Japan's Imperial Army

by Edward J Drea

  War Minister Araki presented certificates of condolences to the bereaved mothers at a public ceremony, and spontaneous nationwide fund drives paid for statues to honor the three soldiers for creating “a spiritual preparedness for death.”36 Official propaganda spread enthusiastically by the media made self-destruction to achieve objectives laudable and set a higher standard for those who followed.

  Another episode at Shanghai would more profoundly influence future standards for battlefield conduct. During a night attack, Maj. Kuga Noboru, a battalion commander, and his 200-man unit were surrounded by Chinese troops. The beleaguered unit suffered severe losses, including Kuga, who was seriously wounded by a hand grenade and left for dead. He survived, but in his weakened condition was taken prisoner.37 Chinese newspapers publicized his captivity and, after the March truce, Kuga and another officer, a captured captain, were handed over to the Japanese consul at Nanjing.

  Kuga believed that he had disgraced his regiment by violating the revised 1928 Infantry Manual’s injunction to hold a position to the last drop of blood. He was also subjected to merciless army peer pressure (one academy classmate urged him to be a man and kill himself). Confused, depressed, and in a susceptible state of mind, Kuga committed suicide and touched off another round of newspaper sensationalism that extolled the late major as a paragon for soldiers to emulate. At least five movies were made about him in 1932 and one play performed. (The repatriated captain also killed himself, but he was awaiting court-martial for ordering an unauthorized withdrawal and for presumably not being the role model of the officer corps that the army wanted presented to the people.) Suicide became ritualized, and informally institutionalized, in the army’s ethos as a laudable goal and a testament to the unique Japanese spirit.

  The distractions provided by the human bombs and Kuga’s suicide diverted public attention from a lackluster campaign. The general staff activated the Shanghai Expeditionary Headquarters on February 24, and as a personal favor Hirohito requested Gen. Shirakawa, the newly appointed commander, to restrict operations and end the fighting quickly. Shirakawa’s reinforcements landed about 30 miles north of Shanghai on March 1, outflanked the defenders, and within a few days drove the Chinese from Shanghai. Total Japanese casualties were about 3,000, including more than 700 killed; the Chinese suffered almost four times as many losses, most within the Nineteenth Route Army.38 A cease-fire signed on May 5 officially ended the First Shanghai Incident.

  The escalated fighting in Shanghai in early February had coincided with a general election campaign in Japan that was marred by right-wing terror. On February 9, a gunman shot former Finance Minister Inoue Junnosuke, who was on his way to speak at a rally. Police immediately arrested the young killer, who blamed Inoue’s fiscal policies for the ruin of the countryside.39 They assumed that the disgruntled youth had acted alone. The February 20 election results gave the Seiyūkai Party an overwhelming majority of 301 of the 466 seats in the Lower House, but its triumph was short-lived. On March 5, Baron Dan Takuma, director-general of the Mitsui conglomerate, was shot to death in broad daylight at a side entrance to Tokyo’s Mitsui Bank. Under police questioning, the assassin revealed links to a mystic Buddhist priest and radical rightist named Inoue Nisshō, who it turned out was behind both assassinations.

  Inoue was the founder of the Blood Brotherhood Association (Ketsumeidan), a civilian right-wing group whose avowed aim was to create a national restoration by assassinating prominent financial and political leaders because they had sacrificed the welfare of the masses for personal gain. Inoue turned himself in to authorities, ending his brief reign of terror but beginning a sensationalized trial that dragged on for more than two years.40

  Shortly after Dan’s murder, military academy cadets, led by radical junior naval officers, murdered Prime Minister Inukai during an attempted coup d’état, the so-called May 15 Incident. Extremist young army officers were not involved, in part because they had high expectations that Araki would reform the army and nation. The war minister likewise had no connection with the May 15 Incident, but Araki made known the army’s opposition to political party cabinets. Despite the Seiyūkai’s overwhelming election victory, after Inukai’s assassination a nonpartisan, national unity cabinet, headed by retired Adm. Saitō Makoto, was established. It marked the end of party cabinets in Japan and the beginning of the army’s domination of the political scene.41 Ignoring criticism from some quarters that he should accept responsibility for the army cadets’ actions and resign, Araki remained as war minister in the new national unity cabinet to carry out his ambitious, and contentious, army reforms, which divided the army’s leadership along even more irreconcilable factional lines.

