Asian and Pacific theatre of World War I
Encyclopedia
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 Siege of Tsingtao in what is now China, but smaller actions were also fought at Bita Paka
and Toma
in German New Guinea. All other German and Austrian 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.
in 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.
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 without bloodshed with a German surrender. After the fall of Toma, only minor German forces were left in New Guinea and these capitulated once met by Australian forces. The only exception 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.
German Micronesia, the Marianas, the Carolines and the Marshall Islands
also fell to Allied forces during the war, all unopposed.
withdrew from its base at Tsingtao and attempted to make its way east across the Pacific and back to Germany. The fleet raided several Allied targets as it made its way across the Pacific. Detached cruisers raided the cable station at Fanning and then rejoined with the squadron. Later the German forces would attack Papeete
where Admiral
Maximilian von Spee
with his two armoured cruisers sank a French gunboat and a freighter before bombarding Papeete's shore batteries.
The next engagement was fought off Chile
at the Battle of Coronel
on November 1, 1914, Admiral Spee won the battle by defeating a British squadron which was sent to destroy him. His two protected cruisers and three light cruisers sank two Royal Navy protected cruisers and forced a British light cruiser and auxiliary cruiser to flee. Over 1,500 British sailors (all hands aboard both cruisers) were killed while only three Germans were wounded. The victory did not last long as the German fleet was soon defeated in Atlantic waters at the Battle of the Falklands in December 1914. Spee himself went down with his own flagship .
The only German vessels to escape the Falklands engagement was the light cruiser Dresden and the auxiliary Seydlitz. Seydlitz fled into the Atlantic before being interned by neutral Argentina, while Dresden turned about and steamed back into the Pacific. The Dresden then attempted to act as a commerce raider, without much success, until March of 1915 when its engines began to break down. Without means of getting repairs, the German light cruiser sailed into neutral Chilean waters at the island of Mas a Tierra where it was cornered by British naval forces. After a short battle
in which four of her crew were killed, the Dresden was forced to scuttle and her crew was interned by Chilean authorities.
, in which the Germans sank a Russian cruiser and a French destroyer. Emden also harried merchant vessels of the Allies and destroyed over thirty of them. She went on and bombarded
Madras, India
, causing damage to British oil tanks and sinking an Allied merchant ship. The attack caused widespread panic in the city and thousands of people fled from the coast, fearing that the Germans may have begun an invasion of India as a whole.
After a very successful career as a merchant raider, Emden was engaged by HMAS Sydney
at the Battle of Cocos
, 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.
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. One Allied protected cruiser was also sunk by a German torpedo boat and when defeat was certain, the Germans and Austro-Hungarians scuttle
d their squadron.
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 sunk most of them. In August of 1917 SMS 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 and set sail in lifeboat for Fiji
. There, on September 5, Luckner captured a French schooner
named Lutece and named 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 October 5, 1917 which ended the journey. During the entire cruise only one man perished, due to an accident.
was involved in at least one hostile encounter with Germans in the Pacific during World War I. On August 7, 1917, the 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 their ship. Ultimately the Germans succeeded in scuttling the Cormoran but with a loss of nine men dead.
'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. The German and Austro-Hungarian concessions in Tianjin
and Hankou
were occupied and their nationals detained. 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
.
World War I
World War I , which was predominantly called the World War or the Great War from its occurrence until 1939, and the First World War or World War I thereafter, was a major war centred in Europe that began on 28 July 1914 and lasted until 11 November 1918...
was a largely bloodless conquest of German
German Empire
The German Empire refers to Germany during the "Second Reich" period from the unification of Germany and proclamation of Wilhelm I as German Emperor on 18 January 1871, to 1918, when it became a federal republic after defeat in World War I and the abdication of the Emperor, Wilhelm II.The German...
colonial possession
German colonial empire
The German colonial empire was an overseas domain formed in the late 19th century as part of the German Empire. Short-lived colonial efforts by individual German states had occurred in preceding centuries, but Imperial Germany's colonial efforts began in 1884...
in the Pacific Ocean
Pacific Ocean
The Pacific Ocean is the largest of the Earth's oceanic divisions. It extends from the Arctic in the north to the Southern Ocean in the south, bounded by Asia and Australia in the west, and the Americas in the east.At 165.2 million square kilometres in area, this largest division of the World...
and China
China
Chinese civilization may refer to:* China for more general discussion of the country.* Chinese culture* Greater China, the transnational community of ethnic Chinese.* History of China* Sinosphere, the area historically affected by Chinese culture...
