By
Viewed
39,090
Please choose the correct answer for each question below:
Questions: 0/209
Correct: 0
Translate:
Introduction timestamp
The First World War
is best known for its European and
Middle Eastern theatres of conflict,
but while the Great Empires of Europe clashed
against one another in their home countries,
so too did their various colonies and concessions
in the Far East be drawn into the war. One nation
which had territorial interests in Asia during the
time was the Empire of Germany, whose ambitions in
the region brought it into conflict with the
continent’s fastest-growing military hegemon,
Imperial Japan. Indeed, Japan would arguably be
one of the greatest victors of World War One,
expanding her influence over China, gaining
numerous possessions, increasing her trade and
becoming recognized as a Great Power. Of all
her actions during the war, none were greater
than besieging one of Germany’s fortified holdings
in her leased territory of Jiaozhou Bay. Welcome
to our video on the 1914 siege of Tsingtao,
the decisive clash between Japan and Germany,
thirty years before geopolitics would draw them
into the infamous alliance we all know today.
The Anglo-Japanese alliance, first signed in 1902,
encouraged the Japanese Empire to enter the First
World War on the side of Britain, making it an
enemy of Germany. At the outbreak of the war,
Britain feared the Imperial German Navy’s East
Asiatic Squadron would raid her merchant shipping
in the east, and planned to run the Germans out
by destroying their bases and communications.
Within the first week of the war, Britain
requested assistance from Japan to identify
German shipping. However, Japan held
larger ambitions in the Asia-Pacific
and instead offered to enter the War and join
the Entente. Britain reluctantly accepted this,
but privately warned Japan not to seize German
islands in the South Pacific, for the British
wanted those territories to be taken by their
dominion territories of Australia and New Zealand.
Japan’s war aims were to capture the German
base at the Chinese port of Tsingtao as well
as the German colonies of the Marshall, Caroline,
and Marianas islands. Furthermore, Japan wanted
to hunt down Germany’s East Asiatic Squadron. On
August 15th, Japan issued an ultimatum to Germany,
demanding that her warships withdraw from
Chinese and Japanese waters and transfer
control of the harbour city of Tsingtao to
Japan. When the ultimatum expired on the 23rd,
Japan declared war on Germany. Hoping that
their garrison in Tsingtao would be able to
hold out against the Japanese until the war in
Europe was won, the German government instructed
Governor Alfred Meyer-Waldeck of Tsingtao
bay to defend his settlement to the last.
German defense of Tsingtao timestamp
When the First World War broke out,
most of the warships of the Imperial German Navy’s
East Asia Squadron, under the command of Vice
Admiral Maximilian von Spee, were dispersed across
the vast waters of the Pacific. Consequently,
Meyer-Waldeck assembled all the available warships
he could. These consisted of the torpedo boat S90,
the unprotected cruiser Cormoran, the
gunboats Luchs, Tiger, Jaguar, and Iltis,
and the Austro-Hungarian protected cruiser
Kaiserin Elisabeth. This meagre German defence
fleet was absolutely dwarfed by the Imperial
Japanese Navy, which dispatched the second
squadron under Vice Admiral Sadakichi Kato on
August 27th, supported by some British warships .
The German fortifications on land consisted
of the port, town and three defensive lines,
the first extending from the Kaiserstuhl
to the Litsuner Heights. The second line
lay across the steep hills from Prinz Heinrich
to Kuschan. The third line consisted of three
fortified hills, Mount Moltke, Mount Bismarck and
Mount Iltis, each equipped with guns of various
calibre . Furthermore, the town of Tsingtao
itself possessed seaward and landward defences
consisting of four batteries and five redoubts.
In terms of manpower, Meyer-Waldeck commanded over
1300 marines of the 3rd Seebataillon, 750 naval
gunners, 180 naval personnel staff, 400 sailors,
1500 reservists and 100 Chinese policemen,
totalling nearly 4,000 men. They had 90 artillery
guns of various calibres, 120 machine guns,
28 automobiles and two Etrich Taube aircraft.
Japanese invade Jiaozhou Bay Timestamp
On August 22nd, the SMS Lauting and the
S90 were attacked by the British warship HMS
Kennet while mining. They raced back to port,
with the S90 scoring two hits on the Kennet, which
peeled off when a 4-inch shore battery in Tsingtao
began to fire upon her. On the 27th, the Imperial
Japanese Navy’s 2nd squadron, led by Vice-Admiral
Sadakichi Kato, began a blockade of Jiaozhou.
