A Military History of Japan by Kuehn John T

Author:Kuehn, John T.
Language: eng
Format: epub
Publisher: ABC-CLIO
Published: 2014-03-02T16:00:00+00:00

* * *

The 1880s saw the Japanese military make great strides, but the evolution of the Japanese Army and Navy from the embryonic organizations of the Meiji was not smooth. In the army, which controlled national security policy as the senior service, a faction of older more traditional officers dominated, and they did not see a need for a professional standing army. They believed instead in a short-term conscript force—a sort of modern throwback to the Ritsuryo system of ancient Japan. Another faction patterned themselves on the Prusso-German army and had a more expansive vision for the use of military force. These officers, from Satsuma and Choshu, had suppressed Saigo and included Generals Oyama Iwao and Yamagata Aritomo. They were interested in rationalizing defense and by 1890, they had built a modern army with a solid professional officer corps that was well versed in tactics and operations. Conscription laws had produced trained reserves that could be readily mobilized. By 1890, developments in Asia convinced Oyama and Yamagata—war minister and prime minister, respectively—that Japan could no longer rely on a passive defense posture. Both men believed Japan needed a buffer zone in Korea to keep the European imperial powers at bay—especially Russia.2 At the time of the outbreak of the Sino-Japanese War (1894–1895), Japan had a standing regular army of almost 80,000 well-trained officers and men, although its equipment was about a generation behind that of the European powers—only the Imperial Guard and one division (the 4th), for example, had multi round repeating rifles.3

As for the Imperial Japanese Navy (IJN), the decade prior to the Sino-Japanese War saw considerable improvement—although in the case of the Kaigun (navy), the improvements in equipment came first. The reforms to the navy grew out of Japan’s security concerns. Naval policy and planning was contained within the Navy Ministry, and a naval general staff was not established until 1889, although it remained under the control of the ministry. For the navy’s leaders, the bigger immediate threat to Japan was the German-built Chinese fleet. Initiating a propaganda campaign for “maritime Japan,” the naval leadership took advantage of public enthusiasm to improve the fleet. Japan acquired two lightly armored big-gun cruisers, Matsushima and Itsukushima, in 1891. The navy was controlled by a faction composed of samurai-officers from Satsuma, the key leader being Navy Minister Saigo Tsugumichi, the loyalist younger brother of the fiery Saigo Takamori. Tsugumichi was an army general, not a sailor, although he was granted the title of full admiral in 1894 in honor of his efforts in building up the IJN.4

Within the IJN the key leader, though, was Yamamoto Gombei (no relation to the admiral of World War II fame), who looked to Great Britain to model the modern IJN and who has been compared by historians to the British naval reformer Admiral John “Jacky” Fisher. Yamamoto is often considered the real “father” of the IJN. He secured a position as the personnel manager of the IJN in the early 1890s and swept away much of the “deadwood” in the fleet.

Download

Copyright Disclaimer:
This site does not store any files on its server. We only index and link to content provided by other sites. Please contact the content providers to delete copyright contents if any and email us, we'll remove relevant links or contents immediately.