In November a publicity-seeking right-wing youth demanding reform stabbed Hara to death on a train platform at Tokyo Station. By the time the army finally withdrew troops from Siberia in late 1922, the expedition had been roundly criticized in the press and denounced in the Diet as wasteful of lives and money. The Siberian expedition and naval expansion in response to an international naval arms race drained half the national budget between 1919 and 1922, but after the conclusion of naval limitation treaties and army force structure reductions, military expenditures accounted for about one-quarter of the total budget during the 1920s. Arms reductions were the new measure of international stability and cooperation, leaving the army in a poor position to fend off critics because its Siberian misadventure cast doubt on its judgment, the traditional enemy Russia was gone, and Japan faced no threat in northeast Asia.64 Moreover, army leaders were also divided over the implications of the revised 1918 national defense guidance.
8
Short War or Total War?
World War I’s implications for warfare of the future became the source of intellectual debate and emotional controversy in Japan’s postwar army. Officers grappled with the fundamental question of the military relevance of the European war for northeast Asia. Reform-minded officers believed that future conflict would be a total war and would require military, economic, and industrial mobilization on an unprecedented scale. Their more traditional-minded colleagues questioned that premise and the reformers’ revised military strategy.
Traditionalists rallied around Marshal Uehara, whose long-standing support for a larger army, hard-line anti-Russian policy, and determination to preserve general staff prerogatives made him their natural champion. Uehara challenged the reformers’ concept of total war on the grounds that Japan lacked the natural resources and the industrial base required for economic and industrial mobilization. He dismissed modernizers and industrial mobilization theorists because Japan’s spiritual power and intangible forces compensated for any inferiority in quality and quantity of weapons. Although unable to silence the revisionists, he gradually replaced them on the general staff with officers who shared his convictions that a short decisive war could achieve national military objectives. Uehara’s corollary was that Japan had to maintain its large standing army to win the critical opening battles of the next war.
Generals Tanaka Giichi and Ugaki wanted to modernize the force with new weapons, a new triangular division configuration for greater mobility, and more firepower. To pay for modernization, they would reduce personnel costs by cutting the size of the current force structure. The lines were clear; Uehara and his faction argued for the status quo and victory in the first battle based on élan and Japanese spirit while Ugaki and Tanaka advocated modernization and fewer troops.1
Army reformers also would replace the division as the strategic echelon with a corps organization by reorganizing the larger square divisions (two brigades and four regiments) into smaller triangular ones (one brigade and three regiments) augmented by additional artillery and logistics. A corps headquarters controlling two divisions would then handle logistical support for both and eliminate half of the current support troops. With smaller, 10,000-man triangular formations versus the 21,000-man square divisions, the army could also field more divisions and simultaneously outfit them with modern weapons and equipment. Uehara’s traditionalists opposed conversion because the smaller units could neither operate independently nor sustain heavy casualties and continue to function.2
In June 1921 Lt. Gen. Yamanashi Hanzō replaced Tanaka as war minister as planned. Yamanashi’s search for ways to save money by reducing army personnel and units reignited heated debate between traditionalists who envisaged a short, decisive war and reformers who anticipated a protracted total war. During October 1921 a special army committee met several times to calculate wartime force structure and logistics requirements.
The general staff wanted forty modernized divisions (seven against the United States, five against the USSR, twenty-two against China, and six in strategic reserve), but the war ministry believed that the weakened domestic economy and existing industrial infrastructure could support the modernization of just thirty. The operations division rejected any reductions, citing the adverse effect on army morale and concern that fewer divisions would allow the navy to claim a larger share of the military budget. A compromise would outfit twenty-one regular divisions with first-class weapons and equipment, gradually modernize eleven reserve divisions by 1933, and leave eight with obsolete weapons and equipment.3 The agreement did not alleviate the underlying philosophical differences.
Uehara’s dominant faction on the general staff advocated a short-war strategy because Japan lacked the resources either for protracted warfare or an arms race. The traditionalists made three points: (1) it would be very difficult to win a protracted war, but Japan could win a short war; (2) élan and spiritual power compensated for inferiority of weapons and numbers; and (3) it was vital to preserve the current large force structure for the first battle because victory depended on the ability to concentrate overwhelming forces to deliver a decisive opening blow. Modernization had to be accomplished without sacrificing force structure and personnel.4
Influential high-ranking officers like the highly opinionated Maj. Gen. Tanaka Kunishige, chief of the operations department, were unimpressed with claims for modernization because calculations of combat effectiveness had to include not only the quality of hardware (weapons) but also military élan, Japanese esprit, and the spirit of bushidō—the intangible ingredients for the victory over Russia in 1904–1905. Reliance on new weaponry and technology superiority was a European and American conceit, did not guarantee success, and was not easily transferable to the more primitive military and geographical conditions of Asia.5 In fact, these multiple disparities were responsible for the distinct characteristics of the army’s operational and tactical doctrine that were more appropriate against its hypothetical opponents than western ways of warfare.
