What if China declared war on Germany at the start of WWI and attacked the German leasehold at Qingdao?

[raharris1973]

What if the Chinese Beiyang Republic, under President Yuan Shikai, declared on Germany near the start of the war, and innediately started an attack on the German leasehold of Qingdao in Shandong province?

Yuan comes to this decision, a calculated risk, shortly after Britain declares war on Germany on August 4, 1914, and he does so to increase his own personal prestige and national pride at the expense of a first-rate western power that is ill-positioned to respond for tactical and operational reasons.

Yuan is not expert on intra-European politics and diplomacy nor the intracacies of intra-European military planning, but he knows enough of the basics to know that the British and French and probably Japanese navies are big obstacles to any German reinforcement of their Qingdao garrison for the foreseeable future, all the other powers with a military presence in and around China of any significance are oriented against Germany, so Germany is pretty isolated, and odds are north of fifty-fifty that the British, French, Russian coalition will win the war against the German led coalition just by looking at the staying power of the former coalition, trade presence, and size on the globe.

He calculates that if the Germans win in Europe somehow, he still has a chance to deflect their vengeance by arranging to switch sides at that time and help the Germans in chasing down British, French and Russian fugitive forces in the China and Far East neighborhood.

His other concern is that China needs to move fast, otherwise another European power, or especially Japan, will simply grab Qingdao and all the German concessionary position in Shandong right from under China's nose, which would be a bad look for his government. [And thinking this on August 4th, when Britain declares war, and the two or 3 days after, is pretty prescient, because in OTL, Japan indeed issued an ultimatum to the Germans to get lost from Qingdao, Shandong and the Far East by August 15th, and declared war on the Germans on August 23rd and commenced their attack on Qingdao on September 2nd.]

So in this timeline, Yuan starts moving some of his best-equipped army units and virtually all navy units that he can spare from active engagement with other threats to the area of Shandong, and issues an ultimatum to the Germans by no later than August 10th, and declares war and attacks by no later than August 20th.

Would the Beiyang Republic be able to mass sufficient forces in 1914 for a successful quick assault, or prolonged but successful siege of Qingdao?
If there is no rapid coup de main, but a siege of substantial duration (OTL's Japanese-led siege, which had some peripheral British participation, lasted about 8 and a half weeks until the November 7th German surrender), would Yuan be able to 'flood the zone' around Qingdao sufficiently with Chinese forces to prevent the Japanese or British from making a genuine contribution to German defeat or justifying a claim to inherit the German concessions in Shandong?

On the one hand, Yuan's rule was not uncontested over China. Some southern provinces were defiant, some rebelled in 1913, and China slid into warlordism in the couple years after Yuan's failed monarchy attempt and death in 1916. Yet the Beiyang Army was not splt into warlord groupings and retained a unified command in 1914, and it was a large force, well-equipped by some accounts.

heavenlykhagan said:

While China was not a first rate power by any means, people seem to underestimate Qing power in the 1900s, after the New Policy was implemented.
I would like to point out that the late Qing was also beginning to be industrialized, its not to the same degree as Japan obviously, but factories and rail ways were built and steel production rose. In 1910, the Qing could produce over 100,000 tons of modern industrial steel, almost half those of Japan (albeit still several times less than Italy or Austria).

The Hanyang factory founded by the Qing could also produce 2000-3000 of native made type 88 Mousers (and native made Maxim guns) annually by the 1900s, and the Qing also produced 3,900 heavy cannons, and over 80 of its own iron clad battle ships.

The revolution of 1911 killed Chinese industrialization. Industrial steel production dropped to 43,000 tons in 1914.
The ROC mostly used old Qing equipment, only produced 98 cannons during the war against Japan and cannot make a single battleship outside of importing foreign made parts and putting them together. At no point in history did the ROC produce more steel or weapons than the Qing dynasty in the 1900s.

By 1911, the New Army of the Qing dynasty, has reached roughly 16 garrisons and 16 combined battalions(hunhe lu ) large. Each garrison is roughly 12,500, while each combined batallion ranged from 3000-10000. This means that in 1911, the Qing had a modern standing army of over 200,000; contemporary Japan had 300,000-350,000, while Austria fluctuated between 440,000-480,000, Italy's was around 270,000. So the size of the modern Qing army actually wasn't significantly smaller than those of Italy's. Both the Qing and Italy's forces lacked reserves, but the Italians probably had the Qing beaten there. Worse is that the Qing also lacked a strong central command. However, the Qing does have a much larger second rate equipped military reserve due to its sheer population. Even if it lacked projection power, it was daunting enough to give invading powers a headache.

Can it (the Beiyang forces) be moved, concentrated, and tactically used to perform effectively against a professional, but isolated enemy like the Germans in this case?

How do others react to this Chinese DoW and operation? Does it raise Yuan's personality? Does Japan attempt to intrude into the battle? Successfully or not? Do the Chinese win a military victory or not?

If the Chinese are not defeated and the Germans capitulate to them, how is Japan's China policy altered?

Do the Japanese issue the "17 Demands" instead of the "21 Demands",Twenty-One Demands - Wikipedia omitting Group 1, which were specific to Shandong, but keeping all the others?

• Group 1 (four demands) confirmed Japan's recent seizure of German ports and operations in Shandong Province, and expanded Japan's sphere of influence over the railways, coasts and major cities of the province.

Does China accept the other demands except Group 5, like OTL?

• Group 2 (seven demands) pertained to Japan's South Manchuria Railway Zone, extending the leasehold over the territory for 99 years, and expanding Japan's sphere of influence in southern Manchuria and eastern Inner Mongolia, to include rights of settlement and extraterritoriality, appointment of financial and administrative officials to the government and priority for Japanese investments in those areas. Japan demanded access to Inner Mongolia for raw materials, as a manufacturing site, and as a strategic buffer against Russian encroachment in Korea.[9]
• Group 3 (two demands) gave Japan control of the Han-Ye-Ping (Hanyang, Daye, and Pingxiang) mining and metallurgical complex in central China; it was deep in debt to Japan.
• Group 4 (one demand) barred China from giving any further coastal or island concessions to foreign powers.
• Group 5 (seven demands) was the most aggressive. China was to hire Japanese advisors who could take effective control of China's finance and police. Japan would be empowered to build three major railways, and also Buddhist temples and schools. Japan would gain effective control of Fujian, across the Taiwan Strait from Taiwan, which had been ceded to Japan in 1895.

Or is Japan more cautious about its demands in the first place? Or is Japan just as demanding about Shandong, even if the Chinese won it themselves "that's great, but we want it"?

And even if Yuan is thinking Japan is more powerful and it is realistic to accept Group 2, 3, and 4 of the demands, has the action of winning in Shandong reset Chinese popular expectations to a level where those concessions would be a huge public letdown causing a big backlash?

Finally, even if he navigates through the 21 or 17 Demands crisis without damage, does Yuan proceed to squander all the prestige gained trying to make himself Emperor? Or is the Shandong/Qingdao success enough to make it work?

And if China - Japan talks reach an impasse where Japan can't back down from public demands that China can't concede, publicly or privately, and there is a Sino-Japanese war during WWI, how does a 1915 or 1916 Sino-Japanese war and the relative power balance compare with OTL's 19137 Sino-Japanese war?