Am sympathetic to the Prime Minister because his hands really are tied in the july crisis because there is a tradition of political assassination in serbia. It is a very rich tradition. What they are doing on the 28th of june they are reenacting the battle against the audubons when they lost and were extinguished by a nation but stuck a dagger into the salten and they were reenacting this. So feared assassination and part of what was tying his hands. He spun the ultimatum in such a way that first he made it sound like he was going to comply when he was telling paris, st. Petersburg and london. He knew he could not except the ultimatum in entirety because he may have been assassinated. In his confession he doesnt talk about objectives very well. He talks about the thing itself. A better time in norfolk than serbia many years ago. We have eight minutes until the next presentation. Thank you very much. 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On American History tv the fall of the berlin wall with cspan footage of president george bush and bob dole with speeches. At noon fashion experts on first ladies fashion choices and how they represented the styles of the times in which they lived. At 10 00 tom brokaw on his more than 50 years of reporting on world events. Thats this christmas day. American history tv visited the mcarthur memorial which was hosting a symposium. Author Fredrick Dickenson talks about japans military involvement and rise as a global power during world war i. He describes japan as one of the few countries pulled in as an ally. This is about 50 minutes. Well, we will shift our focus a little bit to east asia. Professor Fredrick Dickenson teaches japanese history at the university of pennsylvania. He has degrees from Kyoto University in japan and Yale University where he has a phd in history. He has been a visiting professor at institutions in japan, belgium, in this country among his books are war and national reinvention, world war i and the triumph of a new japan. He will spike on the great war as world war. Welcome to professor dickenson. [ applause ] thanks very much. 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. We have sort of steadily made our way outside europe. I am going to try my best to get us even farther. I do want to thank the mcarthur memorial, also the Hampton Roads naval museum and old dominion to inviting me here. It is a personal honor and privilege for me and i think it is a personal honor and privilege for asia to be included on the program of world war i. Thank you for that. You guys thought of it because you have mcarthur. I should have made my pilgrimage a long time ago. For us i do realize he is important in the First World War. For us we think of him as the asian general and one who was very much involved in the United States going global and going asia pacific in the 20th century. I think it is very apropo. I do want to speak of the larger issue of war in asia and why we should be worried about asia today. I think we will ultimately get there. Just to begin here with my frame of some of you already know of what the japanese are up to during the war. This is one of the enterprises. We will get there in a second. Its not just the siberian intervention. So of course this is the usual map of the world war. Its often depicted this way. For obvious reasons this makes sense. It is not a european war. It is a world war. You can see that much better with this kind of map. I think this map is quite astonishing. You notice with this map that almost every country you can think of is involved in the war in some way. It is only a few sort of areas in latin america that remain sort of blank. Other than that it is super global. You can talk about any one of these. Of course, i am only focusing on the east asia part. I would keep that in mind. For us americans it is not too difficult to think of this as a global war. We are not there in europe. We know we played an important part. It is a global war. For my perspective as an asianist i am here to tell you it is not just the americans that make it global. There are other folks who make it global. Back to this map again well notice where the United States is. Notice where the sort of connections with the war are most tennious. It is latin america. Particularly if you look at africa, middle east we heard the very important story about the balkans and middle east. Asia, basically all colored up. And i think that is a nice sort of reflection of the fact that its that part of the world if you are talking about stop it. If you are talking about this as a world war yes its this but it starts here. This is the really most important part. And im going to sort of give you why we need to think about what is going on here basically parallel with what we know is going on here. Keep in mind it is happening long before anything is happening over here. To start with sean nicely gave us a picture of contingency in history. I love that. I would like to get away from the sort of structural notion of slip slide to war. I will, however, begin with this frame which shows you basically in essence one of the sort of structural arguments is this war is dependent upon the disintegration of the Ottoman Empire. We are back to this map again. You can see how it is working. The balkan crisis leads up to the great war. Certainly are among the most important sort of initial triggers. I would sort of remind you that you have a similar situation going on in asia. It is basically a balkan crisis of the east as i noted here. What i mean essentially is china is the Ottoman Empire of the east. In other words, china is in sort of a similar circumstance. China is a great sort of long lasting dynastic empire. The political, economic, cultural sort of node of asia is getting into sort of deep trouble in the way that the Ottoman Empire is doing at basically the same time. You have difficulties in the Ottoman Empire beginning in the 1930s. Odium war is fought in china between the british and the french to obtain sort of more commercial rights in china. This is 1839 to 1841. You have the japanese war who come online and do defeat the chinese in war. Basically at this point by 1895 things are gang busters. Who is paying attention to what is in the world in the 1890s. Sure the balkans perhaps this is early for the balkans but certainly not early for asia. There are those very smart historians in the United States like brooks adams making the important comment that its eastern asia which is the prize for which all of the energetic nations are grasping. You can see this sort of language here. Its very much not simply being used in the middle east. It is not simply used in the scramble for africa but also used quite importantly in increasing sort of great power tension to asia. This i guess it is hard to see with this map here, but essentially what is happening particularly after the sinojapanese war is carve out spheres of influx. You are not taking parts of the dynasty apart but are carving out special interests, special ability to create to operate minds, create railroads, basically by the eve of the First World War most of the great european powers own most of the chinese economy and are moving in in various parts of china. Again, this is not formal colonial rule. Based upon where they are geographically in asia you have russians moving in. You have britain. You have the germans after 1895 moving in which is just very near the british sorry. Stop it. I cant see the map from here. [ inaudible ]. You go south you see the french moving in, et cetera. This is 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 chinese. Talk about the First World War. And these are coming after the for me it is a wonderful sort of vision of how things are