In 1921 the war ministry established the Army Technical Headquarters Weapons Research and Policy Board to identify new weapons and equipment suitable for either positional or mobile warfare yet compatible with the army’s current strategy and tactical doctrine. The board further evaluated the merits of animate versus mechanized transport in the rugged terrain and poor road network of the Asian continent. Following a natural tendency to distrust new, unproven technology and uncertainty about expensive, untested weapons and equipment, the board displayed little confidence in the reliability of mechanized or motorized forces operating on the primitive transportation infrastructure of northeast Asia. By using an inferior Asian standard as its baseline for designing weaponry for regional wars with backward nations, army leaders understood that they were falling behind western military trends of modernization as well as innovations in command and control and tactical doctrine.6 It made little sense, however, to modernize ground forces to European standards when Japan would likely be fighting poorly armed Chinese warlord forces.
As these debates swirled, Yamanashi announced a two-stage reform in July 1922 that reduced personnel but not force structure. He accomplished this feat by removing one company from the peacetime table of organization of each infantry battalion and one troop from each cavalry regiment; he then eliminated 35 percent of artillery units, including three independent field artillery brigades.7
Many of the discarded artillery weapons were obsolete German-manufactured guns imported during the Russo-Japanese War. But Japan’s preeminent artillery specialist, Lt. Col. Kobayashi Junichirō, who had been attached to the French army during World War I, lamented in 1923 that the failure to study European tactics, force structures, and the modern weaponry used during World War I might well cause the collapse of the national army. Lt. Gen. Tanaka Kunishige fired back by equating material power with defeatism and wrote to Uehara that officers like Kobayashi would destroy army morale by their excessive reliance on weaponry at the expense of elite fighting s
pirit.8
No one knew which of the many emerging new technologies might be suitable for future warfare and merit investment. Tanks, for example, had mixed results during World War I, and the postwar debate in Europe, the United States, and Japan reflected the misgivings about the proper role for the new weapon. The Japanese army worried that lack of roads and heavy load-bearing bridges in China or northeast Asia would further restrict the tank’s already limited mobility. Japan’s inadequate heavy industry base made it difficult to manufacture tanks, and the nation’s narrow-gauge railroads made it difficult to move them. To support the army’s forward operating strategy, tanks would have to be shipped from Japan to the continent. Size and weight then had to be considered in relation to a transport’s loading and off-loading capacity. Balancing all these requirements, the army opted for light (10 tons or less) and medium tanks (15 tons or less).9 One might question the decision, but it was appropriate for Japan’s limited industrial base, the army’s operational doctrine, and the likely future theater of operations.
Yamanashi conducted a two-stage modernization program in August 1922 and April 1923, but his concessions satisfied neither traditionalists nor reformers. Traditionalists reluctantly accepted the reduction of 62,500 troops because Yamanashi kept the twenty-one-division force structure intact. Modernizers wanted deeper personnel cuts but had to be satisfied that the resultant savings were used to create machine-gun battalions and an air squadron as well as modernize communications equipment.10 In sum, Yamanashi’s reforms did save money—an estimated 35 million yen annually—but they did not modernize the army.
The Great Tokyo Earthquake of September 1923 ended any hopes of larger military budgets because the government’s priority shifted to rebuilding the capital city. The army did regain some popularity by restoring order and providing relief during the catastrophe, aligning itself as the people’s protector, not their oppressor. In the aftermath of the disaster, Tanaka again took the war ministry portfolio and Lt. Gen. Ugaki Kazushige was appointed vice minister. Dissatisfied with Yamanashi’s minimalist reductions, in December Tanaka Giichi appointed Ugaki to chair a committee to study army reorganization and modernization.11
A disgruntled youth’s attempt to assassinate the imperial regent that December led to the formation of yet another new cabinet in January 1924, this one headed by Prime Minister Kiyoura Keigo. Kiyoura’s choice for war minister was Gen. Fukuda Masatarō, commander of the Taiwan garrison, who came recommended by Marshal Uehara, Kiyoura’s mentor and the army’s senior active duty officer.12 Uehara expected that Fukuda’s appointment would reassert his waning prominence in the army.
Outgoing War Minister Tanaka blocked the selection by calling attention to Fukuda’s lackluster performance as military governor during martial law imposed after the Tokyo earthquake.13 Tanaka also enlisted the chief of staff and the inspector-general of military education, who, along with Tanaka, comprised the army’s “Big Three” and were the only ones, according to Tanaka, authorized to nominate their successors. Several of Kiyoura’s top advisers also opposed Fukuda’s selection, and ultimately the prime minister appointed Lt. Gen. Ugaki Kazushige war minister. Fukuda’s rejection was a repudiation of Uehara and intensified his factional struggle with the Tanaka-Ugaki camp.14
The 1923 Revision of Imperial Defense Policy
Confronted with the postwar breakdown of the existing international order and increasing regional instability in northeast Asia, the services reexamined national defense policy. The Russian empire had disintegrated, eliminating the threat from the north. China also seemed to be breaking apart, despite international agreements to forestall such a condition. The new international system created by the Versailles Treaty (1919) and growing regional instability in northeast Asia also stimulated the army to revise national military strategy, and the Washington naval limitations agreement (1922) and the impending termination of the Anglo-Japanese alliance in 1923 exerted a similar influence on the navy. Besides these external pressures, the army was in the midst of a contentious restructuring of strategy, operational doctrine, tactics, and force structure. The best minds in the army were bitterly divided over the nature of future warfare, and their disagreements became interwoven with the army’s approach to revising national military strategy.15 The radically different concepts of national defense held by the competing factions shaped the formulation of the 1923 imperial defense policy.
