Japanese invasion of Taiwan
Course of the conflict
| date | May 29, 1895 - October 21, 1895 |
|---|---|
| place | Taiwan |
| output | Japanese victory and end of the Formosa Republic |
| Territorial changes | Taiwan becomes a Japanese colony |
| Parties to the conflict | |
|---|---|
| Commander | |
|
Kabayama Sukenori
|
|
The Japanese invasion of Taiwan took place between May 29 and October 21, 1895. It was a conflict between the Japanese Empire and the Formosa Republic . After the first Sino-Japanese war that China lost, it ceded various territories to Japan in the Treaty of Shimonoseki , including Taiwan, which was then still called Formosa. However, part of the population of Formosa did not agree to be ruled by Japan. On May 25, 1895, members of the previous provincial administration of Taiwan and members of the Taiwanese upper class proclaimed the Republic of Formosa. Tang Jingsong , from mainland China and the previous governor of the province, was appointed president . The republic was at no time democratically legitimized and did not pursue the goal of long-term independence, but rather served the purpose of buying time to induce foreign powers to intervene against Japan. In the medium term, the goal was to reintegrate into the Chinese Empire as quickly as possible. Shortly afterwards Japan sent troops to Taiwan to assert its claim to the island's territory. After several battles between the Japanese and Formosan forces, the Formosa Republic dissolved and Japan took control of Taiwan.
The course of the invasion
Preparations in Formosa
In March 1895, during the Sino-Japanese War, Japan captured the Penghu Islands , which are about 50 kilometers off the west coast of Taiwan. This action by the Japanese put the authorities in Formosa on high alert. Money and equipment were quickly brought to the island from mainland China, as it was expected that Japan would attack Formosa next. Many residents of the island were called up for military service. Recruiting offices were also opened where any resident could volunteer for the army. The majority of the republic's regular troops, however, consisted not of Taiwanese, but of soldiers from mainland China, mostly from Guangdong , as it had been the policy of the previous Qing government not to recruit the army in Taiwan from Taiwanese people in order to counter revolts Prevent Qing rule. These troops had no local ties to Taiwan, which should be reflected in an extremely low morale in the upcoming battles with the Japanese. Members of this ragged force, in which few had military training, soon began to make the cities unsafe. The "soldiers" personally forbade people to leave the island and instigated shootings in the streets of Taipei . The situation became so tense that Great Britain , the German Empire and the United States dispatched warships and troops to protect their consulates and trade interests on Formosa. In response to the formal handover of Taiwan by China to Japan in mid-April 1895, members of the previous provincial government and members of the Taiwanese upper class proclaimed the Republic of Formosa in Taipei on May 25, 1895. Japan did not recognize this and began invading Taiwan a few days later.
Beginning of the fighting
On May 29, 1895, the first Japanese troops landed in northern Taiwan, near the city of Keelung . There they fought their first skirmishes with local troops, which they quickly put to flight. In the days that followed, the Japanese brought around 12,000 soldiers from the Guards Division , as well as horses, ammunition and other equipment to the island. This army started moving towards Keelung. On the way she got into several skirmishes with Formosan troops and captured the villages that were on her route. Meanwhile, the Formosan military moved troops from Taipei to Keelung to stop the advancing Japanese. Although the troop strengths of the two opponents were about the same, the following battle for Keelung was a very unequal one, among other things because the defenders continued to struggle with the aforementioned indiscipline among their own troops. Officers were killed and the soldiers looted parts of the city. With the support of several battleships that bombed the port, the Japanese stormed Keelung on June 3rd. The ease with which the city was captured was demonstrated by the number of victims on both sides: 3 Japanese soldiers killed, 25 injured; 250 Formosan soldiers killed. The rest of the Formosan army fled to the nearby town of Twatutia inland.
