22 October 2014 / Research

The Neglected Pacific Theater of the First World War

The global dimension of the First World War even reached the Pacific. The German colonial presence resulted in conflicts with Australia, New Zealand, and Japan. At the same time, soldiers from the Pacific region were deployed at war theaters overseas.

When evoking the Pacific and its sea of 25.000 islands, most of us tend to think of the brutal war that swept through the region between 1937 until the dropping of two nuclear devices in August 1945. When it comes to the First World War, however, the Pacific receives decisively less coverage. In 1995, the German historian Hermann Hiery challenged the image of the “peaceful” Pacific during the Great War. His work on the Neglected War (Honolulu: University of Hawaii Press 1995) argued against misrepresentations of German colonial brutality in the Pacific and highlighted the importance of the German Pacific colonies as important buffers between the emerging regional powers of Australia and Japan. Less politically motivated, this article uncovers some main engagements of this frequently overlooked theater of World War One.

The German Colonial Presence in the Pacific

The contribution on colonial soldiers issued by this online series on the Great War reminds us of the German colonies in Africa and their importance during the conflict. In the Pacific, however, Germany maintained a comparatively larger presence. German New Guinea, for instance, was made up of the Northeastern corner of this second largest island of the world, the Bismarck Archipelago, and a large portion of the island world generally called Micronesia. This meant that after Great Britain, the German Reich marshaled the second largest colonial presence in the island world of the Pacific. Germany maintained further colonial territories in the western isles of Samoa and in the Shandong Peninsula in China. The latter possession, sometimes nicknamed as German Hong Kong, was a territory leased for ninety-nine years from the Chinese government, following the murder of two German missionaries in 1897. The German Naval Office administered this settlement from the model city of Qingdao located along Jiaozhou Bay (from which the colony would take its name of Kiautschou). This bay became the main base for the German East Asia squadron, a combination of heavy and light cruisers much feared by the allies following the outbreak of the war. Unlike the African colonies, German defenses in the Pacific were largely non-existent. Besides Qingdao, colonial troops were negligible. To provide only one example: less than twenty colonial officials administered the many islands of Micronesia. Native police forces existed only in German New Guinea and were generally poorly armed and trained. If the governors of the German African colonies had to scramble up defensive plans when the war broke out in August of 1914, the German territories in the Pacific were caught entirely unprepared.

Hostilities in the Pacific

Any sort of belief that Australia, New Zealand, and Japan would remain neutral in the conflict quickly dissipated. The Anglophone governments of the antipodes swiftly followed Great Britain into the war, and Japan, based on a naval agreement signed with the British government, pressed for a German surrender of Qingdao in an ultimatum. When the ultimatum went unanswered, Japan declared war on Germany on August 23, 1914. The presence of an Austro-Hungarian cruiser at Qingdao prompted a Japanese declaration of war on this nation two days later.

At the beginning of the hostilities, the major military force in the region, the East Asia squadron was dispersed over the Pacific and Indian oceans. Its commander, Rear Admiral Maximilian Graf von Spee opted not to return to Jiaozhou Bay, fearful of finding his squadron trapped by the impending Japanese attack on the German territory. Spee was also aware that his squadron would be no match for the Japanese and Russian navies. Similarly, his ships could not equal the speed and firepower of the Dreadnought class vessel Australia launched by the nation with the same name. He assembled the squadron in the Mariana and Caroline Islands and stayed in contact with his home base through a radio station located on the island of Yap. When a British cruiser took out this communication center on August 12, Spee, now lacking proper communication with his Pacific base, went on the move.

His departure from Micronesia raised hopes among the governors of German New Guinea and Samoa that Spee’s squadron would be able to support their feeble defenses against the arriving troops from Australia and New Zealand. The small German presence across the Torres Strait, separating Australia from New Guinea, inspired an almost preposterous fear of invasion, which is well illustrated by the following poster.

