Hirohito and the Making of Modern Japan

by Herbert P. Bix

  As early as the eve of Pearl Harbor, this enormous, time-consuming effort by the high command to be sure Hirohito was fully informed had begun to detract from the efficiency of key officers involved in operations and strategic planning. Because the First Department head, for example, spent so much of his time keeping the emperor abreast of developments, he often could not immerse himself fully in his main duties, which were the planning of operations and strategies. Imoto Kumao, who served on the Army General Staff during 1941, believed that this unintended consequence of the monarchy’s modus operandi became a factor in Japan’s defeat. Keeping Hirohito informed was a Herculean effort that forced department heads to delegate their top-level work down to “section chiefs and their subordinates,” who soon became drawn into “the war leadership activities of the department heads. When that confusion occurred, officers who might still be able to handle routine administrative affairs were quite unable to meet the Imperial Headquarters operational planning responsibilities. I see here that they caused a wide dark void to open in command at the Imperial Headquarters.”13

  I

  By early 1941 Japanese policy makers including the emperor were mesmerized by the connection between the stalemated war in China and the course of events in Europe. German-Soviet relations particularly held their attention. Bound together by their nonaggression pact of August 1939, both powers were apparently positioning themselves for a further partition of Europe. But hidden complications in their relationship had developed. Hitler was secretly preparing to attack his new ally. Stalin, aware that Hitler was concentrating troops along the western border of the Soviet Union but not yet able to see an invasion imminent, mulled over the frighteningly swift triumph of the German war machine in the West, the German military campaign in the Balkans, and the overall deterioration of Russo-German relations. He felt an urgent need to secure Russia’s Far Eastern borders, and also to block any further development, at Soviet expense, of the German-Japan axis.14 And he found that he could avoid the nightmare of a two-front conflict by responding to the Konoe cabinet’s renewed initiative for a treaty. Intent on deflecting Japan’s attention away from the Soviet Far East and toward the sphere of Anglo-American interests—Southeast Asia and the South Pacific—Stalin would agree to a neutrality pact in exchange for Japan’s pledge to relinquish to the Soviets its coal and oil concessions in North Sakhalin.

  On April 7 Matsuoka Ysuke arrived in Moscow from Berlin.15 Several days of hard bargaining ensued, during which he resigned himself to the impossibility of securing a nonaggression pact, then accepted Stalin’s conditions and settled for what the Soviets would offer. A newly released document in the Russian Foreign Ministry archives discloses that during his meeting with Stalin at the Kremlin on April 12, Matsuoka proposed that problems in Japan-Soviet relations be resolved “from a wider point of view.” “[S]hould you wish access to the warm Indian Ocean through India,” said Matsuoka, “I think that should be permitted. And if the Soviet Union should prefer the port of Karachi for itself, Japan can close its eyes. When Special Envoy Heinrich Stahmer (Gestapo agent and later German ambassador to Tokyo) visited Japan, I told him that, in the event the Soviet Union comes toward the warm ocean through Iran, the Germans should treat the matter exactly as Japan does.” Reverting to his pet themes—“sav[ing] Asia from the control of the Anglo-Saxons” and “washing the influence of British and American capitalism out of Asia”—Matsuoka tried to have Stalin promise to end Soviet aid to Chiang Kai-shek.16 Stalin replied that the Soviet Union could “tolerate cooperation between Japan, Germany, and Italy on the large issues,” but that “at this time I want to talk only about the neutrality treaty with Japan, for on this issue there is no doubt that the time is ripe.”17

  The next day, April 13, Matsuoka and envoy extraordinary Gen. Tatekawa Yoshitsugu signed with Molotov, in Stalin’s presence, a five-year neutrality treaty.18 Under its terms the two nations “pledged to maintain peaceful, friendly relations” and to respect their mutual territories. In the event of military activity by a third state against one or both of them, the other party would “maintain neutrality throughout the entire period of the conflict.” The treaty was to go into effect from the day of its ratification and remain binding for five years. In addition the Russians pledged, in a separate declaration, to respect the inviolability of Manchukuo while the Japanese recognized Russia’s interest in the “Mongolian People’s Republic.” If neither Moscow nor Tokyo gave notice of abrogation by the end of the fourth year, the treaty would automatically be extended for another five years. Hirohito ratified the treaty on April 25, and the following day, the official Russian newspaper, Pravda, announced that the neutrality pact with Japan had gone into effect.19

