The rise of the global power during world war i. Describing japan as one of the few countries pulled into the r lict as an because of a kcolonyial relationship. This is about 50 minutes. Okay. Well shift our focus here a little bit to east asia. Professor Frederick Dickinson teaches japanese history at the university of pennsylvania. He has m. A. Degrees from Kyoto University in japan where hes lived for quite a while. Also Yale University where he has a ph. D. In history. Hes been a visiting professor at institutions in japan, in belgium, also at waswart more, d japan, the great war, 1914 to 1939. Im sorry, 1919. And another one world war i in the triumph of a new japan 1919 to 1930. You can speak as you can see here. The great war on the great war as world war, japanese belligerence and the dawn of an asiapacific world. Welcome to professor dickinson. [ applause ] thanks very much. And thanks to all of you for sticking around for the final bash here. Im honored and delighted to be the last headliner, i guess, and to be able to use the opportunity to sort of go a little global. Weve sort of steadily made our way outside of europe. Im going to try my best to get us even farther, if you dont mind. I do want to thank the macarthur memorial. Also, the Hampton Roads naval museum and old dominion for inviting me here for this wonderful occasion. It is a personal honor and privilege for me, but i think its also a personal honor and asia to be included on the program. Of world war i. Thank you for that. And i think, you know, you guys thought of it, well, because you have macarthur. I hate to admit it, but this is the first time ive actually been to norfolk, although i made my pilgrimage to japan years ago. General macarthur is dear to our hearts. For us, i do realize hes important in the First World War. But for us, we think of him as the asian general, and one very much involved in the United States going global, and going asiapacific in the 20th century. I think its very apro po. So things. I do want to speak of the larger issue of war and asia, and why we should even be worried about asia. Today i think well ultimately get there. Just to begin here with my frame of some of you already know of what the japanese were up to during the war. This is one of the enterprises, the siberian intervention. Well get there in a second. But its not just the siberian intervention. So, okay. Of course, this is the usual map of the world war. Its often depicted this way. For obvious reasons, this makes sense. This is the main area of activity. But of course, it is not a european war. It is a world war. You can see that, of course, much better with this kind of map. I think this map is quite astonishing. Basically you notice every country that you can think of on this map is involved in the war in some way. Its only a few sort of areas in latin america that remain sort of blank. Other than that, its really super global. You can talk about any one of these. I will, of course, only be focusing on the east asia part. For us americans, its not difficult to think of this has a global war, because were not there in europe, and we know that we played an important part. And so, yeah, obviously its a global war. But from my perspective as an asianist, its not just the americans that make it global. There are other folks who make it global. Back to this map again. Notice where the United States is. Notice where the sort of connections with the war, or the most tenuous. Again, we observed before, its latin america. Almost everywhere also, also if you look at africa and the middle east, we heard the important story about the balkans and middle east, but asia, its basically all colored up. And i think thats a nice sort of reflection of the fact that its that part of the world if youre talking about im sorry, if youre talking about stop it. If youre talking about this as a world war, yes, its this. But it starts here. And i think this is the really most important part. And im going to sort of give you the pitch of why we need to sort of think about whats going on here. Basically parallel with what we know thats going on here. Keep in mind its happening long before anything is happening over here. Okay. To start with, they gave us a picture of sort of a contingency in history. I love that. I, too, would like to get away from the structural notion of, you know, slipslide to war. I will, however, begin with this frame, which shows you basically, you know, in essence one of the structural arguments is this war is very much dependent upon the disintegration of the empire. Were back to this map again. You can see how its working. The balkan crisis sort of leads up to this great war. And certainly are among the most important sort of initial triggers. I would just sort of remind you, though, if you didnt already know so, you have a similar situation going on in asia. Its basically a balkan crisis of the east, as i note here. And what i mean essentially is china is the autumn empire of the east. China is in sort of a similar circumstance. China is a great sort of longlasting empire, into the political, economic, cultural sort of node of asia which by the 19th century is getting into sort of deep trouble in the way thac the autumn empire is doing at the same time. You have difficulties in the autumn empire in the 1830s. The opium war as you know is fought in china between the british and the french to obtain more commercial rights in china. This is happening in 1839, 1841. You do have then this sinojapanese war. They come online and do defeat the chinese in war. And basically at this point, by 1895, things are gangbusters. You know, talk about, okay, whos paying attention to what in the world in the 1890s. Sure, the balkans maybe, i guess this is perhaps a little early for the balkans, but its certainly not early for asia. There are those very smart historians in the United States, like Brookes Adams in 1895 who were making the important comment, its eastern asia that is the prize for which all the energetic nations are