The Anglo-Japanese alliance and the outbreak of war August–December 1914

Abstract

Before August 1914 Japan was recognised as a power growing in strength and vigour but hampered by her financial weakness. The British military attache in Tokyo prepared a report in January 1914, which concluded that Japan’s position as a world power was likely to decline rather than develop, owing to the scarcity of domestic loan capital and the difficulty of securing foreign loans; further the Russian recovery from the war of 1904–5, exemplified in the double-tracking of the Trans-Siberian railway and the recent Russian interest in Outer Mongolia, would confront Japan with a renewed threat to her advance on the Asian continent.1 It appeared that although Britain was experiencing friction with her ally in the Yangtze Valley in 1913–14, she could afford to stand firm as the Anglo-Japanese alliance was as vital to Japan as to Britain.2 The coming of war in Europe in August 1914 altered the situation in the Far East drastically, for the continuance of peace in Europe was a fundamental presupposition of such forecasts of Japan’s future development. War meant that the powers which had hitherto dominated the Far East were all involved in the European conflict, with the exceptions of Japan and the United States. Japan was technically involved in the European war but in reality her activities were limited almost entirely to the Far East and Pacific.