. The most significant military action was the careful and well-executed Siege of Tsingtao in what is now China, but smaller actions were also fought at Bita Paka
Battle of Bita Paka
The Battle of Bita Paka was fought south of Kabakaul, on the island of New Britain, and was a part of the invasion and subsequent occupation of German New Guinea by the Australian Naval and Military Expeditionary Force shortly after the outbreak of the First World War...
and Toma
Siege of Toma
The Siege of Toma was a bloodless action during the First World War on the island of New Britain between 14–17 September 1914 as part of the occupation of German New Guinea by the Australian Naval and Military Expeditionary Force...
in German New Guinea. All other German and Austrian 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
Indian Ocean
The Indian Ocean is the third largest of the world's oceanic divisions, covering approximately 20% of the water on the Earth's surface. It is bounded on the north by the Indian Subcontinent and Arabian Peninsula ; on the west by eastern Africa; on the east by Indochina, the Sunda Islands, and...
or Pacific Oceans. These fleets operated by supporting the invasions of German held territories and by destroying the East Asia Squadron.
Allied offensives in the Pacific
One of the first land offensives in the Pacific theatre was the Occupation of German SamoaOccupation of German Samoa
The Occupation of Samoa was the takeover and subsequent administration of the Pacific colony of German Samoa in August 1914 by an expeditionary force from New Zealand called the Samoa Expeditionary Force and New Zealand's first action in World War I...
in August 1914 by New Zealand
New Zealand
New Zealand is an island country in the south-western Pacific Ocean comprising two main landmasses and numerous smaller islands. The country is situated some east of Australia across the Tasman Sea, and roughly south of the Pacific island nations of New Caledonia, Fiji, and Tonga...
forces. The campaign to take Samoa ended without bloodshed after over 1,000 New Zealanders landed on the German colony
Colony
In politics and history, a colony is a territory under the immediate political control of a state. For colonies in antiquity, city-states would often found their own colonies. Some colonies were historically countries, while others were territories without definite statehood from their inception....
, supported by an Australian and French
France
The French Republic , The French Republic , The French Republic , (commonly known as France , is a unitary semi-presidential republic in Western Europe with several overseas territories and islands located on other continents and in the Indian, Pacific, and Atlantic oceans. Metropolitan France...
naval squadron.
Australian forces attacked German New Guinea
German New Guinea
German New Guinea was the first part of the German colonial empire. It was a protectorate from 1884 until 1914 when it fell to Australia following the outbreak of the First World War. It consisted of the northeastern part of New Guinea and several nearby island groups...
in September 1914: 500 Australians encountered 300 Germans and native policemen at the Battle of Bita Paka
Battle of Bita Paka
The Battle of Bita Paka was fought south of Kabakaul, on the island of New Britain, and was a part of the invasion and subsequent occupation of German New Guinea by the Australian Naval and Military Expeditionary Force shortly after the outbreak of the First World War...
; the allies won the day and the Germans retreated to Toma
Siege of Toma
The Siege of Toma was a bloodless action during the First World War on the island of New Britain between 14–17 September 1914 as part of the occupation of German New Guinea by the Australian Naval and Military Expeditionary Force...
. A company of Australians and a British warship besieged the Germans and their colonial subjects, ending without bloodshed with a German surrender. After the fall of Toma, only minor German forces were left in New Guinea and these capitulated once met by Australian forces. The only exception was a small expedition under the command of Hermann Detzner
Hermann Detzner
Hermann Philipp Detzner was an officer in the German colonial security force in Kamerun and German New Guinea, as well as a surveyor, an engineer, an adventurer, and a writer....
which managed to elude Australian patrols and hold out in the interior of the island until the end of the war.
