Siege of Tsingtao
The siege of Tsingtao (German: Belagerung von Tsingtau; Japanese: 青島の戦い; simplified Chinese: 青岛战役; traditional Chinese: 青島戰役) was the attack on the German port of Qingdao (Tsingtao) during World War I by Japan and the United Kingdom. The siege was waged against Imperial Germany between 27 August and 7 November 1914. The siege was the first encounter between Japanese and German forces, the first Anglo-Japanese operation of the war, and the only major land battle in the Asian and Pacific theatre during World War I.[4]
Background[edit]
Throughout the late 19th and early 20th centuries, Germany joined other European powers in a scramble for colonial possessions. As with the other world powers (including the United States and Japan), Germany began to interfere in Chinese local affairs. After two German missionaries were killed in the Juye Incident in 1897, China was forced to agree to the Jiaozhou Bay Leased Territory in Shandong to Germany in 1898 on a 99-year lease. Germany then began to assert its influence across the rest of the province and built the city and port of Qingdao, which became the base of the German East Asia Squadron of the Kaiserliche Marine (Imperial Navy), which operated in support of the German colonies in the Pacific. Britain viewed the German presence in China with suspicion and leased Weihaiwei, also in Shandong, as a naval port and coaling station. Russia leased its own station at Port Arthur (now Lüshunkou) and France at Kouang-Tchéou-Wan. Britain also began to forge close ties with Japan, and diplomatic relations became closer, with the Anglo-Japanese Alliance being signed on 30 January 1902. Japan saw the alliance as a necessary deterrent to its main rival, Russia. Japan demonstrated its potential by its victory in the 1904–1905 Russo-Japanese War, and the alliance continued into World War I.
When the war in Europe began in August 1914, Britain promptly requested Japanese assistance. On 15 August, Japan issued an ultimatum, stating that Germany must withdraw her warships from Chinese and Japanese waters and transfer control of its port of Qingdao to Japan. The next day, Major-General Mitsuomi Kamio, General Officer Commanding (GOC), 18th Infantry Division, was ordered to prepare to take Qingdao by force. The ultimatum expired on 23 August, and Japan declared war on Germany. At the beginning of hostilities in Europe, the ships of the East Asia Squadron under Vice Admiral Maximilian von Spee were dispersed at various Pacific colonies on routine missions. Spee's ships rendezvoused in the Northern Mariana Islands for coaling. SMS Emden then headed for the Indian Ocean, while the rest of the squadron made their way to the west coast of South America. The squadron engaged and destroyed two cruisers of a Royal Navy squadron at the Battle of Coronel, before itself being destroyed at the Battle of the Falkland Islands in the South Atlantic.
German defences[edit]
The Boxer Rebellion, at the beginning of the century, had led Germany to consider the defence of Qingdao. The port and the town were divided from the rest of the peninsula by steep hills. The main line of defence lay along three hills, Mount Moltke, Mount Bismarck, and Mount Iltis, from the Kaiserstuhl to Litsuner Heights.[1] Guarding the left wing was Fort Moltke, on the hill of the same name, with two 9.4 in. (240 mm) guns. The heaviest firepower was concentrated in the four 11 in. (280 mm) howitzers of Fort Bismarck. On the right wing, Fort Iltis contained two 9.4 in. guns at the hill's summit.[5] A second 17 km (11 mi) line of defence was set up along a closer line of steep hills. The final line of defence was along hills 200 m (660 ft) above the town. A network of trenches, batteries, and other fortifications had been built in preparation for the coming siege. Germany had strengthened the defences from the sea by laying mines in the approaches to the harbour and building four batteries and five redoubts. The fortifications were well equipped (though some with obsolete Chinese artillery) and were well manned.
British troops arriving at Qingdao in 1914
Soldiers of the 18th division, Imperial Japanese Army occupy an abandoned German trench during the Siege of Tsingtao, 1914
German front line at Qingdao 1914; the head cover identifies these men as members of III Seebataillon (III Sea Battalion) of Marines.
German gun in the Bismarck Fortress, Qingdao, crumpled by Japanese naval bombardment.
