Japan's Imperial Army

by Edward J Drea

  89. Barnhart, Japan and the World, 29; Ono, “Nisshin sensō ato keieiki,” 49–50, 55.

  Chapter 6. Back to the Continent: The Russo-Japanese War

  1. Ian Nish, “Japan’s Indecision during the Boxer Disturbances,” Journal of Asian Studies 20:4 (August 1961), 449; Ōe, Sanbō honbu, 84. As a 16-year-old, Fukushima had fought in the Boshin War; later, as an English-language translator and newspaper reporter during the Satsuma Rebellion, he found his way to Yamagata’s headquarters. Yamagata appointed him his intelligence chief in 1878 and launched Fukushima’s military career. Fukushima became a national hero during 1892–1893 when he returned from attaché duty in Berlin via Vladi-vostok by making an epic fourteen-month solitary crossing of Siberia by horseback. Without ever commanding a troop unit, his intelligence work carried him to the general staff and service in the Boxer Expedition.

  2. Kawano Koaki, “Hoku Shin jiken” [The north China incident], in Okumura and Kuwada, Nisshin Nichi-Ro sensō, 377–378, 385.

  3. Ibid., 386.

  4. Kuwada and Maebara, Nihon no sensō zukai to deta, plate 2. Subsequent reinforcements from British India, France, Russia, and Germany, including Vietnamese, Indian, and Chinese soldiers, to pacify the region brought the overall expedition to 70,000 personnel.

  5. Shimanuki Shigeyoshi, Senryaku: Nichi-Ro sensō (jō) [The strategy of the Russo-Japanese war, 1] (Hara shobō, 1980), 103.

  6. Kuwada and Maebara, Nihon no sensō zukai to deta, plate 2. The quote on polite looting is cited in Meirion and Susie Harries, Soldiers of the Sun (New York: Random House, 1992), 72–73; Ōe, Yasukuni jinja, 16.

  7. Matsuzaki Shoichi, “Shina chūtonshin zōkyō mondai” (jō) [The problem of the reinforcement of the China garrison army, part 1], Kokugakuin zasshi 96:2 (February 1995), 28.

  8. Kurono Taeru, Teikoku kokubō hoshin no kenkyū [Researching the course of imperial defense policy] (Sōwasha, 2000), 69–70; Tani Hisao, Kimitsu Nichi-Ro senshi [The classified history of the Russo-Japanese war] Meiji hyakunenshi sōsho [The Meiji centennial series] vol. 3 (Hara shobō, 1971), 94; Bōeichō, Daihon’ei rikugunbu (1), 91.

  9. Morimatsu, Daihon’ei, 98–99.

  10. Mark R. Peattie and David C. Evans, Kaigun (Annapolis, MD: Naval Institute Press, 1997), 49–50; Morimatsu, Daihon’ei, 105–108.

  11. Ōe, Sanbō honbu, 82.

  12. Okamoto, Oligarchy, 71–72; Tani, Kimitsu Nichi-Ro senshi, 82; Ōe, Sanbō honbu, 84.

  13. Kurono, Daigaku, 115; Kurogawa Yuzō, Kindai Nihon no gunji senryaku gaisetsu [An overview of modern Japan’s military strategy] (Fūyō shobō, 2003), 50; see also Okamoto, Oligarchy, 76–77.

  14. Ōe, Sanbō honbu, 82; Inoki Masamichi, Gunkoku Nihon no kōbō [The rise and fall of militarist Japan] (Chūkō shinsho, 1995), 30–31.

  15. Kodama was home minister and concurrently education minister. In June 1904 he was promoted to general when he left the position to become chief of staff for Ōyama’s Manchurian Army.

  16. Inoki, Gunkoku Nihon no kōbō, 36; Ikuda, Nihon rikugunshi, 80; Tani, Kimitsu Nichi-Ro senshi, 82, 94–95; Kurokawa, Kindai Nihon no gunji senryaku gaishi, 50–51; Kurono, Teikoku kokubō, 40–43.

