Japan and the First World War

At the outbreak of the First World War, Anglo-Japanese relations were far from cordial. Britain had withdrawn its earlier request for Japan to join the conflict so when Japan did declare war on Germany, Britain maintained that Japan must limit its scope of military and naval operations to just off the coast of China, which naturally upset Japanese political and military leaders.
Many British leaders had quite correctly suspected that rather than aiding the Allies, the Japanese aimed to simply profit at the expense of the European powers’ interests in the Asia-Pacific region. Japan,  for its part,  regarded the outbreak  of  the war  as a “god-given opportunity” to expel the Germans from the Asia-Pacific, thereby establishing and strengthening its own sphere of influence, most notably in China. Japanese Foreign Minister Takaaki Katō expected that the war in Europe could provide Japan an opportunity to assert itself as the hegemon of the Asia-Pacific. He therefore took the government into the war, although Japan was not technically obligated under the Anglo-Japanese Alliance. 
Katō proposed that the key to Japan’s world standing was to steadily expand its economic privileges in China and continue its association with Britain, the world’s greatest naval power and largest commercial presence on the Asian continent. But given Japan’s declining enthusiasm for the Anglo-Japanese Alliance and the glorification of Germany’s prowess among other influential circles in Japan, the speed and decisiveness with which the foreign minister responded to Britain’s request for assistance takes on added significance. At the same time, however, the Japanese military, especially the Imperial  Army, worried about potential losses in any military engagement with Germany. In fact, most military experts gave Germany a better than even chance of victory in Europe.
Even people studying the First World War sometimes overlook Japan’s role, but this author believes there are four areas in which  Japan’s commitment was important: the landing and siege operations on the German base in China at Tsingtao, combined with the occupation of the islands in the Western Pacific; the expedition from 1918 onward against the Bolsheviks in Siberia; the export of weapons and ammunition to the Allies; and Japan’s naval escort mission in the Mediterranean.
Over the course of the war, Japan was also asked to contribute more to the Allies: sending land forces to the Western and Eastern Fronts; sending a naval force to the American Atlantic coast; and sending an expedition to the Gulf of Aden or the Red Sea. However, the government turned down all of these requests mainly for military reasons. Let us now briefly examine the four areas where Japan did make commitments.

Over the entire course of the war, Japan was active in the Asia-Pacific region and the Indian Ocean, mainly through its naval commitments. Japan’s main contribution was not its army but the navy, and even its army operations could not have been carried out without naval support. This includes the attack on the German base at Tsingtao, the occupation of the German island groups in the Western Pacific, patrolling in the Pacific, hunting for Germany’s East Asiatic Naval Squadron and escorting ANZAC troopships across the Indian Ocean. The Tsingtao Campaign was initiated by the navy. On August 3 Japan’s Naval General Staff  adopted a plan of operations for the  Sea of Japan that, in concert with the army, called for an assault on Tsingtao aimed at “permanently extinguishing Germany’s power in Asia and eliminating its ambition.” This was the first and last Anglo-Japanese landing and siege operation in the war, and characterized both countries’ military cooperation as well as the confusion and animosity between them.
Japan even helped British forces to put down a mutiny by Indian soldiers in Singapore in February 1915.

The so-called Siberian Intervention from 1918 onward may have been a small part of the war for European powers, but for Japan it was strategically very important. The intervention was the dispatch of Allied troops to Russia’s maritime provinces as part of a larger effort by the Western powers and Japan to support the White Russian forces during the Russian civil war against the Bolshevik Red Army. The collapse of Russia’s Eastern Front with Germany presented a tremendous problem to the Allies, since it allowed Germany to shift troops and war materials from its Eastern Front to the west, and it also made it possible for Germany to secure large Allied supply stockpiles that had been accumulating at strategically important places such as Murmansk, Arkhangelsk and Vladivostok. In addition, some 50,000 Czech Legion personnel, fighting on the side of the Allies, were now trapped behind “enemy lines” and were attempting to fight their way out through the east to Vladivostok along the Bolshevik-held Trans-Siberian Railway. 
Faced with these concerns, Britain and France decided to intervene in Russia’s civil war against the Bolshevik government. The Japanese viewed the Russian Empire’s collapse in 1917 as an opportunity to free itself from any future Russian threat by, if possible, detaching Siberia and forming it into an independent buffer state. However, in 1917 the Japanese refused to undertake such a military expedition without the agreement of the United States. Britain and France would have been happy to give Japan a free hand, but since the United States would not agree Japanese leaders had therefore declined. However, after lengthy discussions (without really consulting their European allies), Japan and the United States did agree to undertake an inter-Allied expedition on August 2, 1918, and Japan dispatched some 70,000 soldiers to Siberia.
In 1920 the Western powers decided to withdraw from Russia, but the Japanese stayed on, primarily due to fears of the spread of communism so close to Japan and Japanese-controlled territories in Korea and Manchuria in northeastern China. It was not until 1922 that Japan withdrew from Russia’s maritime provinces, and only in 1925, after diplomatic relations had been established with the Soviet Union, did Japan withdraw from the northern half of Sakhalin.

