Japan issues an ultimatum to Germany

On 15 August 1914 the government of Japan sent an ultimatum to Germany. It demanded the immediate withdrawal of all German warships from Japanese and Chinese waters and the handing over to Japan of the whole German leased territory of Kiautschou in China, with the port of Tsingtao, today’s Qingdao. Germany was to reply by noon on Sunday 23 August.

Britain’s ally

Since 1902 Japan had been bound to Britain by an alliance. The treaty did not oblige it to take part in a European war, but in the first week of August the British Foreign Secretary, Edward Grey, asked Tokyo for help in hunting down German warships in Chinese waters, especially armed merchant ships. The German East Asia Squadron of Admiral Maximilian von Spee was at large in the Pacific, and the auxiliary cruiser Prinz Eitel Friedrich had already left Tsingtao to go raiding.

The Japanese authorities quickly decided that the war offered them an exceptional opportunity. The Foreign Minister, Katō Takaaki, a supporter of the alliance with the British, argued to the cabinet of Prime Minister Shigenobu Ōkuma on 7 August that taking part in the war followed from “the alliance friendship from which Britain’s request derives”. Above all, however, he counted on strengthening Japan’s position in China and the Pacific. The statesman Inoue Kaoru called the war “divine aid” for the development of Japan’s destiny. As early as 3 August the Japanese Naval General Staff had adopted a plan providing for an attack on Tsingtao, in order “permanently to extinguish Germany’s power in Asia”. Germany was far away and could not defend its possessions.

The terms of the ultimatum

The ultimatum took the form of a “friendly request” and “advice”. The Japanese government justified it by the need to remove the causes of disturbance of the peace in the Far East and to safeguard the common interests provided for in the alliance with Britain. It made two demands. First, all German warships were to leave the waters near Japan and China at once, and those that could not be withdrawn were to be disarmed. Second, Germany was to hand over to the Japanese authorities, unconditionally and without compensation, the whole leased territory of Kiautschou not later than 15 September, “for the purpose of handing this territory back to China”. If no answer signifying unconditional acceptance of the demands arrived by noon on 23 August, Japan would take such steps as it deemed necessary.

At the same time Tokyo gave assurances that it had no intention of pursuing a policy of territorial expansion and no other “selfish designs”, and that it would carefully respect the interests of third powers in East Asia. The ultimatum also carried a symbolic message. In 1895 Germany, together with Russia and France, had “advised” Japan to give up the Liaodong Peninsula (PL), won in the victorious war with China. Japan gave way, and its public received this with outrage. Now it was Tokyo that was giving “advice” to Berlin. The next day, 16 August, General Kamio Mitsuomi, commander of the 18th Infantry Division, was ordered to prepare to take Tsingtao by force.

War in the Far East

Germany left the ultimatum unanswered. The deadline passed on 23 August, and that day Japan declared war on Germany. Japanese and British troops besieged Tsingtao from September, and on 7 November 1914 the German garrison capitulated after a siege. The Japanese fleet also seized the German islands in the Pacific north of the equator: the Marianas (without the American island of Guam), the Carolines and the Marshall Islands.

Significance

Japan’s entry into the war sealed the fate of the German possessions in Asia and forced Admiral von Spee’s squadron to flee across the Pacific. Japan gained far more from the war than many of its European allies. After the war it kept the former German islands, and the Kiautschou question caused a serious conflict with China. The transfer of the German rights in Shandong to Japan at the peace conference in 1919 provoked mass protests in China.