X-NEWS: muvms6 soc.history: 305 Relay-Version: VMS News - V6.0-3 14/03/90 VAX/VMS V5.5; site muvms6.wvnet.edu Path: marshall.wvnet.edu!wvnvms.wvnet.edu!darwin.sura.net!zaphod.mps.ohio-state.edu!swrinde! elroy.jpl.nasa.gov!ames!purdue!mentor.cc.purdue.edu!mace.cc.purdue.edu!jewell Newsgroups: soc.history,alt.war Subject: Japanese Expansion, 1931-1941 Message-ID: From: jewell@mace.cc.purdue.edu (Larry Jewell) Date: Wed, 19 May 1993 13:19:46 GMT Sender: news@mentor.cc.purdue.edu (USENET News) Organization: Purdue University Keywords: World War II Lines: 459 Xref: muvms6 soc.history:305 alt.war:45 FROM: UNITED STATES ARMY IN WORLD WAR II, The War in the Pacific, STRATEGY AND COMMAND: THE FIRST TWO YEARS, Louis Morton, Office of the Chief of Military History, Department of the Army, Washington 25, D.C., 1962, Ch. II Japanese Policy and Strategy, 1931-July 1941, pp46-54. Transcribed and edited by: Larry W. Jewell jewell@mace.cc.purdue.edu JAPANESE EXPANSION The impulse to expansion and domination of East Asia had its roots deep in Japanese tradition, patriotism, and economic necessity; its strongest support came from the militarists and extreme nationalists. In marked contrast to the position of the armed forces in democratic countries, the Army in Japan had a tradition of political leadership and enjoyed a position high in the esteem of the people. It was not, as in the United States and Great Britain, the servant of the government, controlled through responsible civil officials and by the power of appropriation. Under the Japanese Constitution the Emperor commanded the Army and Navy, and the Diet had little control over the organization of the military forces.[1] Military control in prewar Japan was exercised by the War and Navy Ministers and the General Staffs of the Army and Navy, not by the civil government. The services were in a peculiarly independent position. The War and Navy Ministers, though members of the Cabinet, could go over the head of the Premier and appeal directly to the throne in military or naval matters of great importance. Moreover, they could, by resigning from the Cabinet, force the resignation of the Premier and the formation of a new government, for under the Constitution, no Cabinet could exist without the War and Navy Ministers. An even more significant aspect of the relationship of the services to the government of prewar Japan was the control of the Army and Navy over their respective Ministers. By custom, and after 1936 by law, the War and Navy Ministers were chosen from among the senior officers (3-star officers or higher) on the active list. Thus, the Army selected the Minister, who, if not himself a member of the General Staff, was almost certain to reflect its views. Opposition of the civil authorities could be quickly overcome by the threat of withdrawing the service Ministers from the Cabinet. The Chiefs of the General Staffs had the right also to report directly to the Emperor and had considerable freedom of action. So great was their prestige and influence in political matters and so unlimited their ability for independent action, that they could virtually commit the government to a course of action, and the nation to war.[2] Despite the enormous power and prestige of the Army, the liberal and moderate elements in Japan were not without influence. The decade of the 1920's was theirs and during these years Japan followed a moderate course. This course was based on the belief that the limits of profitable armed expansion had been reached and that the future of the nation lay in peaceful economic expansion and co-operation with the United States and Great Britain. It was this view that made possible the signing of the Washington Treaties in 1921-22, which established the status quo in the Pacific, recognized the sovereignty and territorial integrity of China, forbade additional fortification of certain islands in the Pacific, and limited capital ship construction. As the decade of the 1920's came to an end, the popular discontent arising from the poverty and despair of world-wide depression was channeled into national and fascist movements. American exclusion of Japanese immigrants in 1924, although balanced by generous and ready sympathy during the Tokyo earthquake, had strengthened the hand of the discontented. Further, the acceptance by the liberal government in 1930 of the extension of naval limitation to cruisers, destroyers, and submarines provided the advocates of expansion with strong arguments for scrapping the entire Washington Treaty system, as well as the pretext for the assassination of the Premier. Nationalist groups readily joined forces with the supporters of the Army and the extreme right to demand a reversal of the liberal program and a return to the policy of expansion. Events in China gave strong support for the aggressive policy urged by the expansionists. Under Chiang Kai-shek the Chinese were displaying symptoms of a nationalism and unity which boded ill for Japanese interests in Manchuria and dreams of expansion in Asia. By 1931 the Chinese had already regained partial economic control of Manchuria and were seeking to remove foreign influence from China. The liberal government of Japan had made dear its intention of maintaining Japanese rights in Manchuria, but by peaceful means. The Army, doubtful of the efficacy of such means and acutely aware of the strategic importance of Manchuria, decided on bolder measures and in September 1931 seized control of key cities in Manchuria by force. The seizure of Manchuria was the work of the Army extremists acting on their own authority and in defiance of government policy. Presented with a fait accompli and fearing open revolt, the government gave its reluctant consent to the Army's action and the Foreign Office did its best to justify to the rest of the world this violation of the Washington Treaties, the Kellogg Peace Pact, and the Covenant of the League of Nations. But the Japanese troops in Manchuria, the Kwantung Army, did not stop there. Despite opposition in the Cabinet and even from the throne, the Kwantung Army extended its control over the rest of Manchuria, established a puppet regime there, and began to move into the northern provinces of China. Nor did opposition from the United States, whose Secretary of State, Henry L. Stimson, informed Japan that his country could not recognize as legal this infringement on existing treaties or the violation of the open door policy in China, halt the Japanese Army. In 1933, after the League of Nations adopted the strongly critical report of the Lytton Commission, Japan withdrew from the League.[3] The Manchurian incident was but the first step in the Army's rise to power. Having defied the government and set the nation on a course opposed by the Cabinet, the Army gained virtual; control the following year, 1932, as a result of the celebrated incident of 15 May when a group of young Army and Navy officers terrorized Tokyo for several hours and assassinated Premier Inukai. With the death of the Premier, party rule in Japan virtually ceased. The Emperor's advisers, recognizing that either outright opposition to or complete acceptance of the Army's program would be equally disastrous, urged a middle course. The result was a series of compromise Cabinets in which the moderate and liberal elements opposed the dangerous policies of the militarists as far as prudence would allow and yielded to them when necessary.