Japan

Japan arose to conquer the largest area on the globe of any nation ever. While predominately ocean the square miles controlled at the height of Japanese Imperialism dwarfed all other empires in history. Before we get to that, lets see more information about the run up to empire creation.

Japan joined the Allies almost at the onset of the War (August 23, 1914). It seems surprising that Japan would have entered the War so quickly when the German Army was marching through Belgium and seemed likely to reach Paris. Japan had signed an Alliance with Britain (1902), but it was not aimed at Germany nor did it require Japan to join the Allies when war broke out in Europe.

The British fearing that the German Far Eastern Squadron would disrupt trade, asked the Japanese for assistance. The Japanese Government for largely domestic reasons quickly agreed to the British request.

Japan saw the opportunity to seize Germany’s Pacific colonies and bring control over its Chinese concessions. Germany had acquired several colonial possessions, including concessions in China and Pacific islands. The Germans built a major naval base at Tsingtao. It was here that the only major engagement in the Far East was fought. The Japanese supported by the British succeeded in seizing Tsingtao a very little cost in a combined land sea operation (November 1914). More importantly for the future, the Japanese seized control of the formerly German owned Shantung Railway.

Japan seized German Pacific islands without resistance, including Palau and the Marshall, Caroline, and Marianas islands. This gave them the naval bases at Yap, Ponape, and Jaluit. Japanese naval surveyors subsequently discovered the potential fleet base of Truk, and after the war built a major naval base there. As agreed by the Allies, the Japanese seized German colonies north of the Equator while those to the south were seized by British and Dominion forces. A New Zealand force escorted by British, French and Australian warships seized German Samoa (August 28, 1914).

A British ship seized the guano-mining island of Nauru. The Australian Navy seized the Bismarck Islands (September 1914). The German forces surrendered German New Guinea and the Bismarck, Admiralty, and Solomon Islands. After seizing the German bases, the Japanese Navy assisted the Allies in convoy protection from German raiders. There were small German military units in these colonies as well as civilians. After the War, the Treaty of Versailles awarded Japan a mandate over the islands.

Thus the British and its new found powerful ally quickly seized all of these former German possessions. As part and parcel of a division of spoils with other European and Asian countries Japan acquired trusteeships to many of the aforementioned locations.

In particular the Island of Truk quickly became a fortified Gibraltar of the Pacific. This and the other locations were to become pivotal to Japanese expansion and their overall war effort.

How did this come to pass?

Anglo-Japanese Naval Alliance (1902)

Anglo-Japanese naval cooperation played an important role in the development of the Imperial Japanese Navy. There was extensive cooperation before a formal agreement was signed. Japan first acquired modern naval vessels from British shipyards. Royal Navy officers helped train Japanese officers. With the rise of a modern German Navy, Britain saw Japan as a useful ally in the Pacific. The major rationale for the treaty in 1902, however, was a mutual concern with Russia. Japan saw its relationship with the Royal Navy as helpful in building a modern navy. The first Anglo-Japanese Naval Treaty was signed in 1902. The Russo-Japanese War (1904-05) changed the situation and a substantially different treaty was negotiated (1905). A third treaty was signed in 1911 and was in force at the time of World War I. This treaty finally lapsed (1923), primarily because of American concerns at the Washington Naval Conference (1921).

Russo-Japanese War (1904-05)

Japan humiliated Russia in the Russo-Japanese War (1904-05). The Japanese Navy destroyed both the Asian and European squadrons of the Russian Navy. As a result, Japan emerged for the first time as a major power. The first European power with which Japan came into contact was Tsarist Russia. The two countries both had interests in Korea and Manchuria. The Japanese without declaring war staged a surprise attack on the Russia Pacific fleet at Port Arthur (February 9, 1904). Torpedo boats damaged several Russian vessels, but it was not the decisive blow the Japanese sought. It was when the Russian vessels attempted to run to the port at Vladisvostok that the faster Japanese fleet scored a decisive victory. With its Pacific fleet destroyed, the Russians assembled their Baltic fleet and dispatched it to the Pacific. The Russian fleet consisted if some modern vessels and other slow, largely obsolete ships. The Russian fleet consisted of 10 battleships and three armored cruisers. Admiral Togo intercepted the Russians in the Straits of Tsushima (May 27, 1905). Togo squadron consisted of five modern battleships an eight armored cruisers. The Japanese force was smaller, but more modern and much better trained. Togo raised the Z banner, meaning “The fate of the Empire depends on this battle. Every man will do his upmost.