As the Japanese approached their positions, Meyer-Waldeck withdrew his forces from the two outer defensive lines and concentrated his troops on the innermost line of defence along the hills closest to the town. The Austro-Hungarian cruiser SMS Kaiserin Elisabeth was stationed in Qingdao at the start of the war. On 2 September 1914 the German gunboat Jaguar sank the stranded Japanese destroyer Shirotae.[16] On 5 September a Japanese reconnaissance airplane scouted the port and reported that the Asian German fleet had departed, the Japanese ordered the dreadnought, pre-dreadnought, and cruiser to leave the blockade.[1] The next day the second air-sea battle in history took place (the first air-sea battle in history was at the Balkan wars in 1913) when a Farman seaplane launched by the Wakamiya unsuccessfully attacked the Kaiserin Elisabeth and the Jaguar in Qiaozhou Bay with bombs.[18] Early in the siege, the Kaiserin Elisabeth and German gunboat Jaguar made an unsuccessful sortie against Japanese vessels blockading Qingdao. Later, the cruiser's 15‑cm and 4.7‑cm guns were removed from the ship and mounted onshore, creating the Batterie Elisabeth. The ship's crew took part in the defence of Qingdao. On 13 September the Japanese land forces launched a cavalry raid on the German rear guard at Jimo, which the Germans gave up and retreated. Subsequently, the Japanese took control of Jiaozhou and the Shandong railway. Lt. Gen. Kamio considered this the point of no return for his land forces and as the weather became extremely harsh he took no risk and fortified the troops at the town, returned the reinforcements that were on the way, re-embarked and landed at Lau Schan Bay.[1]
On 26 September, Kamio resumed his advance, and the Germans were forced to retreat beyond the river Litsun. The Japanese made good time, crossing the river Paisha early in the day, swiftly crossing the seven-mile lowland plain and reaching the northern bank of the Litsun.[19]
On 27 September, Kamio tried to take Prince Heinrich Hill by a frontal assault and was caught in a murderous crossfire. From the summit, the Germans rained down bullets from four Maxim guns. Out in the harbour, Kaiserin Elisabeth and Leopard shelled the exposed slopes, nearly routing the Japanese right flank. The Japanese assault was saved by the allied fleet.[19] As the siege progressed, the naval vessels trapped in the harbour, Cormoran, Iltis and Luchs, were scuttled on 28 September. On 17 October, the torpedo boat S90 slipped out of Qingdao harbour and fired a torpedo which sank the Japanese cruiser Takachiho with the loss of 271 officers and men. S90 was unable to run the blockade back to Qingdao and was scuttled in Chinese waters when the ship ran low on fuel. Tiger was scuttled on 29 October, Kaiserin Elisabeth on 2 November, followed finally by Jaguar on 7 November, the day the fortress surrendered to the Japanese forces.
The Japanese started shelling the fort and the city on 31 October and began digging parallel lines of trenches, just as they had done at the siege of Port Arthur nine years earlier. Very large 11‑inch howitzers from land, in addition to the firing of the Japanese naval guns, brought the German defences under constant bombardment during the night, the Japanese moving their own trenches further forward under the cover of their artillery.[10] The bombardment continued for seven days, employing around 100 siege guns with 1,200 shells each on the Japanese side. While the Germans were able to use the heavy guns of the port fortifications to bombard the landward positions of the Allies, they soon ran out of ammunition.[10] When the artillery ran out of ammunition on 6 November, surrender was inevitable.
The German garrison was able to field only a single Etrich Taube airplane during the siege flown by Lieutenant Gunther Plüschow. (A second Etrich Taube piloted by Lt. Friedrich Müllerskowsky crashed early in the campaign.) That airplane was used for frequent reconnaissance flights and Plüschow made several nuisance attacks on the blockading squadron dropping improvised munitions and other ordnance on them. Plüschow claimed the downing of a Japanese Farman MF.VII with his pistol, the first aerial victory in aviation history. Plüschow flew from Qingdao on 6 November 1914 carrying the governor's last dispatches, which were forwarded to Berlin through neutral diplomatic channels.[c]
On the night of 6 November, waves of Japanese infantry attacked the third line of defence and overwhelmed the defenders. The next morning, the German forces, along with their Austro-Hungarian allies, asked for terms.[10] The Allies took formal possession of the colony on 16 November 1914.