Asian and Pacific theatre of World War I
Asian and Pacific theatre of World War I | |
---|---|
Part of Mas a Tierra, Russian Turkestan | |
Result | Allied victory |
- Russian Turkestan
- Emirate of Bukhara
- Kazakh tribes
- United States
- Supported by:
- China
- Siam
- New Guinea
- Samoa
- German concession of Tianjin
- German concession of Hankou
Kokumbay Chiny
Baatyrkan Rayymbek
Alibi Dzhangildin
Asian and Pacific theatre of World War I consisted of various military engagements that took place on the
All other German and Austro-Hungarian possessions in Asia and the Pacific fell without bloodshed. Naval warfare was common; all of the colonial powers had naval squadrons stationed in the Indian or Pacific Oceans. These fleets operated by supporting the invasions of German-held territories and by destroying the East Asia Squadron of the Imperial German Navy.
Allied offensives
Qingdao
Qingdao was the most significant German base in the area. It was defended by 3,650 German troops supported by 100 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 the Austro-Hungarian Navy.
The Japanese Second Squadron consisted of 5 old battleships, 12 cruisers, 24 destroyers, 4 gunboats, 13 torpedo boats, a carrier, multiple support vessels, and 26 transports.[1] This included 23,000 soldiers. The British sent two military units to the battle from their garrison at Tientsin, numbering 1,500, and the Chinese who were unoccupied by the Germans sent over a few thousand troops on the side of the Allies.
The bombardment of the fort started on 31 October 1914. An assault was made by the
Pacific
One of the first land offensives in the Pacific theatre was the invasion of German Samoa on 29–30 August 1914 by New Zealand forces. The campaign to take Samoa ended without bloodshed after over 1,000 New Zealanders landed on the German colony, supported by an Australian and French naval squadron.
Also known as the AN&MEF, hastily recruited with 1,000 infantry and 500 navy reserve's as backup were set on a task to contain the Pacific German threat. A mere two weeks of training on Palm Island they departed by boat to Rabaul.[2] Australian forces attacked German New Guinea in September 1914: 500 Australians encountered 300 Germans and native policemen at the Battle of Bita Paka; the Allies won the day and the Germans retreated to Toma. A company of Australians and a British warship besieged the Germans and their colonial subjects, ending with German Governor Eduard Haber's surrender of the entire colony.[3]
Despite Haber's capitulation order, a variety of isolated German units in New Guinea continued to resist after the fall of Toma. These small German forces generally capitulated without bloodshed once confronted by Australian units. On 11 October 1914, the German armed yacht Komet and her 57 crew surrendered after their ship was taken by surprise and boarded at Talasea.[4] In December 1914, a German officer near Angorum attempted to resist the Allied occupation with thirty native police but his force deserted him after they fired on an Australian scouting party and he was subsequently captured.[3] By 1915, the only uncapitulated German force was a small expedition under the command of Hermann Detzner which managed to elude Australian patrols and hold out in the interior of the island until the end of the war, for which he became a figure of some renown.
Micronesia, the Marianas, the Carolines, and the Marshall Islands also fell to Allied forces during the war.
Retreat of the German East Asia Squadron
In the Pacific
When war was declared on Germany in 1914, the German
Detached cruisers
Chile and the Falklands
The next engagement was fought off
The only German vessels to escape the Falklands engagement was the light cruiser
SMS Emden in the Indian Ocean
SMS Emden was left behind by Admiral Graf Maximilian von Spee when he began his retreat across the Pacific. The ship won the
After a very successful career as a merchant raider, Emden was engaged by HMAS Sydney at the Battle of Cocos, where the German vessel was destroyed. A group of sailors under the command of Hellmuth von Mücke managed to escape towards the Arabian peninsula which was then part of the Ottoman Empire, an ally of the German Empire during World War I.
The cruise of SMS Seeadler
SMS Seeadler, an auxiliary cruiser windjammer and merchant raider, commanded by Felix von Luckner managed successful attacks on Allied shipping in both the Atlantic and Pacific Oceans. During her career she captured sixteen vessels and sank most of them.
In August 1917 Seeadler was wrecked at the island of Mopelia in French Polynesia so the Germans established a small colony on the island which housed them and several Allied prisoners, most of whom were American. Eventually when starvation proved to be an urgent concern, Luckner and his crew left the prisoners on the uninhabited island, from which they were eventually rescued, and set sail in a lifeboat for Fiji. There, on 5 September, Luckner captured a French schooner named Lutece and renamed her Fortuna.