The Russian fleet was poorly commanded. The Russians has some modern vessels which could have possibly given a good account of themselves, but they were slowed down by several slow, largely obsolete vessels. Togo executed a daring turn that brought his squadron parallel with the Russians. The Japanese turrets allowed him to bring his fire power fully to bear on the Russians. It was one of the decisive battles in naval warfare. The Japanese sank 19 Russians ships and captured five more. The Japanese lost only three torpedo boats. The Japanese victory shocked the world.

The Russians were forced to sue for peace. Japan gaining the southern Sakhalin (Karafuto) Island and Russia’s port and rail rights in Manchuria. The Battle of Tsushima Straits cemented the Japanese commitment to a single decisive battle as tenant in naval warfare.

The battle had another major impact. First Lord of the Admiralty Jackey Fisher recognized that the only ships that had any impact on the outcome of the battle were those with big guns. Battle ships at the time bristled with a large array of smaller guns. Fisher proposed the all big gun battleship. The first one built was HMS Dreadnought which helped to fuel the European naval race. World War I (1914-18)

End of World War One

The year 1919 saw Japan sitting among the “Big Five” powers at the Versailles Peace Conference. Tokyo was granted a permanent seat on the Council of the League of Nations, and the peace treaty confirmed the transfer to Japan of Germany’s rights in Shandong, a provision that led to anti-Japanese riots and a mass political movement throughout China. Similarly, Germany’s former Pacific islands were put under a Japanese mandate. Despite its small role in World War I (and the Western powers’ rejection of its bid for a racial equality clause in the peace treaty), Japan emerged as a major actor in international politics at the close of the war.

Washington Naval Treaties (1921)

The Washington Naval Treaties sought to control military spending and to prevent a post-War arms race. The delegates at the Washington Conference also discuss issues concerning China and the Pacific. The United States argued for the acceptance of Open Door policies which were in effect a reinforcement of Japan’s prior lengthy list of demands. The major naval powers (America, Britain, France, Italy, and Japan) agreed to substantial limitations on their naval strength which at the time was measured in battleships. American Secretary of State, Charles Evans Hughes organized a conference to address the problem of spiralling naval expenditures as a result of the naval arms race. Some say these limitations were forced upon the Japanese. With cultural bias showing a disdain for mutual concerns and paving the way for a future crisis.

Senator William E. Borah, Republican of Idaho, who had led the fight against American ratification of the Treaty of Versailles and participation in the League of Nations, strongly advocated efforts to limit the arms race. His efforts were not at first favored by the new Harding administration, but was eventually adopted as the Republican alternative to the Democrat’s (Wilson’s) policy of collective security through the League of Nations.

The Conference opened on Armistice Day 1921–a very meaningful date so close to World War I. The American delegation was led by Secretary of State Charles Evans Hughes. Hughes shocked the other delegates by proposing a major reduction in naval fleets and not just limitations on new construction.

This was far beyond what the other countries had anticipated. Some have called this one of the most dramatic moments in American diplomatic history. The American proposals entailed scrapping almost 2 million tons of warships as well as a lengthy “holiday” on new building. The consequences of the Washington Treaties went far beyond this, and would reverberate through World War II. Furthermore Japans insistence upon its ratification of control in China causes waves.

“At the conference the United States moved that the sovereignty, independence, territorial and administrative integrity of China be maintained and that China be able to develop its own effective government. The US asked for equal economic opportunity in China. China’s delegation agreed that China would not discriminate unfairly against any power concerning trade and economic matters, and it asked for the termination of foreign extra-territorial rights in China. It asked that China be allowed to make its own import-export laws. China asked for the abolition of foreign post offices, pointing out that foreign control of postal services in China deprived China of revenues. The conference agreed that foreign post offices in China would be abolished no later than January 1, 1923. The conference pressured Japan’s delegation into agreeing to return to China control over the former German-held territory in Shandong province. But the conference rejected tariff autonomy for China.

At the conference, Japan resisted giving up its 1915 treaty with China. But under pressure from the other delegations it disavowed that portion of its treaty that in effect took sovereignty from the Chinese: military and financial advisors within China’s government, the right of Japanese to own what lands it wanted in China, joint Japanese and Chinese control over police, China purchasing arms and supplies only from the Japanese, Japanese railway construction rights in China, and the power of Japan to approve or disapprove China’s borrowing capital from abroad.

Japan’s delegation also promised that Japan would withdraw its troops from Siberia – an occupation that was costing Japan more money than it was willing to spend and producing little if anything in return. And Japan agreed to withdraw its military forces from Kiachow Bay (on the southern side of the Shandong peninsula) and from elsewhere in northern China. It agreed to share with the United States the right to establish and maintain cable and radio stations and residences on the island of Yap in the Caroline Islands. In return, the US consented to Japan’s mandate of the Pacific Islands north of the equator that had been granted Japan at Paris – thousands of islands that Japan could use as coaling, cable and radar stations and as naval bases. And the British and Americans agreed to build no naval bases west of Hawaii or north of Singapore.”