  Approximately nine weeks later, on June 5, the Japanese ambassador in Berlin, Gen. shima Hiroshi, reported to the emperor and the high command that Hitler was about to invade the Soviet Union.20 The Army General Staff’s “Twentieth Group” immediately responded by drafting a plan for opening war against the Soviet Union while simultaneously advancing south into French Indochina. The Army Ministry’s Military Affairs Bureau just as immediately set to work on its own, different plan, which featured postponing the attack on the Soviet Union “until the time ripens.” As these disagreements intensified between the Army General Staff and the Army Ministry over how to assess the new factor of a German-Soviet war, a new document—“Outline of the Empire’s National Policies in View of the Changing Situation”—began to take shape.21

  Then, on June 22, the situation changed as anticipated. Hitler turned on Stalin and, unconsciously following the footsteps of Napoleon Bonaparte after his standoff with Britain, invaded the Soviet Union.

  On the following morning, June 23, a meeting of the top leaders of the Navy Ministry and Naval General Staff, attended also by Section Chiefs and Bureau Heads, firmed up the navy’s position: Go for military bases and airfields in the southern part of French Indochina even if that move entailed “risking war with Britain and the United States.” For, as explained a few days later by a key participant, liaison officer Lt. Col. Fujii Shigeru of the Navy Ministry’s Military Affairs Bureau, a Japan–U.S. war was probably inevitable, but just might be avoided by taking “an extremely hard line” toward the United States and Britain, throwing fear into them, and persisting in that tough attitude whenever they appeared threatening. He likened this approach to “walking on a tightrope.”22 Today we would use “brinksmanship.”

  To all those who wanted to strike northward and destroy Soviet power throughout the eastern Siberian region as far as Lake Baikal, the German-Soviet war offered an obvious temptation. The participants in the liaison conferences and imperial conferences that led to Japan’s declaration of war against the United States and Britain, were also influenced by the American tightening of economic sanctions against Japan after it had moved into southern Indochina, and by President Roosevelt’s commitment to the defense of Britain, China, and the Soviet Union. Since the British blockade of Germany’s ports necessitated a tightening of economic sanctions against Germany’s ally Japan, British policy also contributed in a minor way to the worsening of Japan’s relations with the Anglo-American powers, and thus to a further narrowing of the possibilities for diplomatic conciliation in Asia during late 1941.

  Of all the background factors that influenced policy decisions during 1941, the deadlocked China war, then in its fourth year, was the most significant. Here, however, the conventional image of a Japan whose military “had its hands full” or was “tied down” in China is somewhat misleading. The war was indeed bogging down Japan’s large continental army. Yet precisely because Japan was fighting in China, its army and navy had been able to expand the industries, stockpile the weapons, and secure the enormous funds needed to confront the United States and Britain during the fall and early winter of 1941. After four years and five months of war in China, the army had expanded from seventeen divisions totaling 250,000 men in July 1937 to fifty-one divisions and 2.1 million me
n by December 8, 1941.23

  By conducting military operations in China with minimal logistic support, engaging in mass looting and plunder, establishing client “puppet” regimes rather than direct military administration of occupied areas, all the while diverting, annually, large percentages of emergency military appropriations to build up basic war power, the army and navy arrived at a position where they felt they could risk a Pacific war. In this sense, China removed the restraints on Japanese military spending. It figured not simply as the justification for Japan’s rising military budgets but as their very source. Without war in China neither the army nor the navy, even if they had wanted to, would have been able to take the gamble of advancing south by military force in late 1941.24

  II

  On July 2, 1941, ten days after the German invasion of the Soviet Union, Konoe summoned an imperial conference to deal with matters debated but not resolved between June 5 and 23 within the Army and Navy Ministries and general staffs, and then aired at the June 30 and July 1 liaison conferences. The consensus of the conferences was that moving troops and planes into the southern part of French Indochina would not provoke the United States into coming out against Japan, but even if it did, vital national goals mandated taking the risk.

