Rise of the Japanese Empire: From Meiji modernization to military powerhouse

The first steps to imperial expansion were when Japan fought China in the First Sino-Japanese War in 1894–95.

During this conflict, Japan invaded Korea. It quickly became clear. Japan's new military power was unstoppable against the older style Chinese military.

at the end of the First Sino-Japanese War in 1895, Japan took control of Taiwan from China under the terms of the Treaty of Shimonoseki.

However, Japan wasn't able to formally gain control of Korea as part of this arrangement; instead, Korea remained nominally independent but under Japanese influence until Japan annexed it in 1910.

In 1904, Japan went to war against Russia in the Russo-Japanese War. The most important clash of this conflict was the Battle of Tsushima in 1905, which saw Japan’s navy decisively defeat the Russian Baltic Fleet.

To the shock of the western world, it showed that Japan’s newfound military power allowed them to be the first Asian country to achieve a major victory over a European nation in modern times.

Again, at the colimitation of the war, Japan's forces defeated their enemy and took control of parts of the region called Manchuria, particularly the South Manchurian Railway and parts of southern Manchuria.

To curb Japan’s expanding military power, the Washington Naval Treaty of 1922 limited the size of Japan’s navy, though Japanese leaders increasingly resented this perceived constraint on their imperial ambitions.

A new emperor, known as Hirohito, came to power in Japan in 1926 and he ruled Japan through the Second World War.

However, he had limited power over military decisions, as Japan’s military leaders were highly influential and often autonomous.

Then, in 1927, the Showa Financial Crisis caused severe economic instability in Japan.

This led to a rise in nationalism and support for militaristic policies as people turned to military leaders for solutions to economic hardship.

By the time of the Great Depression in 1929, Japan had been preparing for the next stage of their military expansion and they believed that an Asian-Pacific empire was within their grasp.

Japan claimed that they wanted to create the Greater East Asia Co-Prosperity Sphere.

This was an idea that the Empire of Japan proposed, where Asian countries would work together to become richer and more powerful than Western nations.

In reality though, this simply resulted in Japan invading other Asian countries to take their resources for the Japanese empire.

As a result of the Great Depression, Japanese people lost their jobs and economic hardship affected all levels of society.

The desire for a solution to these problems led to an increase in political support for military and nationalist leaders.

These politicians argued that Japan needed to conquer other countries to gain new natural resources that they could sell to other countries and improve their economic strength.

During the late 1920s and early 1930s, Japan’s military leaders gained more power over the government.

All the nationalists needed was a reason to declare another war.

Then, in 1931, it was reported that there was an explosion at (probably an attack on) a Japanese-owned railway in southern Manchuria. This is known as the 'Mukden Incident'.

The Chinese army was blamed and so by early 1932, the Japanese army invaded and captured all of Manchuria and established the puppet state of Manchukuo.

Japanese forces didn't stop there and, later in 1932, Japanese forces bombed Shanghai and occupied areas of northern China.

China called for the League of Nations to intervene and stop the Japanese.

The League sent the Lytton Commission to investigate the Mukden Incident, and the commission's report led to the League recognizing Manchuria as part of China, which Japan disagreed with.

However, all the League could do was demand Japan to stop its aggression. Japan responded by simply withdrawing their membership from the League and continued their war anyway.

As a result of their departure from the League, most European countries were angry with Japan, and it needed new allies.

In November 1936, Japan signed an alliance with Hitler's Germany in an agreement called the Anti-Comintern Pact.

In 1937, Mussolini's Italy also joined the pact.

With increased confidence following their new alliances, Japan decided that it was time for a full-scale war against China.

In July 1937, Japan launched its invasion and began the Second Sino-Japanese War. 

The full-scale invasion began with the Marco Polo Bridge Incident on July 7, 1937, which was a skirmish between Japanese and Chinese forces near Beijing.

Following this, Japan experienced early success by capturing the cities of Beijing, Guangzhou, and Nanjing.

These successes were helped by the fact that China had been engaged in a civil war between the communists and nationalists since 1927.

This had weakened the country and meant that they were not prepared when Japan attacked.

However, following the invasion, the two sides of China's civil war agreed to a truce so that they could fight back against the invaders.

The most horrific event of the Japanese invasion took place during and after the capture of the Chinese city of Nanjing, which is also known as Nanking. 

From December 1937 to January 1938, Japanese soldiers brutally killed somewhere between 200,000 to 300,000 Chinese civilians.

Japanese cultural ideology had taught their soldiers that the Chinese were inferior to the Japanese and that such killings were justified.

However, news of these atrocities shocked the rest of the world and most other countries supported the Chinese against the invaders.

Unfortunately for Japan's military leaders, the invasion of China was not a quick nor easy affair.

Their advance soon ground to a halt, and they were caught in a drawn-out land war that cost more money than they had planned and did not result in the natural resources Japan needed in order to make more money.

Even though Japan had left the League of Nations, the atrocities in Nanjing forced other countries, particularly the United States of America, to stop trading with Japan, which reduced their income further.

Then, the U.S. put in place an oil embargo in 1941 in protest of Japanese expansion into French Indochina.

This meant that Japan could no longer buy the fuel their needed for their army and navy.

It was thought that this would cripple their military expansion and force them to the negotiating table.

As such, America refused to start trading again until Japan until they had entirely withdrawn from China. 

With time and money running out, Japan knew that it had to find a solution. Rather than giving up their dreams of a Japanese empire and halting their war, the Japanese military decided to take the ultimate gamble of throwing all of their resources into a multi-pronged attack across the Pacific to rapidly capture the resources they needed in order to win a global war.

This would lead to the famous attack on Pearl Harbor in December 1941.