  17. Warner, Tide, 189–190; Tani, Kimitsu Nichi-Ro senshi, 44–48; Kasahara Hidehiko, Meiji tennō [The Meiji emperor] (Chūkō shinsho, 2006), ii, 265.

  18. Furuya Tetsuō, Nichi-Ro sensō [The Russo-Japanese war] (Chūkō shinsho, 1966), 96–98.

  19. Kurono, Daigaku, 126; Hata, Tōsuiken, 81; Okamoto, Japanese Oligarchy, 36.

  20. Sumiya, Dai Nihon teikoku no shien, 257.

  21. Inoki, Gunkoku Nihon no kōbō, 39; see also Warner, Tide, 287; Furuya, Nichi-Ro sensō, 103.

  22. Yoshihisa Tak Matsusaka, “Human Bullets, General Nogi, and the Myth of Port Arthur,” in John W. Steinberg, et al., eds., The Russo-Japanese War in Global Perspective, 1 (Leiden, Netherlands: Brill, 2005), 179.

  23. Furuya, Nichi-Ro sensō, 103.

  24. Sumiya, Dai Nihon teikoku no shien, 263 (quote); Ōe, Nichi-Ro gunjiteki kenkyū, 330.

  25. Hosaka Masayasu, Shōwa rikugun no kenkyū [Research about the army of the Shōwa period, 1] (Asahi bunko, 2006), 43.

  26. Kurono, Daigaku, 124–125.

  27. Warner, Tide, 236.

  28. Sumiya, Dai Nihon teikoku no shien, 263; Warner, Tide, 390.

  29. Ōe, Nichi-Ro gunjiteki kenkyū, 335; Furuya, Nichi-Ro sensō, 126–127; Ōe, Nichi-Ro to Nihon guntai, 169;Yamamura, Gunshin, 51.

  30. Furuya, Nichi-Ro sensō, 125. The 14th Division was mobilized June 13; the 15th and 16th divisions were mobilized on August 8.

  31. The army used the special term minikui, meaning “shameful, ugly,” as a modifier preceding the word for surrender. Ichinose, Meiji, Taishō, Shōwa guntai manyūaru, 95.

  32. Warner, Tide, 304–305; Furuya, Nichi-Ro sensō, 106.

  33. Furuya, Nichi-Ro sensō, 123–124; Hosaka, Shōwa rikugun no kenkyū (1), 45.

  34. Furuya, Nichi-Ro sensō, 122–124, 128–129.

  35. Okamoto, Oligarchy, 110.

  36. Ibid., 111.

  37. Harada, Nisshin Nichi-Ro sensō, 214–218; Okamoto, Oligarchy, 116; Bōeichō, Daihon’ei rikugunbu (1), 118–123.

  38. Ichinose, Meiji, Taishō, Shōwa guntai manyūaru, 28–34, 41, 67–69.

  39. Kurono, Daigaku, 67, 111.

  40. Nogi had retired in 1901 because he believed allegations about officers from his regiment for looting during the Boxer Rebellion had tarnished his reputation. Robert Jay Lifton, Shuichi Kato, and Michael R. Reich, Six Lives Six Deaths (New Haven, CT: Yale University Press, 1977), 50.

  41. Warner, Tide, 322; Tani, Kimitsu Nichi-Ro sensō, 167–168.

  42. Warner, Tide, 335.

  43. Ibid, 268; Ōe, Nichi-Ro sensō gunjiteki kenkyū, 321–324.

  44. Ōe, Sanbō honbu, 104; Kurono, Daigaku, 129.

