WI Japan on Western Front.

Japan entered the WW1 early on and swooped on German Pacific possesions, escorted convoys etc etc etc. But WI they sent a force to the Western front in 1914-15? Perhaps a corps or 2, in place by early 1915. I don't profess to know of a POD, and don't really care, that Japanese leaders decide to send some divisions to Europe from 1914 is good enough.

Would this force be able to make use of it's experience in 1904-5 successfully on the Western Front? Would they succeed where Britian and France failed, and show the way? In 1914 how many officers and NCOs from the 1904-5 war would the IJA be able to stack this Corps with?
 

MrP

Banned
Brushing brusquely aside a possible minimal deployment to the trenches, :p shall we get to considering a large scale deployment?
 
Even if Japan sent a division or two to the trenches, I don't think it would have made much of a difference. The trench war was very different from virtually all wars fought before, so japanese experience wouldn't be worth much other than shell shock immunity.

Japanese troops might have nippon damashii, but even if they would charge until the last man, it would not matter as the distances of no mans land was too large to run across.
 
Even if Japan sent a division or two to the trenches, I don't think it would have made much of a difference. The trench war was very different from virtually all wars fought before, so japanese experience wouldn't be worth much other than shell shock immunity.

Japanese troops might have nippon damashii, but even if they would charge until the last man, it would not matter as the distances of no mans land was too large to run across.

The Japanese though are THE people with trench warfare experience in the modern world ! Much of the Russo-Japanese War saw fronts like that, and it was only 10 years before.

The question is whether they would ever be in a position to make good use of their experience ?

Could one envisage the Western Allies accepting a Japanese deployment of corps size ?

Best Regards
Grey Wolf
 
After the war a division or two could have a large influence upon both the peace talks and post war military thinking. During the Paris Peace Conference Japan can have much more right to former German Pacific colonies to the Europeans dividing up the spoils of war.

The military planners now have trench warfare to look back on when coming up with the military tactics, and weapons. Perhaps this is enough to end the human wave, and introduce heavier firepower.
 
I was think something like Australian or Canadian contribution, starting out with 2 or 3 divs in 1914-5 and finsihing with 5 or so in 1918, sizeable but not overwhelming or beyond Japanese capabilities. But the important thing is that virtually all of their more senior officers and NCO would have trench experience. They'd have changed their army organisation and equipment as a result of what they'd learned in 1905, they'd know that they needed huge amounts of shell for their heavy artillery.

If an IJA corps was added to the Brits for Nueve Chapelle for instance would it have succeeded?
 
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