German Micronesia, the Marianas, the Carolines and the Marshall Islands
Marshall Islands
The Republic of the Marshall Islands , , is a Micronesian nation of atolls and islands in the middle of the Pacific Ocean, just west of the International Date Line and just north of the Equator. As of July 2011 the population was 67,182...
also fell to Allied forces during the war, all unopposed.
Retreat of the German East Asia Squadron
When war was declared on Germany in 1914, the German East Asia SquadronGerman East Asia Squadron
The German East Asia Squadron was a German Navy cruiser squadron which operated mainly in the Pacific Ocean between the 1870s and 1914...
withdrew from its base at Tsingtao and attempted to make its way east across the Pacific and back to Germany. The fleet raided several Allied targets as it made its way across the Pacific. Detached cruisers raided the cable station at Fanning and then rejoined with the squadron. Later the German forces would attack Papeete
Bombardment of Papeete
The Bombardment of Papeete occurred in French Polynesia when German warships attacked on 22 September 1914, during World War I. The German armoured cruisers and entered the port of Papeete on the island of Tahiti and sank the French gunboat and freighter Walkure before bombarding the town's...
where Admiral
Admiral
Admiral is the rank, or part of the name of the ranks, of the highest naval officers. It is usually considered a full admiral and above vice admiral and below admiral of the fleet . It is usually abbreviated to "Adm" or "ADM"...
Maximilian von Spee
Maximilian von Spee
Vice Admiral Maximilian Reichsgraf von Spee was a German admiral. Although he was born in Copenhagen, Denmark, the counts von Spee belonged to the prominent families of the Rhenish nobility. He joined the Kaiserliche Marine in 1878. In 1887–88 he commanded the Kamerun ports, in German West...
with his two armoured cruisers sank a French gunboat and a freighter before bombarding Papeete's shore batteries.
Chile
Chile ,officially the Republic of Chile , is a country in South America occupying a long, narrow coastal strip between the Andes mountains to the east and the Pacific Ocean to the west. It borders Peru to the north, Bolivia to the northeast, Argentina to the east, and the Drake Passage in the far...
at the Battle of Coronel
Battle of Coronel
The First World War naval Battle of Coronel took place on 1 November 1914 off the coast of central Chile near the city of Coronel. German Kaiserliche Marine forces led by Vice-Admiral Graf Maximilian von Spee met and defeated a Royal Navy squadron commanded by Rear-Admiral Sir Christopher...
on November 1, 1914, Admiral Spee won the battle by defeating a British squadron which was sent to destroy him. His two protected cruisers and three light cruisers sank two Royal Navy protected cruisers and forced a British light cruiser and auxiliary cruiser to flee. Over 1,500 British sailors (all hands aboard both cruisers) were killed while only three Germans were wounded. The victory did not last long as the German fleet was soon defeated in Atlantic waters at the Battle of the Falklands in December 1914. Spee himself went down with his own flagship .
The only German vessels to escape the Falklands engagement was the light cruiser Dresden and the auxiliary Seydlitz. Seydlitz fled into the Atlantic before being interned by neutral Argentina, while Dresden turned about and steamed back into the Pacific. The Dresden then attempted to act as a commerce raider, without much success, until March of 1915 when its engines began to break down. Without means of getting repairs, the German light cruiser sailed into neutral Chilean waters at the island of Mas a Tierra where it was cornered by British naval forces. After a short battle
Battle of Más a Tierra
The Battle of Más a Tierra was a First World War battle fought on 14 March 1915, near the Chilean island of Más a Tierra, between a British squadron and a German light cruiser...
in which four of her crew were killed, the Dresden was forced to scuttle and her crew was interned by Chilean authorities.
The Cruise of SMS Emden
SMS Emden was left behind by Admiral Graf Maximilian von Spee when he began his retreat across the Pacific. The ship won the Battle of PenangBattle of Penang
The Battle of Penang occurred on 28 October 1914, during World War I. It was a naval action in the Strait of Malacca, in which the German cruiser sank two Allied warships.-Background:...
