Hirohito and the Making of Modern Japan
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Saionji returned to the problem of sibling rivalry exactly one month later, on April 27, when he instructed Harada to warn Kido and Konoe to be alert to any tensions in the emperor’s relations with his brothers:
…there are many instances in Japanese history in which young brothers murdered their elder brothers and enthroned themselves…. I am sure there are no problems with Princes Chichibu and Takamatsu. [But] tell them to always pay attention to situations where dangerous elements might emerge from among the imperial household…
Harada nikki, dai rokkan (Iwanami Shoten, 1956), pp. 265, 297.
47. Koyama Itoko, Kgsama (Suzakusha, 1959), p. 211.
48. Yamada Akira, Gunbi kakuch no kindaishi: Nihongun no bch to hkai (Yoshikawa Kbunkan, 1997), pp. 9–10.
49. Otabe, “Nii ten niiroku jiken, shubsha wa dare ka,” pp. 83–84.
50. Cited in Suzaki Shinichi, “Sryokusen rikai o megutte: rikugun chjiku to n ten nroku jiken no seinen shk no aida,” in Nenp Nihon gendaishi 3 (1997), p. 73.
51. Ibid., p. 77.
52. Imaoka Yutaka, “Shina jihen mae no sanb no ugoki,” in Ddai Kurabu Kensh, Shwa gunji hiwa, ge (Ddai Keizai Konwakai kan, 1989), p. 116.
53. STD, pp. 32–33. Hirohito forced the resignation of Generals Araki, Hayashi, Mazaki, Nishi, Abe, Ueda, and Terauchi and sanctioned the placing of four of them on the reserve list. See Hillis Lory, Japan’s Military Masters: The Army in Japanese Life (Greenwood Press, 1943, 1973), p. 115.
54. Yamada, Dai gensui Shwa tenn, pp. 56, 59.
55. “When I made cabinet reports to the throne,” Admiral Okada later recollected, “His majesty would clearly reply ‘yes’ when he agreed but say nothing when he disagreed. On occasions when he took issue with documents that were offered him, he frequently kept them in his hand.” Cited in Yoshida Yutaka, “Tenn no sens sekinin,” in Fujiwara et al., Tenn no Shwashi (Shin Nihon Shuppansha, 1984), p. 43.
56. Shibata Shinichi, Shwa-ki no kshitsu to seiji gaik (Hara Shob, 1995), p. 32. On March 4, 1936, the emperor told Honj:
…to pay careful attention to the words I use because if they are too strong, then once again it will cause resentment against the Lord Keeper of the Privy Seal. As for myself, I deeply regret that they murdered my most loyal and trusted ministers and general. This is like strangling me with raw silk. What they did violated both the constitution and the rescripts of the Meiji emperor.
Shibata, pp. 34–35.
57. “Case 212, Hirota kki,” in Awaya Kentar, Yoshida Yutaka, eds., Kokusai kensatsu kyoku (IPS) jinmon chsho, dai 28 kan (Nihon Tosho Sent, 1993), pp. 414, 417, 506. Hirota later denied having restricted the candidates for ministerial position to the active duty list, since prime ministers were still permitted to search the inactive list and to have reserve officers appointed to the ministerial position.
58. Figuring in Hirota’s indictment as a war criminal was the charge of restricting ministerial posts to active-duty officers, made by Admiral Yonai among others. American occupation officials uncritically accepted the charge because it dramatized the enfeeblement of civilian politicians. Since the army already had the power to topple cabinets by withholding a service minister, this event has as much to do with postwar as with prewar history.
59. Eguchi Keiichi, “Chgoku sensen no Nihongun,” in Fujiwara Akira, Imai Seiichi, eds., Jgonen sensshi 2: Nitch sens (Aoki Shoten, 1988), p. 51, citing the Tokyo nichi nichi shinbun, Dec. 12 and 13, 1935.
60. Eguchi, Jgonen sens shshi, shinpan, p. 108.
61. Fujiwara Akira, “Tenn to kych,” in Igarashi Takeshi, Kitaoka Shinichi, eds., “Sron,” Tokyo saiban to wa nan datta no ka (Tsukiji Shokan, 1997), p. 174.
