Asian and Pacific theatre of World War I

Asian and Pacific theater of World War I

Date: Date
August 3, 1914 - January 5, 1919
Location
China, Bismark Archipelago, Caroline Islands, Line Islands, German New Guinea, German Samoa, Guam, Mariana Islands, Marshall Islands, Tahiti
Result
Allied victory

Date: August 3, 1914 - January 5, 1919
Location: China, Bismark Archipelago, Caroline Islands, Line Islands, German New Guinea, German Samoa, Guam, Mariana Islands, Marshall Islands, Tahiti
Result: Allied victory
Belligerents:
: Allies:
Empire of Japan
United Kingdom
Australia
New Zealand
Russian Empire
French Third Republic
United States

United Kingdom
Australia
New Zealand
Russian Empire
French Third Republic
United States

of World War I

Oceans, 1914-1917

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.

Allied offensives in the Pacific

One of the first land offensives in the Pacific theatre was the Occupation of German Samoa 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 and 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.

Retreat of the German East Asia Squadron

When war was declared on Germany in 1914, the German East Asia Squadron 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.

Picture - The German fleet off Chile in November 1914 after the Battle of Coronel.

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 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.

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.

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 Penang, in which the Germans sunk 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.

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 Mx¼cke 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

Picture - The German front line at 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. One Allied protected cruiser was also sunk by a German torpedo boat and when defeat was certain, the Germans and Austro-Hungarians scuttled their squadron.

The Cruise of SMS Seeadler

The 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 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.

The Scuttling of SMS Cormoran

Picture - SMS Cormoran

The United States 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.

Manchu Restoration

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. 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.

Gallery

Madras oil tanks on fire after being bombarded by SMS Emden.

Australian troops after digging up a German land mine along Bita Paka Road during the New Guinea Campaign.

The German auxiliary cruiser SMS Seeadler.

Australian Naval and Military Expeditionary Force
Hindu-German Conspiracy
Kadaververwertungsanstalt

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

More aircraft.

Source: WikiPedia