Japan in the Great War
Dwarfed by the European theater of operation, Japan's role In the Great War was small. But the gains Japan achieved as a result of the "War to end all wars" were significant. Japan sought territory in China to satiate her growing economy and population. Japan's population experienced a net increase of six million in the previous ten years. By the beginning of the Great War, Japan had ceased to be self-sufficient in food supplies.
Japan refused any limitations on the scope of its operations in the war. Japan was prepared to act on its own and ready to challenge anyone who got in the way of her interests - even Great Britain. It was the Kaiser who started the cry of the "yellow peril" which had deeply hurt Japanese pride. On August 15, the Empire of Japan Issued an ultimatum to Germany which would expire on 23 August. No reply having been received by this date, Japan declared war on Germany. Japan was now at least twice as strong as when she began the war with Russia in 1904.
Seizing the opportunity of Berlin's distraction with the European War and wanting to expand its sphere of influence in China, Japan quickly occupied German-leased territories in China's Shandong Province and the Mariana, Caroline, and Marshall islands in the Pacific. The Germans had taken great pride in Tsingtao, and had made every effort to make it a model colony as well as an impregnable fortress. There were hardly more than five thousand soldiers in the fortress. By October 31, after many exchanges of bombardments by the opposing forces, the German fort was silenced. Concurrent with military operations directed against Tsingtao, Japan launched forces against the German-held territories in the Pacific Ocean. On October 3, 1914, one Japanese squadron occupied Jaluit, the seat of government of the Marshall Islands and the German commercial headquarters in the central Pacific. Japan subsequently occupied the Carolines (subdivided into the Palau, Yap, Truk, and Ponape Groups), and the Marianas - except Guam, which had become American property in 1898. The effort had been swift, bloodless, and easy.
With its Western allies heavily involved in the war in Europe, Japan sought further to consolidate its position in China by presenting the Twenty-One Demands to China on 18 January 1915. The effect of these demands, if granted in full, would have reduced China to a protectorate of Japan.
Besides expanding its control over the German holdings, Manchuria, and Inner Mongolia, Japan also sought joint ownership of a major mining and metallurgical complex in central China, prohibitions on China's ceding or leasing any coastal areas to a third power, and miscellaneous other political, economic, and military controls, which, if achieved, would have reduced China to a Japanese protectorate.
China was In no position to contend with the 50,000 Japanese troops put on alert in Manchuria and Shantung. But in the face of slow negotiations with the Chinese government, widespread anti-Japanese sentiments in China, and international condemnation, Japan withdrew the final group of demands, and treaties were signed in May 1915.
China assented to some but not all of the demands. Most important of the demands was China's agreement to any disposition which Japan might arrange with regards to Germany's former rights in Shantung. China also agreed to the extension of Japan's lease on the Port of Arthur and Dairen, and the transforming of the Hanyeping Company, the largest Iron works in China, into a Joint Sino-Japanese enterprise. Japan decidedly used her military leverage and China's political weakness to strengthen her foothold on the mainland.
Japan's hegemony in northern China and other parts of Asia was facilitated through other international agreements. One with Russia in 1916 helped further secure Japan's influence in Manchuria and Inner Mongolia, and agreements with France, Britain, and the United States in 1917 recognized Japan's territorial gains in China and the Pacific. The Nishihara Loans (named after Nishihara Kamezo, Tokyo's representative in Beijing) of 1917 and 1918, while aiding the Chinese government, put China still deeper into Japan's debt. Toward the end of the war, Japan increasingly filled orders for its European allies' needed war matériel, thus helping to diversify the country's industry, increase its exports, and transform Japan from a debtor to a creditor nation for the first time.
In early 1917, the Germans intensified pressure on the Allies through a renewal of unrestricted submarine warfare. Britain was gravely concerned about the deadly German submarine campaign. In January 1917, England requested Japanese naval assistance in the Mediterranean against the Germans. The Japanese agreed to provide the assistance on the condition that the British would support Japan's claim in Shantung and its rights to the German islands north of the equator at the peace conference. The British government agreed. Japan sent a destroyer squadron to the Mediterranean to help the Allies.
One of Japan's most important contributions to the cause of the Allies was her assistance in convoying to Europe the Anzac troops, and it was because of the approach of her fleet that the German raiding squadron in the South Pacific was driven to the point near the Falkland Islands where it was destroyed by British cruisers under Admiral Cradock.
Japan's power in Asia grew with the demise of the tsarist regime in Russia and the disorder the 1917 Bolshevik Revolution left in Siberia. Wanting to seize the opportunity, the Japanese army planned to occupy Siberia as far west as Lake Baykal. To do so, Japan had to negotiate an agreement with China allowing the transit of Japanese troops through Chinese territory. Although the force was scaled back to avoid antagonizing the United States, more than 70,000 Japanese troops - ten times as many soldiers as the United States - joined the much smaller units of the Allied Expeditionary Force sent to Siberia in 1918.
The year 1919 saw Japan sitting among the "Big Five" powers at the Versailles Peace Conference. Tokyo was granted a permanent seat on the Council of the League of Nations, and the peace treaty confirmed the transfer to Japan of Germany's rights in Shandong, a provision that led to anti-Japanese riots and a mass political movement throughout China. Similarly, Germany's former Pacific islands were put under a Japanese mandate. Despite its small role in World War I (and the Western powers' rejection of its bid for a racial equality clause in the peace treaty), Japan emerged as a major actor in international politics at the close of the war.
The Great War not only permitted Japan to expand territorially, but also provided her with unprecedented economic prosperity. The war in Europe cut off the cotton mills of England and the factories of continental Europe from the markets of AsL4. Japanese business men took full advantage of this goiden opportunity and made deep inroads into rich markets pzeviously monopolized by the Europeans.Japan sent enormous quantities of guns, ammunition, military stores, hospital and Red Cross supplies into Russia. Old industries expanded and new ones grew up as exports surged.
Japanese losses suffered during the entire war were light when compared to those of the other Allied powers. Out of a tctal mobilized force of roughly 800,000 personnel, Japan suffered 300 military battle deaths and 907 military wounded.
Japan became the outstanding nation of Asia. The Japanese were the first Oriental nation to win admission to the hitherto exclusive circle at the great powers of the Occident. Japan's efforts of expansion through the application of armed force were successful and were a temptation to further imperialism. But Japan's great successes during the war were regarded with suspicion by other nations.
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