62. Antony Best, Britain, Japan and Pearl Harbor: Avoiding War in East Asia, 1936–41 (Routledge, 1995), p. 17.
63. Best, Britain, Japan and Pearl Harbor, pp. 27–28.
64. Kobayashi Motohiro, “Hirota kki ni sens sekinin wa nakatta ka,” in Fujiwara et al., eds., Nihon kindaishi no kyoz to jitsuz 3, pp. 105–7.
65. The Criteria of National Policy stated that Japan would advance by gradual, peaceful means “toward the southern Seas.” The Foreign Policy of the Empire declared “the South Seas region” to be “essential for the empire’s industry and national defense,” and “a natural region for our future racial development. We must refrain, however, from provoking countries that have relations there, strive to dispel their fears of the Empire, and advance peacefully and gradually.” Gaimush, ed., Nihon gaik nenpy narabi ni shuy bunsho, ge (Hara Shob, 1969), pp. 344–45, 347.
66. Yoshizawa Minami, Sens kakudai no kzu: Nihongun no “Futsuin shinch” (Aoki Shoten, 1986). This is a pioneering study of how conflicts and splits developed among the groups formulating national policy during 1940. His thesis of “parallel arguments” in policy documents is as applicable to the period following the February 1936 uprising as it is to the situation in 1940. A useful study of policy making that applies Yoshizawa’s insights is Moriyama Atsushi, NichiBei kaisen no seiji katei (Yoshikawa Kbunkan, 1998).
67. “Kokusaku no kijun,” Aug. 7, 1936, in Yamada Akira, ed., Gaik shiry: kindai Nihon no bch to shinryaku (Shin Nihon Shuppansha, 1997), p. 250.
68. Yamada, Gunbi kakuch no kindaishi, p. 10. For a contemporary discussion of Hirota’s policies, see T. A. Bisson, Japan in China (Macmillan Company, 1938), pp. 222–35.
69. Kketsu, Nihon kaigun no shsen ksaku, pp. 19–20. The material in this and the next four paragraphs draws on this incisive analysis.
70. Ibid., p. 21.
71. Ibid., p. 22.
72. Ibid., pp. 21–22.
73. Ibid.,, p. 22.
74. Ibid., p. 23.
75. Aizawa Kiyoshi, “Nitch sens no zenmenka to Yonai Mitsumasa,” in Gunji Shigakkai, ed., Nitch sens no shos (Kinseisha, 1997), pp. 128–30.
76. Cited in Suzuki Kenji, Sens to shinbun, p. 116.
77. Cited in Suzuki Masayuki, Kshitsu seido, pp. 186–87.
78. Eguchi Keiichi, Taikei Nihon no rekishi: futatsu no taisen (Shgakukan, 1989), pp. 299–300.
79. Otto D. Tolischus, Tokyo Record (London: Hamish Hamilton, 1943), p. 415.
80. Eguchi, Taikei Nihon no rekishi, p. 300.
CHAPTER 9
HOLY WAR
1. Kobayashi Hideo, “Ryjk jiken o megutte: Ryjk jiken rokujussnen ni yosete,” in Rekishigaku kenky 699 (July 1997), pp. 30–35.
2. Yamada Akira, Daigensui Shwa tenn, p. 65; for slightly different, less detailed versions, Jonathan Haslam, The Soviet Union and the Threat From the East, 1933–41: Moscow, Tokyo and the Prelude to the Pacific War (University of Pittsburgh Press, 1992), pp. 89–90; and Clark W. Tinch, “Quasi-War Between Japan and the U.S.S.R., 1937–1939,” in World Politics 3, no. 2 (July 1951), pp. 177–78.