Japan sold military supplies to Russia on a large scale for use on the Eastern Front. Almost two-thirds of the weapons and ammunition used by Russian soldiers in 1916 was imported from the Japanese. Japan also constructed twelve destroyers for the French Navy and a vast amount of Japanese military supplies was used by French soldiers, for example, at the Battle of Verdun in 1916. Needless to say, Japan also exported weapons and ammunition to its most important ally, Britain.

It was Japan’s desire to occupy Tsingtao and the German island groups in the Western Pacific that led them into the First World War. The Imperial Japanese Navy was among the country’s most powerful driving forces. It is little wonder that Rear Admiral Saneyuki Akiyama, the main architect of the Japanese naval operation at the Battle of Tsushima in 1905, vigorously supported not only Japan’s participation in the war but also its naval escort mission in the Mediterranean Sea. Japan also needed to consolidate its position in China, as well as secure a voice at a peace conference after the war.

Responding to Britain’s request for further military support in April 1917, eight destroyers with a flagship cruiser under the command of Rear Admiral Kōzō Satō were based at Malta in the Mediterranean. This force played an important part in anti-submarine convoy escort duties against German U-boats between Marseille and Malta, Taranto and Malta, and Malta and Alexandria. Japan decided to send the naval force because it had received assurances from the Allies of something tangible in return: the immediate promise to support Japan’s claims to the former German possessions that Japan then occupied. 

A further four brand-new destroyers arriving in Malta in August with the armored cruiser Izumo as the 15th Flotilla added to Japan’s commitment. Germany had declared a policy of unrestricted submarine warfare in February 1917, and the casualty rate of Allied transports had increased dramatically since then. In the Mediterranean, the Japanese were nominally independent, but they actually carried out whatever orders they received from the British commander-in-chief at Malta. According to Japanese sources, by the end of the war the Japanese navy had carried out 348 escort missions, escorting 788 Allied warships and transports and 750,000 personnel. They had engaged in thirty-four actual combat operations. Three episodes are worth mentioning. 

First, in May 1917, two Japanese destroyers engaged in a rescue operation despite the German U-boat still being in the vicinity, thereby saving 3,000 out of 3,300 British personnel from the transport Transylvania, which had been hit by German torpedoes. True, this mission was a failure because the destroyers could not protect the Transylvania, but in recognition of the rescue, twenty-seven Japanese officers and sailors were awarded military medals by Britain’s King George V. The second episode was rather tragic. The Japanese destroyer Sakaki was torpedoed by the Austrian U-27 on June 11, 1917 off the island of Crete in the eastern Mediterranean. She was badly damaged, with fifty-nine dead, including the captain of the ship, Commander Taichi Uehara. Third, in the face of the German spring offensive of 1918, Kaiserschlacht, the Allies employed so-called “big convoys” in the Mediterranean between Marseille in France and Alexandria in Egypt. All five of the round-trip convoys were escorted mainly by Japanese destroyers with a minimum loss of transports.