  The Struggle within the Army

  Debate over the merits of a triangular or square division had continued throughout the 1920s. Traditionalists in the operations department of the general staff favored the square configuration because its additional manpower, weaponry, and equipment enabled the division to sustain combat losses yet continue to function effectively. The larger square division could also overwhelm smaller triangular formations, permitting it to conduct independent sustained operations on extended frontages, a role European and U.S. armies normally assigned to a corps echelon (two or more divisions). For these reasons, the army retained the square divisions despite the World War I trend among European armies to smaller, more mobile triangular formations.42 By the late 1920s, however, reformers judged the bigger division too cumbersome for modern battle because it was difficult to control and maneuver, occupied too much road space during the march to be brought to bear rapidly against the enemy, and its dense ranks rendered it especially vulnerable to the concentrated firepower of modern weapons.

  When Ugaki had returned as war minister in 1929, he still intended to reduce the number of divisions and transform the army into a smaller, modern, high-quality force. His five-year proposal would reduce personnel and reinvest the savings to purchase new equipment, particularly tanks and aircraft. Chief of Staff Lt. Gen. Suzuki Sōroku rejected any troop reductions; he foresaw Japan fighting its next war against a coalition (the United States, the USSR, and China) that would vastly outnumber the army and make it impossible for Japan to win a protracted war. The only option was to strike before the coalition could bring all its military strength and industrial power to bear, a strategy that required a large standing army capable of rapid mobilization and deployment to win the decisive opening battles. Col. Obata Toshishirō, chief of the operations section, endorsed the short-war strategy and insisted that large numbers of active-duty square divisions were essential for national security.43

  The controversy continued after Ugaki’s departure in April 1931, this time between the new war minister—Gen. Minami Jirō, an Ugaki protégé—and the new chief of staff, Lt. Gen. Kanaya Hanzō, an Uehara follower. Minami advocated total-war theories and supported army modernization and the economic development of Manchuria’s natural resources to fight a protracted conflict. Like Ugaki, he would eliminate divisions and personnel to pay for modernization. Kanaya wanted four additional divisions to defend Korea and Manchuria against a growing Soviet threat. Converting divisions to the smaller triangular formations would satisfy both generals; Minami could reduce personnel and Kanaya could increase divisions because fewer troops would be needed for each reorganized smaller division.

  Minami proposed this solution in November as part of his seven-year plan to modernize weaponry, expand armor and air force units, and improve Tokyo’s air defenses. To pay for this, he would reduce the Guard Division, eliminate the post of inspector-general of military education, and abolish the Tokyo garrison headquarters. Araki, then the incumbent inspector-general, led a formidable opposition. The nation’s dire financial condition also made army modernization on the scale Minami advocated impossible, and his plans collapsed completely after the Manchurian Incident and Araki’s appointment as war minister in December 1931.44

  Nevertheless, Ugaki’s supporters still exerted eno
ugh influence within the Tokyo headquarters to block Araki’s choice for chief of staff—his main ally, Lt. Gen. Mazaki Jinsaburō. The factions compromised by selecting Prince Kan’in, an imperial figurehead, who filled the post for the next nine years. Mazaki became vice chief of staff and imperial aide-de-camp. As war minister, Araki quickly scrapped the ministry’s plans to reorganize the army into triangular divisions. He also promoted Obata to chief of the first department because of their shared belief that the triangular division was strategically misguided and would be detrimental to army tradition and esprit.45

  The charismatic Araki’s outspoken denunciations of the evils of capitalism, complemented by calls to hone spiritual values unique to Japan, initially made him extremely popular throughout the officer corps. He was seen as a forceful leader capable of reforming and modernizing the army, but Araki spoke increasingly about cultivating morale and spiritual attributes rather than paying excessive attention to national mobilization and modernization.46

