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Official War Declaration

When: 1 August 1894
Where: unspecified location of declaration
Part of: Qing–Japan war declaration begins the First Sino-Japanese War, 1894

On 1 August 1894, war was officially declared between the Qing Empire and the Empire of Japan, marking the start of the First Sino-Japanese War.

The declaration followed Japanese military actions in Korea, including the occupation of Seoul and the establishment of a pro-Japanese government in July 1894. The conflict was primarily fought for influence over Korea, with Japanese forces having already seized the Royal Palace in Seoul.

Sources

First Sino-Japanese War Wikipedia, revision of 2026-09-07

Machine-drafted from the cited Wikipedia passages and checked by a reviewing model, not by a human editor. Every passage cites the revision it was written from; dates and places follow those passages.