"It is our earnest wish that, by the loyalty and valor of our faithful subjects, peace may soon be restored and the glory of the empire enhanced."[Back to Contents]
CHAPTER VIII
MILITARY AND NAVAL SITUATION IN THE FAR EAST
We now pass to the first fighting ground in the Far East. Unlike the campaigns in the west, the war in eastern Asia developed along lines which any observer, possessing the least knowledge of history and international politics and military strategy, could foresee. From both military and commercial standpoints none of Germany's possessions in the Far East could compare in importance with the little tip of the Shantung Peninsula leased for a term of ninety-nine years from China in 1898. This concession, about fifteen miles long and ten miles across, was designated Kiao-chau. In the sixteen years since their tenure began, the Germans had laid out at Tsing-tau, situated at the extreme southern end of the peninsula, a city which was rapidly growing to foremost importance among the ports of the Chinese coast. A large part of the native population was induced to migrate, hills were leveled, roads constructed, trees planted, and waterworks and sewers laid out along the most up-to-date lines.
The Great War found Tsing-tau a modern city, almost European in appearance, with a magnificent harbor, where natural advantages had been enhanced by the construction of immense piers and breakwaters. One line of railway connected the port with Chi-nan, capital of Shantung Province, and Germany held concessions for the construction of two new lines. The census of 1913 showed a total population of 58,000, of which Germans, exclusive of the garrison, numbered 2,500. Non-German Europeans, Americans, and Japanese numbered but 630. The European quarter was distinctly Teutonic.
The attack on Tsing-tau was a foregone conclusion. As a naval base and a seat of menace to the commerce of hostile nations, Tsing-tau occupied an unexcelled situation, almost equidistant from Nagasaki and Shanghai, in virtually the same latitude as Tokyo, San Francisco, and Gibraltar. Its defenses were second in strength only to those of Port Arthur and Hongkong.
Kiao-chau was under the administration of the German admiralty. The German fleet seized it in 1897 ostensibly to secure reparation for the murder of two German missionaries in Shantung. The ninety-nine-year lease subsequently arranged gave Germany the right to fortify the new concession, and the thoroughness with which this privilege was exercised was proved by the stout resistance the garrison was able to make against far superior forces of besiegers. The whole concession occupied 117 square miles.
Although Kiao-chau was the kaiser's only continental colony in Asia the outbreak of the war found Germany in possession of several islands and groups of islands in the Pacific. These included German New Guinea, the Bismarck Archipelago, the Caroline, Pelew Marrana, Solomon and Marshall Islands and a portion of the Samoan group. But the strongly fortified port on the Shantung Peninsula was the naval base for the protection of all these ocean possessions; and the Japanese statesmen rightly concluded that with Tsing-tau in their grasp the reduction of the other German colonies would be only a formal task of seizure. Therefore the 27th of August, 1914, four days after the declaration of war, saw a Japanese fleet blockading Tsing-tau and Japanese transports carrying troops for landing expeditions in cooperation with the warships.
Germany began the concentration of all available forces inside the Tsing-tau fortifications on August 8, 1914. But she was able to gather there when the siege began only 5,000 men, a handful compared with the great force Japan could muster for the reduction of the fortress. The garrison of peace times was augmented by reservists, who came from treaty ports along the Chinese coast, from Japan, Siberia, and from every part of the Far East near enough to enable German veterans to reach the city before communication was cut off.
The crew of the Austrian cruiser Kaiserin Elizabeth, more than 300 men, who had left Tsing-tau by railroad before Austria decided to join her ally in the Far East as well as in Europe, hurried back in small groups and in civilian clothes to escape detection. Squads of the Landsturm, the last reserve, middle-aged men who had left their families and their business in all parts of China joined the ranks and went to drilling in preparation for the hard fighting expected as soon as the invading fleet passed the outer defenses of the harbor. Altogether the defenders mustered three artillery and infantry regiments and four troops of cavalry. They had three aeroplanes and a few machine guns and in the harbor were four small gunboats in addition to the Kaiserin Elizabeth.