  To emphasize spiritual factors, Araki designated things “imperial,” as in imperial nation (kōkoku), imperial way (kōdō), and so forth to link army to the throne and promote intangibles to improve morale. Consequently, his followers were labeled “the imperial way faction.” In a similar vein, in 1933 Araki forbade the use of the Japanese words for retreat and surrender because he deemed them detrimental to army spirit and morale.47

  Another of Araki’s attempts to boost army morale was to reintroduce in 1934 the wearing of Japanese-style swords by company-grade officers. The Meiji government had prohibited the wearing of Japanese-style swords in 1876, and since 1889 army officers were issued the French-style army sword. By the early 1930s Japan’s few remaining traditional swordsmiths and craftsmen were a dying breed. Araki revitalized the near-dormant sword-making industry by encouraging the opening of a foundry on the grounds of the Yasukuni Shrine in July 1933 and the following year revised uniform regulations to mandate a return to a Kamakura-age Japanese sword. By August 1945, the foundry had produced more than 8,000 “Yasukuni” swords.48

  The flamboyant Araki publicly implied that his critics were pacifists or Communists, promoted the use of kōgun throughout the army, and spoke of traditional Japanese warrior ideals embodied in his notions of bushidō. His public relations campaign was a component of the gradual militarization of Japanese society that began after the Manchurian Incident. The hysterical response to the bakudan sanyūshi incident, and the popularity of the Manchurian and North China adventures, which gained great amounts of new territory at relatively cheap cost (by July 1933 about 9,500 killed and wounded), conferred a new prestige on the army—which alone seemed capable of action, unlike the political parties wallowing in their own corruption.

  Shortly after Araki became war minister, Obata, backed by Araki, announced that Japan had to wage a preemptive war before the Soviet Union achieved overwhelming military superiority. Araki predicted that the crisis would arrive in 1936, identifying that year as the crossover point after which the Soviet Union would grow progressively stronger and Japan steadily weaker. According to Maj. Gen. Nagata Tetsuzan, now the chief of the war ministry’s second department (mobilization and ordnance), Japan could not defeat the USSR unless the army was modernized and expanded to fight a protracted war. This in turn depended on converting Japan’s industrial base to support a military economy that fed off the natural resources of North China, Mongolia, and Manchuria. Nagata’s proposed first step would be to reduce personnel to pay for modernization.49

  Obata understood that in the best of circumstances war with the Soviets would strain Japan to its limits. It made no sense to him to antagonize China, whose long-term problems could not be solved by using the army for short-term solutions. Such a course would merely drain resources needed to fight the Soviets, brand Japan an aggressor in world opinion, and likely lead Japan into full-scale war against an allied coalition. Nagata countered that without China’s resources Japan could not win a war against the USSR. These fundamental disagreements between Obata and Nagata came to a head at the June 1933 army conferences that Araki convened to explain his plan for war with the Soviet Union in 1936, a policy Nagata dismissed out of hand.

  That August, Araki transferred officers not affiliated with his imperial way faction, including Nagata, from Tokyo headquarters and with Mazaki’s aid brazenly maneuvered imperial way supporters into key staff and ministry positions. The imperial way faction now dominated the war ministry and general staff, but Araki and his adherents proved better at slogans than practical ability to enact their programs.

  When Araki subsequently presented the September 1933 five ministers conference with his sweeping plan for immediate rearmament and wartime control of the nation’s finances, he failed to convince them of the imminence of the Soviet threat and was unable to implement his program or secure a bigger army budget, in part because the cabinet was underwriting a massive public works program of infrastructure improvements and construction to relieve the acute financial distress of the peasantry in northeastern Japan.50

  Araki’s inability to gain cabinet support for his budget and his clash with Nagata and his adherents over army strategy and force structure divided the officer class. Academy and staff college classmates and colleagues who had worked together for army reform since the early 1920s parted ways over the fundamental differences between Obata and Nagata. Nagata and Tōjō, dissatisfied with Araki and Mazaki, formed the control (tōsei) faction, bringing a likewise disillusioned Hayashi to their side as well. The control group advocated a planned national economy as the basis for a national mobilization state that would modernize the army and prepare the nation for a protracted total war. The fundamental disagreement split the army’s leaders and the One Evening Society’s members into two major factions, one supporting Araki’s imperial way faction, the other Nagata’s control group.51

