Thread by @propagandopolis

“Greetings from one of Your Fair Allies” — Japanese postcard published in ca. 1905 to celebrate the Anglo-Japanese Alliance. The postcard was published by the Osaka Beer Brewing Company, with a small logo at the bottom marketing the iconic Asahi beer.

The alliance had first been agreed in London in 1902 and was subsequently reviewed and renewed in 1905 and 1911.

The two had been growing closer through the nineteenth century, with an initial Anglo-Japanese Friendship Treaty signed in 1854 that opened Japanese ports to British merchants. A further treaty followed four years later.

Naval cooperation also grew as the emerging Imperial Japanese Navy sought to model itself on the Royal Navy, with some of its earliest ships built in British shipyards. British naval advisers also travelled to Japan in the 1870s.

The two also fought together in the Boxer Rebellion in China and had a shared interest in curbing Russian expansion into Asia, which of course was the cause of the 1905 Russo-Japanese War.

In the below, the UK and US egg Japan on against Russia.

The signing of the treaty in 1902 and its renewal in 1905 spurred a huge wave of postcards, cartoons and other publications – in both Britain and Japan – celebrating the alliance.

In this piece from 1902, the French magazine Le Petit Journal has a dig at the alliance: China and Russia stumble upon Japan and Britain (portrayed unflatteringly) as they prepare to carve up China.

"Guiding childish feet" — An illustration published in the Japanese Jijishinpô magazine showing Britain and Japan towering over two children representing China and Korea.

The alliance ended in the early 1920s when the British feared that a close relationship with Japan may jeopardise relations with the United States. Defunct from 1921, the Four-Power Treaty signed between Britain, Japan, the US and France officially voided the earlier treaties.

Oops, this was meant to be "guarding" not "guiding".

Translation source: reddit.com/r/PropagandaPo…

The illustration was actually republished and criticised in a Chinese newspaper.