sort of really picking up and important in asia to the extent. This is from the british perspective particularly in response to its competition visavis russia. I think that is quite significant. We do have sort of Great Power Competition. We have alliances. At the same time that we have things going on quite dramatically in europe. This really is well sort of the general large explanation of why it is that we have this strange phenomenon that is really is japan is well, if you think about japan and when it is declaring war it is declaring war soon after it is asked by the british because they are allies. In fact, the night of this formal sort of invitation the japanese cabinet meets and says we have to do something about this. And they are deciding, then, to align with britain to do their best to basically deal with German Forces that are in asia. And me it is quite remarkable because if you look at what countries throughout the world who is sort of plugged into this for the most parterres in the middle east and in africa and in Southeast Asia they plug into the war because of their former ties to the empire, japan has no formal ties, it is not part of any empire itself. It is one of a very few powers completely outside of the european orbit. It does declare war very early on. We are talking 1914 here. And sends to the germans an ultimatum to give up the territory where germans had been ensconc ensconced. They get a negative response and that leads basically to war. Again, just think about the timing here. It is quite impressive. And this is the beginning of a very substantial sort of japanese action in the war from the get go. We are talking first by september of 1914 the japanese are chasing the german navy outside im sorry, this is a japanese map. You can see here is the islands north of the equator which japan takes care of and ultimately and immediately occupies and takes over in addition to moving in 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 is a great important sort of check to german power. This also was a significant check to german power. Essentially this is the end of german power in asia. So in that sense it is sort of a war that is won. Here we have the japanese accepting the german surrender in german micronesia. Here we have the japanese cavalry coming in where qingdao is located. Even though essentially the war against germany in the asia pacific is won by november 1914 the japanese do get involved because they are requested to in the war in the mediterranean in particular. It is the Japanese Navy that gets involved. And first they are involved in convoying British Imperial troops to the indian ocean. And there are several japanese sort of warships that are sent to the mediterranean after the most sort of serious threats begin to sort of rise up in the 1917. So between 1917 and 1918 there are japanese ships active in the mediterranean. Casualties in this war. Casualties that is japanese casualties that find themselves today in the island of malta. There is a grave especially in the British Cemetery dedicated to the 78 japanese sailors who lost their life in the battle against germans. So very substantial maybe substantial is saying a bit much but certainly a concrete sort of involvement in the war. You may not be quite as familiar with the story of japanese sort of aid in terms of material to the allies particularly russians. The japanese, their economy begins to boom and so they have a certain leeway and are able to sort of offer some aid, as well, to the allies. And of course you know the story of the siberian intervention whereby this basically ends up being the largest sort of Japanese Ground force engagement in the war, of course, happens very late in the war but it is another symbol of how japan is involved in the enterprise. And so what we are talking about is a substantial if you look at where japan is located a concrete tie in to the european war because of the Alliance Structure and the sort of Great Power Competition that has been sort of heating up in East Asia Pacific since the 19th century. It is also a reflection of a very substantial sort of Economic Growth that japan goes through sort of very similar to what United States sees which essentially catapults japan into basically an Industrial Power and this is happening at this time. And you can look at various measures of this in terms of, you know, number of exports expanding between this period, manufacturers goods as part of exports and becoming very, very important sort of proportion of the 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 they are very much involved in concrete military action with the allies. On the other hand they are making out like gang busters because they are helping to supply and sell various things including shipping, textiles, et cetera. Very important part of the global story of the First World War. This is not all. The degree to which im always struck by the more you look, the degree to which both the ally powers and central powers are interested in getting the japanese engaged from the get go is quite astonishing. Of course, no one after the fact wants to admit that we were graveling for japanese aid but it is quite interesting to note that the fact that the british would go out of their way to tie an alliance and then say will you please help us august 7, 1914. And then also say please will you actually send troops to the western front. This is happening from the get go from the british. It is happening from the get go from the germans and austrians. They are trying their best to sort of lure the japanese into a separate piece because they realize the potential power from japan to turn the tables. I guess that is interesting. Talk about counter factual. I didnt include in my remarks but think about what would have happened after i tell you the whole story think about what would have happened had the japanese gone in the war on the side of the austrians. 1915 french request troops to the balkans. When the u. S. Gets involved what do they think of . They think of the japanese because they have been doing good work in the mediterranean. Can you help us, as well . They do what the japanese have been doing for the british empire. This is from 1914 until the end. You can see the japanese are very conscious of this. This is not the only sort of political cartoon you can pull out from contemporary japan. There are a number of images that shows the japanese soldiers sitting comfortably with european maidens depicted as godde goddesses. And its very serious stuff. And i tell 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. That major geopolitical issue is the fact that japanese during the First World War are becoming for the first time a world power. By 1914 and 1919 just by virtue of the fact that they are seen as a fairly significant sort of tipping they can make a difference. Everyone wants them on their side. And their economy just continues to grow and makes that a reality. This is the point of why you invite the japanese. You may know the story that well, the japanese have a tendency to be a little bit on the silent side. They were fairly silent at the paris peace conference until it came to something important to them. The point is that they were there and they were invited to be there and were part of the big five sort of group that was at the paris conference ft 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 in 192122. And they are, of course, acknowledged as having the Third Largest navy in the world. They are very seriously involved in discussions with the british and the americans on how we deal with the sort of arms race that is sort of getting out of control after the First World War. Again, a lot of it has been said about the washington confe