After that they headed for Easter Island and again their ship was wrecked when it grounded on a reef. Subsequently, the Germans were interned by the Chileans on 5 October 1917, which ended the journey. During the entire cruise only one man perished, due to an accident.
The scuttling of SMS Cormoran at Guam
The United States was involved in at least one hostile encounter with Germans in the Pacific during World War I. On 7 April 1917, SMS Cormoran was scuttled in Apra Harbor, Guam to prevent her capture by the auxiliary cruiser USS Supply. The Americans fired their first shots of the war at the Germans as they attempted to sink the ship. Ultimately the Germans succeeded in scuttling the Cormoran with a loss of nine men dead.
Russia
In June 1916,
China
The German government was accused of being behind
Siam
On 22 July 1917, Siam declared war on Germany and Austria-Hungary. Twelve German vessels docked in Siamese ports were immediately seized. The crews and other Central Power nationals were detained and sent to India to join their fellow citizens in British India's existing civilian internment camps. Being the only Southeast Asian country to maintain independence throughout the colonial period, Siam was the only state in the region to enter the conflict entirely of its own free will, as an equal of the European powers rather than as part of their imperial contingents. The Siamese and the Vietnamese were also the only two Southeast Asian nations to fight in the war.[8] Siam sent troops to mainland Europe, and participate in the Paris Peace Conference to become a founding member of the League of Nations. Overall increasing its international standing and modernizing both their army and its understanding of war in the modern age.[9]
Gallery
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The German fleet off Chile in November 1914 after the Battle of Coronel
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Madras oil tanks on fire after being bombarded by SMS Emden
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Australian troops after digging up a German land mine along Bita Paka Road during the New Guinea Campaign
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The German auxiliary cruiser SMS Seeadler
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Machine gunners and soldiers of the first Australian Expeditionary Force, on board the troopship Berrima, 1914
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Troops landing at Herbertshöhe, New Guinea, 1914, by F. S. Burnell
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Colonel Holmes (Brigadier), Colonel Watson (O.C. Infantry), and Colonel Paton, with Captain Goodsall scanning the hills for wireless station at Bita Paka, 1914, F. S. Burnell
See also
- Samoa Expeditionary Force
- Australian Naval and Military Expeditionary Force
- Hindu–German Conspiracy
- Imperial Japanese Navy in World War I
- SMS Geier
Notes
- ^ "Tsingtao Campaign". www.gwpda.org. Retrieved 25 April 2022.
- ^ Beaumont, Joanna. "Broken nation : Australians in the Great War - City of Stirling Library Services". link.stirling.wa.gov.au. Retrieved 28 April 2022.
- ^ a b "Archived copy" (PDF). Archived from the original (PDF) on 22 October 2012. Retrieved 21 September 2012.
{{cite web}}
: CS1 maint: archived copy as title (link) - ^ "SMS Komet, the RAN's first captured warship: A valuable prize and our first aircraft carrier". 23 September 2014.
- ^ Government of Canada, Public Services and Procurement Canada. "Information archivée dans le Web" (PDF). publications.gc.ca. Retrieved 28 April 2022.
- ^ "Semirechye on Fire (Timestamp 7:55)". Archived from the original on 14 December 2021. Retrieved 20 November 2018.
- ^ "Commission Calls 1916 Tsarist Mass Killings Of Kyrgyz Genocide". Radio Free Europe.
- ^ Sanderson Beck: Vietnam and the French: South Asia 1800-1950, paperback, 629 pages.
- S2CID 144519761.
References
- Falls, Cyril (1960). The Great War, pgs. 98–99.
- Keegan, John (1998). World War One, pgs. 205–206.
External links
- Melzer, Jürgen: Warfare 1914–1918 (Japan) , in: 1914-1918-online. International Encyclopedia of the First World War.
- Mühlhahn, Klaus: China , in: 1914-1918-online. International Encyclopedia of the First World War.
- Tillmann, Niko, Maezawa, Yuko: Micronesia , in: 1914-1918-online. International Encyclopedia of the First World War.
- Jennings, John: Pacific Islands , in: 1914-1918-online. International Encyclopedia of the First World War.
- Suchoples, Jarosław, Robertson, John R.: SMS Emden , in: 1914-1918-online. International Encyclopedia of the First World War.