  45. Kurono, Daigaku, 135–136.

  46. Ibid., 136; Ōe, Sanbō honbu, 108.

  47. Furuya, Nichi-Ro sensō, 156–157; Ōe, Sanbō honbu, 109.

  48. Hosaka, Shōwa rikugun no kenkyū (1), 44; Bōeicho, Daihon’ei rikugunbu (1), 106; Lone, Army, Empire, 106; Kurono, Daigaku, 126; Hata, Tōsuiken, 81.

  49. Kurono, Daigaku, 127; Furuya, Nichi-Ro sensō, 110; Ōe, Sanbō honbu, 93, 97.

  50. Sumiya, Dai Nihon teikoku no shien, 259; Tani, Kimitsu Nichi-Ro senshi, 196; Furuya, Nichi-Ro sensō, 100.

  51. See Tani, Kimitsu Nichi-Ro senshi, 166; Warner, Tide, 237.

  52. Warner, Tide, 368; Furuya, Nichi-Ro sensō, 108; Shimanuki Shigeyoshi, Senryaku Nichi-Ro sensō (ge) [Strategy: The Russo-Japanese war, 2] (Hara shobō, 1980), 402.

  53. Warner, Tide, 375.

  54. Ōe, Nichi-Ro gunjiteki kenkyū, 329. Of 1,260 field grade infantry officers (majors and lieutenant colonels), almost 21 percent (263) were killed in action and 15 percent (1,453) of the 9,694 junior grade infantry officers (captains and lieutenants) were also killed. The army did not normally promote NCOs to regular commissioned officers, but it was forced to promote more than 2,200 to fill the losses. Ōe, Nichi-Ro sensō to Nihon guntai, 236.

  55. Okamoto, Oligarchy, 126; Ōe, Nichi-Ro sensō to Nihon guntai, 163–164.

  56. Ichinose, Meiji, Taishō, Shōwa guntai manyuaru, 87; Furuya, Nichi-Ro sensō, 119–120; Iguchi, Nichi-Ro sensō no jidai, 149.

  57. Lifton, Kato, and Reich, Six Lives Six Deaths, 51; Furuya, Nichi-Ro sensō, 120; Rikusenshi kenkyū fukyūkai, Ryōjun yōsai kōrakusen, 122.

  58. Ōe, Sanbō honbu, 99. Lt. Col. Arita Jō, an instructor at the military staff college, would become chief of staff of the Second Army’s logistics section, and Lt. Col. Kakizaki Tomusaburō, an instructor at the Toyama School, would become chief of staff for the First Army logistics section (Ōe, Sanbō honbu, 99–100). Lt. Col. Fujii Kōtsuchi, known for his prewar staff study of road networks in Korea, became chief of staff of logistics for the Third Army.

  59. Yamaguchi, Rikugun to kaigun, 81; Ōe, Sanbō honbu, 99.

  60. Ichinose, Meiji,Taishō, Shōwa guntai manyuaru, 97; Ō
e, Nichi-Ro sensō gunjiteki, 550, 552.

  61. Furuya, Nichi-Ro sensō, 109, 161; Ōe, Nichi-Ro sensō gunjiteki, 335.

  62. Ōe, Nichi-Ro sensō gunjiteki, 335.

  63. Harada, Kokumin no shinwa, 141.

  64. Yamamoto, Shōhai no kōzō, 85.

  65. Furuya, Nichi-Ro sensō, 122, 131; Okamoto, Oligarchy, 106.

  66. Furuya, Nichi-Ro sensō, 157.

  67. Yamamoto, Shōhai no kōzō, 154.

  68. Shimanuki, Senryaku Nichi-Ro sensō 2: 394–395.

  69. Tokyo placed Taiwan under martial law so its garrison was unavailable to reinforce the Manchurian armies.

  70. Furuya, Nichi-Ro sensō, 133–134.

  71. Tatsuno Shino, “Meiji tennō to sono shūi” [Emperor Meiji in those circumstances], in Suzuki Tsutome, gen ed., Nihon rekishi shiri-zu [Japanese history series] 19, Nisshin-Nichi-Ro sensō [The Sino-Japanese and Russo-Japanese wars] (Sekai bunkasha, 1970), 77; Warner, Tide, 458–459; Matsusaka, “Human Bullets,” 194.

