The siege of Tsingtao (German: Belagerung von Tsingtau; Japanese: 青島の戦い; simplified Chinese: 青岛战役; traditional Chinese: 青島戰役) was the attack on the German port of Qingdao (Tsingtao) from Jiaozhou Bay during World War I by Japan and the United Kingdom. The siege was waged against Imperial Germany between 27 August and 7 November 1914. The siege was the first encounter between Japanese and German forces, the first Anglo-Japanese operation of the war, and the only major land battle in the Asian and Pacific theatre during World War I.
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👉 Siege of Qingdao in the context of Iltis-class gunboat
The Iltis class was a group of six gunboats built for the German Kaiserliche Marine (Imperial Navy) in the late 1890s and early 1900s. The class comprised Iltis, the lead ship, Jaguar, Tiger, Luchs, Panther, and Eber. The ships were built to modernize the German gunboat force that was used to patrol the German colonial empire. They were ordered in three groups of two ships, each pair incorporating design improvements. The first pair, Iltis and Jaguar, were armed with a main battery of four 8.8 cm (3.5 in) guns and had a pronounced ram bow. The next pair, Tiger and Luchs, received two 10.5 cm (4.1 in) guns instead of the 8.8 cm weapons, and adopted a straight stem. Panther and Eber were similar, but had modifications to their hull form to improve handling.
The first four members of the class were deployed to China as part of the East Asia Squadron after entering service, which was based in Qingdao. They were part of the Eight Nation Alliance that responded to the Boxer Uprising in China in 1900–1901, and Iltis saw significant action at the Battle of the Taku Forts where she led the Allied attack on the forts. The other members of the class were used to guard Europeans in various ports or patrol the region and did not take part in any fighting. Their subsequent careers were largely uneventful, apart from Jaguar's suppression of uprisings in German colonial holdings in the central Pacific in 1908–1909. At the start of World War I, Iltis, Tiger, and Luchs were disarmed to convert merchant ships into auxiliary cruisers, while Jaguar remained in service and fought in the Siege of Qingdao. All four ships were scuttled over the course of the siege, between September and November.
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Siege of Qingdao in the context of Asian and Pacific theatre of World War I
During World War I, conflict on the Asian continent and the islands of the Pacific included naval battles, the Allied conquest of German colonial possessions in the Pacific Ocean and China, the anti-Russian Central Asian revolt of 1916 in Russian Turkestan and the Ottoman-supported Kelantan rebellion in British Malaya. The most significant military action was the careful and well-executed Siege of Qingdao in China, but smaller actions were also fought at Bita Paka and Toma in German New Guinea.
All other German and Austro-Hungarian possessions in Asia and the Pacific fell without bloodshed. Naval warfare was common; all of the colonial powers had naval squadrons stationed in the Indian or Pacific oceans. These fleets operated by supporting the invasions of German-held territories and by destroying the East Asia Squadron of the Imperial German Navy.