Decline of the republic
In Taipei, the capital of the Republic of Formosa, President Formosa, Tang Jingsong , realized that his troops had little to oppose the Japanese. On June 5, he distributed large sums of money from the state treasury among his guards and, after only 12 days in office, left Taiwan and fled to mainland China on board a German steamship. When this news reached the local forces, anarchy broke out in Taipei. Originating from Guangdong soldiers burned the Yamen of the President down, plundered the rest of the state treasury and attacked the residents of the city on. The picture was similar in Twatutia. There, the soldiers looted the arsenal and sold the stolen goods in the city. The Japanese had no knowledge of these events and were counting on a large garrison of Formosan troops in Taipei, which is why they only advanced slowly on the city. They were made aware of the real situation in the capital by employees working for the German and British trading companies. These were sent by the trading companies arbitrarily because they hoped that the Japanese army would remove the anarchy in Taipei. When they learned that Taipei had no substantial defense, the Japanese sent an advance guard of 500 men into the city on June 7th. In just one day, this force drove the raiders out of the city and occupied it. The citizens of Taipei, relieved by the expulsion of the marauding soldiers, received the Japanese as liberators in places. The next day, Tamsui fell to the Japanese on the west coast. On June 17th, the Japanese celebrated the official beginning of their rule over Taiwan under Kabayama Sukenori . But formosan militias and troops led by Liu Yongfu continued to offer resistance in the interior and south of the country .
Advancing to the South
Japanese army units then set out to occupy the rest of the island. During this phase of the invasion, they mainly encountered resistance from paramilitary groups, which, unlike the regular troops of the Republic of Formosa, consisted mainly of Taiwanese. The Japanese moved south from Taipei towards Hsinchu . On the way there were battles with Formosan units, which she was able to quickly decide for herself. Upon arriving in Hsinchu, the Japanese immediately set out to conquer the city. Although this was surrounded by walls and defended by a garrison that was far superior in numbers, the attackers were able to take the city within a short time and with practically no use of force. As the Japanese climbed the walls with the help of ladders, panic broke out among the Formosan defenders, and they ditched their weapons and uniforms and pretended to be civilians. In order to secure supplies to Hsinchu, the Japanese occupiers of the city sent some of their troops back to Taipei. The Formosans took advantage of this situation and attacked the city on June 24, but were unable to retake it. Two further attacks in the following days were also unsuccessful. In the weeks that followed, the Formosans tried to defeat the Japanese using guerrilla tactics . They could ambush small Japanese troops, such as supply convoys, by dressing as civilians in order to remain undetected for as long as possible. When the battle was over, they each withdrew quickly. On July 11, another Formosan attack on Hsinchu failed. To put a stop to these attacks, the Japanese sent a large detachment of their army from Taipei to the village of Long-Tampo (Ch. 隆恩 埔Longenpu , in today's Sanxia ) on July 12 , where they met with other Japanese units. Long-Tampo and several surrounding villages were captured by the Japanese in the following days. However, these defeats could not induce the Formosans to give up. They continued to raid small Japanese associations. So the Japanese continued with their tactics and conquered other villages in the region around Hsinchu. In the hope of being able to take out a large number of Formosan fighters at once, they advanced from three sides towards the village of Sankakeng between Taipei and Hsinchu. They also conquered this village on July 23, but suffered some losses. By the end of July, the Japanese took other villages south of Taipei to put an end to raids on their troops. After the area around the capital was secured, the Japanese could devote themselves to the further advance towards the south. On August 6, around 2,000 Japanese soldiers left Xinpu , northwest of Hsinchu. The troops were divided into three parts in order to be able to conquer the area between the coast in the west and the Taiwanese central mountains in the east as comprehensively as possible. The individual groups advanced south and took every village on their way. In the hills of Senpitsu-San (Chinese 尖 尖 山Jianbishan ) they met again to storm the Formosan fortifications there. Although the Formosans had a clear advantage in the terrain and their fortifications, they left their posts on August 9 as the Japanese approached the walls. The Formosans were pushed further south until they could entrench themselves in Miaoli , where they received reinforcements from the south. Between August 10 and 13, the Japanese set up their camp in front of Miaoli, received supplies from the north, and captured several Formosan positions around the city. These actions must have intimidated the Miaoli garrison because by the time the Japanese entered the city on August 14, the defenders had fled further south.
Conquest of Changhua
The next major Japanese military destination on the route south was Changhua , where the Formosans should have assembled their troops. The Japanese awaited the decisive battle. On August 24th they occupied the village of Koloton ( Ch . 葫蘆 墩Huludun, today Fengyuan ) and the next day they pushed further towards the Toa-to-kei River (Ch. 大肚溪Daduxi ), north of Changhua, where rebels ambushed them in the village of Tokyo (東 堡Dongbao ). The Japanese managed to evacuate the village on the morning of August 26th, and that evening advanced to the Toa-to-kei and prepared to attack the Formosan positions around Changhua. The same night they crossed the river and at dawn they carried out a surprise attack on Changhua and occupied the city. This battle is known as the Battle of Baguashan. It was the largest open battle ever fought on Taiwanese soil and the decisive battle of the invasion. The Japanese victory brought an end to organized resistance in central Taiwan. The ensuing further fighting merely postponed the final defeat of the Formosans.