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Pacific Islands

Japan seized German Pacific islands without resistance, including Palau and the Marshall, Caroline, and Marianas islands. This gave them the naval bases at Yap, Ponape, and Jaluit. Japanese naval surveyors subsequently discovered the potential fleet base of Truk, and after the war built a major naval base there. As agreed by the Allies, the Japanese seized German colonies north of the Equator while those to the south were seized by British and Dominion forces. A New Zealand force escorted by British, French and Australian warships seized German Samoa (August 28, 1914). A British ship seized the guano-mining island of Nauru. The Australian Navy seized the Bismarck Islands (September 1914). The German forces surrendered German New Guinea and the Bismarck, Admiralty, and Solomon Islands. There were small German military units in these colonies as well as civilians.

The year 1919 saw Japan sitting among the “Big Five” powers at the Versailles Peace Conference. Tokyo was granted a permanent seat on the Council of the League of Nations, and the peace treaty confirmed the transfer to Japan of Germany’s rights in Shandong, a provision that led to anti-Japanese riots and a mass political movement throughout China. Similarly, Germany’s former Pacific islands were put under a Japanese mandate. Despite its small role in World War I (and the Western powers’ rejection of its bid for a racial equality clause in the peace treaty), Japan emerged as a major actor in international politics at the close of the war.

Diplomacy

Emerging Chinese nationalism, the victory of the communists in Russia, and the growing presence of the United States in East Asia all worked against Japan’s postwar foreign policy interests.

The four-year Siberian expedition and activities in China, combined with big domestic spending programs, had depleted Japan’s wartime earnings. Only through more competitive business practices, supported by further economic development and industrial modernization, all accommodated by the growth of the zaibatsu (wealth groups), could Japan hope to become predominant in Asia. The United States, long a source of many imported goods and loans needed for development, was seen as becoming a major impediment to this goal because of its policies of containing Japanese imperialism.

An international turning point in military diplomacy was the Washington Conference of 1921-22, which produced a series of agreements that effected a new order in the Pacific region. Japan’s economic problems made a naval buildup nearly impossible and, realizing the need to compete with the United States on an economic rather than a military basis, rapprochement became inevitable. Japan adopted a more neutral attitude toward the civil war in China, dropped efforts to expand its hegemony into China proper, and joined the United States, Britain, and France in encouraging Chinese self-development.

In the Four Power Treaty on Insular Possessions (December 13, 1921), Japan, the United States, Britain, and France agreed to recognize the status quo in the Pacific, and Japan and Britain agreed to terminate formally their Treaty of Alliance. The Five Power Naval Disarmament Treaty (February 6, 1922) established an international capital ship ratio (5, 5, 3, 1.75, and 1.75, respectively, for the United States, Britain, Japan, France, and Italy) and limited the size and armaments of capital ships already built or under construction. In a move that gave the Japanese Imperial Navy greater freedom in the Pacific, Washington and London agreed not to build any new military bases between Singapore and Hawaii.

The goal of the Nine Power Treaty (February 6, 1922), signed by Belgium, China, the Netherlands, and Portugal, along with the original five powers, was the prevention of war in the Pacific. The signatories agreed to respect China’s independence and integrity, not to interfere in Chinese attempts to establish a stable government, to refrain from seeking special privileges in China or threatening the positions of other nations there, to support a policy of equal opportunity for commerce and industry of all nations in China, and to reexamine extraterritoriality and tariff autonomy policies. Japan also agreed to withdraw its troops from Shandong, relinquishing all but purely economic rights there, and to evacuate its troops from Siberia.

In 1928 Japan joined fourteen other nations in signing the Kellogg-Briand Pact, which denounced “recourse to war for the solution of international controversies.” Thus, when Japan invaded Manchuria only three years later, its pretext was the defense of its nationals and economic interests there. The London Naval Conference in 1930 came at a time of economic recession in Japan, and the Japanese government was amenable to further, cost-saving naval reductions. Although Prime Minister Hamaguchi Osachi had civilian support, he bypassed the Naval General Staff and approved the signing of the London Naval Treaty. Hamaguchi’s success was pyrrhic: ultranationalists called the treaty a national surrender, and navy and army officials girded themselves for defense of their budgets. Hamaguchi himself died from wounds suffered in an assassination attempt in November 1930, and the treaty, with its complex formula for ship tonnage and numbers aimed at restricting the naval arms race, had loopholes that made it ineffective by 1938.