, in which the Germans sank a Russian cruiser and a French destroyer. Emden also harried merchant vessels of the Allies and destroyed over thirty of them. She went on and bombarded
Bombardment of Madras
The Bombardment of Madras was an engagement of World War I, at Madras in British India, now the modern day Chennai. The bombardment was initiated by the German light cruiser Emden at the start of the war in 1914....
Madras, India
India
India , officially the Republic of India , is a country in South Asia. It is the seventh-largest country by geographical area, the second-most populous country with over 1.2 billion people, and the most populous democracy in the world...
, causing damage to British oil tanks and sinking an Allied merchant ship. The attack caused widespread panic in the city and thousands of people fled from the coast, fearing that the Germans may have begun an invasion of India as a whole.
After a very successful career as a merchant raider, Emden was engaged by HMAS Sydney
HMAS Sydney (1912)
HMAS Sydney was a Chatham class light cruiser of the Royal Australian Navy . Laid down in 1911 and launched in 1912, the cruiser was commissioned into the RAN in 1913....
at the Battle of Cocos
Battle of Cocos
The Battle of Cocos took place on 9 November 1914 during the First World War off the Cocos Islands, in the north east Indian Ocean. The German light cruiser attacked the British cable station on Direction Island and was engaged several hours later by the Australian light cruiser...
, the German vessel was destroyed. A group of sailors under the command of Hellmuth von Mücke
Hellmuth von Mücke
Hellmuth von Mücke was an Officer in the German Kaiserliche Marine in the early 20th Century and World War I.-Early life:Von Mücke was born in on June 21, 1881 in Zwickau, Saxony. He was a son of an Army Captain who later joined the Imperial Civil Service...
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 Siege of Tsingtao
Austro-Hungarian Navy
The Austro-Hungarian Navy was the naval force of Austria-Hungary. Its official name in German was Kaiserliche und Königliche Kriegsmarine , abbreviated as k.u.k. Kriegsmarine....
. 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
Tianjin
' is a metropolis in northern China and one of the five national central cities of the People's Republic of China. It is governed as a direct-controlled municipality, one of four such designations, and is, thus, under direct administration of the central government...
numbering 1,600.
The bombardment of the fort started on October 31. An assault was made by the Imperial Japanese Army
Imperial Japanese Army
-Foundation:During the Meiji Restoration, the military forces loyal to the Emperor were samurai drawn primarily from the loyalist feudal domains of Satsuma and Chōshū...
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. One Allied protected cruiser was also sunk by a German torpedo boat and when defeat was certain, the Germans and Austro-Hungarians scuttle
Scuttling
Scuttling is the act of deliberately sinking a ship by allowing water to flow into the hull.This can be achieved in several ways—valves or hatches can be opened to the sea, or holes may be ripped into the hull with brute force or with explosives...
d their squadron.
The Cruise of SMS Seeadler
The SMS Seeadler, an auxiliary cruiser windjammerWindjammer
A windjammer is the ultimate type of large sailing ship with an iron or for the most part steel hull, built to carry cargo in the late nineteenth and early twentieth century...
and merchant raider, commanded by Felix von Luckner
Felix von Luckner
Felix Graf von Luckner was a German nobleman, navy officer, author and noted sailor who earned the epithet Der Seeteufel -- and his crew that of Die Piraten des Kaisers -- for his exploits in command of the sailing commerce raider SMS Seeadler in...
managed successful attacks on Allied shipping in both the Atlantic and Pacific Oceans. During her career she captured sixteen vessels and sunk most of them. In August of 1917 SMS Seeadler was wrecked at the island of Mopelia
Maupihaa
Maupihaa, also known as Mopelia, is an atoll in the Leeward group of the Society Islands. This atoll is located 72 km southeast of Manuae, its nearest neighbor.-Geography:...
in French Polynesia
French Polynesia
French Polynesia is an overseas country of the French Republic . It is made up of several groups of Polynesian islands, the most famous island being Tahiti in the Society Islands group, which is also the most populous island and the seat of the capital of the territory...
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 and set sail in lifeboat for Fiji
Fiji
Fiji , officially the Republic of Fiji , is an island nation in Melanesia in the South Pacific Ocean about northeast of New Zealand's North Island...