This worry also inspired a hurried response in New Zealand and Australia to occupy Samoa and New Guinea. Samoa fell without a fight to the New Zealand troops in late August (only German Togo capitulated faster). The postcard represented below illustrates the stereotype of the lazy, drunken German only interested in keeping his business interest that was held by many New Zealanders. Similarly, it highlights the Pacific as a continuous imagined haven for lustful maidens, who, from the time of Captain Cook onwards had welcomed weary travelers. Graf von Spee briefly considered rushing in to assist the occupied Samoan territory, but decided against this action. A quick raid on the harbor of Tahiti in late September sank a small French gunboat, after which the squadron beat a slow retreat to the Chilean coast. Attempting to lead a cruiser campaign against allied shipping on more than one location, Spee had separated the Cormoran and the Emden from his main squadron.

In September, Australian troops had landed on New Britain to occupy the German capital of Rabaul with its corresponding radio station. The German troops, comprised mostly of 250 indigenous policemen and about sixty officers, fought a brief battle over the wireless station at Bita Paka with casualties on both sides. With thirty dead among the German Melanesian police force, the indigenous people, as in so many other conflicts, bore the brunt of the fighting. Sweeping through the Bismarck Archipelago as well as the mainland of New Guinea, the Australian occupation of German New Guinea was accomplished, mostly unopposed, by November of 1914. The continuing resistance of the Germans in New Guinea stemmed from a voluntary and an involuntary source.

Loosely affiliated with the German Sepik Expedition (Deutsche Kaiserin-Augusta-Fluss-Expedition), Austrian anthropologist Richard Thurnwald was in the process of exploring the ethnic groups of this largest river on New Guinea. By December of 1914 he was heading a group of about 29 indigenous carriers and soldiers, which was mistaken by the Australian occupying force as detachment of the auxiliary cruiser Cormoran supposedly hiding in this region. Thurnwald’s base camp was consequently raided and much of his equipment destroyed. Only after the unsuspecting anthropologist arrived at the Police station of Angorum in mid-January of 1915 did this somewhat humorous operation come to a conclusion.

A more voluntary act of resistance derived from Hermann Detzner, who, with a handful of indigenous policemen, claimed never to yield to the invaders. Hiding out in New Guinea’s difficult landscape, Detzner finally surrendered in full uniform to Australian troops at Finschafen in November 1918. Hailed as the Lettow-Vorbeck of the South Seas (an allusion to the German officer who held German East Africa until the end of hostilities), Detzner published his own heroic account in Germany in 1920 (Herrmann Detzner: Vier Jahre unter Kannibalen. Von 1914 bis zum Waffenstillstand unter deutscher Flagge im unerforschten Innern von Neuguinea. Berlin 1920). In the work, he reported of journeys crisscrossing New Guinea while eluding Australian troops and chanting Die Wacht am Rhein (a German patriotic song) with his loyal indigenous policemen. The book was well received by a German public humiliated by the war and the ensuing peace treaty. Two German missionaries, however, raised concern and claimed that he had mainly copied other accounts while hiding at a mission station for the duration of the war. His work was soon revealed as fraud and his status changed from a celebrated Lettow-Vorbeck to a ridiculed Münchhausen of the South Seas.

The month of November in 1914 witnessed the capitulation of Qingdao. Left without their cruiser squadron, the German naval troops, numbering less than 5000, set up a hasty defense of the city and the Shandong peninsula. Japanese troops soon arrived in large numbers assisted by a small British contingent. Bombarding the German defenses from sea and land, the outcome of the battle soon became a foregone conclusion. When the defenders ran low on ammunition, the German garrison initiated the surrender of the territory. The Japanese occupation of the Micronesian islands was a great deal more peaceful as Japanese warships gradually swept into the territory and seized its main islands between September and October. A convoy sent from Australia arrived too late and the occupation force had to grudgingly accept the takeover of Nauru as a “consolation prize.”

The Fate of the East Asia Squadron

By November 1914, Detzner and Thurnwald notwithstanding, the fighting in the German Pacific colonies had ceased. Only Spee’s cruisers remained as a serious threat to allied shipping. The danger of Spee’s small but potent squadron became apparent when it ambushed a number of aging British warships at the Battle of Coronel off the Chilean coast on November 1. Sinking two cruisers with 1600 men, Spee’s ships were celebrated as heroes in Germany and by the German residents residing in the Chilean port of Valparaiso where the squadron supplied before making a run around the Horn into the Atlantic.

