Japan's Imperial Army

by Edward J Drea

  Saigō counseled patience, having already postponed his uprising scheduled for November 3, 1876, the emperor’s birthday, because of the Jimpūren and Maebara uprisings. More radical officers, like Kirino Toshiaki, thought that the government was so corrupt that killing two or three ministers would cause it to collapse. A government official’s coerced confession of a plot to murder Saigō and the government’s decision to transfer ammunition from the Kagoshima depot provoked hot-headed academy students to attack the ammunition lockers and confiscate the ordnance.There could be no turning back.12

  News of Saigō’s academies attracted additional disgruntled samurai, and by the time he rose in revolt in early 1877 his army numbered about 30,000 men, roughly 6,000 of whom handled transport and supply duties. Although they lacked large quantities of artillery and trained ordnance specialists, they expected to seize more heavy weapons once they captured the government arsenal at Kumamoto, about 100 miles to the north. Under banners reading “Respect Virtue: Reform the Government,” the advance guard marched from Kagoshima on February 15, and two days later Saigō led the rear guard and command group from the city during a heavy snowfall, whose dramatic effect endowed his expedition with the trappings of unselfishness and heroism. More recruits flocked to his cause, and at its peak Saigō commanded about 42,000 men.13 Saigō and his followers portrayed themselves as loyal servants of the throne whose quarrel was with the emperor’s evil advisers who had betrayed the restoration. This rationalization for rebellion would repeatedly serve as the army’s justification for future acts of insubordination, disobedience to orders, and mutiny.

  At the outbreak of the so-called Southwest War or Satsuma Rebellion the national army counted 20,000 garrison troops plus 5,000 additional men assigned to Imperial Guard units. During the fighting, the army eventually expanded to 50,000 troops, mainly by provisionally recruiting 13,000 ex-samurai, ostensibly as policemen assigned to the Tokyo Metropolitan Police. Besides these numbers, the army employed about 90,000 hastily contracted civilians on a daily basis to load, haul, and distribute military supplies. The distant battlefields of Kyūshū forced the army to operate at the end of a lengthy maritime line of communication that stretched back to Tokyo and depended on dozens of intercoastal transports and small gunboats shuttling troops and material to southwest Japan. The absence of supply depots and a service corps compounded the logistical difficulties, as did battlefield consumption of ammunition and equipment, which far exceeded the government’s projections and resupply capabilities.14

  Reports of the Satsuma army approaching Kumamoto reached Tokyo on February 28, and the next day the emperor issued orders to suppress the rebels. Because of the recent experience with dissident samurai, Yamagata and others worried that Saigō’s revolt would spread rapidly through southern and western Japan. Their greatest fear was that Itagaki’s political association might join the revolt and take Shikoku into the enemy camp. Thus the army’s response to rebellion was to cobble together provisional mixed brigades (then the largest maneuver unit) with a cadre from the Imperial Guard and other garrison units and quickly get them to Kyūshū. For example, an infantry battalion from the Tokyo garrison and another from Osaka, reinforced by reserve artillery and engineer units from Tokyo, formed Maj. Gen. Nozu Shizuo’s 1st Brigade. These nonstandard tables of organization and equipment transfers drained troops from other units, and the frequent reorganizations aggravated already serious personnel shortages, causing the government to rely even more on former samurai.15

  Saigō’s primary objective, the vital government arsenal at Kumamoto, was defended by two infantry regiments (3,800 men) and two artillery batteries commanded by Maj. Gen. Tani Tateki. Although heavily outnumbered, the government defenders had superior firepower—most were armed with new Enfield or Snider rifles—and had been recently reinforced with a hastily recruited 400-man police unit. They were defending a strong position that Tani was determined to hold. With the Satsuma advance guard just five miles from Kumamoto, on February 19 a fire of unexplained origin broke out in a large storehouse in the adjoining town. The blaze spread rapidly and destroyed most of the town and the garrison’s food supply. Luckily for Tani it did not reach his reserve stocks of ammunition.16

  Saigō committed the bulk of his army to the Kumamoto attack while other rebel units, about 13,000 strong, moved north to control the mountain passes leading to the city. After several fierce assaults failed to overcome Kumamoto’s well-armed defenders, Saigō besieged the castle. This decision sacrificed the rebels’ advantages of speed and mobility of lightly armed troops in favor of positional warfare against an opponent fighting from strong defenses with more modern weaponry.17 Saigō was waging a decisive battle without reserves and on an overextended line of communication far from his only logistic base.

