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Japan participated in World War I from 1914 to 1918 as a member of the Allies/Entente and played an important role against the Imperial German Navy.Politically, the Japanese Empire seized the opportunity to expand its sphere of influence in China, and to gain recognition as a great power in postwar geopolitics.
Due to the geographical positioning of the Triple Entente, the Central Powers were faced on all sides by their enemies. Once Italy had joined in on the side of the Allies, the war became a three front war. The big Western front was in France, and Italian Front in the mountains of Italy, and the Eastern Front was on the border of Russia. [3]
The Allies or the Entente was an international military coalition of countries led by France, the United Kingdom, Russia, the United States, Italy, and Japan against the Central Powers of Germany, Austria-Hungary, the Ottoman Empire, and Bulgaria in World War I (1914–1918).
Before World War II, the events of 1914–1918 were generally known as the Great War or simply the World War. [1] In August 1914, the magazine The Independent wrote "This is the Great War. It names itself". [2] In October 1914, the Canadian magazine Maclean's similarly wrote, "Some wars name themselves. This is the Great War."
The onset of the First World War in Europe eventually showed how far German–Japanese relations had truly deteriorated. On 7 August 1914, only three days after Britain declared war on the German Empire, the Japanese government received an official request from the British government for assistance in destroying the German raiders of the Kaiserliche Marine in and around Chinese waters.
Supporting them 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.
Germany, Austria, Russia, and Italy – and of course the Ottoman Empire itself—were all angered by London's unilateral intervention. [149] Historian A.J.P. Taylor says that this "was a great event; indeed, the only real event in international relations between the Battle of Sedan and the defeat of Russia in the Russo-Japanese war."
[85] Since war was natural for some leaders, it was simply a question of timing and so it would be better to have a war when the circumstances were most propitious. "I consider a war inevitable," declared Moltke in 1912. "The sooner the better." [88] In German ruling circles, war was viewed as the only way to rejuvenate Germany. Russia was ...