Ash 🇬🇧🇬🇧🏴󠁧󠁢󠁥󠁮󠁧󠁿🏴󠁧󠁢󠁥󠁮󠁧󠁿🏉🏍

On this day, 6 November 1914, the South Wales Borderers stood in flooded trenches on the coast of China, dressed in Japanese smocks so their allies would stop shooting them, waiting for the night assault on a German fortress. 12 of the British did not come home. It is the only siege the British Army has ever fought under Japanese command. Tsingtao was Germany's colony on the Shantung coast — a naval harbour and a ring of forts the Kaiser called his Gibraltar in the East, held by Captain Alfred Meyer-Waldeck and 3,600 men. Japan, Britain's ally, demanded it in August 1914. Berlin did not reply. Lieutenant-General Kamio landed 23,000 men and 142 guns. Britain sent 1,000 Borderers and 450 men of the 36th Sikhs under Brigadier-General Barnardiston, who took their place on the Japanese left under Kamio's orders. Weeks of rain flooded their trenches. Japanese infantry could not tell their khaki from German and fired on their patrols, so the Welshmen were put into Japanese smocks. On 31 October 100 siege guns opened. On the night of 4 November German gunners caught the Borderers digging their assault line and killed 8. On the 6th the German batteries fired their last shells, and that night the Japanese went through the third line in the dark. On the morning of the 7th Meyer-Waldeck raised white flags after 10 weeks against odds of 6 to 1. Japanese dead: around 700. German: 199. British: 12, by the National Army Museum's count — among them Private John Roland Sewell, killed on 6 November. 5 months later the Borderers were on the beach at Gallipoli. A Welsh battalion in Japanese smocks, in a flooded trench on the far side of the world, waiting to storm a German fort. Nothing about it fits the war we remember. It happened, and 12 men are buried out there for it. Stories like this are why I built The Stoic English. History that most people never hear — told properly, without apology. If you want to help me keep finding and telling these stories, join me here: thestoicenglish.com/guardian… #history #ww1 #southwalesborderers #onthisday