  72. Warner, Tide, 464–465; Furuya, Nichi-Ro sensō, 134–137.

  73. Sumiya, Dai Nihon teikoku no shien, 267; Shimanuki, Senryaku Nichi-Ro sensō, 2: 426–428. Nogi’s chief of staff, Ijichi, was appointed chairman of the newly established Port Arthur readjustment committee, in effect firing him.

  74. Furuya, Nichi-Ro sensō, 159.

  75. Kyūsanbō honbu, Nichi-Ro sensō [The Russo-Japanese war] (ge) (Tokuma Bunkō, 1994), 2: 332; Ōe, Nichi-Ro sensō gunjiteki, table 2-16, 172; table 2-2, 130; table 2-3, 131. Hara Takeshi, “Hohei chūshin no hakuhei shūgi no keisei” [The evolution of close-quarter infantry doctrine] Nichi-Ro sensō (II) [The Russo-Japanese war, part II], Special Issue, Gunji shigaku 41:1 and 2 (June 2005), table 2, 273, gives a total of 173,151 killed or wounded (14.6 percent of the 1,183,470 engaged). Adding deaths due to illness (21,424) yields a more accurate figure of around 200,000 personnel losses.

  76. Hara Takeshi, “Nichi-Ro sensō no eikyō,”14.

  77. Ichinose, Meiji, Taishō, Shōwa guntai manyūaru, 97, 115–117.

  78. They were punished for surviving the sinking of the Kinshu Maru when almost all their comrades chose suicide or certain death rather than surrender.

  79. Ōe, Nichi-Ro sensō gunjiteki kenkyū, 378 and n129, 399–400.

  80. Ōe, Sanbō honbu, 110–111; Hata, Nihonji horyo, 1: 10, 12, 21.

  81. Hata, Nihonjin no horyo 1: 9–10.

  82. Despite Japanese claims, similar ideas of offensive spirit, masculinity, and intangible qualities permeated European armies as well and may account for the popularity of Sakurai’s book with western audiences.

  83. Yamamuro, Gunshin, xii, 23, 35, 82–83.

  84. Naoko Shimazu, “The Myth of the ‘Patriotic Soldier’: Japanese Attitudes towards Death in the Russo-Japanese War,” War & Society 19:2 (October 2001), 71, 77, 81.

  85. Ōe, Sanbō honbu, 78; Iguchi, Nichi-Ro sensō no jidai, 162–166.

  86. Ōe, Sanbō honbu, 113; Iguchi, Nichi-Ro sensō no jidai, 166–167.

  87. Ōe, Nichi-Ro sensō to Nihon guntai, 187–190. See also Tani, Kimitsu Nichi-Ro senshi, 3, introduction.

  88. Iguchi, Nichi-Ro sensō no jidai, 168.

  89. Hata, Tōsuiken, 149. Maj. Gen. Asada Nobuaki kept his promise by receiving a barony in 1907 and later rose to the rank of full general.

  Chapter 7. Institutionalizing National Military Strategy

  1. Tobe, Gyakusetsu, 163.

  2. Kurono Taeru, Nihon o horoboshita kokubō hōshin [The national defense policies that ruined Japan] (Bungei shinsho, 2002), 22–24.

  3. This included sixteen mobilized reserve brigades, the equivalent of eight divisions.

  4. Kurono, Nihon o horoboshita, 38–41; Kurono, Daigaku, 145; Kurogawa, Gunji senryaku gaisetsu, 82. Kodama’s proposals would field nineteen active divisions. Excluding the Guards Division, he would form six corps of three divisions each from the remaining eighteen divisions.

