Japan during World War I
Japan participated in World War I from 1914 to 1918 as a member of the Allies and played an important role against the Imperial German Navy. Politically, the Japanese Empire seized the opportunity to expand its sphere of influence in China, and to gain recognition as a great power in postwar geopolitics.
Japan's military, taking advantage of the great distances and Imperial Germany's preoccupation with the war in Europe, seized German possessions in the Pacific and East Asia, but there was no large-scale mobilization of the economy.[1] Foreign Minister Katō Takaaki and Prime Minister Ōkuma Shigenobu wanted to use the opportunity to expand Japanese influence in China. They enlisted Sun Yat-sen (1866–1925), then in exile in Japan, but they had little success.[2] The Imperial Japanese Navy, a nearly autonomous bureaucratic institution, made its own decision to undertake expansion in the Pacific area. It captured Germany's Micronesian territories north of the equator, and ruled the islands until they were transitioned to civilian control in 1921. The operation gave the Navy a rationale for enlarging its budget to double the Army budget and expanding the fleet. The Navy then gained significant political influence over national and international affairs.[3]
Events of 1917[edit]
On 18 December 1916 the British Admiralty again requested naval assistance from Japan. The new Japanese cabinet under Prime Minister Terauchi Masatake was more favorably inclined to provide military assistance, provided that the British government back Japan's territorial claims to the newly acquired German possessions in the South Pacific and Shandong. When Germany announced the resumption of unrestricted submarine warfare on 1 February 1917, the British government agreed.[11]
Two of the four cruisers of the First Special Squadron at Singapore were sent to Cape Town, South Africa, and four destroyers were sent to the Mediterranean for basing out of Malta, headquarters of the Royal Navy's Mediterranean Fleet. Rear-Admiral Kōzō Satō on the cruiser Akashi and 10th and 11th destroyer units (eight destroyers) arrived in Malta on 13 April 1917 via Colombo and Port Said. Eventually this Second Special Squadron totaled three cruisers (Akashi, Izumo, Nisshin, 14 destroyers (8 Kaba-class destroyer, 4 Momo-class destroyer, 2 ex-British Acorn-class), 2 sloops, 1 tender (Kanto).
The 17 ships of Second Special Squadron carried out escort duties for troop transports and anti-submarine operations against attacks from German and Austro-Hungarian submarines operating from bases along the eastern Adriatic, the Aegean Sea, from Constantinople, thus securing the vital eastern Mediterranean sea route between the Suez Canal and Marseilles, France.
The Japanese squadron made a total of 348 escort sorties from Malta, escorting 789 ships containing around 700,000 soldiers, thus contributing greatly to the war effort, for a total loss of 72 Japanese sailors killed in action. A total of 7,075 people were rescued by the Japanese from damaged and sinking ships. This included the rescue by the destroyers Matsu and Sakaki of nearly 3000 persons from the troopship SS Transylvania which was hit by a German torpedo on 4 May 1917. No Japanese ships were lost during the deployment but on 11 June 1917 Sakaki was hit by a torpedo from Austro-Hungarian submarine U-27 off Crete; 59 Japanese sailors died.
With the American entry into World War I on 6 April 1917, the United States and Japan found themselves on the same side, despite their increasingly acrimonious relations over China and competition for influence in the Pacific. This led to the Lansing–Ishii Agreement of 2 November 1917 to help reduce tensions.
On July 9, Commander Kyōsuke Eto, military attaché with the Royal Navy, was killed in the Vanguard disaster.
In late 1917, Japan exported 12 Arabe-class destroyers, based on Kaba-class design, to France.
The British under Admiral George Alexander Ballard gave strong praise to the high operational rate of the Japanese squadron, and its quick response to all British requests. In return, the Japanese absorbed British anti-submarine warfare techniques and technologies and gained invaluable operational experience. After the end of the war, the Japanese Navy brought back seven German submarines as prizes of war, which greatly contributed to future Japanese submarine design and development.
Events of 1919[edit]
The year 1919 saw Japan's representative Saionji Kinmochi sitting alongside the "Big Four" (Lloyd George, Wilson, Clemenceau, Orlando) leaders at the Paris Peace Conference. Tokyo gained a permanent seat on the Council of the League of Nations, and the Paris Peace Conference confirmed the transfer to Japan of Germany's rights in Shandong. Similarly, Germany's more northerly Pacific islands came under a Japanese mandate, called the South Seas Mandate. During the conference, the Japanese delegation proposed that a "racial equality clause" be attached to the Covenant of the League of Nations, similar to the covenant's religious equality clause; however, this proposal was ultimately unsuccessful despite a majority of delegations voting for it. This rejection of the proposal has been seen by some historians as an event which contributed to Japan turning away from the Western world in the years after World War I. Japan, by now a great power, continued to expand its influence after the war.[14][15]
Aftermath[edit]
The prosperity brought on by World War I did not last. Although Japan's light industry had secured a share of the world market, Japan returned to debtor-nation status soon after the end of the war. The ease of Japan's victory, the negative impact of the Shōwa recession in 1926, and internal political instabilities helped contribute to the rise of Japanese militarism in the late 1920s to 1930s.
This article incorporates text from this source, which is in the . Country Studies. Federal Research Division. – Japan