  During previous deliberations in Tokyo on February 12,Yamagata had recommended an amphibious landing at Kagoshima to seize the rebels’ weakly held logistics base followed by the destruction of insurgent pockets throughout Kyūshū. Army leaders supported him, but Tani, facing an impending attack and having doubts about his conscripts’ reliability, cabled that beleaguered Kumamoto’s imminent fall would endanger all of Japan.18 This assessment swayed court and civilian officials, who rejected Yamagata’s proposal and made the relief of Kumamoto garrison the army’s strategic objective.

  Emperor Meiji appointed Prince Arisugawa the titular head of the expeditionary force. Yamagata, a lieutenant general, commanded the ground forces, and Vice Adm. Kawamura Sumiyoshi led the navy. They departed Tokyo on February 20 and opened their headquarters in Fukuoka six days later. The plan of campaign employed a pincer maneuver. Lt. Gen. Kuroda Kiyotaka, Yamagata’s nemesis during the restoration wars and currently a government councilor, with one corps (two brigades), and Yamagata, with another corps, would isolate Saigō’s forces with a two-pronged attack and lift the siege of Kumamoto. Kawamura would then land at Kagoshima with a third corps to cut the rebels’ line of communication. Reminiscent of the campaigns in northern Japan during the Boshin War, the national army divided its forces, established separate field commands, and banked everything on one decisive attack.19

  Map 2

  Operating in faraway Kyūshū, the army needed a unified field headquarters to coordinate the pincer movement and to adapt to unfolding demands of the campaign. Yamagata and Kuroda predictably disagreed on the overall plan of campaign; their ostensible commander, Prince Arisugawa, was not a trained professional soldier and could not control his impulsive field generals. Civilian and military leaders were also scattered across the country, which further complicated command and control arrangements. The emperor and part of the bureaucracy relocated to Kyoto accompanied by an advisory liaison body. Senior civilian ministers and the rest of the bureaucracy stayed in Tokyo as a caretaker government. The creation of a provisional field headquarters in Fukuoka relegated the general staff bureau in Tokyo to a minor advisory role, but its director relocated to the army’s logistics base at Osaka and began issuing operational orders.20

  At the operational or brigade echelon, command and control was virtually nonexistent because French training had concentrated on small-unit operations. The three corps headquarters were nominal entities that exerted very loose control over their tactical brigades and regiments. Without a higher staff to plan and coordinate operations, Yamagata and Kuroda conducted independent campaigns since neither agreed with the other’s strategy and they loathed one another.

  Yamagata’s corps marched from Fukuoka in mid-February and cautiously advanced south, hesitating to enter the mountainous Kyūshū terrain that favored the defender. Satsuma forces took advantage of the lull to strengthen their ridgeline and hilltop field fortifications around Tabaruzaka that blocked the main passes leading to Kumamoto.

  Maj. Nogi Maresuke, acting commander of the 14th Regiment, attacked Satsuma forces north of Kumamoto on February 23. Unable to dislodge the rebels, Nogi withdrew, but Satsuma troops outflanked and surrounded his regiment. Durin
g a fighting retreat, conducted in darkness and heavy rain with rebels intermingled with his troops, Nogi lost his regimental colors when the standard bearer was killed. Despite Nogi’s personal bravery, his horse was shot out from under him; the loss of the colors presented by the emperor was a grave offense and tormented him throughout his career.21

  After two brigades were mauled in the Tabaruzaka fighting, Yamagata halted to await additional reinforcements. Satsuma forces suffered heavy losses as well, about 500 killed or wounded each day during the five-day battle. There were so many wounded that field hospitals ran out of bandages and resorted to strips of clothing to dress wounds.22 Yamagata meanwhile deployed his corps over a broad front, more or less facing the 25-mile-long Satsuma defenses, for a methodical advance much to the chagrin of the government that was urging him to relieve Kumamoto without delay.

