Regions Japan

Regional Thematic Articles

• Civilian and Military Power (Japan)

  By Frederick R. Dickinson

  

  Like the Sino- and Russo-Japanese Wars, the First World War gave an enormous boost to Japanese military operations and authority. The Imperial Navy deployed for the first time to the South Pacific, … READ MORE

  Regional Thematic

• Governments, Parliaments and Parties (Japan)

  By Frederick R. Dickinson

  

  Despite over 7,000 miles of separation from the Western Front, Imperial Japan underwent a political transformation during the First World War almost as dramatic as that in the vanquished capitals of … READ MORE

  Regional Thematic

• Historiography 1918-Today (Japan)

  By Andrea Revelant

  Still largely overlooked in the international scholarship on the First World War, Japan’s involvement in the conflict has been studied by East Asia specialists chiefly from the standpoint of … READ MORE

  Regional Thematic

• Literature (Japan)

  By Hiroaki Nakayama

  

  For many years it was considered that the First World War had nothing to do with Japanese literature. However, this article shows the war’s influence in two respects. First, World War I was … READ MORE

  Regional Thematic

• Making Sense of the War (Japan)

  By Isao Chiba

  

  Despite Japan’s critical contribution to the Allied cause, until recent years, historians had paid scant attention to Japan’s participation in the First World War relative to the country’s … READ MORE

  Regional Thematic

• Prisoners of War (Japan)

  By Atsushi Otsuru

  

  After Germany and its allies were defeated in Tsingtao, their soldiers were captured and sent to Japan. More than 4,600 combatant prisoners of war (POWs) were interned in temporary camps in cities … READ MORE

  Regional Thematic

• Science and Technology (Japan)

  By Yoshiyuki Kikuchi

  Despite its image as a “European” war, the First World War exerted a tremendous influence on science and technology in Japan. The war’s impact on Japanese military technology was certainly … READ MORE

  Regional Thematic

• Social Conflict and Control, Protest and Repression (Japan)

  By Andrew Gordon

  

  Social protest surged in Japan during World War I. Labor strikes, union organizing, and an incipient student movement were the most notable forms through 1917. In the summer of 1918 a spike in rice … READ MORE

  Regional Thematic

• War Aims and War Aims Discussions (Japan)

  By Rustin Gates

  

  This article discusses Japan’s war aims during the First World War, as well as the different policy approaches Japanese leaders employed to achieve those aims. It explores Japan’s entrance into … READ MORE

  Regional Thematic

• Warfare 1914-1918 (Japan)

  By Jürgen Melzer

  

  Japan’s participation in the Great War opened up a new chapter in the country’s military history. For the first time, Japanese military forces operated on a global scale, facing new challenges of … READ MORE

  Regional Thematic

• War Finance (Japan)

  By Yuichiro Sakamoto

  

  The majority of Japan’s direct war expenditures during World War I were spent from a Special Account for Emergency War Expenditures. Most of the annual revenues for the Special Account for … READ MORE

  Regional Thematic

• Wartime and Post-war Economies (Japan)

  By Michael Schiltz

  Although the military and geopolitical relevance of World War I to Japan must be considered limited, its economic impact was considerable. In sharp contrast to the prewar deficit years, Japan saw its … READ MORE

  Regional Thematic

Encyclopedic Entries

• Barbed Wire

  By Alan Krell

  

  Invented in France in 1860, barbed wire was further developed in the United States, where it was used to restrict cattle and secure territory. Acquiring far more menacing qualities in the First World … READ MORE

  Entry

• Dada

  By Josepha Laroche

  

  Dada, a transnational movement of artists, was founded in Zurich in 1916. It disappeared in 1924, after a sham trial against Maurice Barrès in 1921. Far from pacifism, Dada declared war against war. … READ MORE

  Entry

• Empire

  By Erez Manela

  

  World War I was not simply a conflict among European states but a global war of empires. The fighting took place not only in Europe, but also in Africa, Asia, and across the Middle East, and it … READ MORE

  Entry

• Konoe, Fumimaro

  By Gerhard Krebs

  

  Prince Fumimaro Konoe was a pivotal figure in Japanese history during the first half of the 20^th century. He is primarily recognized for his tenure as prime minister and his significant … READ MORE

  Entry

• League of Nations and Japan

  By Thomas W. Burkman

  Japan joined the League of Nations from its outset in 1920 as one of four permanent members of the League Council. Throughout the 1920s, the League was a centerpiece of Japan’s policy to maintain … READ MORE

  Entry

• Navy Squadron in the Mediterranean (Japan)

  By Tomoyuki Ishizu

  

  Responding to the British request for further support to the Allied war efforts, the Imperial Japanese Navy dispatched a squadron to the Mediterranean Sea. From April 1917, a Japanese flotilla was … READ MORE

  Entry

• Provincial Capitals (Japan)

  By Louise Young

  

  Though of minimal significance for Japan militarily, the Great War helped stimulate the formation of a modern industrial economy in urban centers across the archipelago. The war boom of 1915-1918 … READ MORE

  Entry

• Qingdao, Siege of/German-Japanese War

  By Sven Saaler

  

  Japan declared war on Germany in August 1914 and, after a two-month siege, captured the German-leased territory of Jiāozhōu in China. Notwithstanding the limited scope of what Japan called the … READ MORE

  Entry

• Russo-Japanese War

  By Siobhan Peeling

  

