Japan’s Rise to Militarism

Japan is an island nation off the east coast of the Asian mainland. They viewed themselves as the Asiatic-equivalent to Great Britain.

World War I Japan helps Allies defeat Germany provide ships to patrol the Indian and Pacific Oceans capture the German naval base at Qingdao in Shandong Province

Japan got Shandong province in China at the Treaty of Versailles as a reward for their support of the Allies in World War I. Led to mass street demonstrations in China on 4th May 1919.

Japan was also awarded with the Marshall Islands in the southwest Pacific Ocean.

2 Japan’s record Wins Losses 0 3

Hirohito ( ) emperor of Japan allowed the military to dominate the Japanese government for the first 19 years of his reign

Japan and the Greater East Asia Co-Prosperity Sphere

Sino-Japanese War 1931 Japan invaded and “liberated” the rest of Manchuria, and sets up a puppet government under the last emperor, Pu Yi. Manchukuo

Japanese troops entering Mukden, Manchuria, in 1931.

Japan established an “independent” nation under the last Manchu emperor of Qing China, “Henry” Pu-yi.

Pu-yi was little more than a puppet in the hands of the Japanese.

3 4 Japan’s record Wins Losses 0

Japan invades and conquers much of north and central China. Sino-Japanese War

The Sino-Japanese War of 1937 erupted over an “incident” at the famed-Marco Polo Bridge near Beijing.

The Japanese attacked the city of Shanghai, the busiest port in China.

The Japanese moved quickly to occupy large parts of China. Shanghai

The Rape of Nanking December 1937

Two Japanese army officers had an execution “derby”, seeing which one could behead one- hundred people the fastest.

Some Chinese were used for live-bayonet practice.

Other people were forced to dig their own graves before being summarily executed.

The level of savagery and barbarity reached unprecedented levels.

Pregnant women were raped and their fœtuses were ripped from their wombs.

At the height of the Rape of Nanking, the U. S. S. Panay, an American gunboat operating on the Yangtze River, was “accidentally” sunk by the Japanese Sunday 12th December 1937.

As Japan began to eye additional conquests, they increasingly viewed the United States as an impediment to their plans for expansion. [Image source:

Emperor Hirohito reviewing troops in 1938.

4 5 Japan’s record Wins Losses 0