The Erosion of the Anglo-Japanese Alliance, 1914–21

Abstract

The Great War in East Asia has not attracted a great deal of scholarly attention. To a large degree this is because the actual hostilities lasted such a short time. The conflict began in the region in August 1914 but by the end of the year a series of victories had placed all the German possessions in the hands of the Entente Powers. In November a Japanese expeditionary corps, with limited assistance from a small British contingent, captured the German lease territory of Kiaochow containing the port of Tsingtao in Shantung province in China, while HMAS Sydney forced the surrender of the German cruiser Emden at the battle of the Cocos Islands. Then on 8 December the German Pacific naval squadron, after turning Cape Horn, met its end at the battle of the Falkland Islands. In addition, Germany’s island colonies in the Pacific were all safely in the hands of Japanese or British Empire forces. These successes, which were a testament to the effectiveness of the Anglo-Japanese alliance, encouraged Whitehall in mid-December to reduce British forces in the region and to rely on the IJN to secure the China Sea. Subsequently, the two China army commands were merged into one with its headquarters at Hong Kong, while the C-in-C China moved his staff to Singapore in order to concentrate with IJN assistance on the threat from German raiders in the Indian Ocean.¹