3. Harada nikki, dai rokkan, p. 30.
4. Matsudaira Yasumasa, chief secretary to Privy Seal Yuasa, informed Saionji’s secretary, Harada, of the emperor’s linking of the Manchurian and Marco Polo Bridge Incidents during his scolding of Army Minister Itagaki Seishir. Harada dutifully recorded the story a week later on July 28, 1938. According to Matsudaira, the emperor said, “Both at…the time of the Manchurian Incident and at the Marco Polo Bridge, the first episode of this incident, the field [officers] completely ignored their orders from the center and acted arbitrarily.” Hirohito could only have been referring to the regimental and the batallion commanders in the vicinity of Marco Polo Bridge who were directly responsible for expanding the incident, Mutaguchi Renya and Ichiki Kiyonao; but Harada’s diary entry fails to name them. Hirohito’s view of the war’s outbreak directly challenged the Konoe cabinet’s official version. See Harada nikki, dai nanakan, p. 51; Eguchi Keiichi, “Rokky jiken to Tssh jiken no hyka o megutte,” in Kikan sens sekinin kenky 25 (Fall 1999), p. 4.
5. Kido Kichi nikki, ge, p. 802.
6. Gaimush hensan, Nihon gaik nenpy narabi shuy bunsho, ge (Hara Shob, 1969), p. 366.
7. In a political intelligence report of 1941, naval analysts concluded that the first Konoe cabine
t had “lacked passion and implementing power to forge ahead strongly in a particular direction with all the ministers united.” Cited in Kketsu, Nihon kaigun no shsen ksaku: Ajia-Taiheiy sens no saikensh, p. 47.
8. The imperial order (Rinsanmei No. 64) is cited, along with detailed chronology, in Senshi ssho: rikukaigun nenpy, fuki heigo, ygo no kaisetsu (1980), p. 11, and reproduced in full in Senshi ssho: Shina jihen rikugun sakusen (1): Shwa jsannen ichigatsu made (1975); see also Fujiwara Akira, “Tenn to kych,” in Igarashi Takeshi, Kitaoka Shinichi, eds., “Sron” Tokyo saiban to wa nan datta no ka (Tsukiji Shokan, 1997), p. 147.
9. Fujiwara, Shwa tenn no jgonen sens, p. 92.
10. Eguchi, “Rokky jiken to Tssh jiken no hyka o megutte,” pp. 2–4; T. A. Bisson, Japan in China (The MacMillan Co., 1938; reprinted by Greenwood Press, 1973), p. 31.
11. Kido Kichi nikki, j, p. 581; TN, dai nikan, pp. 510, 512, 514. Right after the Tungchow massacre, Ishiwara Kanji, leader of the nonexpansionists, delivered a lecture to Hirohito on operations against the Soviet Union in which he warned about the disadvantages of spreading the fighting in North China.
12. Fujiwara, “Tenn to kych,” p. 147.
13. Edgar Snow, The Battle for Asia (Random House, 1941), p. 46; Dick Wilson, When Tigers Fight: The Story of the Sino-Japanese War, 1937–1945 (Viking Press, 1982), p. 33.
14. On Yonai, his sudden reversal of attitude toward the Kuomintang, and the start of the war, see Aizawa Kiyoshi, “Nitch sens no zenmenka to Yonai Mitsumasa,” in Gunji Shigakkai, ed., Nitch sens shos (Kinseisha, 1997), pp. 137–38
15. Kasahara Tokushi, Nankin jiken (Iwanami Shinsho, 1997), p. 221.
16. Fujiwara, Shwa tenn no jgonen sens, pp. 93–94.
17. Kketsu, Nihon kaigun no shsen ksaku: Ajia-Taiheiy sens no saikensh, p. 18.
18. Kasahara, Nankin jiken, p. 27.
19. Usui Katsumi, Nitch sens: wahei ka sensen kakudai ka (Chk Shinsho, 1967), p. 46.
20. Senshi ssho: Shina jihen rikugun sakusen (1): Shwa jsannen ichigatsu made (1975), p. 283.
21. Ibid. , p. 283.
22. Ibid., p. 284. The report of the chiefs of staff explicitly noted that the capture of Nanking could be accomplished only by a large force over a long period of time.
23. Ibid., p. 285.
24. Ibid., pp. 290–91.
25. Ibid., pp. 297–99. The 13th and 101st Divisions were composed mainly of reservists who, on average, were over thirty years old. Fujiwara Akira, Nankin no Nihongun: Nankin daigyakusatsu to sono haikei (tsuki Shoten, 1997), p. 13.