Concerning these Japanese activities, the commander-in-chief of the British Mediterranean Fleet reported back to the Admiralty that “whereas Italians are inefficient, French are unreliable, Greeks are out of the calculation, and Americans are too far away, the Japanese are excellent, but small in number.” The Times newspaper also praised Japan’s navy, using such expressions as “speedy arrival and seamanlike” and “good seamanship and greatest rapidity of action.” From these remarks, one could easily imagine how grateful the British felt at the time to have Japanese destroyers in the Mediterranean. It is, however, true to say that these commitments by the Imperial Japanese Navy have almost been “forgotten,” even remaining outside conventional appreciation by historians, partly because they were overshadowed by the memories of the Second World War in 1939-45.
This is why the author wants to draw attention to a small but remarkable aspect of history, namely that some 100 years ago Japan and the Allied European countries fought for common causes side by side in the Mediterranean. If one visits Malta today, you can see a memorial built in 1918 at the Commonwealth War Graves cemetery to seventy-eight Japanese sailors who lost their lives in the Mediterranean. Seventy-three of the seventy-eight, including the captain of the destroyer Sakaki, are buried there. Ironically, the Malta memorial was destroyed by a German air raid during the Second World War and left unattended until it was reconstructed in 1973. True, compared with the fierce battles and sheer slaughter on the Western Front, the Japanese naval commitment and casualties in the Mediterranean may only have been a sideshow in the war. However, the lessons of their operations there, including the importance of the guerre de course,  of blockade,  of submarine and anti-submarine warfare, and the value of the merchant navy and convoy systems, were neither properly learned nor implemented in the Imperial Japanese Navy’s policies of the 1920s and 1930s. Hence, the Second World War in the Pacific.

After the war, Japan participated in the 1919 Versailles Peace Conference as one of the “Big Five” and became one of the permanent members of the League of Nations in 1920. In addition, Japan’s wartime economic boom resulting from filling Allied orders of  war materials had helped diversify its domestic industry, increased exports, and for the first time transformed Japan from a debtor to a creditor nation. Exports quadrupled from 1913 to 1918.

Japan had two overriding goals in the war and at the Versailles Peace Conference: to keep on the best possible terms with old and new allies; and to pursue its territorial ambitions in the Asia-Pacific  region. At the conference, Japan focused on two demands: its territorial claim for the former German colonies, Shantung and island groups in the Western Pacific; and the inclusion of its “racial equality” clause in the League of Nations charter or covenant. Japan had obtained the German island groups in the Western Pacific north of the equator as Class C mandates. At the same time, however, Japan had crossed swords with the United States and Australia over this territorial issue, with China over the so-called Shantung problem and with most of the Allies over the insertion of its racial equality clause.

Since the 1860s obtaining equal status with other Western powers had been Japan’s dream, and Japan had therefore proposed the racial equality clause. In the end, its campaign to have it included was not successful. But the first draft presented to the League of Nations Commission was as follows: “The equality of nations being a basic principle of the League of Nations, the High Contracting Parties agree to accord as soon as possible to all alien nationals of states, members of the League, equal and just treatment in every respect making no distinction, either in law or in fact, on account of their race or nationality.”

The draft proposal received a majority vote in April 1919. Eleven out of the seventeen delegates present voted in favour of Japan’s amendment to the covenant, and no negative vote was taken. However, it was overturned by  the chairman, U.S. President Woodrow Wilson, who argued that although the proposal had been approved by a clear majority, in this particular matter, strong opposition had manifested itself, and that on this issue a unanimous vote would be required. The opposition had come from the British or Australian delegation because its adoption would have challenged the established norm of the Western-dominated international system of the day, namely the colonial subjugation of non-white peoples. It is often argued that the rejection of the racial equality clause proved to be an important factor in turning Japan away from cooperation with the Western powers. 

True, Japanese domestic opinion was very much concerned with the issue and its media fully covered the progress of the conference, leading to an alienation of the Japanese toward the United States and to broader conflicts later on. But it must be noted that the Japanese government was also using the racial equality clause as a bargaining tool. To be specific, Japan wished to be treated equally as a nation and be considered a great power. It was interested in ensuring that as a sovereign nation and member of the league, Japan be granted the same privileges as Western powers, including the right to overseas colonies. 

The racial equality proposal also masked Japan’s own sense of racial superiority and  discrimination toward other Asians in the Japanese Empire. Koreans, especially after the 1910 annexation, were subjected to forced assimilation, and any discrimination was justified on the grounds that, according to the Japanese view, Koreans were not yet ready for equal treatment because of their low degree of civilization. In other words, Japan’s colonial rule was justified on the basis that Koreans and Taiwanese were inferior races who needed the guidance of a superior race to bring civilization and enlightenment to their countries. In 1919, the year of the peace conference, the Japanese military had brutally suppressed a Korean nationalist uprising against Japanese discrimination and oppression. Japan never extended equal rights, legal or political, to their colonial subjects. Fair and equal treatment applied only to “civilized” nations and league members, not to their colonies or subject peoples.