grasping. Its not simply being used in the middle east, its not being used in the scramble for africa, its also being used quite importantly in increasing sort of great power attention to asia. And i guess its sort of hard to see with this map here. But essentially, whats happening, particularly after the sinojapanese war, is great power scramble to carve out spears of influence. Youre not taking parts of the ching dynasty apart, but you are sort of carving out special interests, special ability to create to put in naval ports, to operate mines, create railroads. Basically by 19 the eve of the First World War, the great powers, most of the great european powers own most of the chinese economy. And theyre all moving in in various parts of china. Again, this is not formal colonial rule. Basically, based upon where they are geographically already in asia, you have the russians moving into china, manchuria, the germans after 1895 moving into the province just very near the british oops, sorry. I cant see the map from here. Okay. Manchuria, around this area. You go south, you see the french moving in, et cetera. Again, this is, again, not formal colonial rule, but it is substantial. It is a substantial sort of prize that all are waiting to sort of take advantage of. Particularly after the chinese are defeated by the japanese in 1895. In this sort of, you know, not only then do you have this great power sort of competition that you see in the balkans, you have this other structural issue that one often talks about when we talk about the leadup to the First World War in europe, and that is the entangling environments. This is interesting. Remember that the british are, until this time,c supposedly t of abiding by sort of the theory, or reality of isolation, they are not theyre trying their best not to sort of tie formally with certain powers. It is after the anglo Japanese Alliance that the cordial that was mentioned earlier today is coming through. These are coming after the anglojapanese lines. Its a wonderful vision of how things are sort of picking up, and important in asia, to the extent that the greatest naval power on earth is deciding that it must tie its stars with the other rising power. This is from the british perspective, its particularly in response to its competition visavis russia. So i think thats quite significant. So we do have sort of Great Power Competition. We have entangling alliances, at the same time we have things going on quite dramatically in europe. And this really is well, sort of the general large explanation of why it is that we have this strange phenomena that it really is japan is well, if you think about japan and when its declaring war, its declaring war soon after its asked by the british. And its asked because they are allies. In fact, the night of this formal sort of invitation, the japanese cabinet meets and basically says, okay, weve got to do something about this. And they are deciding then to align with britain to do their best to basically deal with n asia. And for me, its quite remarkable. Because again, if you look at what countries throughout the world, if you go back to the old map, who is sort of plugged into this, for the most part areas in the middle east, areas in africa, areas in southeast asia, whatever, they plug into the war because of their ties, their former ties to the empire. Japan has no formal ties, its not part of any empire itself. It does have an alliance with britain. So it is one of the very few powers, completely outside of this sort of european orbit that does declare war very early on. Were talking 1914 here. And sending to the germans the ultimatum to give up the area where the germans had been ensconced since the sinojapanese war. And they get a negative response. And that leads basically to war. Again, just think about the timing here. Its quite impressive. This is the beginning of a very substantial sort of japanese action in the war from the getgo. Were talking, what, first by september of 1914, the japanese are chasing the german navy outside. Sorry, this is a japanese map. You can see sort of heres the marshall, mariana and carolina islands that japan takes care of. And ultimately well, immediately occupies and takes over, in addition to moving into chingdow right there and taking over that just two months later, by november of 1914. We heard earlier today about the pivotal nature of the battle and how it was a great important sort of check to german power. This also was a significant check to german power. This is the end to german power in asia. So in that sense, its sort of a war thats won. Here we have the japanese accepting the german surrender in german micronesia. And coming into the province where chingdow is located. Essentially, the war against germany in theoke5 asiapacifi won by november of 1914. The japanese get involved because theyre requested to in the war in well, in the mediterranean in particular. Its the Japanese Navy that gets involved. First they are involved in convoying British Imperial troops from australia, new zealand, to the indian ocean. And there are several japanese, sort of warships that are sent to the mediterranean after the most sort of serious uboat kind of threats begin to sort of rise up in the 1917. So between 1917 and 1918, there are japanese ships active in the mediterranean. You may or may not know that this war. And casualties, that is japanese casualties that find themselves today in the island of malta. Theres a grave, especially the British Cemetery there at malta, that is dedicated to the 78someodd japanese soldiers in the battle against the germans again 1917 and 1918. A substantial well, maybe not substantial but certainly a concrete sort of involvement in the war. You may not be quite as familiar with this story of japanese sort of aid in terms of materiel to some of the allies, particularly to the russians. 