Asian and Pacific theatre of World War I: Difference between revisions
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The '''Asian and Pacific Theatre''' of [[World War I]] was a largely bloodless conquest of [[German Empire|German]] [[German colonial empire|colonial possession]] in the Pacific Ocean and China. The most significant military action was the careful and well-executed [[Empire of Japan|Japanese]] [[Siege of Tsingtao]], but smaller actions were also fought at [[Battle of Bita Paka|Bita Paka]] and [[Siege of Toma|Toma]] in German New Guinea. All other German possessions in the Pacific fell without bloodshed. |
The '''Asian and Pacific Theatre''' of [[World War I]] was a largely bloodless conquest of [[German Empire|German]] [[German colonial empire|colonial possession]] in the [[Pacific Ocean]] and [[China]]. The most significant military action was the careful and well-executed [[Empire of Japan|Japanese]] [[Siege of Tsingtao]] in China, but smaller actions were also fought at [[Battle of Bita Paka|Bita Paka]] and [[Siege of Toma|Toma]] in German New Guinea. All other German possessions in the Pacific fell without bloodshed. |
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== The conquest of Tsingtao == |
== The conquest of Tsingtao == |
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Revision as of 16:21, 15 September 2009
 | This article includes a list of references, related reading, or external links, but its sources remain unclear because it lacks inline citations. (April 2009) |
| Asian and Pacific theater of World War I | |||||||
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Allies:  Russian Empire |
Central Powers: German Empire Austria-Hungary | ||||||
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 in China, but smaller actions were also fought at Bita Paka and Toma in German New Guinea. All other German possessions in the Pacific fell without bloodshed.
The conquest 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[citation needed] 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.
Thai reinforcements
The Thai government sent 1,284 Thai soldiers to the European Theatre in 1918 in order to assist the Allies in the last battles of the war. Many fought alongside American and British units, and at least 19 died under enemy fire. In addition, 95 Thai nationals were accepted into French aviation schools and may have engaged in some of the final air engagements of the war.
Participation in World War I may have helped Thailand to be accepted as a founding member of the League of Nations in 1920. A further motivation for war in Thailand was the system of extraterritorial rights accorded to German, American, British, and French nationals in the country. These privileges, imposed on the Thai state during the colonial era, were gradually revoked in the postwar era. The United States ceded her rights in 1920, followed by Britain and France in 1925.[1]
Miscellaneous
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 merchant raider, the SMS Cormoran, was docked in Guam when the United States declared war. The ship was scuttled and its crew were quickly captured though nine died in the scuttling. They became the among the first prisoners of war for the US in that conflict along with the crews of the SS Kronprinz Wilhelm and the SS Prinz Eitel Friedrich.
Around 1917 the Japanese sent several light cruisers and destroyers to the Mediterranean in order to assist the Allied fleets against the Ottoman and the Austro-Hungarian navies. In June a Japanese destroyer was torpedoed and severely damaged by the Austro-Hungarian submarine U-27.
SMS Emden was left behind by Admiral Graf Maximilian von Spee. The ship harried merchant vessels of the Allies and destroyed over 30 of them. Engaged by HMAS Sydney at the Battle of Cocos, the ship was destroyed. A group of sailors under the command of Hellmuth von Mücke managed to escape towards the Arabian peninsula (then part of the Ottoman Empire—an ally of the German Empire during WWI).
The SMS Seeadler, a windjammer and merchant raider, led by Felix von Luckner managed successful attacks on Allied shipping in both the Atlantic and Pacific Oceans before being wrecked in French Polynesia in 1917.
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.
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See also
References
Sources
- Falls, Cyril The Great War (1960) pgs. 98–99.
- Keegan, John World War One (1998) pgs. 205–206.