Asian and Pacific theatre of World War I
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The Asian and Pacific Theatre of World War I was a largely bloodless conquest of a number of German controlled islands in the Pacific Ocean. The only real military action was the careful and well executed Japanese attack on Tsingtao.
Overview
The Germans had moved to take over various small and economically unimportant islands in the Pacific Ocean starting in 1884, when the German government took over German New Guinea. The next year, the Germans took over the Marshall Islands. The Germans purchased the Caroline Islands and the Mariana Islands to from Spain in 1899. Spain sold them to help pay off its debts incurred during the Spanish-American War.In China, the Chinese were forced to transfer Kiaochow in Shandong to Germany in 1898 on a 99-year lease. The Germans then took over the rest of the province of Shandong and built the port of Tsingtao.
The Islands Fall
Japan joined the war by siding with Great Britain on August 23 1914. They justified their joining the war under a disputed interpretation of the Anglo-Japanese Treaty of 1911. Their war aims were clear: capture of the German lands in China and the Pacific. For details see Japan during World War I.
German ownership of these tiny islands was insignificant. They had no military forces on any of the islands, just a few policemen and a few soldiers who ran the wireless stations.
A small military force sailed from New Zealand and captured Samoa without any bloodshed on August 29.
Another small force from Australia captured German New Guinea on September 17. Around 40 people were killed in a brief fight over the wireless station at Rabaul.
The Japanese fleet captured the Caroline Islands, the Mariana Islands, and the Marshall Islands in October of 1914, without any loss of life.
The Conquest of Tsingtao
This was the only real German base in the area. It was defended by 3,000 German marines occupying a well designed fort. The Japanese sent nearly their entire fleet to the area, including six battleships and 50,000 soldiers. The British sent two military units to the battle from their garrison at Tientsin.
The bombardment of the fort started on October 31. An assault was made by the Japanese army on the night of November 6. The German garrison surrendered the next day. 1,455 Japanese died and 200 Germans died in the battle.
Miscellaneous
A German warship was docked in Hawaii when the United States declared war. The ship and its crew were quickly captured. They became the first prisoners of war for the US in that conflict.The German government was accused of being behind Zhang Xun's monarchist coup in China to prevent Duan Qirui's pro-war faction from supporting the Allies. After the coup failed in July 1917, Duan used the incident for declaring war on Germany.
Results
Japan used her new islands as the starting point for her Pacific War starting in 1940. The U.S. Navy conquered several of these island starting in 1942 in some of the bloodiest fighting of World War II.In a very minor note, the reason why the Chinese make and sell Tsingtao beer today is because the Germans built a beer factory in Tsingtao which survived both World Wars and the Chinese Civil War.
Sources
- Keegan, John World War One (1998) pgs. 205-206.
- Falls, Cyril The Great War (1960) pgs. 98-99.
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