Asian and Pacific theatre of World War I

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Asian and Pacific theater of World War I

Date	August 3, - November, 1914
Location	China, Bismark archipelago, Caroline Islands, German New Guinea, German Samoa, Mariana Islands, Marshall Islands
Result	Treaty of Versailles

Combatants

Empire of Japan

British Empire

German Empire

Austria-Hungary

v • d • e Asian and Pacific theatre of World War I
Samoa–Bita Paka – Toma – Tsingtao – Micronesia

The Asian and Pacific Theatre of World War I was a largely bloodless conquest of German colonial possession in the Pacific Ocean and China. The most significant military action was the careful and well-executed Japanese Siege of Tsingtao, but smaller actions were also fought at Bita Paka and Toma in German New Guinea.

1 Overview
2 The islands fall
3 The conquest of Tsingtao
4 Thai reinforcements
5 Miscellaneous
6 See also
7 Sources

The Germans had moved to take over various small and economically-unimportant islands in the Pacific Ocean starting in 1884, when the German government took over German New Guinea. The next year, the Germans took over the Marshall Islands. The Germans purchased the Caroline Islands and the Mariana Islands too from Spain in 1899. Spain sold them to help pay off its debts incurred during the Spanish-American War.

In China, the Chinese were forced to transfer Kiaochow in Shandong to Germany in 1898 on a 99-year lease. The Germans then took over the rest of the province of Shandong and built the port of Tsingtao.

Japan joined the war by siding with the United Kingdom on 23 August 1914, using the Anglo-Japanese Alliance as their justification. The Imperial Japanese Navy played a major role in securing the sea lanes in the South Pacific and Indian Ocean for British shipping against German raiders, and a detachment of Japanese warships under British command were based at Malta in the Mediterranean Sea. The Imperial Japanese navy also assisted the Royal Navy in its pursuit of the SMS Emden. For details, see Japan during World War I.

There were insignificant German military forces on its colonial possessions in the Pacific: just a few policemen and a few soldiers who ran the wireless stations.

New Zealand sent the small Samoan Expeditionary Force to German Samoa, which was captured without bloodshed on August 29. See Samoa.

Another small force known as the Australian Naval and Military Expeditionary Force sailed from Australia and captured German New Guinea on September 17. Around 40 people were killed in a brief fight over the wireless station at Rabaul.

The Japanese fleet captured the Caroline Islands, the Mariana Islands, and the Marshall Islands in October of 1914, without any loss of life.

Main article: Siege of Tsingtao

Tsingtao was the most significant German base in the area. It was defended by 600 German troops supported by 3,400 Chinese colonial troops and Austro-Hungarian soldiers and sailors occupying a well designed fort. Supporting the defenders were a small number of vessels from the Imperial German Navy and Austro-Hungarian Navy. The Japanese sent nearly their entire fleet to the area, including six battleships and 50,000 soldiers. The British sent two military units to the battle from their garrison at Tientsin numbering 1,600.

The bombardment of the fort started on October 31. An assault was made by the Imperial Japanese Army on the night of November 6. The garrison surrendered the next day. Casualties of the battle were 200 on the German side and 1,455 on the Allied side.

The Thai government sent 300 Thai soldiers to the European Theatre in order to assist the Allies in the last battles of the war. Many fought alongside American and British units, and fought with distinction at a heavily defended fortification near the German border that was defended by 670 German troops. The Thai were assisted by American artillery, and the siege itself lasted two weeks before the Thai forces charged toward the seriously damaged fort. The German garrison fought to the last man, while Thais losses were 267 men. The remaining 33 survivors were given a hero's welcome back at Thailand, and their sacrifice was seen as facilitating Thailand's entry into the League of Nations.

The German troops in Tsingtao were naval and marine personnel supplied by the Imperial government (as German Army troops were from the constituent states).

A German warship was docked in Guam when the United States declared war. The ship and its crew were quickly captured. They became the first prisoners of war for the US in that conflict.

The German government was accused of being behind Zhang Xun's monarchist coup in China to prevent Duan Qirui's pro-war faction from supporting the Allies. After the coup failed in July 1917, Duan used the incident as a pretext for declaring war on Germany. An even more serious plot was Germany's funding of the Constitutional Protection Movement which geographically split China into two rival governments for eleven years.

Hindu-German Conspiracy

World War I Portal

Keegan, John World War One (1998) pgs. 205-206.
Falls, Cyril The Great War (1960) pgs. 98-99.

v • d • e Theatres of World War I
European Balkans – Western Front – Eastern Front – Italian Front Middle Eastern Caucasus – Mesopotamia – Sinai and Palestine – Gallipoli – Persia African South-West Africa – West Africa – East Africa Asian and Pacific German Samoa and New Guinea – Tsingtao Other Atlantic Ocean – Mediterranean – Naval – Aerial