26. Fujiwara, “Nitch sens ni okeru horyo gyakusatsu,” in Kikan sens sekinin kenky 9 (Autumn 1995), p. 23, citing from RikuShi himitsu dai nikki, Bei Kenkyjo, Toshokan, secret telegram number 1,679 sent to China in 1937, bearing the title “Rikugun daijin kunji sfu no ken.”
27. Senda Kak, Tenn to chokugo to Shwa shi (Sekibunsha, 1990), pp. 257–58.
28. For a discussion of “compassionate killing,” see Brian A. Victoria, Zen at War (Weatherhill, Inc., 1997), pp. 86–91.
29. Hara Takeshi, Yasuoka Akio, ed., Nihon rikukaigun jiten (Shinjinbutsu Oraisha, 1997), p. 152; Mori Shigeki, “Kokusaku kettei katei no heny: dai niji, dai sanji Konoe naikaku no kokusaku kettei o meguru ‘kokumu’ to ‘tsui,’” in Nihonshi kenky 395 (July 1995), pp. 36 ff.
30. Mori, “Kokusaku kettei katei no heny,” p. 41.
31. e Shinobu, Gozen kaigi, p. 101. Official minutes were not kept, but the two volumes of documents and notes dictated by General Sugiyama, largely written by Sanada Jichir, and known as the Sugiyama memo, are an invaluable source. For the conferences of 1940–41, see sanbhonbu, ed., Sugiyama memo, j (Hara Shob, 1994).
32. Tokyo nichi nichi shinbun and Tokyo Asahi shinbun for Jan. 12, 1938; July 28, 1940; Sept. 20, 1940; Nov. 14, 1940; and July 2 and 3, 1941. The all-important imperial conferences of Sept. 6 and Nov. 5, 1941, were not, so far as I can tell, reported in the press.
33. The constituent members of the imperial conferences were the prime minister, privy council president, ministers of the army, navy, finance, and foreign affairs, the president of the cabinet Planning Board, the two chiefs of the general staffs, and the two chiefs of the army and navy Military Affairs Sections. Participants stated their views; the president of the privy council raised questions, often on the emperor’s behalf; and the emperor usually (though not always) sat silently through the proceedings. Decisions were invariably reached by consensus.
34. Yasuda Hiroshi, Tenn no seijishi: Mutsuhito, Yoshihito, and Hirohito no jidai, pp. 272–73. The notion of the monarchy itself as a “system of irresponsibility” was first enunciated by the political scientist Maruyama Masao.
35. Hirohito’s Imperial Headquarters departed from Meiji’s practice in excluding civil officials on the ground that they had no right to know military secrets. His Imperial Headquarters also allowed the military to participate in shaping national policy and global strategy from a more privileged position than in the past. Conversely, it strengthened the emperor’s (and thus his advisers’) voice in military and political decision making. Power that Hirohito had lost to the military earlier in the decade was recovered as the war expanded and the defective nature of Japan’s total war machine became increasingly apparent.
36. Sejima Ryz, “Taiken kara mita Dai T’A sens,” in Gunjishi Gakkai, ed., Dai niji sekai taisen (3): shsen (Kinseisha, Sept. 1995), pp. 398–99. Final decisions of the Imperial Headquarters on matters of grave strategic import, like important decisions of the liaison conference, required meetings in the emperor’s presence. However, as Yamada Akira pointed out, sometimes the two chiefs of staff made decisions of the Imperial Headquarters without ever convening a formal conference. When such a decision was formally submitted to the emperor, and approved by him, it went into effect automatically. Yamada, Dai gensui Shwa tenn, p. 70.
37. Minoru Genda, a staff officer at Imperial Headquarters from November 1942 until January 1945, would later state that only the emperor could make the system work because “[t]he whole organization was split into three—that is, the Navy, the Army, and what is known as the government—and the only one [who] could coordinate the three was the emperor.” Leon V. Sigal, Fighting to a Finish: The Politics of War Termination in the United States and Japan, 1945 (Cornell University Press, 1988), p. 74.