The fleet quickly seized three coastal islands
and began minesweeping. On the 30th, a storm drove
the IJN destroyer Shirotaye aground on a coastal
island, allowing the German SMS Jaguar to come out
and destroy her. On September 2nd, the Japanese
began landing 23,000 soldiers of Major General
Mitsumo Kamio’s 18th infantry division, along
with 142 pieces of artillery . They fanned the
area, finding no enemy north of the Paisha River.
The region was experiencing a terrible flood,
making the Japanese advance across the territory
a muddy nightmare. The local Chinese protested
the breach of their neutrality in the conflict,
but offered no real opposition. By the 7th, an
advance guard was riding to Tsingtao. Meanwhile,
the British were suspicious that the Japanese
intended to seize all of Shandong province,
so they dispatched a symbolic force of 1500
men under Brigadier General Nathaniel Walter
Barnardiston from Tientsin. They would be
followed up by 500 men of the 36th Sikhs.
Meyer-Waldeck responded to the landings
by withdrawing his forces to the two inner
defensive lines. On the 5th, the Imperial Japanese
warship Wakamiya launched a Farman seaplane that
scouted the port and town. The pilot reported
that the East Asiatic squadron was absent,
prompting the IJN to dispatch two
fast squadrons to hunt them down.
The next day, the Wakamiya launched another
Farman, which unsuccessfully attacked the
Jaguar and Kaiserin Elisabeth in Jiaozhou Bay
with bomblets . In response, both cruisers
had guns removed from them to be added to the
land defences, establishing Battery Elisabeth.
On the 13th, Japanese cavalry ran into a German
outpost at Jimo, causing them to flee after a
short skirmish. The Japanese seized the
small town of Jiaozhou and, on the 14th,
cut the Shandong railway. However, the flooding
and mud were so terrible that Kamio knew it would
take weeks to move his entire division over the
peninsula, so he took a calculated risk. Kamio
ordered his 24th infantry brigade to re-embark as
his cavalry, engineers and 23rd infantry brigade
continued their advance to Jimo, thus abandoning
the bridgehead. Kamio ordered the rest of his
forces to land in Lau Shan Bay. On the 17th,
the Japanese attacked Wang-ko-huang , causing
the Germans to withdraw from the town during the
night. The next day, the Japanese arrived at Jimo
exhausted and nearly starving as IJN cruisers
bombarded the empty beaches of Lau Shan Bay,
allowing the 24th infantry brigade to land.
With Jimo secured, Kamio ordered his forces
to seize the Hotung pass, driving back another
small German outpost. After a cavalry company
of the 24th brigade made contact with the
forces at Jimo, Tsingtao was now surrounded.
On the 19th, the Japanese seized Mecklenburg
House, a mountain spa, and broke through the
outermost defensive line. Kamio now deduced the
Germans would only mount a defence within the
city’s fortifications, so he ordered his forces
to close in, causing German patrols to withdraw
inwards. The Japanese began constructing piers at
Lau Schan and an airfield at Jimo. On the 21st,
the Imperial Japanese Army launched four Farman
planes from Jimo to survey, bomb and shoot down
the German aircraft. In late September, Japanese
Farmans performed the first night-time bombing
raid in history. The Germans had accidentally
crashed one of their Taube aircraft, leaving
only one to be operated by Lt Gunther Plüschow.
Plüschow performed daily reconnaissance flights
and attempted to bomb Entente vessels, becoming
the first aviator in history to be fired upon
and receive damage from flak from naval ships.
In late September, Plüschow ran into a Farman
performing reconnaissance over Tsingtao harbour
and claimed he shot the pilot with his pistol,
causing the aircraft to crash. If true, this would
be the first claimed aerial victory ever recorded.
The siege of Tsingtao Timestamp
Meyer-Waldeck realized the Japanese were
maneuvering past the mountain line unmolested, so
he ordered a counterattack as his artillery began
firing up to 1500 shells upon the incoming enemy
per day. On the 25th, a German force of 130 men,
two field guns and four machine guns raided an
outpost on Kletter Pass. The Japanese stood their
ground and forced the Germans back. Meanwhile, the
British began landing at Lau Schan. On the 26th,
Kamio ordered a general advance, causing the
Germans to pull back to their second line
completely. To help their withdrawal, the Jaguar
and S90 came up the harbour side and bombarded the
Japanese right flank. As the Germans withdrew,
the outer mountain outposts fell one by one,
nearly bloodlessly. The Kaiserin Elisaeth, Jaguar
and S90 continued to shell the harbour flank,
prompting Kamio to assign a field battery
to engage them. The German ships managed
to destroy an observation post and
neutralize the battery. Kamio then
requested Vice Admiral Kato to bombard the
German land batteries to cover his advance,
but Kato refused to comply and instead bombarded
the German sea batteries. During this era,
interservice rivalry was emerging within the
Japanese military that would become infamous
during World War II. Back on the German side,
Meyer-Waldeck knew they would soon have to
abandon the second line. He ordered his engineers
to prepare a small outpost on the crest of Prinz
Heinrich Hill. They connected a telephone
and heliograph to its heavy land batteries.
