It was far from Europe, and yet Japan still helped a lot with the global Allied war effort,
but what was going on in japan itself?
And what had been going on in the years leading up to the war?
That’s what I’m going to talk about today.
I’m Indy Neidell; welcome to a Great War special episode about Japan and the First
World War.
A Civil War in Japan in 1867 resulted in the restoration of Imperial Rule the following
year, which was the beginning of Japan’s modern age.
The feudal domains, with which the people identified, were abolished in 1871 to help
begin to foster a national identity, in the person of the young Meiji emperor and the
new government.
Japan’s modern military, the Imperial Japanese Army and Imperial Japanese Navy - IJA and
IJN - really began in the 1870s.
For the new Meiji state, it was vital that these forces be controlled by the emperor
and by extension the new state, and not in any way beholden to any faction representing
the old order.
There was, initially, influence from samurai clans, but over a couple of decades that influence
faded as a new national identity was formed.
So the military was a cornerstone of the Meiji State and was even instrumental in physically
protecting the government in the early days.
The Conscription Law of 1873 brought in young men from age 20 and up for three years of
service, though after the military’s first overseas expedition to Taiwan in 1874, the
next large-scale deployment was not until war with China in 1894.
The new national government began a sweeping program of reforms.
Industrializing, and developing the country’s economic and military capabilities would hopefully
insure that Japan was independent and free of foreign influence.
The Meiji constitution of 1889 - Asia’s first - established a system of government
that would last until 1945.
The emperor shared sovereignty with a number of state organs.
There was the imperial council, the cabinet, the imperial Diet - a Parliament with two
houses, the judiciary, the Privy Council, and the military.
These all had independence and rough equality except the military reported to and was only
answerable to the Emperor.
Within the cabinet the ministers were also responsible to the emperor, so it was often
tough for the Prime Minister to maintain cabinet unity.
Establishing a Parliament really changed the political landscape of Meiji Japan, because
this created a new group of political rivals and contenders, in the form of political parties,
to the Meiji elite, or genro.
Some genro, such as Yamagata Aritomo, were opponents of political parties and saw monarchy
as the best government for japan and while he was Prime Minister in the late 1890s he
passed reforms to limit the influence of political parties in the military and the bureaucracy.
Now only active Generals and Admirals could serve as war or navy ministers, which gave
the military a veto in government affairs.
The 1890s, actually, was the coming of age decade for modern Japan.
This was really when Japan began to transform from an agrarian to an industrial society.
The architects of Meiji Japan wanted to achieve two more things, a powerful military and an
empire, so this was also the decade when Japan began to project its power on to mainland
Asia.
First, Japan wanted to block any foreign power from dominating or annexing Korea, which lay
just 100 miles across the Sea of Japan.
That foreign power had been China for hundreds of years, and disagreements over Korea led
to the war with China I mentioned, which was a resounding Japanese victory.
It also resulted in a big wave of nationalism.
Japanese celebration was cut short, though, by French, Russian, and German intervention,
which reversed most of what Japan had imposed on China.
This really highlighted Japanese diplomatic isolation and prompted the Vice-Minister of
Foreign Affairs to write, “At present Japan must keep calm and sit tight... during this
time the foundations of her national power must be consolidated; and we must watch and
wait for the opportunity in the Orient that will surely come one day.
When this day arrives Japan will decide her own fate; and she will be able not only to
put into place the powers who seek to meddle in her affairs; she will even be able, should
this be necessary, to meddle in their affairs.”
Japanese military spending tripled by 1903.
Japan had, by then, been part of the eight-nation alliance that responded to China’s Boxer
Rebellion and had provided the majority of the alliance forces.
In 1902, the first Anglo-Japanese alliance was signed, which was a defensive alliance,
with particular focus on Russian ambitions in Asia.
The real test for the Japanese military was soon to follow; the Russo-Japanese War in
1904-05, a war that was fought mainly in Manchuria, and a war that Japan won, to much of the world’s
surprise.
The IJA mobilized over a million men and took over 100,000 casualties in 18 months of war.
The IJN delivered one of the biggest defeats of the war in the Battle of Tsushima Strait.
Korea fell firmly into Japanese orbit and would be annexed in 1910, and the question
of defense now revolved around Manchuria.
An important military development I gotta mention here was in 1907 The Aims of Imperial
National Defense.
This document was a compromise between the two branches of service that defined the “cordon
of sovereignty” and the “cordon of advantage”.
The former was, at its most basic, the home islands; the la tter was the line of defense
to protect the# former.
This seems pretty rational, but it had a flaw; it did not account for the expansion of the
empire.
Once Korea w as annexed, it was no longer an overseas territory like Taiwan, but part
of Japan and part of the “cordon of sovereignty”.
This moved the “cordon of advantage” from the Korean Peninsula to Manchuria, and as
the Empire eventually expanded in Asia, the “cordon of advantage” did as well, pulling
the military with it, and bringing Japan into conflict with nations further and further
from home.
Anyhow, in 1912, the Anglo-Japanese alliance was renewed for another 10 years and that
same year the Meiji emperor passed away, triggering a few years of government instability.
When the First World War broke out and Japan joined the Entente, the IJA and IJN worked
together to take the German administered territory of Tsingtao.
The 5,000 enemy troops there held out against 28,000 IJA troops for a few weeks before surrendering
and becoming POWs.
This was the only battle fought during the war by the IJA until the Siberian intervention
of 1918.
The IJN, in addition to transport and blockade duties, cooperated with the British navy to
destroy German raiders in the Pacific, and occupied German Micronesia.
They would eventually take over convoy protection and naval patrols in that part of the world
from the British.
In May 1917, the IJN was deployed to the Mediterranean to assist the allies in convoy protection,
anti-submarine warfare, and other operations, remaining committed there until the end of
the war.
The IJA was never sent to Europe because virtually no one in Japan was enthusiastic about a war
of attrition halfway across the globe for little or no gain.
The Mesopotamian front would have been more feasible, but the British had concerns over
giving Japan too much influence there postwar, and of course the IJA was not equipped for
that climate anyhow.
The IJA did send military observers to Europe, though.
And they were heavily involved - after the Russian Revolution - in the Siberian Intervention
beginning August 1918, which intended to stabilize the Russian Far East and helped evacuate the
Czechoslovak Legion through Vladivostok.
70,000 IJA troops operated from there to Lake Baikal, an enormous area, and the final units
were not withdrawn until 1922.
This whole affair was supposed by many to be the advance for Japanese domination of
the Russian Far East.
This turned out to be a fantasy.
The most well-known, or notorious, Japanese foreign policy move during the First World
War was the 21 points, delivered to China in 1915, which we talked about in our China
special.
The 21 points were an attempt to achieve commercial dominance and reinforce Japan’s position
in China, and though they are a pretty naked attempt to secure Japanese power in China,
they were pretty moderate compared to the empire building plans of many in the government
at the time.
When the Great War ended, Japan sat at the Paris Conference as part of “the big five”
and for the first time in its history was a major world power.
The war had seen the birth of modern labor movements in Japan, a wartime economic boom
that created a middle class, and an increase in imperial possessions and influence in Asia.
The Japanese military had operated globally, from the Mediterranean to Lake Baikal to China.
The war also saw the final transformation of japan into the industrialized urban society
that it is today.
This, as you can see, was just a brief look at an enormously complex topic, and as always
I urge you to look it up for yourselves to go deeper into it.