Friction with the United States over the Siberian intervention, commercial rights in Manchuria, naval limitations, exclusionary immigration policies, and so forth made the Americans the services’ likely common opponent. On that basis, in March 1922 representatives from the army and navy general staffs began revising defense policy.16 The navy chief of the general staff, Adm. Kato Kanji, and his army counterpart, Gen. Uehara, were short-war proponents. Instead of thinking of ways to avoid a confrontation with the United States because of the great disparity of industrial production and untapped American potential available for a protracted total war, they believed that if Japan prepared completely beforehand, it could win a short war before the Americans brought their full power to bear. With the service chiefs of staff in general agreement, work proceeded quickly, and by November 1922, the army and navy general staffs had exchanged drafts of a revised imperial defense policy. Only in late February did the services allow the prime minister, a retired navy admiral, to see their revised force structure requirements. After discussions the same day, the cabinet meekly consented to the revisions. Six days later, on February 28, the draft was sent to the throne. The hastiness indicated a rush to justify short-term force structure, not the development of a comprehensive national military strategy.17
Because of the short-war operational emphasis, a large standing army was required to win the first battle just as a big navy was required to gain a decisive fleet victory. The general staff wanted a forty-division force structure; the war ministry recommended thirty divisions, with the savings put into building an air force. They compromised on twenty-one modernized regular divisions and nineteen reserve divisions armed with obsolete equipment. The navy sought nine battleships, three aircraft carriers, and forty cruisers.18
With these forces, the navy would engage the U.S. fleet in a decisive sea battle and the army would capture Guam and the Philippines to deny the Americans dry-dock and repair facilities in western Pacific waters. A strategy to occupy strategic bases and destroy the enemy ground forces fit perfectly with the traditionalists’ short-war concept. A single sentence in the 1923 version of national defense acknowledged total-war theory but relegated it to a minor role.19
The general staffs concurred that the resources of East Asia were necessary for their strategic ambitions, but carving out an exclusionary zone would violate the spirit of the Washington Treaty and contradict government policy. Although the drafters recognized the likelihood of coalition warfare, they were preoccupied with the United States and left it to the politicians and diplomats to keep China and the Soviet Union neutral and prevent an alliance from waging war against Japan. With the army general staff and naval staff agreeing on these points, national defense policy shifted to a single opponent and a short-war strategy that failed to integrate national defense policy and national strategy.20 What began as a response to a radically changed international order ended as a throwback to the original 1907 policy (see Table 8.1).
The Ugaki Reforms
Tanaka Giichi and Ugaki agreed that World War I demonstrated the necessity of preparing for a future protracted conflict. For that reason, they proposed still deeper force structure reductions so that during peacetime Japan could expand its heavy industrial base, diversify its economy, and indoctrinate the public with the philosophy of total war. During wartime, army offensive operations had to seize strategic assets at the outset of hostilities to enable Japan to fight a prolonged war. Traditionalists resurfaced their standard arguments that Japan would have difficulty fighting a protracted total war but could win a short decisive confli
ct; the number of regular divisions could not be reduced, and all had to be modernized to win the first battle; and spiritual power and nonmaterial factors could compensate for inferiority in the quality and quantity of weapons. Lt. Gen. Tanaka Kunishige, a division commander at the time, protested any force structure reduction because it would be a battle-axe blow to the army, lower popular awareness of national defense, and adversely affect national morale. Gen. Fukuda Masatarō, a member of the Military Board of Councilors, insisted that weapons alone did not win wars (see Table 8.2).21
Table 8.1. Imperial Defense Policy
April 4, 1907
June 29, 1918
February 28, 1923
Purpose
Achieve objectives by offensive operations
Same
Offensive operations to rapidly finish situation; use diplomacy to avoid isolation and alliance to break enemy coalitions
Hypothetical Opponent(s)
Russia, then USA, Germany, France; maintain alliance with Britain
Russia, USA, China
USA primary enemy; combination of cooperation and military coercion against Russia and China
Force Structure (Army)
Peacetime: 25 divisions
Wartime: 50 divisions (half reserves)
Peacetime: 21 divisions
Wartime: 40 divisions
Peacetime: 21 divisions
Wartime: 40 divisions
Japan's Imperial Army Page 22