Japan declares war on Germany

On 23 August 1914 Japan declared war on Germany. It was the first state outside Europe to enter the war as an independent participant rather than as part of a European empire. The conflict, which had begun in the Balkans, now also spread to the Far East and the Pacific.

Alliance and self-interest

Since 1902 Japan had been bound to Britain by the Anglo-Japanese Alliance. At the beginning of August London asked Tokyo for help in combating German warships in the Pacific. The government of Prime Minister Ōkuma Shigenobu, and especially the Foreign Minister Katō Takaaki, concluded that the war offered an exceptional opportunity. Germany, distant and occupied with the fighting in Europe, could not defend its possessions in Asia.

The British had misgivings. They feared that Japan would want to extend its influence in China, while Australia and New Zealand viewed Japanese expansion in the Pacific with unease. Tokyo, however, could not be held back. On 15 August it sent Germany an ultimatum, which went unanswered. When the deadline expired on 23 August, Emperor Taishō (Yoshihito) announced the declaration of war.

Tsingtao and the Pacific islands

At the beginning of September Japanese troops landed on the Shantung peninsula in China, violating Chinese neutrality, and moved against the German fortress of Tsingtao, today’s Qingdao. After a siege, in which a small British contingent also took part, the German garrison capitulated on 7 November 1914. As early as October the Japanese fleet had occupied the German islands in the Pacific north of the equator: the Marianas, the Carolines and the Marshall Islands. A few days after the declaration of war on Germany, Austria-Hungary also entered a state of war with Japan.

Significance

At little cost Japan seized Germany’s possessions in Asia and the Pacific and strengthened its position in China. In 1915 it presented the Chinese government with the so-called Twenty-One Demands, intended to subordinate China to Japanese influence. Later its warships escorted Allied convoys, including in the Mediterranean. After the war Japan sat among the victorious powers at the Paris Peace Conference and received the former German islands as a League of Nations mandate. Many of them became scenes of fierce fighting in the Second World War.