In September the Japanese consolidated their positions around Changhua and expected reinforcements from Japan to arrive in early October. The Japanese armed forces were severely decimated by a malaria epidemic. The only significant military action in central Taiwan in the weeks following the Japanese capture of Changhua was a few skirmishes that occurred in Yunlin in early September . On September 3, rebels attacked a small Japanese garrison in Toapona village, south of Changhua. Japanese reinforcements arrived and the rebels were defeated and retreated to Yunlin. A Japanese infantry company that was in the area attacked the retreating rebels and pursued them on the evening of September 3 to the city of Talibu (Chinese: 他 里 霧Taliwu , today Dounan , Yunlin County), which they also scouted. Two days later, on the night of September 5, the Japanese returned and carried out a surprise attack on the Talibu. The Formosan garrison fled in confusion, and early in the morning of September 6th, Talibu was occupied by the Japanese.
In the second week of October, the Japanese advanced towards Tainan , where Liu Yongfu had holed up with the rest of the republic's regular troops. The arrival of reinforcements allowed them to approach Tainan from three directions at once. Two units sailed from the Penghu Islands on October 10th. The smaller landed in Po-te-chui (today Budai , Chiayi ), 45 km north of Tainan. The larger unit landed in Pang-liau ( Fangliao ), 40 km south of Takao (now Kaohsiung ) and south of Tainan. Their first goal was to capture the port of Takao. Meanwhile, the division of the Imperial Guard, which was still in Changhua, received the order to advance further into Tainan. The division, once 12,000 strong when it landed in Taiwan at the end of May, was so decimated by disease that it was now difficult to provide around 7,000 soldiers. Even so, the Japanese were now numerous enough to end the campaign. Around 20,000 Japanese soldiers would now surround Tainan at the same time, from the north, northeast and south. Although Liu Yongfu would probably have been able to raise a larger force, the Chinese and Formosans were only able to postpone their defeat and had little hope of stopping the Japanese advance into Tainan.
Conquest of Yunlin and Chiayi
On October 3rd, the Division of the Imperial Guard began their march south of Changhua. On October 6, they defeated a force of 3,000 rebels in Talibu. On October 7th the division fought against rebels in Yunlin and was able to drive them from some fortified positions. On October 9, the division fought the campaign's second largest battle, the Battle of Chiayi, to storm the fortified city of Chiayi, where rebels were staying. After an initial bombing with their mountain artillery, the Japanese were able to climb the walls and enter the city and defeat the rebels. The division was ordered to wait in Chiayi until Prince Fushimi's northern expedition disembarked at Pa-te-chui. Discouraged by the news of the fall of Chiayi , Liu Yungfu offered the Japanese conditional surrender on October 10th. He demanded that no Formosan be punished for taking up arms against the Japanese and that all Chinese soldiers who were still in Taiwan be treated hospitably and sent back to Guangzhou or Xiamen . For the Japanese, however, only unconditional surrender was an option.
Japanese victory in Shau-lan
The other two Japanese columns marked their presence. Prince Fushimi's northern column, which included the 5th and 17th Infantry Regiments, landed at Pa-te-chui on October 10th. The division fought several brisk skirmishes during its advance south. These included a battle in Kaw-wah-tau on October 12, in which Japanese casualties were minor, and a battle near Kiu-sui-kei (急水溪, Jishui River ) on October 16. On October 18, the 5th Infantry Regiment, supported by an artillery battery and a cavalry force, defeated the rebels in Ongo-ya-toi. On the same day the 17th regiment met Formosans in Tion-sha and inflicted a great defeat on them. Meanwhile, the vanguard of the brigade displaced rebel troops with 4,000 men from the village of Mao-tau, south of the So-bung-go river, but suffered relatively high losses. On October 19, a battle took place around the fortified village of Shau-lan (蕭 壠Xiaolong , now Jiali ). The 17th regiment lured 3,000 rebels into a trap, causing them great losses. About a thousand deaths were counted on the Formosan side.