  The document adopted at the imperial conference and immediately approved by the emperor—entitled “Outline of the Empire’s National Policies in View of the Changing Situation”—opened the preparatory steps for new wars against the Soviet Union, Britain, and the United States. For the first time a policy statement used the expression “war with Britain and the United States.” Specifically the July 2 document called for establishing the “Greater East Asia Coprosperity Sphere,” expediting the settlement of the China war, and advancing “south…in order to establish a solid basis for the nation’s preservation and security [literally, ‘self-existence and self-defense’].” It further stipulated:

  Depending on [appropriate] changes in the situation, we will settle the northern question [that is, attack the Soviet Union] as well…. In order to achieve the above objectives, preparations for war with Great Britain and the United States will be made…[and] our empire will not be deterred by the possibility of being involved in a war with Great Britain and the United States.

  From start to finish the document was conditioned by circumstances and burdened by contingencies.

  If the German-Soviet war should develop to the advantage of our empire, [then] we will, by resorting to armed force, settle the northern question and assure the security of our northern borders…. But if the United States should enter the [European] war, [then] our empire will act in accordance with the Tripartite Pact. However, we will decide independently as to the time and method of resorting to force [emphasis added].25

  Where French Indochina was concerned, the policy outline projected movement of the army into the Cam Ranh Bay and Saigon areas to secure bases for further operations.26 It also marked out for confiscation (“at the appropriate time”) the remaining Western treaty enclaves in China, and specified the completing of preparations for the destruction of Anglo-American military power in Asia. On the other hand it neither approved Japanese intervention in the German-Soviet war (as sought by foreign minister Matsuoka and Privy Council President Hara Yoshimichi) nor ruled out the possibility of such intervention. In fact the July 2 imperial conference authorized secret preparations for a future attack against the Soviet Union, designated “Kwantung Army Special Grand Maneuvers.” This decision led to a succession of secret troop mobilizations at home, and to the massing, during July and the first week of August, of approximately seven to eight hundred thousand Japanese troops in northern Manchukuo. Their mission was to be ready by early September for a war with the Soviet Union, which, however, would be started only if the Germans succeeded in quickly destroying Soviet resistance in the West.27

  Hirohito sanctioned this hard-line policy reluctantly but sanctioned it nevertheless.28 He ratified the idea of “not be[ing] deterred by the possibility of being involved in a war with Great Britain and the United States”; and his approval of the stationing of Japanese troops in southern Indochina very quickly provoked American and British military reaction. Later he caused one part of the new national policy to be reversed. All concerned were thereby reminded that decisions of an imperial conference were not immutable but could be changed by the emperor if he wanted to do so.

  On July 30 Hirohito made a major operational intervention by suggesting to General Sugiyama that the buildup in Manchukuo stop as it was probably preventing the Soviet Far Eastern Army from redeploying to fight in the West.29 No thought was given to aiding his ally Hitler. At this time the emperor did not desire a full-scale war with either the Soviet Union or the United States; but if war had to be, he was more inclined to risk it southward into the Anglo-American sphere of interest than fight the Russians; and if the Soviet Far Eastern Army departed westbound, in relative terms Japan’s war-power in the North would immediately improve. The threat of Soviet attack to take advantage of Japanese operations in China and the South would become negligible. Ultimately, of course, the U.S. oil embargo would make a northward invasion impossible for the short term. For that reason also, the movement West of the Soviet Far Eastern forces would be gratifying. So, though for a short period of time in early July the “peace-loving” emperor had contemplated a military invasion of the Soviet Union even though he had ratified the Neutrality Pact with Russia a mere three months earlier, he changed his mind, gave an operational command, and as a result the liaison conference on August 9 cancelled for that year the “planned” invasion of the Soviet Union.30 Hirohito’s intervention thus prevented Japan from going to war with the Soviet Union as the army high command wanted. An initial imperial decision did not control the final one at this point in time.