In early December, the German cruisers initiated a daring raid on Port Stanley in the Falkland Islands. As the ships steamed towards their target, lookouts noted the presence of two Dreadnought-class battleships in the harbor. Dispatched by the British Admiralty following the Battle of Coronel, they were supplying at Port Stanley. Spee, realizing that his worst fears were coming true, tried to beat a hasty escape. As the British ships were gaining on his squadron, Spee ordered his heavy cruisers, the Greisenau and the Schanhorst, to make a last stand in order to allow an escape of the smaller vessels. Both cruisers were quickly silenced and sunk with a huge loss of life. The 2100 German sailors who perished that day included Spee and his two sons, who had followed their father to Qingdao. Grim tales of German heroism were extolled even in the foreign press. For instance, the New York Times reported on December 21, 1914: “When the Gneisenau sank she was without ammunition, but had refused to surrender. Her officers and men stood on the deck singing patriotic songs as she took her plunge beneath the waves.” In Germany, prominent naval painter Hans Bohrdt canvassed one of his more famous creations to commemorate the event: The Last Man (Der letzte Mann). On this painting a lone German sailor holds out the German Imperial flag in an act of defiance towards the approaching British ships as what is left of his cruiser is quickly disappearing in the waves. While there was little evidence to corroborate this story, Bordth’s painting inspired many young Germans to move into the killing fields of Flanders, Verdun, and the Somme. Only one of Spee’s cruisers, the Dresden, managed to escape the Falkland battle and returned to the Pacific. Hiding along Chile’s rugged coastline, the cruiser soon wore out engine and coal supplies. Making a dash to the Juan Fernandez Islands in March 1915, the Dresden found itself cornered by British vessels. Her crew consequently scuttled the cruiser and was interned in Chile until the end of hostilities.  

The destruction of Spee’s squadron in December 1914 came a month after a large hunt for the cruiser Emden had ended successfully. Separated from the East Asia squadron, this ship had taken a successful cruiser war to the Indian Ocean, where its crew had captured and sunk nearly two-dozen vessels. In early November, a contingent of the Emden’s crew landed on Cocos Island to disable the local wireless station. Before the station was captured, however, a distress call brought the Australian cruiser Sydney to the island. The two vessels engaged and after a firefight of two hours, the Emden was badly damaged. In order to avoid the sinking of the cruiser, her captain ordered to beach the Emden on the island. While the sea battle was raging, the Emden’s landing party managed to slip away on a schooner. Arriving in the Dutch East Indies, the roughly 50 men realized that Qingdao had fallen to the Japanese. Rather than waiting out the war in neutral Dutch territory, the men of the Emden steamed to the Arabian Peninsula from where they slowly marched overland until reaching the railway to Constantinople, the capital of the Ottoman Empire and one of the few German allies.

The event was remembered differently in Germany and Australia. While the ragtag few of the Emden received a hero’s welcome in Berlin, Australians focused on their first won sea battle. The Sydney Morning Herald (November 14, 1914) proudly proclaimed: “Monday, November 9, 1914, is a date that will be remembered with pride by the people of Australia for all time. […] [It] has brought home to us the responsibility as well as the glories of nationhood.” Soon that date would be overshadowed by April 25, 1915, the day commemorating the landing on the Gallipoli Peninsula.

Also moving from hunter to hunted, the last remaining vessel of the East Asia squadron, the auxiliary cruiser Cormoran, was evading British and Japanese ships throughout Micronesia. With an exhausted crew and dwindling resources, her captain opted to reach the safety of neutral Guam, an American territory. After arriving at Agaña Harbor, the Cormoran’s crew enjoyed amicable relations with American authorities. This state of affairs changed, however, when the United States joined the conflict in April 1917. Preventing capture by American troops, the crew scuttled the vessel. Ironically an American warning shot fired across the Cormoran’s bow was the first bullet discharged in the impending American-German conflict. It would also be the last one fired during the First World War in the Pacific.