600,000 rifles. The japanese, their economy begins to boom. So they have a sort of leeway and are able to offer some aid as well to the allies. And of course, you know the story of the siberian dimension, whereby this basically ends up being the largest sort of Japanese Ground force engagement in the war. Of course, it happens very late in the war. It nonetheless is another symbol of how japan is very much involved in this enterprise from 1914 to 1918. Well, 1914 to 1922 essentially here. So what were talking about is a substantial at least if you look at where japan is located, a very concrete sort of tiein to this european war, tiein because of the alliance, the tiein because of the sort of Great Power Competition that has been sort of heating up in the east asiapacific since the 19th century. It is also a reflection of a very substantial sort of Economic Growth japan goes through, similar to what the United States sees. Which essentially catapults japan from an agrarian country power, this is happening from 1914 to 1918, 1919. You can see various measures of this in terms of the number of exports expanding between this period, manufactured goods as s becoming very important proportion of those exports by the early 1920s. And what else do we have here. Japanese population expanding quite rapidly as well. By 1925, the japanese are basically the fifth largest country in the world, in terms of population. So this is all happening because of the economic boost of the First World War. On the one hand theyre very much involved in the concrete, sort of military action with the allies. On the other hand, theyre sort of making out like gangbusters, because theyre also helping to supply and sell various things, including shipping, textiles, et cetera. So very, very important part of this sort of global story of the First World War. 6 not all. The degree to which im always struck by the more you look, the degree to which both the allied powers and the central powers are interested in getting the japanese engaged from the getgo is quite astonishing. Of course, no one after the fact wants to admit that we were groveling for japanese aid. But it is quite interesting to note simply, again, the fact that the british would go out of their way, first to tie in an alliance to the japanese, then to say, please, will you help us, august 7th, 1914 . And then also say please, please, will you actually send troops to the western front . And this is happening from the getgo, from the british. Its happening from the getgo from the germans and the austrians. Theyre trying their best to sort of lure the japanese into a separate peace. Because they realize the potential power of japan, to sort of turn the tables. Well, i guess thats an interesting talk about counterfactual. Think about what would have happened, after i tell you the whole story, think about what would have happened had the japanese gone into the war on the side of the germans and the austrian empire. Who knows. Lets think about that eventually. 1915, french requested 500,000 japanese troops to the balkans. When the u. S. Gets involved, what do they think of . They think of the japanese, because theyve been doing good work in the mediterranean. Can you come help us as well . Request for japanese battle cruisers, exactly what they were doing for the British Empire, from 1914 all the way through to the end. The japanese are very conscious of this. This is not the only sort of political cartoon you can sort of pull out from the contemporary japan. Theres any number of very interesting images that shows the japanese soldier sitting very comfortably, with european maidens, whether they be depicted as goddesses or innocent maids saying, please, please, will you please come to the party with us . Thank you. Its very serious stuff. I sell you this, because this is behind sort of the major, sort of geopolitical sort of issue that i want to bring home today, which japan sort of symbolizes during this war. And that major geopolitical issue is the fact that the japanese during the First World War are becoming for the first time a world power. With the rest of the japanese war, they are a regional power. By 1914 and 1919, just by virtue of the fact that, you know, they are seen as a fairly significant sort of tipping of they can make a difference. Everyone wants them on their side. And their economy just continues to grow, and makes that a reality. And so this is the whole point of why you invite the japanese to the paris conference. You may know the story that the japanese, its not simply well, okay. The japanese have a tendency to be a little on the silent side. And they were fairly silent at the paris peace conference until it came to something that was important for them, like the province in china. But the point is, they were there, and they were invited to be there, and a part of the big five sort of group that was at the paris peace conference. And this is the First International conference where japan sits down with the other big boys, as number five. It gets better. At the washington conference, they sit down with the big boys as number three. This is the naval conference, of course, in 192122. They are acknowledged as having the Third Largest navy in the world. And theyre very seriously involved in discussions with the british and the americans on how we deal with this sort of arms race, that is sort of getting out of control after the First World War. And again, a lot has been said about the washington conference, and ultimately as you know the japanese forsake this whole thing. But that comes later. Lets preserve the contingency that sean nicely set up for us and recognize what is happening in 1919, 1922. The factv,6;is, the japanese ar very much involved in creating this new sort of International Peace structure that is going into place, because of the devastation of the First World War. Reflected again in the words of the japanese Prime Minister in 1920, he says very proudly, at paris, as one of five great powers, the empire of japan contributed to the recovery of world peace. This is the language here. Hes not saying, we got what we wanted at paris, and we basically, you know, made out