Hello and welcome to the History of Japan podcast. Episode 36.

The Great War.

I've been debating what a good topic to start the new year off would be, until I got a great suggestion.

2014, after all, is the 100-year anniversary of an event that has done more to shape the world than anything else since.

On June 28, 2014, it will have been 100 years to the day

since a man named Gavrilo Princep, a member of the Serbian nationalist Black Hand movement,

shot and killed Archduke Franz Ferdinand, heir to the throne of Austria-Hungary.

The war that resulted between Serbia and Austria-Hungary quickly dragged in Russia, then Germany,

then France, then the United Kingdom and Belgium, in a general cataclysm that lasted four years,

consumed the lives of millions,

and shattered four of the world's largest and most powerful monarchies.

World War I completely reshaped the world, and arguably is the most important event of the

20th century. Without it, the world would not at all be what it is.

Commemorations of the war are planned throughout the next four years. By far the most

interesting project to my mind is an attempt to live-tweet the entire war over the next four years

of anniversaries of its major events.

Anyway, this is all very interesting, but why are we talking about it?

After all, this is the History of Japan podcast, not the History of Interesting Things podcast.

Well, Japan was a part of the Allied Coalition, and, with a few months delay, entered the war on the side of the Allies. Citing its 1902 Treaty of Alliance with Great Britain, the first ever treaty of alliance

between Asian and European power, Japan entered the war in late 1914, and proceeded to seize

all German territory in the Pacific,

mostly in Polynesia, with some concessions along the coast of China.

...