Battle of Awa

Significance

The Battle of Awa, fought on 28 January 1868 near Osaka's Awa Bay, was the second naval engagement between modern naval forces in Japanese history. It pitted ships of the Tokugawa shogunate, commanded by Enomoto Takeaki, against Satsuma vessels aligned with the imperial court in Kyoto. The shogunal forces prevailed, making Awa one of the few Tokugawa successes of the Boshin War. The engagement coincided almost exactly with the land Battle of Toba–Fushimi, which began one day earlier, situating Awa within the opening phase of the wider conflict between the collapsing shogunate and imperial loyalists. Despite the victory at sea, it did not reverse the broader trajectory of the war, in which Tokugawa forces faced mounting defeats on land.

Commanders (1)