  In the interim between the July 2 imperial conference and the next one on September 6, several important changes occurred in Japan’s ruling setup, and in the situation facing its policy-makers. The conflict intensified between Prime Minister Konoe and foreign minister Matsuoka, who had become the most vocal advocate of the go-north strategy. When Matsuoka forced a confrontation over how to handle negotiations with the U.S., Konoe, supported by the army and navy ministers, quickly reshuffled his cabinet in order to drop Matsuoka and bring in Admiral Toyoda Teijir, a less mercurial figure. The formation of the third Konoe cabinet, however, provoked fear among middle echelon officers of the army and navy that Konoe would soon abandon both the Axis and the plan to advance into southern Indochina. As a result, the army and navy ministers—Tj and Oikawa—made increased preparations for war against the United States and Britain a condition for their entering the cabinet.31 And, most important, Hirohito came to believe that war with the United States and Britain had to be risked, though he still hoped to avoid war if at all possible.

  Meanwhile, the army and navy, acting in accordance with the complex, ambiguous national policy in effect after July 2, and in step with hasty diplomatic arrangements, accelerated the pace of their expansion into Southeast Asia. Negotiations with Vichy France set up the July 28 peaceful occupation of the southern part of French Indochina in preparation for seizing the resources of the Dutch East Indies and British Malaya. The incursion involved more than 40,000 Japanese troops but later grew to more than 185,000.32 As the advance developed, it provoked President Roosevelt and his advisers into unleashing powerful economic sanctions against Japan along with a merely token military response.

  On July 26, Roosevelt ordered defenses in the Philippines—America’s main Pacific possession—strengthened, promising to send, as soon as possible, 272 B-17 long-range heavy bombers and 130 new P-40 fighter planes to protect them. He also appointed the retired Army Chief of Staff, General Douglas MacArthur, commander-in-chief of all U.S. military forces in the Far East. Five years earlier, in preparation for the Philippines to become a self-governing commonwealth, Roosevelt had sent MacArthur to Manila as the head of a military mission charged with the
impossible task of arranging the islands’ future defense against a Japanese attack. Now, in effect, the president moved America’s own outer defense perimeter five thousand miles to the west, to an archipelago that, even though it lay on the side of Japan’s southern advance, had been relegated to secondary strategic importance by the defeat-Germany-first-principle; and he placed in charge of the Pacific army a charismatic general, famous for his grandiose rhetoric and penchant for charting independent courses.33

  That same day, July 26, Roosevelt also signed an executive order freezing Japanese assets in the United States, thereby bringing “all financial and import and export transactions in which Japanese interests are involved under the control of the Government.”34 American officials in the State and Treasury Departments, as well as the Office of Production Management (charged with preventing raw material shortages and coordinating America’s own defense production) immediately proceeded to interpret the freeze order in such a way as to impose, by August 1, a total embargo on oil and gasoline exports to Japan.

  The American economic sanctions threw near panic into the Konoe government and had the effect of further dividing opinion within the navy as well as between the navy and the army. Shocked, like everyone else, by this rapid escalation of Anglo-American economic pressure, Hirohito looked on as his navy and army leaders struggled to reach a consensus on how to respond to the crisis. He had been informed that Naval Chief of Staff Admiral Nagano had suggested war with the United States at the liaison conference of July 21, five days before the United States froze Japanese assets and followed with the oil embargo. If war with the United States began immediately, Nagano had declared prior to the oil embargo, Japan would “have a chance of achieving victory” because of the difference in their war preparations. As time passed, however, that “probability” would decrease and the situation would thereafter “become disadvantageous to the Empire.” Moreover, he added, “if we occupy the Philippines, it will be easier for our navy to carry on the war. We can [then] manage the defense of the South Pacific fairly well.”35