  This print conveys the ferocity of the fighting between government troops and samurai at Tabaruzaka. (Courtesy Kumamoto Municipal Museum)

  Reinforced with brigades commanded by Maj. Gen. Ōyama Iwao and Maj. Gen. Miura Gorō, Yamagata in early March attacked into the rugged mountains, promptly fell into a rebel trap, became encircled, and suffered severe losses in two weeks of fighting. With additional troops, on March 20 Yamagata again attacked. This time the government forces took advantage of a driving rainstorm to hook around the main Tabaruzaka defenses and, spearheaded by shock troops, surprise the rebels’ rear area defenses. Many of the government’s handpicked swordsmen were enlisted as police from Aizu. These former samurai sought to avenge their earlier defeat at Satsuma’s hands during the Boshin Civil War and fought with abandon at close quarters. The Aizu contingent suffered almost 25 percent of all police casualties, although it comprised fewer than 10 percent of all mobilized police.23 Victory left Yamagata’s troops spent, and with ammunition and supplies almost exhausted Yamagata was unable to advance.

  As the fighting around Tabaruzaka peaked, Kuroda departed Nagasaki by ship on March 19 and landed his troops, bolstered by a unit of recalled Boshin War veterans, about 30 miles south of Kumamoto. He immediately struck north, threatening Saigō’s army from the rear. With the rebels heavily engaged by Kuroda, Yamagata refitted his corps and renewed his offensive from the north, lifting the siege of Kumamoto castle on April 14. Throughout this maneuvering, Saigō remained passive, never inspecting the front lines and relying on scouts and newspapers for intelligence.

  Outnumbered two to one, the battle-seasoned Satsuma warriors were contemptuous of the army’s conscripts and feared only three things: rain (which dampened the muzzle-loading primers of their older Enfield rifles, making the weapons inoperable); red hats (the Imperial Guard, which included ex-samurai sharing a common warrior ethos); and artillery (for its killing power). The national army’s overwhelming superiority in artillery weapons—it enjoyed a seven-to-one advantage—was indeed decisive throughout the campaign. Mountain artillery was especially lethal because of its mobility. Two pack-horses could carry the disassembled 450-pound gun, making it easier to move over Kyūshū’s dirt roads and mountainous terrain than the horse-drawn heavier field artillery gun that was often too unwieldy even to manhandle into firing position.24

  Government troops pursued Saigō’s defeated army across Kyūshū. On April 26 Kawamura landed at Kagoshima, seized the weakly defended rebel positions, and destroyed the rebels’ stockpiles of arms and munitions. By early June the broken samurai army split in two, and in August Saigō, hunted and harried with only a few hundred followers left, committed suicide in a cave near Shiroyama, just north of Kagoshima. Kirino and about forty other Satsuma commanders, fighting to the last, were killed on September 24 when Maj. Gen. Soga Sukenori’s brigade overran their Shiroyama redoubt.

  Losses were frightful on both sides; one in every three government troops was killed or wounded, and one of every two of Saigō’s insurgents met a similar fate. All the rebellious samurai, however, did not fight to the death. Thousands surrendered after Saigō’s suicide. The government subsequently executed any rebels it judged to be ringleaders of the revolt and punished more than 2,700 members of Saigō’s army. But authorities eventually pardoned most of Saigō’s lower-ranking officers and foot soldiers in hopes of eliminating any lingering notions of revenge while promoting a new sense of national unity in a modern military system. Saigō himself was officially rehabilitated in 1889 in recognition of his contributions to the restoration. More than 25,000 individuals contributed to a bronze statue of Saigō unveiled in Ueno Park in December 1898. Among the dignitaries in attendance was Yamagata, and one can only imagine the thoughts running through his mind during the dedication.25

  The Satsuma Rebellion had pushed the fledgling national army beyond its limits. Fighting for the regime’s survival, the army threw all its forces into the struggle, exhausting its manpower. Without an organized mobilization capability or sufficient reserves to draw upon, conscription alone could not supply the personnel needed to crush the rebellion. Furthermore, the conscript army displayed serious deficiencies.