  As Araki’s influence dwindled, Mazaki, who was promoted in June 1933 to the post of the inspector-general of military education, intensified his agitation of the junior army officers clique to develop a new base of support. His conduct outraged Nagata and the control faction because it spawned disobedience and disunity within the army and encouraged dangerous political ideologies among younger officers. Although the junior officers claimed no direct affiliation with Araki and Mazaki, they identified with them as opponents of the status quo and therefore natural allies. Nagata was the embodiment of “staff fascism,” which they defined as senior army officers who espoused a state-controlled economy and perpetuation of the existing order that the young officers held responsible for Japan’s ills. In order to destroy this malevolent influence, the young officers would eliminate the evil advisers surrounding the emperor and establish direct imperial rule.52

  In January 1934, citing ill health, Araki resigned as war minister to become a member of the Supreme Military Council. His successor, Lt. Gen. Hayashi Senjūrō, tried to oust Mazaki for subverting military discipline. Hayashi’s fears seemed realized that November when the military police arrested several junior officers and military academy cadets, allegedly for plotting a military coup. Mazaki claimed the incident was concocted to discredit him and eliminate imperial way influence from the army. There was insufficient evidence to warrant a court-martial, and besides, any proceedings would occur under the jurisdiction of a known Mazaki sympathizer who, control members feared, would manipulate the proceedings to the imperial way’s advantage.53 To avoid further embarrassment, army authorities again resorted to administrative punishment, dismissing two leading agitators of the young officers movement from the army.

  Mazaki, however, refused to step down and continued to stir dissension among the young officers. Hayashi notified the emperor that Mazaki had to be curbed, or discipline within the ranks would only worsen.54 With Araki’s backing, Mazaki asserted that if he was to be removed for promoting factionalism, then Nagata should also resign because of his involvement in the March 1931 incident. To end this dangerous politicization of the army,
in mid-July 1935 at a closed session of the Supreme Military Council Chief of Staff Prince Kan’in, backed by senior army officers and the emperor, reassigned Mazaki to the more ceremonial and less influential board of supreme military councilors. Gen. Watanabe Jōtarō replaced Mazaki as inspector-general.

  Radical junior officers interpreted Mazaki’s removal as the latest in a series of control faction conspiracies. Mazaki further inflamed the dangerous situation by leaking confidential deliberations regarding his removal; the young officers in turn published his sensational revelations of the March and October plots in a series of clandestine pamphlets to discredit Nagata and his clique. The inflammatory tracts drove an already unbalanced Lt. Col. Aizawa Saburō, a sympathizer with the young officers, to murder. On August 12, 1935, Aizawa walked calmly into Nagata’s office in the war ministry, drew his sword, and hacked the chief of the military affairs bureau to death. He then nonchalantly recounted his deed in another ministry office until the military police arrested him. Araki, disregarding his own conduct after the May 15 Incident, was quick to remind Hayashi that it was traditional in such circumstances for the war minister to resign. Hayashi did accept responsibility and was replaced by Gen. Kawashima Yoshiyuki, an unaffiliated officer, but one friendly to the imperial way group.55

  Aizawa’s public court-martial began January 28, 1936, and quickly degenerated into a media spectacle and a stage for imperial way propaganda. In the midst of the trial, for numerous reasons, among them the 1st Division’s imminent transfer to Manchuria, about two dozen radicalized junior officers, including key leaders of the young officers movement, led a mutiny of the Tokyo garrisons. They assembled their NCOs on the night of February 25, explained their goals for an armed insurrection to achieve an imperial restoration, and allowed any NCO who disagreed with them to leave. Only one did.56 By the next morning 1,400 officers and men, most from the 1st Division, had occupied snow-covered downtown Tokyo, seized the key ministries, and murdered the inspector-general of military education, the finance minister, and the prime minister’s brother-in-law, mistaking the last for the minister. The so-called February 26 Incident paralyzed the capital and the army for four days.