Japanese domestic opinion was agitated by its media on this issue, but the Japanese government was prepared to broker a deal whereby, in return for Allied recognition of their territorial rights in China and the Western Pacific—the Okuma-Ishii Doctrine, which paralleled the Monroe Doctrine—it would  not press the racial equality issue further. Japan was delighted to get mandates to Shantung and the island groups in the Western Pacific.

One could conclude that the Versailles Peace Conference was a diplomatic success for Japan. Despite its relatively small role in the war, Japan had emerged as a great power in international politics, while still feeling like an unequal member of the “imperialist club.” As far as Sino-Japanese relations were concerned, the Twenty-one Demands imposed on China in 1915 had provoked bitter resentment among the Chinese and the Shantung problem added fuel to this resentment. With its allies heavily involved in the war in Europe, Japan had sought to further consolidate its position in China by presenting its Twenty-one Demands to Chinese President Yuan Shikai in January 1915. If achieved, they would have essentially reduced China to a Japanese protectorate, at the expense of the Europeans’ privileges in their spheres of influence in China. But facing slow negotiations with the Chinese government, widespread and increasing anti-Japanese sentiments and international condemnation particularly from the United States, Japan withdrew the final group of its demands, and China signed the treaty on May 25, 1915. 

At the Versailles Peace Conference, the Chinese delegation disputed Japan’s claim to Shantung. As mentioned, Japan had seized the territories in 1914, most notably Tsingtao, but also the German island groups in the Western Pacific. And in 1917 Japan had made secret agreements with Britain, France and Italy with regard to their annexation of these territories. Japan also agreed to support Britain’s annexation of the Pacific islands south of the equator. So, despite the U.S. delegation’s generally pro-Chinese view, article 156 of the Treaty of Versailles transferred German concessions in Shantung to Japan rather than returning them to China. Chinese outrage over this led to a demonstration known as the May Fourth Movement and to China’s eventual withdrawal from the treaty. Surely, this was not in accordance with the spirit of the racial equality clause Japan had long advocated; this was just political and economic opportunism.

One could argue that the First World War and the Versailles Peace Conference were important turning points for Japanese imperialism and the road to the approaching Pacific War — although this does not mean that war was inevitable. In fact, a new international order or peace — “uneasy peace” — was established and maintained in the Asia-Pacific region in the 1920s. Japanese foreign policy during this period can be characterized by “internationalism” as exemplified by Shidehara diplomacy. In fact, Japan withdrew from Shantung and Siberia.

The term Shidehara diplomacy came to describe Japan’s liberal and cooperative foreign policy during the 1920s. Japanese Foreign Minister Kijūrō Shidehara attempted to maintain a non-interventionist policy toward China and good relations with Britain and the United States. He also guaranteed an “Open Door” in China and pledged that Japan should and would uphold the principles of the League of Nations. At the same time, what most concerned political and military leaders in Japan and the United States was the naval balance in the Pacific. In the 1920s national strength was still measured by the number of capital ships. A naval race had already developed and the British were in danger of lagging behind, especially in the Pacific. By 1918 Britain’s overall strength there was thirty capital ships, while Japan and the United States each had sixteen. For the British to counter either Japan or the United States in the Pacific, they would always need one country as an ally against the other. This led to the Washington Naval Treaty (Five-Power Treaty), the Nine-Power Treaty and the Four-Power Treaty. The latter would lead to the termination of the Anglo-Japanese Alliance in 1923 and the Japanese feeling “betrayed” by the British.

Toward the end of the 1920s, Shidehara’s cooperative approach was criticized as “weak-kneed,” and in the 1930s Japan opted for “Positive Diplomacy,” emphasizing its special interests in East Asia. Japan also began to claim that Manchuria was separate from China, in order to keep out the Chinese nationalists as well as the communists. However, the “Washington Treaty System” of the 1920s was a qualified success and established peace — albeit an uneasy one — in the Asia-Pacific region for another ten years.

With regard to Japanese foreign policy,  Sino-Japanese relations never improved and the conflict over China led the United States and Japan onto a collision course in the 1930s. After the First World War, Japan had initiated more proactive and aggressive foreign policies, although still within the framework of the “Washington Treaty System.” But after 1931, the year of the Manchurian Crisis, Japan commenced its own way of empire-building, different from that of the Western powers, marking a second stage of Japanese imperialism. After the 1930s Japan challenged the new international order and tried to establish yet another international order — “New Order in East Asia” — by its own initiatives. In this respect, the First World War was a very important event in modern Japanese history.