  5. Kurono, Daigaku, 146–148; Kurogawa, Gunji senryaku gaisetsu, 66; Kurono, Nihon o horoboshita, 29; Schencking, Making Waves, 123.

  6. KuronoTaeru, Teikoku kokubō hōshin ni kenkyū: riku-kaigun kokubō shisō no tenkaito tokuchō [A study of imperial national defense policy: the development and characteristics of the army and the navy’s ideas on national defense] (Sōwashi, 2000), 8–9, 85–86, 105. In May 1887 the council of state established the Board of Military Councilors, best thought of as a liaison and advisory function for army and navy coordination, to provide pros and cons of military matters. Members included service chiefs, service ministers, and inspector-generals who reported directly to the emperor (Matsushita, Meiji no guntai, 95; Morimatsu, Daihon’ei, 46).

  7. Kurogawa, Gunji senryaku gaisetsu, 64; Kurono, Nihon o horoboshita, 29–33; Kurono, Teikoku kokubō, 98; Yoshida Yutaka, “Nihon no guntai” [The Japanese army], in Ōe Shinobu et al. eds., Iwanami Koza, Nihon no tsūshi, 17 [Iwanami’s lectures on common Japanese history, vol. 17], kindai [modern], part 2 (Iwanami shoten, 1994), 154.

  8. Kurogawa, Gunji senryaku gaisetsu, 75.

  9. Ibid., 73.

  10. Matsushita, Kokubō higeki, 78–83; see also Kurokawa, Gunji senryaku gaisetsu, 74–78; Kurono, Teikoku kokubō, 105–109; Kurono, Nihon o horoboshita, 34.

  11. Kurono, Nihon o horoboshita, 35–37.

  12. Schencking, Making Waves, 127–128; Kurono, Nihon o horoboshita, 32–33.

  13. Hata, Tōsuiken, 154, 156–157; Tobe, Gyakusetsu, 157.

  14. Tobe, Gyakusetsu, 156.

  15. Hata, Tōsuiken, 154–155; Kurono, Daigaku, 153–154; Tobe, Gyakusetsu, 158.

  16. Kurono Taeru, “‘Teikoku kokubō hōshin’ senryaku sakusen yōhei kō” [Strategy and Tactics of the (1907) “imperial defense policy”] Gunji shigaku 31:4 (March 1996), 10; Kurono, Teikoku kokubō, 156–157.

  17. Leonard A. Humphreys, The Way of the Heavenly Sword: The Japanese Army in the 1920s (Stanford, CA: Stanford University Press, 1995), 18. Terauchi had been wounded in the Satsuma Rebellion and invalided with a disabled right arm.

  18. Ibid., 18–19 and quote, 65; Kurono, Daigaku, 44.

  19. Hata, Tōsuiken, 154–156; Humphreys, Heavenly Sword, 22.

  20. Ichinose, Meiji, Taishō, Shōwa guntai manyūaru, 113.

  21. Kurogawa, Kindai gunji senryaku, 53–54.

  22. Hara Takeshi, “Hohei chūshin,” 274–275.

  23. Ibid., 273–274.

  24. Yokoyama, “Military Technological Strategy and Armaments,” 123–126; Kaneko, Heiki to senjutsu no Nihonshi, 185.

  25. Kuzuhara Kazumi, “‘Sentō kōyō’ no kyōgi no keisei to kōchokuka” [The structure of principles of command and its ossification] Gunji shigaku 40:1 (June 2004), 20; Hara Takeshi, “Hohei chūshin,” 276, 279–280.