Sixty men with four machine-guns manned the
outpost with provisions for a 2-month siege.
On the night of the 27th, Kamio ordered the 46th
infantry regiment, reinforced with an engineer
platoon, to climb the hill in the middle of a
typhoon. They reached the crest by dawn and were
quickly pinned down by German machine gun fire.
The Japanese charged the outpost numerous times,
receiving heavy casualties, until the German CO
decided to negotiate. He offered to surrender
the peak if the Japanese would allow his
men to withdraw to Tsingtao. The Japanese
refused and simply seized the CO. The Germans
surrendered after suffering six deaths, with 54
men captured. On the other side, the Japanese
suffered 24 deaths, with 150 total casualties.
Meanwhile, the Kaiserin Elisabeth, Leopard
and S90 shelled the Japanese right flank,
prompting the IJN and IJA field
artillery to counterfire. On the 28th,
the Japanese were closing in on the German
inner line, and engineers began constructing
concrete platforms upon Prinz Heinrich Hill
for heavy artillery deployment. Meyer-Waldeck
ordered land batteries and Plüschow to hit the
Japanese rear. That same day, the Cormoran,
Iltis and Luchs were scuttled. On October 2nd,
three German companies performed a night raid
against the Japanese right flank. It quickly fell
apart, resulting in 29 Germans killed and six
captured. After gaining this ground, the Japanese
began digging trenches a kilometre away from
the German line as the British advanced to the
front line. After some friendly fire incidents,
the British were given Japanese overcoats
to distinguish them from the Germans.
On 6th and 10th, Entente blockading ships
duelled with Tsingtao’s coastal batteries,
but were driven off. On the 14th, the entire
fleet performed a massive bombardment,
during which the British HMS Triumph
took light damage. On the 15th,
flash floods drowned 25 Japanese within their
trenchwork. On the 17th, Meyer-Waldeck ordered
the S90 to attempt an escape. The S90 slipped
out of the harbour during the night, but ran
into the IJN cruiser Takachiho. The S90 fired
a torpedo, detonating the Takachiho’s magazine,
sinking the cruiser and claiming the lives of 256
men. The S90 attempted to flee, but was interned
at a Chinese port further down the coast. On
the 21st, the 36th Sikh landed at Lachan Bay.
On the 22nd, Meyer-Waldeck ordered another raid,
deploying 80 German soldiers to creep towards the
Japanese trenches, only for them to be turned
back when sentries opened fire. By the 25th,
the IJA artillery was all in position, with 15
days' worth of ammunition each. Beginning on the
31st, Kamio ordered them to each fire 80 shells
per day. Meanwhile, Japanese engineers formed
platoons with rifle grenades and bamboo tubes
filled with explosives. The Entente fleet drew
close and on October 31st, the birthday of Emperor
Taisho, 100 field guns and naval guns began a mass
bombardment, directed by balloons, Farmans
and the observation post atop Prinz Heinrich
Hill. The first day destroyed Tsingtao’s land
batteries as sappers drew 300 meters forward.
The Redoubts were particularly hit hard by
artillery, and to the left of the German line,
100 Chinese in the village of Taotungchien were
unfortunately caught in shell fire. The next day,
Meyer-Waldeck had Kaiserin Elisabeth and Jaguar
scuttled as their crews joined the garrison.
After Tsingtao’s land batteries were neutralized,
the Japanese bombardment targeted redoubts
and barbed wire fields. On November 2nd, the
sappers advanced another 300 meters. On the 3rd,
redoubts were systematically pulverized, barbed
wire was flattened, and the Tsingtao power station
was obliterated. By the 4th, the Japanese
had a parallel assault line dug, and at dawn,
Japanese infantry and engineering platoons
assaulted the water pumping station. They
seized the station, capturing 21 prisoners.
Now Tsingtao had no well water. That night,
the Japanese sappers advanced another 300
meters, while their British counterparts
failed to keep up with them, suffering 26
casualties from small arms fire. On the 5th,
the Fleet closed in to point-blank range and the
IJN Suwo destroyed the Huitschuen huk, killing
eight men and that of the last sea battery. Barbed
wire lay crushed, and redoubts had been pulverized
or abandoned. Tsingtao lay defenceless by land
or sea. On the night of the 6th, the Japanese
dug their final assault line running between
100 and 1000 meters from the German trenches.