38. Mori, “Kokusaku kettei katei no heny,” pp. 37–38.
39. Yamada Akira, “Shwa tenn no sens shid: jh shka to sakusen kanyo,” in Kikan sens sekinin kenky 8 (Summer 1995), p. 18. He goes on to note (p. 19) that the first Imperial Headquarters Army Order was issued on November 27, 1937, and the last, bearing the number 1,392, on August 28, 1945. The navy, following a similar procedure, issued a total of 304 Imperial Headquarters Navy Orders between July 28, 1937, and September 6, 1941. After Hirohito sanctioned the Pearl Harbor attack, the navy restarted the series, issuing Imperial Headquarters Naval Number 1 on November 5, 1941, and Number 57, its last, on September 1, 1945.
40. In his short “Introduction” to his translation of the 1941 policy conferences, Nobutaka Ike seriously misdescribes Hirohito’s relationship to the high command. See Nobutaka Ike, Japan’s Decision for War: Records of the 1941 Policy Conferences (Stanford University Press, 1967), p. xviii.
41. Yamada, Daigensui Shwa tenn, p. 185.
42. Suzaki Shinichi, “Tenn to sens” in Seiji taisei to sens shid (n.d., n.p.), p. 218. Kido alluded to this reality in discussing the emperor’s war responsibility on July 21, 1964. “When the emperor was not persuaded,” he explained, “the question would be suspended and the decision postponed or the cabinet would reconsider the matter. That was the custom.” Kido Kichi nikki—Tokyo saibanki (Tokyo Daigaku Shuppankai, 1980), p. 454.
43. Fujiwara Akira, Imai Seiichi, e Shinobu, eds., Kindai Nihonshi no kiso chishiki (Yhikaku, 1972), p. 418; Yoshida, Tenn no guntai to Nankin jiken, p. 41; Fujiwara, Nankin no Nihon gun: Nankin daigyakusatsu to sono haikei, p. 18.
44. Fujiwara, Nankin no Nihon gun, p. 16.
45. Ibid.,
p. 20.
46. Kasahara, Nankin jiken, p. 225; Eguchi, Jgonen sens shshi, shinpan, p. 129.
47. Kasahara, Nankin jiken, pp. 181–87.
48. Ibid., p. 190.
49. TWCT, vol. 20 : Judgment and Annexes, transcript p. 49, 608.
50. Yoshida Yutaka, Tenn no guntai to Nankin jihen (Aoki Shoten, 1988), p. 160; Fujiwara Akira, “Nankin daigyakusatsu no giseishas ni tsuite—‘Tokyo saiban shikan’ hihan ga imi suru mono,” in Rekishi chiri kyiku 530 (Mar. 1995), p. 72; Daqing Yang, “Convergence or Divergence? Recent Historical Writing on the Rape of Nanjing,” in American Historical Review 104, no. 3 (June 1999), p. 850.
The ill-preparedness of Japanese recruits for the sacrifices they were forced to make during and after the Battle of Shanghai often figures in explanations of their mass murder of Chinese POWs at Nanking. Competing with one another to reach and completely encircle the city, the soldiers craved revenge for the heavy losses they had suffered up to its fall. The vagueness of Japan’s proclaimed war aims contributed to their frustration and confusion. Above all they held Chinese in contempt as an inferior race. Deeper reasons for the Nanking atrocity had to do with the characteristics of the Imperial Army itself. For recent discussions see Kketsu Atsushi, “Tenn no guntai no tokushitsu: zangyaku ki no rekishiteki haikei,” p. 12; Fujiwara Akira, “Nitch sens ni okeru horyo gyakusatsu,” in Kikan sens sekinin dai kyg (Autumn 1995), pp. 22–23.
51. Eguchi Keiichi, Taikei Nihon no rekishi 14: futatsu no taisen (Shgakukan, 1989), p. 259, citing the Chicago Daily News, Dec. 15, 1937. Using estimates made years earlier by members of the Nanking International Relief Committee, journalist Edgar Snow claimed that “the Japanese murdered no less than 42,000 people in Nanking alone” and another “300,000 civilians…in their march between Shanghai and Nanking.” See Snow, The Battle for Asia, p. 57.