  26. Hara Takeshi, “Hohei chūshin,” 282 and table 6, page 285.

  27. Endō, Kindai Nihon guntai kyōikushi kenkyū, 126–127; Hata, Nihon horyo, 2: 20; Hara Takeshi, “Hohei chūshin,” 282.

  28. Hara Takeshi, “Hohei chūshin,” 282.

  29. Endō, Kindai Nihon guntai kyōikushi kenkyū, 196–197.

  30. YoshidaYutaka, “Nihon no guntai,” 169–170, 152; Endō, Kindai Nihon guntai kyōikushi kenkyū, 138–139.

  31. Endō, Kindai Nihon guntai kyōikushi kenkyū, 194. In 1909 the national rate was 1.85 suicides per 10,000.

  32. Ibid., 15.

  33. YoshidaYutaka, “Nihon no guntai,” 163, 170.

  34. Ibid., 163, 170–171.

  35. Endō, Kindai Nihon guntai kyōikushi kenkyū, 18, 139.

  36. Ibid., 34;YoshidaYutaka, Nihon no guntai, 11;YoshidaYutaka, “Nihon no guntai,” 174.

  37. Yoshida Yutaka, “Nihon no guntai,” 163, 172; Richard J. Smethurst, A Social Basis for Prewar Japanese Militarism: The Army and the Rural Community (Berkeley: University of California Press, 1974), xiv–xv.

  38. Smethurst, A Social Basis for Prewar Japanese Militarism, 9, 15, 18, 20, 71–72.

  39. Ibid., 25–28.

  40. Kurono, Daigaku, 163–164.

  41. Kobayashi
Hiroharu, Sensō no Nihonshi [Warfare in Japanese history] 21, Sōryokusen to demokurashi [Total war and democracy] (Yoshikawa Kōbunsha, 2008), 83, 125.

  42. Kurono, Daigaku, 173, 176.

  43. Ibid., 167, 170–171; Kurono, Teikoku rikugun no kaikaku to teikō, 101; Kurono, Teikoku kokubō, 161–162.

  44. Kurono, Teikoku kokubō, 158–161.

  45. Kurokawa, Kindai gunji senryaku, 105–106.

  46. Kurono, Nihon o horoboshita, 58.

  47. Koiso’s study was titled “Teikoku kokubō shigen” [Natural resources for imperial defense]. Kurogawa, Kindai gunji senryaku, 103; Kurono, Teikoku kokubō, 171.

  48. Kurono, Teikoku kokubō, 170–171. The study group chaired by Tanaka Giichi drafted “Waga kokugunbi to Shina to no kankei” [China’s relationship to our nation’s military preparations] in May 1917 and “Zenkoku dōin keikaku hitsuyō no gi” [Essential principals for a national mobilization plan] in September 1917.

  49. Kurono, Teikoku kokubō, 173; Kurokawa, Kindai gunji senryaku, 94.

  50. Kurono, Nihon o horoboshita, 66. The army burned the extant copy of the 1918 revision of imperial defense in August 1945. The contents were later deduced from draft papers and the recollections of former staff officers who participated in the process.

  51. Kurono, Nihon o horoboshita, 70–71; Kurono, Teikoku kokubō, 168, 163, citing Ugaki Kazushige’s diary.

  52. Kurogawa, Kindai gunji senryaku, 115, 117.

  53. Kurono, Teikoku kokubō, 153, 182;Tobe, Gyakusetsu, 224; see Rikusen gakkai, eds., Kindai sensō, shiryō, 170 for differing figures. Schencking, Making Waves, 217 agrees with Tobe’s numbers.

  54. Kurono, Nihon o horoboshita, 75; Kurono, Teikoku kokubō, 183.

  55. Kurono, Daigaku, 163–168.

  56. Ibid., 170–171,175; James William Morley, The Japanese Thrust into Siberia, 1918 (New York: Columbia University Press, 1957), 102.

  57. Kobayashi, Sōryokusen to demokurashi, 225; Humphreys, Heavenly Sword, 26.

  58. Ōuchi Tsutomu, Nihon no rekishi [A history of Japan] 23, Taishō demokurashi [Taishō democracy] (Chūō kōronsha, 1966), 159–162. Kobayashi, Sōryokusen, 242.

  59. Humphreys, Heavenly Sword, 27.