agreed.[11]
Two of the four cruisers of the First Special Squadron at Singapore were sent to Cape Town, South Africa, and four destroyers were sent to the Mediterranean for basing out of Malta, headquarters of the Royal Navy's Mediterranean Fleet. Rear-Admiral Kōzō Satō on the cruiserAkashi and 10th and 11th destroyer units (eight destroyers) arrived in Malta on 13 April 1917 via Colombo and Port Said. Eventually this Second Special Squadron totaled three cruisers (Akashi, Izumo, Nisshin, 14 destroyers (8 Kaba-classdestroyer, 4 Momo-classdestroyer, 2 ex-British Acorn-class), 2 sloops, 1 tender (Kanto).
The 17 ships of Second Special Squadron carried out escort duties for troop transports and anti-submarine operations against attacks from German and Austro-Hungarian submarines operating from bases along the eastern Adriatic, the Aegean Sea, from Constantinople, thus securing the vital eastern Mediterranean sea route between the Suez Canal and Marseilles, France.
The Japanese squadron made a total of 348 escort sorties from Malta, escorting 789 ships containing around 700,000 soldiers, thus contributing greatly to the war effort, for a total loss of 72 Japanese sailors killed in action. A total of 7,075 people were rescued by the Japanese from damaged and sinking ships. This included the rescue by the destroyers Matsu and Sakaki of nearly 3000 persons from the troopship SSTransylvania which was hit by a German torpedo on 4 May 1917. No Japanese ships were lost during the deployment but on 11 June 1917 Sakaki was hit by a torpedo from Austro-Hungarian submarine U-27 off Crete; 59 Japanese sailors died.
With the American entry into World War I on 6 April 1917, the United States and Japan found themselves on the same side, despite their increasingly acrimonious relations over China and competition for influence in the Pacific. This led to the Lansing–Ishii Agreement of 2 November 1917 to help reduce tensions.
In late 1917, Japan exported 12 Arabe-class destroyers, based on Kaba-class design, to France.
The British under Admiral George Alexander Ballard gave strong praise to the high operational rate of the Japanese squadron, and its quick response to all British requests. In return, the Japanese absorbed British anti-submarine warfare techniques and technologies and gained invaluable operational experience. After the end of the war, the Japanese Navy brought back seven German submarines as prizes of war, which greatly contributed to future Japanese submarine design and development.
Toward the end of the war, Japan increasingly filled orders for needed war material for its European allies. The wartime boom helped to diversify the country's industry, increase its exports, and transform Japan from a debtor to a creditor nation for the first time. Exports quadrupled from 1913 to 1918. The massive capital influx into Japan and the subsequent industrial boom led to rapid inflation. In August 1918, rice riots caused by this inflation erupted in towns and cities throughout Japan.[13]
The prosperity brought on by World War I did not last. Although Japan's light industry had secured a share of the world market, Japan returned to debtor-nation status soon after the end of the war. The ease of Japan's victory, the negative impact of the Shōwa recession in 1926, and internal political instabilities helped contribute to the rise of Japanese militarism in the late 1920s to 1930s.
The Imperial German Navy or the Kaiserliche Marine was the navy of the German Empire, which existed between 1871 and 1919. It grew out of the small Prussian Navy, which was mainly for coast defence. Kaiser Wilhelm II greatly expanded the navy. The key leader was Admiral Alfred von Tirpitz, who greatly expanded the size and quality of the navy, while adopting the sea power theories of American strategist Alfred Thayer Mahan. The result was a naval arms race with Britain, as the German navy grew to become one of the greatest maritime forces in the world, second only to the Royal Navy.
The Imperial Japanese Navy was the navy of the Empire of Japan from 1868 to 1945, when it was dissolved following Japan's surrender in World War II. The Japan Maritime Self-Defense Force (JMSDF) was formed between 1952 and 1954 after the dissolution of the IJN.
The Soviet Navy was the naval warfare uniform service branch of the Soviet Armed Forces. Often referred to as the Red Fleet, the Soviet Navy made up a large part of the Soviet Union's strategic planning in the event of a conflict with the opposing superpower, the United States, during the Cold War (1945–1991). The Soviet Navy played a large role during the Cold War, either confronting the North Atlantic Treaty Organization in western Europe or power projection to maintain its sphere of influence in eastern Europe.
The German East Asia Squadron was an Imperial German Navy cruiser squadron which operated mainly in the Pacific Ocean between the mid-1890s until 1914, when it was destroyed at the Battle of the Falkland Islands. It was based at Germany's Jiaozhou Bay Leased Territory in China.
The Imperial Russian Navy operated as the navy of the Russian Tsardom and later the Russian Empire from 1696 to 1917. Formally established in 1696, it lasted until dissolved in the wake of the February Revolution of 1917. It developed from a smaller force that had existed prior to Tsar Peter the Great's founding of the modern Russian navy during the Second Azov campaign in 1696. It expanded in the second half of the 18th century and reached its peak strength by the early part of the 19th century, behind only the British and French fleets in terms of size.
Naval warfare in World War I was mainly characterised by blockade. The Allied Powers, with their larger fleets and surrounding position, largely succeeded in their blockade of Germany and the other Central Powers, whilst the efforts of the Central Powers to break that blockade, or to establish an effective counter blockade with submarines and commerce raiders, were eventually unsuccessful. Major fleet actions were extremely rare and proved less decisive.