By the 6th, Meyer-Waldeck knew it was the end and
ordered Plüschow to fly his final dispatches back
to Berlin. Plüschow flew 250 kilometres before
crash-landing in a rice paddy. He burned his Taube
and would make an incredible 9-month journey via
Shanghai, San Francisco, New York, and Gibraltar,
where he was captured and sent to a POW camp
in London. He escaped the POW camp and then
travelled to the Netherlands and finally back to
Germany in August of 1915, earning quite a bit of
fame. Meanwhile, Kamio gave the British sappers
time to dig their approach next to his parallel
line as his units probed the German lines for weak
points. A Japanese company led by Major General
Yoshimi Yamada assaulted Redoubt 4, causing the
Germans to launch a bayonet charge, pushing them
back. Meyer-Waldeck ordered reinforcements to
head over to Redoubt 4, but before they arrived,
a second Japanese company surrounded the redoubt,
forcing their surrender. Two hundred prisoners
were seized as the flag of the rising sun was
hoisted over the Kaiser’s territory. The German
reinforcements arrived at the scene and performed
a counterattack, but were crushed quickly.
Meanwhile, the Japanese stormed Redoubt 3,
surrounding and firing into its loopholes
and cracks until the Germans surrendered. A local
German reserve force launched a counter-attack,
overwhelming a Japanese flank outpost before
the main force crashed down upon them. Japanese
platoons then spread out along the trench lines.
Redoubt 2 was attacked from both flanks and rear,
falling quickly. Three hours of battle saw
numerous courageous bayonet charges from
both sides, as all the Redoubts were stormed
and captured, excluding Redoubts one and five,
which held out desperately. Kamio then
ordered the general assault to begin as
the Japanese forces charged through a gap
in the German center line and fanned out.
At 5:10 AM on the 7th, the north battery of
Shaotan Hill was captured. Half an hour later, the
east battery of Tahtungehin and Fort Chungchiawa,
the base for the German right wing, was seized.
As the Japanese surged forward, a company stormed
up Iltis Hill. Searchlights poured down upon them,
and soon the Japanese charged into the Germans
and engaged them in hand-to-hand combat,
wielding bayonets and katanas. Two opposing
officers duelled with a Katana against a
German dress sword, resulting in the Japanese
officer cutting down his opponent. After this,
the Germans upon Iltis surrendered.
Another company stormed Bismarck Hill,
resulting in a quick surrender as men atop Iltis
cheered. Meyer-Waldeck knew it was over and,
seeking to save lives, ordered Major von Kayser
with a small force to march out of Redoubt One
and Five, waving white flags. On the morning
of the 7th, on an ironically beautiful day,
Japanese and British troops entered
Tsingtao with shouts of Banzai.
Conclusion timestamp
As the Japanese entered the city,
the Germans looked on with curiosity. Upon seeing
the British, the Germans turned their backs and
spat in contempt. The Japanese had suffered 733
deaths and 1282 wounded. The British had 12 deaths
and 53 wounded. On the German side, there had
been 199 deaths and 504 wounded. Beyond these,
98 Chinese civilians were killed, 30 more wounded,
and countless incidents of rape against Chinese
women by Japanese soldiers were reported. A
memorial service was held in Tsingtao as the
Germans buried their dead. 4700 Germans were
taken to POW camps in Japan and were famously
treated well there until 1919. 170 of the German
prisoners would remain in Japan after the war,
having found wives or new lives. To this day,
little remains of German influence in Qingdao.
Yet the old brewery in Qingdao still produces
the pre-war-style German beer titled “Tsingtao.”
Thanks again to Supremacy nineteen fourteen for
sponsoring this video - join in the PVP real
time action for free on desktop or mobile, with
new heroes to level up, and with a special bonus
package if you use our links in the description.
We hope you enjoyed this video. More stories on
the lesser-known theatres of the First World War
are on the way, so make sure you are subscribed
and have pressed the bell button to see it. Please
consider liking, subscribing, commenting, and
sharing - it helps immensely. Our patrons and
YouTube members can watch more than 200+ exclusive
videos - join their ranks via the link in the
description or by pressing the join button
under the video to watch these weekly videos,
learn about our schedule, get early access
to our videos, access our private discord,
and much more. This is the Kings and Generals
channel, and we will catch you on the next one.
Related Songs