Pacific Troops in “Unpacific” Theaters

While the last military act in the Pacific occurred long before the conclusion of the Great War, soldiers originating from within the region fought until the conflict’s end. Japanese naval units, for instance, saw action escorting allied convoys in the Mediterranean Sea. Colonial troops from the Pacific, although in much smaller numbers than their African or Asian counterparts, partook in the fierce engagement. French Polynesia supplied one thousand men, both Polynesian and European, who fought alongside other Gallic units in Macedonia. A contingent of similar strength left New Caledonia and engaged in France. The casualty rate suffered by the largely Melanesian unit was large, as three out of ten men died fighting either Germans or disease. On the British side, Fijians sought to volunteer for conflict. British racist views, however, excluded indigenous Fijians from actual combat. Only Fijian soldiers of European origin saw bitter fighting in Flanders and at the Somme. Indigenous Fijians offered to raise and pay for their own military force, a request that was flatly rejected by the colonial authorities. Eventually, one hundred indigenous Fijians were allowed to work as laborers in Calais. One particularly enterprising individual, high ranking chief Ratu Sukuna, countered the British reluctance by joining the less discriminating and by then depleted French Foreign Legion. He earned his chance to distinguish himself and received the Croix de Guerre for his valor in combat. Sukuna’s experience in the trenches was one of the molding factors for his political engagement following the war. Although Sukuna died twelve years before Fijian independence in 1970, he is recognized as one of the founding fathers of this nation.

Perhaps the best-known war effort emerged out of the new nations of Australia and New Zealand. Since the above-described encounters with small German units in the Pacific hardly archived the ‘baptism of fire’ promised by such newspapers as the Sydney Morning Herald, the two small nations provided a combined Australian and New Zealand Army Corps (Anzac, for short). Employed as shock troopers on all theaters of the war, their casualty rate was higher than average. Of the roughly 100.000 New Zealanders who volunteered overseas, 59 per cent were killed or wounded. Australian casualties exceeded even this high number. Out of the 330.000 Australians who shipped overseas 68 per cent died or were injured. Aboriginal Australians saw no part of the fighting, but the Maori of New Zealand distinguished themselves in a Pioneer Battalion. Later in the war, the Maori would proudly bestow their name to this battalion, which would also enlist individuals from Niue and the Cook Islands (two territories under New Zealand control).

Although only a fraction of all antipodal troops saw action at Gallipoli, it remains the most recognized Anzac “meat grinder”. As the war came to a halt along the Western front, the Entente powers searched for new places of engagement. The Dardanelles and the Gallipoli Peninsula were an obvious choice as a landing from the Mediterranean Sea would allow a fast advance to Constantinople and knock the Ottoman Empire out of the war. Poor reconnaissance and underestimation of the Ottoman forces led to disaster and the combined Anzac, British, and French forces failed to make headway. For eight months the allies bled profusely on Gallipoli beaches before cooler heads prevailed and ordered an evacuation in January 1916. While the campaign missed its main objectives, the original landing at Anzac Cove on April 25, 1915, has become a major national day of remembrance in Australia and New Zealand. The Gallipoli Campaign also developed into a distinctive marker signaling emerging differences between the new antipodal nations and their imperial country of Great Britain. Anzac myths were fond of depicting British generals sitting in safety while deploying Pacific troops as cannon fodder along Gallipoli beaches (they shared this belief with many British soldiers who participated in the Battle of the Somme). These myths continue in movies, parades, and songs long after the death of the last Gallipoli veteran (Alec Campbell passed in 2002). The movie Gallipoli (1981), which banks on the Anzac experience, launched the careers of director Peter Weir and actor Mel Gibson. In the shadow of the Vietnam War, which had considerable Australian participation, Eric Bogle penned one of the most unsettling anti-war songs with And the Band Played Waltzing Matilda. His portrayal of an Australian youth who loses both legs in the campaign includes the chilling lyrics: “To hump tent and pegs, a man needs both legs. No more waltzing Matilda for me.”

Rainer F. Buschmann
California State University, Channel Islands

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