The siege of Tsingtao was the attack on the German port of Qingdao (Tsingtao) during World War I by Japan and the United Kingdom. The siege was waged against Imperial Germany between 27 August and 7 November 1914. The siege was the first encounter between Japanese and German forces, the first Anglo-Japanese operation of the war, and the only major land battle in the Asian and Pacific theatre during World War I.
Asian and Pacific theatre of World War I consisted of various military engagements that took place on the Asian continent and on Pacific islands. They include naval battles, the Allied conquest of German colonial possessions in the Pacific Ocean and China, an anti-Russian rebellion in Russian Turkestan and an Ottoman-supported rebellion in British Malaya. The most significant military action was the careful and well-executed Siege of Qingdao in China, but smaller actions were also fought at Bita Paka and Toma in German New Guinea.
The history of the Royal Australian Navy traces the development of the Royal Australian Navy (RAN) from the colonisation of Australia by the British in 1788. Until 1859, vessels of the Royal Navy made frequent trips to the new colonies. In 1859, the Australia Squadron was formed as a separate squadron and remained in Australia until 1913. Until Federation, five of the six Australian colonies operated their own colonial naval force, which formed on 1 March 1901 the Australian Navy's (AN) Commonwealth Naval Force which received Royal patronage in July 1911 and was from that time referred to as Royal Australian Navy (RAN). On 4 October 1913 the new replacement fleet for the foundation fleet of 1901 steamed through Sydney Heads for the first time.
Yahagi (矢矧) was the second vessel in the Chikuma class of protected cruisers of the Imperial Japanese Navy. Yahagi had two sister ships, Chikuma and Hirado. She was named after the Yahagi River, which runs through Nagano, Gifu and Aichi prefectures.
The Harwich Force originally called Harwich Striking Force was a squadron of the Royal Navy, formed during the First World War and based in Harwich. It played a significant role in the war.
The Kiautschou Bay Leased Territory was a German leased territory in Imperial and Early Republican China from 1898 to 1914. Covering an area of 552 km2 (213 sq mi), it centered on Kiautschou Bay on the southern coast of the Shandong Peninsula. The administrative center was at Tsingtau (Qingdao). It was operated by the East Asia Squadron of the Imperial German Navy. The Russian Empire resented the German move as an infringement on Russian ambitions in the region.
The 1st Special Squadron was an Imperial Japanese Navy fleet. In accordance with the Anglo-Japanese Alliance, the fleet helped defend Australia and New Zealand as well as Allied shipping in the Pacific and Indian oceans during World War I.
Shiro Kawase was a vice admiral in the Imperial Japanese Navy during World War II. He was a torpedo expert and his extensive experience as a commander of destroyers and destroyer formations made him more knowledgeable about the escort of convoys than most Japanese commanders of his time. He is best known for his command of the 5th Fleet during the latter stages of the Aleutians campaign in the spring and summer of 1943.
The 2nd Special Squadron was a unit of the Imperial Japanese Navy. In accordance with the Anglo-Japanese Alliance, the fleet helped defend Allied shipping in the Mediterranean theater of operations of World War I.
The Imperial Japanese Navy conducted the majority of Japan's military operations during World War I. Japan entered the war on the side of the Entente, against Germany and Austria-Hungary as a consequence of the 1902 Anglo-Japanese Alliance. Japanese participation in the war was limited. Campaigns or operations included the capture of Tsingtao, the hunt for the German East Asia Squadron, the capture of German colonies in the Pacific, and operations in the Mediterranean. These were noteworthy events, but considered marginal to the outcome of the war.
Japan entered World War I as a member of the Allies on 23 August 1914, seizing the opportunity of Imperial Germany's distraction with the European War to expand its sphere of influence in China and the Pacific. There was minimal fighting. Japan already had a military alliance with Britain, but that did not obligate it to enter the war. It joined the Allies in order to make territorial gains. It acquired Germany's scattered small holdings in the Pacific and on the coast of China.
References
↑ Frederick R. Dickinson, War and National Reinvention: Japan in the Great War, 1913–1919 (1999)
↑ Albert A. Altman and Harold Z. Schiffrin, "Sun Yat-Sen and the Japanese, 1914–16", Modern Asian Studies, (July 1972) 6#4 pp 385–400
↑ J. C. Schencking, "Bureaucratic Politics, Military Budgets and Japan's Southern Advance: The Imperial Navy’s Seizure of German Micronesia in the First World War", War in History, (July 1998) 5#3 pp 308–326
↑ O'Neill, Robert (1993). "Churchill, Japan, and British Security in the Pacific 1904–1942". In Blake, Robert B.; Louis, William Roger (eds.). Churchill. Oxford: Clarendon Press. p.276. ISBN978-0-19-820626-2.
↑ Donko, Wilhelm M. (2013), Österreichs Kriegsmarine in Fernost: Alle Fahrten von Schiffen der k.(u.)k. Kriegsmarine nach Ostasien, Australien und Ozeanien von 1820 bis 1914, Berlin: epubli, pp.4, 156–162, 427
↑ Araki, Eiko: Women Soldiers Delegated to Europe. The Japan Red Cross Relief Corps and the First World War, in: Osaka City University Studies in the Humanities 64 (2013): pp. 5–35.
↑ Price, Ernest Batson. "The Russo-Japanese Treaties of 1907–1916 concerning Manchuria and Mongolia". Review by: A. E. Hindmarsh. Harvard Law Review Vol. 47, No. 3 (Jan., 1934), pp. 547–550
↑ Nish, Ian (1972). Alliance in Decline: A Study of Anglo-Japanese Relations, 1908–23. Bloomsbury Publishing PLC. ISBN1780935196.
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