  The Russo-Japanese War of 1904-1905, caused by Russian and Japanese expansionism in the Far East, inflicted humiliating defeats on Russia at land and sea. The war contributed to domestic unrest in … READ MORE

  Entry

• Siberian Intervention 1918-1922

  By Paul Dunscomb

  

  Woodrow Wilson proposed a joint intervention with Japan to “rescue” the Czech legion in 1918. Japan dispatched 72,000 troops to Siberia. Allied intervention ended after the collapse of the White … READ MORE

  Entry

See also

• Alliance System 1914

  By Günther Kronenbitter

  

  Alliances were an important feature of the international system on the eve of World War I. The formation of rival blocs of Great Powers has previously considered a major cause of the outbreak of war … READ MORE

  Thematic

• Bereavement and Mourning

  By Manfred Hettling and Tino Schölz

  

  In the modern era, new forms of mourning and meaning-making for fallen soldiers emerged. The human losses of the First World War were largely mourned, honoured and remembered within … READ MORE

  Thematic

• Centenary (Historiography)

  By Jost Dülffer

  Innovative historical scholarship played an important role in the shaping of memory during the centenary of the First World War. It guided international public memory, was part of it and as such … READ MORE

  Thematic

• Controversy: Total War

  By Daniel Marc Segesser

  Total war is a controversial term used in the past by politicians, publicists and military officers as well as by computer specialists and academics in the present. Since its conception by French … READ MORE

  Thematic

• Extra-European Theatres of War

  By Michelle Moyd

  

  The extra-European theatres of World War I have received far less scholarly attention than the war in Europe. This state of affairs is hardly surprising given the sheer magnitude of the Western Front … READ MORE

  Thematic

• Governments, Parliaments and Parties

  By Torsten Oppelland

  

  One sees a wide range of political regimes from a democratic republic with universal male suffrage (France) to parliamentary, constitutional, or even oligarchical monarchies in the countries that … READ MORE

  Thematic

• Health, Disease, Mortality; Demographic Effects

  By Doina Anca Cretu

  The rapid spread of epidemics ravaged military personnel and civilians in and outside Europe’s warzones during the Great War. Further, the great influenza pandemic of 1918-1919 became a global … READ MORE

  Thematic

• Imperialism

  By Boris Barth

  

  This article focuses on the extent to which imperialism contributed to the outbreak of the First World War. The first part describes the emergence of specific imperialist cultures and attitudes in … READ MORE

  Thematic

• International Labour Organization

  By Anita Ziegerhofer

  

  The Treaty of Versailles was signed on 28 June 1919, establishing both the League of Nations and another international organization: the International Labour Organization (ILO). The ILO was founded … READ MORE

  Thematic

• International Law and the Laws of War

  By Jean H. Quataert

  

  The article examines international efforts to curb states’ war-making prerogatives in the second half of the “long” 19^th century. It captures new humanitarian sentiments circulating … READ MORE

  Thematic

• League of Nations

  By Anita Ziegerhofer

  

  READ MORE

  Thematic

• Militarism

  By Christian K. Melby

  

  Militarism is a vague term that has meant different things to different people at different times. It can be analysed as a popular phenomenon, or as a feature more at home in the halls of power, or … READ MORE

  Thematic

• Negotiating and Mediating Conduct of War

  By Matthew Stibbe

  

  Many issues surrounding the conduct of war in the years 1914-1918 were impervious to international negotiation or mediation, due either to a complete lack of consensus or to an absence of trust and … READ MORE

  Thematic

• On the Road to Modern War

  By Dennis Showalter

  

  The Great War was never considered the “war to end all wars” by the states and armed forces in conflict. The war’s legacies were processed in a wide variety of ways depending on forms of … READ MORE

  Thematic

• Post-war Economies

  By Dietmar Rothermund

  

  Post-war economies were beset with problems, ultimately leading to the Great Depression that ruined the world economy and resulted in “beggar-thy-neighbour” national policies. Roosevelt’s … READ MORE

  Thematic

• Raw Materials

  By Pierre Chancerel

  

  Raw materials were vital during the First World War. Due to the armaments production, the belligerents’ needs increased significantly, while the available resources fell. Each country intended both … READ MORE

  Thematic

• Social Conflict

  By Claire Morelon

  

  This article deals with the nature of social conflict during the war. The length of the conflict and growing food shortages on the home front strained relations between individuals and between social … READ MORE

  Thematic

• The Paris Peace Conference and its Consequences

  By Alan Sharp

  

  This article offers an overview of peacemaking after the First World War from the armistices of 1918 until 1923. It considers the outcomes of the five Parisian treaties (Versailles, Saint-Germain and … READ MORE

  Thematic

• The Way to War

  By Samuel R. Williamson, Jr.

  

  Imperialism shaped almost every facet of international politics from 1898 to 1914. Imperial concerns brought Britain into entente relationships with France and Russia. This Triple Entente often … READ MORE

  Thematic

• Willingly to War. Public Response to the Outbreak of War

  By Jean-Jacques Becker

  

  It may surprise us to learn that some sectors of the European public were in favour of the war in 1914. The impact of modern weapons was not well understood and many people in the government, … READ MORE

  Thematic

• Xenophobia

  By Thomas Brodie

  

  This article provides an overview of xenophobia during the First World War - namely, the ways in which the conflict was justified and sustained by the growth of hatred for external enemies, and … READ MORE

  Thematic