. There, on September 5, Luckner captured a French schooner
Schooner
A schooner is a type of sailing vessel characterized by the use of fore-and-aft sails on two or more masts with the forward mast being no taller than the rear masts....
named Lutece and named her Fortuna. After that they headed for Easter Island
Easter Island
Easter Island is a Polynesian island in the southeastern Pacific Ocean, at the southeasternmost point of the Polynesian triangle. A special territory of Chile that was annexed in 1888, Easter Island is famous for its 887 extant monumental statues, called moai, created by the early Rapanui people...
and again their ship was wrecked when it grounded on a reef. Subsequently the Germans were interned by the Chileans on October 5, 1917 which ended the journey. During the entire cruise only one man perished, due to an accident.
The Scuttling of SMS Cormoran
The United StatesUnited States
The United States of America is a federal constitutional republic comprising fifty states and a federal district...
was involved in at least one hostile encounter with Germans in the Pacific during World War I. On August 7, 1917, the SMS Cormoran was scuttled in Apra Harbor
Apra Harbor
Apra Harbor is a deep-water port on the western side of Guam in the Mariana Islands. The harbor is formed by Orote Peninsula in the south and Cabras Island in the north. To the south, the harbor narrows and then widens again to form an inner harbor. The southern end of the harbor is the location...
, Guam
Guam
Guam is an organized, unincorporated territory of the United States located in the western Pacific Ocean. It is one of five U.S. territories with an established civilian government. Guam is listed as one of 16 Non-Self-Governing Territories by the Special Committee on Decolonization of the United...
to prevent her capture by the auxiliary cruiser USS Supply
USS Supply (1873)
USS Supply, ex-Illinois, was a schooner-rigged iron steamer built in 1873 by William Cramp and Sons of Philadelphia, Pennsylvania. Illinois was purchased by the Navy Department from the International Navigation Company on 30 April 1898 for $325,000.00 and commissioned as Supply, Lt. Comdr. R. R...
. The Americans fired their first shots of the war at the Germans as they attempted to sink their ship. Ultimately the Germans succeeded in scuttling the Cormoran but with a loss of nine men dead.
Manchu Restoration
The German government was accused of being behind Zhang XunZhang Xun (Republic of China)
Zhang Xun was a Qing-loyalist general who attempted to restore the abdicated emperor Puyi in 1917. He supported Yuan Shikai during his time as president....
's monarchist coup in China to prevent Duan Qirui
Duan Qirui
Duan Qirui was a Chinese warlord and politician, commander in the Beiyang Army, and the Provisional Chief Executive of Republic of China from November 24, 1924 to April 20, 1926. He was arguably the most powerful man in China from 1916 to 1920.- Early life :Born in Hefei as Duan Qirui , his...
'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. The German and Austro-Hungarian concessions in Tianjin
Tianjin
' is a metropolis in northern China and one of the five national central cities of the People's Republic of China. It is governed as a direct-controlled municipality, one of four such designations, and is, thus, under direct administration of the central government...
and Hankou
Hankou
Hankou was one of the three cities whose merging formed modern-day Wuhan, the capital of the Hubei province, China. It stands north of the Han and Yangtze Rivers where the Han falls into the Yangtze...
were occupied and their nationals detained. 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
Warlord era
The Chinese Warlord Era was the period in the history of the Republic of China, from 1916 to 1928, when the country was divided among military cliques, a division that continued until the fall of the Nationalist government in the mainland China regions of Sichuan, Shanxi, Qinghai, Ningxia,...
.
See also
- Australian Naval and Military Expeditionary ForceAustralian Naval and Military Expeditionary ForceThe Australian Naval and Military Expeditionary Force was a small volunteer force of approximately 2,000 men, raised in Australia shortly after the outbreak of the First World War to seize and destroy German wireless stations in German New Guinea in the south-west Pacific...
- Hindu-German Conspiracy
- KadaververwertungsanstaltKadaververwertungsanstaltThe Kadaververwertungsanstalten , also sometimes called the "German Corpse-Rendering Works" or "Tallow Factory" was one of the most notorious British anti-German propaganda efforts of World War I....