Conquest of Takao and surrender of Tainan
Lieutenant General Nogi's southern column landed in Fangliao on October 10 and attacked a force of Formosan militiamen in Ka-tong-ka (now Jiadong ) the following day . This battle brought a Japanese victory, but also the greatest number of victims. On October 15, Nogi's column advanced into the port of Takao, but found there that the Japanese Navy had preceded them. Two days earlier, on October 13, the forts of Takao had been bombed by the Japanese and naval forces had gone ashore to occupy the city. Pithau was conquered on October 16. On October 20, the village of Ji-chang-hang, a few kilometers to the south of Tainan, was captured. That same night, the Chinese negotiators offered their unconditional surrender. All three Japanese columns were now in close proximity to Tainan. When Liu Yungfu realized the war was lost, he disguised himself as a coolie and fled to Amoy, Xiamen, on mainland China on October 20th. Tainan capitulated on October 21st. The surrender marked the end of the Formosa Republic and heralded the era of Japanese colonial rule in Taiwan, which would last until 1945. The last of the Formosan militias were defeated on November 26th in the Battle of Changhsing (Chinese: 長興Changxing , in northern Pingtung County ), commonly known as the " Battle of the Burning Village " in Taiwan . Japanese troops set fire to the village of Changhsing and stormed it against the bitter resistance of fighters from the Hakka militia and armed villagers under the command of Chiu Feng-yang.
Through the invasion of Taiwan, Japan enforced its claim to Taiwan and the Penghu Islands , which had already been regulated by the Shomonoseki Treaty, militarily. However, armed uprisings against Japanese rule flared up again and again in various parts of the island until 1915.
See also
Individual evidence
- ↑ a b c d e Gordon, p. 561
- ^ Davidson, p. 354
- ↑ a b Davidson, p. 358
- ↑ Weggel, Oskar (2005): History of Taiwan from the 17th Century to the Present, p. 62.
- ↑ Lamley, pp. 741-744
- ↑ Lamley, p. 752
- ↑ Takekoshi, p 82
- ^ Davidson, p. 283
- ^ Davidson, p. 269
- ↑ Shōzō, Fujii: The Formation of Taiwanese Identity and the Cultural Policy of Various Outside Regimes . In: Ping-hui Liao, David Der-wei Wang (eds.): Taiwan Under Japanese Colonial Rule, 1895–1945: History, Culture, Memory . Columbia University Press, New York 2006, ISBN 0-231-13798-2 , p. 69
- ↑ Koh, pp. 70-71
- ↑ Davidson, pp. 270-272
- ↑ Takekoshi, pp. 83-84
- ↑ Davidson, pp. 291-292
- ↑ Davidson, pp. 295-299
- ↑ Weggel, p. 62
- ↑ Davidson, pp. 301-303
- ↑ Takekoshi, pp. 86-87
- ↑ Koh, p. 81
- ↑ Takekoshi, p 87
- ↑ Davidson, pp. 306-307
- ↑ Koh, p. 81
- ↑ Weggel, p. 63
- ↑ Takekoshi, p 87
- ↑ Davidson, pp. 311-313
- ↑ Lamley, p. 745
- ↑ Koh, pp. 82-87
- ↑ Davidson, pp. 315-318
- ↑ Davidson, pp. 319-321
- ↑ Davidson, pp. 325-328
- ↑ Davidson, pp. 328-330
- ↑ Davidson, pp. 332-334
- ↑ Davidson, p. 338
- ↑ Takekoshi, p 89
- ^ Davidson, p. 356
- ↑ Takekoshi, p 90
- ↑ Lamley, Harry J .: Japan under Japanese Rule 1895-1945 , In: Murray A. Rubinstein (Ed.): Taiwan - A New History. Extended Edition, New York: ME Sharpe 2007, p. 212
- ↑ Weggel, pp. 66–71
literature
- Davidson, James W. (1903): The Island of Formosa - Past and Present: History, People, Resources, and Commercial Prospects, Tea, Camphor, Sugar, Gold, Coal, Sulfur, Economical Plants, and other Products. Macmillan & Co., London and New York. Digitized version
- Gordon, Leonard HD (1976): The Cession of Taiwan: A Second Look. Pacific Historical Review, 45 (4), pp. 539-567.
- Koh, Se-kai (許世楷): 日本 統治 下 的 台灣Riben tongzhi xia de Taiwan = Formosa under the Japanese rule: resistance and suppression . Yushan she, Taipei 2005, ISBN 986-7375-54-8 .
- Lamley, Harry J., The 1895 Taiwan Republic: A Significant Episode in Modern Chinese History, Journal of Asian Studies , 27, 4 (1968), 739-62.
- Takekoshi, Yosaburo (1907): Japanese Rule in Formosa. Longmans, Green, And Co., London, New York, Bombay and Calcutta. Digitized version