British join the siege of Tsingtao

On 23 September 1914 a British force under Brigadier-General Nathaniel Barnardiston joined the Japanese army that was preparing to besiege the German fortress of Tsingtao, today’s Qingdao. The British went ashore in Laoshan Bay, east of the fortress, where part of the Japanese forces had landed a few days earlier.

An ally under observation

Britain had been Japan’s ally since 1902, but it regarded Japan’s participation in the war with mixed feelings. London needed the help of the Japanese fleet against German warships in the Pacific, and at the same time feared that Tokyo would use the war to extend its influence in China, where the British had enormous interests. When Japan declared war on Germany and prepared the attack on Tsingtao, the British government decided to send troops of its own to Shantung as well. Their fighting value was of secondary importance. The point was above all that the operation should be a joint undertaking of the allies rather than a purely Japanese conquest, and that the British should be able to watch the Japanese at close quarters.

From Tientsin to Laoshan Bay

The force was formed from the British garrison at Tientsin, in northern China. Its core was the 2nd Battalion of the South Wales Borderers, about 1,000 strong. Later about 500 soldiers of the Indian 36th Sikhs joined it, so that the whole contingent numbered about 1,500 men. It was commanded by Nathaniel Barnardiston, previously at the head of the British troops in northern China. At sea the Japanese were supported by the British battleship HMS Triumph and the destroyer HMS Usk.

The British chronology states that the force landed on 22 September and went into action on 24 September. According to the regimental history and photographs from the National Army Museum in London, the South Wales Borderers battalion came ashore on 23 September. That same day the soldiers pitched camp by the bay.

In the shadow of the Japanese army

The British came under the command of General Kamio Mitsuomi, commander of the Japanese 18th Division, which had been landing in Shantung since 2 September. The Japanese forces numbered about 23,000 soldiers and over 140 guns, so the small British contingent played an auxiliary role among them. After the downpours that had struck the peninsula, the roads were still deep in mud, which hampered the march and the bringing up of supplies. There were also mistakes: Japanese soldiers took the British for Germans and opened fire on them.

At the end of September the Japanese troops pushed the Germans off their forward positions and approached the fortress’s main line of defence. A regular siege began, conducted methodically and cautiously. The British took over a sector of the front between Japanese units and took part in the siege works and in the final fighting. The contingent’s losses were small. According to the National Army Museum they amounted to 12 killed and 53 wounded; other sources give slightly higher figures. The fortress capitulated on 7 November 1914.