page_title: Empire of Japan
section_title: World War I
hierarchical_section_title: Empire of Japan / Taishō era (1912–1926) / World War I
caption_attribution_description: English: Jokyoin(native teacher) and Junkei(native constable)日本語: 南洋群島島民による助教員（左）と巡警（中央・右）
context_page_description: The Empire of Japan is a historical nation-state along with its colonies, protectorates, mandates, and other territories that existed from the Meiji Restoration in 1868 to the enactment of the 1947 constitution of modern Japan.
  Japan's rapid industrialization and militarization under the slogan Fukoku Kyōhei and Shokusan Kōgyō led to its emergence as a great power and the establishment of a colonial empire following the First Sino-Japanese War, the Boxer Rebellion, the Russo-Japanese War, and World War I. Economic and political turmoil in the 1920s led to the rise of militarism, nationalism and totalitarianism, eventually culminating in Japan's membership in the Axis alliance and the conquest of a large part of the Asia-Pacific in World War II.
  Japan's armed forces initially achieved large-scale military successes during the Second Sino-Japanese War and the Pacific War. However, after many Allied victories and following the Soviet Union's declaration of war against Japan on August 9, 1945, and subsequent invasion of Manchuria and other territories, and the atomic bombings of Hiroshima and Nagasaki, the Empire surrendered to the Allies on August 15, 1945.
context_section_description: Japan entered World War I on the side of the Allies in 1914, seizing the opportunity of Germany's distraction with the European War to expand its sphere of influence in China and the Pacific. Japan declared war on Germany on August 23, 1914. Japanese and allied British Empire forces soon moved to occupy Tsingtao fortress, the German East Asia Squadron base, German-leased territories in China's Shandong Province as well as the Marianas, Caroline, and Marshall Islands in the Pacific, which were part of German New Guinea. The swift invasion in the German territory of the Kiautschou Bay concession and the Siege of Tsingtao proved successful. The German colonial troops surrendered on November 7, 1914, and Japan gained the German holdings.
  With its Western allies, notably the United Kingdom, heavily involved in the war in Europe, Japan dispatched a Naval fleet to the Mediterranean Sea to aid Allied shipping. Japan sought further to consolidate its position in China by presenting the Twenty-One Demands to China in January 1915. In the face of slow negotiations with the Chinese government, widespread anti-Japanese sentiment in China, and international condemnation, Japan withdrew the final group of demands, and treaties were signed in May 1915. The Anglo-Japanese Alliance was renewed and expanded in scope twice, in 1905 and 1911, before its demise in 1921. It was officially terminated in 1923.
caption: Native Micronesian constables of Truk Island, circa 1930. Truk became a possession of the Empire of Japan under a mandate from the League of Nations following Germany's defeat in World War I.
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