  Conscripts’ battlefield performance deeply troubled the Meiji leaders, who saw that, man for man, the conscripts were no match for Saigō’s samurai. With conscripts found wanting in terms of quantity and quality, the national army again had to enlist large numbers of former warriors not only as reserves to bolster the regulars but also as frontline fighters to inspire leadership and boost morale. Army leaders concluded that government troops might have better training and superior equipment, but the warriors had superior morale and the will to fight.26

  The tenacity of Saigō’s samurai convinced senior army officers that the rebels possessed special intangible qualities, and this aspect, not the national army’s material superiority, was decisive. Postwar assessments determined that spiritual or intangible attributes had to be inculcated into the ranks, and authorities launched an intensive indoctrination program to instill the national army with fighting spirit.27 Over time a reliance on intangible qualities came to mean a willingness to fight to the death regardless of the situation. Once that concept gained acceptance, death in battle became the standard by which to measure fighting spirit. No matter how bravely enlisted troops acquitted themselves in battle, their very survival could be and was interpreted by staff officers as indicative of a lack of fighting spirit that adversely affected overall performance.

  Analysis of the tangible reasons for victory over Saigō’s rebels led the national army to mixed conclusions. The army’s material advantages, particularly in modern firepower, had overcome a stubborn and courageous foe, and the army faulted Saigō’s strategy, affirming its own. It also judged propaganda extremely effective because branding Saigō’s force as rebels had dampened Satsuma morale, a conclusion seemingly at odds with praise lavished on the insurgents’ exceptional fighting spirit.

  The government had spent more than 40 million yen (about US$38 million in 1877) on the war (almost sixty times as much as the rebels), most of it for foreign-manufactured arms, equipment, and munitions. Independent research and development of weapons technology was less important than the knowledge of foreign weapons production technology and the ability to adapt foreign-made weaponry to suit the army’s needs given Japan’s limited industrial capabilities. Until the military could break its near-total dependence on foreign arms suppliers, its leaders believed Japan could never be a truly sovereign nation.28

  By eliminating the last major samurai threat, the army ensured a unified and stable state, the sine qua non for national independence. Just as the army demonstrated resiliency in a hard-fought campaign, the government displayed durability throughout the rebellion, never coming close to the collapse that Kirino had confidently predicted. Rather, traditional samurai privileges and regional challenges to a centralized state were swept away. With the army enshrined as the guarantor of a strong national government, military authorities drew on the lessons of the rebellion to shape the postwar force into a modern, professional army.

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  On May 14, 1878, the most powerful man in Japan, Minister of Home Affairs Ōkubo, was riding alone in his unescorted carriage from his Tokyo residence to a morning appointment. Six sword-wielding former samurai surrounded his carriage in a narrow lane and hacked and stabbed him to death. The ringleader later admitted that the killers feared an Ōkubo dictatorship and had planned to murder him since they heard of Saigō’s suicide. One captured assassin joked to interrogators that if life was a stage, their act might be seen as a cheap burlesque.1

  Besides Ōkubo’s brazen murder, lingering questions of loyalty and obedience to orders clouded the national army’s victory over Saigō’s warriors. In the aftermath of the rebellion, many units felt slighted by a government that neither recognized nor rewarded their wartime sacrifices. For example, the Imperial Guard artillery battery, despite its prominent wartime role, received belated commendations and smaller monetary awards than soldiers had expected. The parsimoniousness reflected the government’s financial retrenchment policy deemed necessary to repay the enormous cost of the war, including more than 30 million yen in supplemental funding (five times the army’s annual budget). In order to balance the national budget, in December 1877 the council of state ordered 20 percent across-the-board reductions to ministry budgets. The following May the army ministry reduced military pay by 5 percent and temporarily suspended work on its showcase coastal fortification construction projects.2 These actions only added to the list of soldiers’ grievances.

  On the night of August 23, 1878, about 200 noncommissioned officers and enlisted men of the Guard artillery battalion garrisoned near Tokyo’s Takebashi Bridge mutinied, murdered their commanding officer and the officer of the day, perfunctorily shelled the finance minister’s official residence, and demanded to speak directly to the emperor. The army ministry, having been tipped off in advance, quickly crushed the insurrection. Courts-martial held in October sentenced 55 mutineers to death and punished over 300 more (including accomplices in other units) with prison terms or banishment. Unrewarded wartime service had sparked the so-called Takebashi Incident, but the trials also revealed that many of the enlisted troops were active in the nascent liberty and people’s rights movement, a popular national political campaign demanding democratic rights from the Meiji government that leaders like Yamagata regarded as subversive and dangerous.