[4] The balance thus achieved lasted only five years, years in which Japan renounced its adherence to the naval disarmament agreements of 1922 and 1930 and made abundantly clear its opposition to the Nine-Power Treaty of 1922 guaranteeing the sovereignty and territorial integrity of China. In 1935 a liberal movement opposed to fascism and militarism and calling for a return to full parliamentary government began to take form. Liberals in the Diet attacked sharply the government's policy and criticized the War Ministry so strongly that it felt constrained to discipline some of the extremists in the Army. The extremists retaliated in February 1936 after the victory of the liberals in the elections of that month, with a full-scale armed revolt against the government. The mutineers, numbering 1,500 soldiers led by twenty-two junior officers the 1st and Guard Divisions (supported, there is reason to believe, by other high- ranking officers), attacked members of the Cabinet, high court officials, and even senior Army officers thought to be lukewarm to the cause. The Finance Minister and one of the most important members of the high command were killed, while the Premier himself narrowly escaped assassination. The government and the high command reacted with vigor. Army leader, fearing that the forces they had raised might destroy them as well as their enemies, made serious efforts to restore discipline. The revolt was soon suppressed and the leading offenders court-martialed and punished, though lightly. [Compare this to the "Beer Hall Putsch" and the punishments given for that. LWJ] Then followed an effective purge of the Army, directed by the War Minister and the General Staff and designed to prevent unauthorized or untimely revolts which the high command itself did not favor.[5] The 26 February incident marked one more step in the Army's rise to power. Ten days after the mutiny, the Premier resigned and a new government more favorably disposed to the Army's program took office. From this time on, Japanese policy must be read in terms of military strategy. To determine just who made Army policy is extremely difficult. Not even the leading civilian statesmen of Japan seem to have known, and Prince Ayamaro Konoye, thrice Premier and a politician who made co-operation with the Army the keystone of his career, complained that he never knew where Army opinion originated.[6] But there was no doubt about the essentials of this program. Its basic objective was to make Japan strong enough to become the unchallenged leader of Asia. This could be accomplished, the Japanese military leaders believed, only by the expansion of the heavy industries necessary to support a modern war machine, the integration of the economic resources of Manchuria into the Japanese economy, the establishment of a firm position on the Asiatic continent, and the acquisition of the strategic raw materials needed to make the nation self- sufficient. Without these materials, most of which could be found in the East Indies and Malaya, Japan's pretensions to leadership in Asia were empty shadows. The Army's program became the official policy of the Japanese Government in August 1936. At that time the most important members of the Cabinet, including the Premier and the War, Navy, Foreign, and Finance Ministers, met to fix the program of the new administration. The agreement reached at that meeting gave the Army and the nationalists all they wanted. Japan, the five Ministers agreed, must acquire a "firm position " on the Asiatic continent-a euphemistic way of saying that China must be conquered; expand into southeast Asia to secure the bases and raw materials needed to make the nation strong; and take steps to counter the Russian menace to the north. The Ministers had no difficulty in agreeing on the measures required to achieve these objectives: the Army (including its air arm) and the Navy would have to be strengthened, trade and industry expanded, and air and sea transportation improved. Finally, the Ministers agreed that to steel the national will and unify public opinion for the coming emergency, it would be necessary "to establish good living conditions for the people, increase their bodily strength and foster sound thinking.[7] The five Ministers carefully voided any reference to military action. Rather, they stated explicitly that the expansion southward was to be gradual and peaceful, that every care would be exercised "to avoid aggravating friendly relations with other nations" and "to allay the Great Powers' suspicion and apprehension toward the Empire."[8] But the goals these Ministers set for Japan clearly implied military action. The Soviet Union would certainly oppose expansion in the north, and Great Britain and the United States could be expected to dispute any violation of the territorial integrity of China. To these opponents could be added the French and the Dutch, who would challenge Japan's expansion southward. Basic, therefore, to the new administration's program was the success of the effort to increase the nation's military and naval might and its capacity to wage war. With agreement on the aims and methods of national policy, the Army-dominated Japanese Government moved closer to its natural allies, Germany and Italy, and on 25 November 1936 signed the Anti-Comintern Pact directed principally against Soviet Russia. The next move came in July 1937 when Japanese military forces, after a trumped-up incident near Peiping, marched into northern China. This action, like the Manchurian incident, was taken by the Army alone, without the knowledge or approval of the Cabinet, but no difficulties developed on that account in the first phase. The government readily supported the Army, on condition that it exert every effort to prevent the spread of the incident.[9] The vigor of the Chinese reaction soon led to full-scale war, an eventuality the Japanese military leaders neither expected nor desired.[10] With command of the sea and air and with overwhelming superiority in men and equipment, the Japanese were able to occupy quickly the capital and the large coastal cities of China. But they were never able to extend their control much beyond the navigable rivers and the railroads or to bring the China incident to a successful close. It became an increasingly heavy drain on the nation's resources and a constant source of embarrassment to the Army. The United States, like the other powers with interests in China, could hardly be expected to acquiesce in this new venture and in the destruction of the Nine-Power Treaty. In unmistakable terms it made clear to Japan that it still stood by the open- door policy and the territorial integrity of China, and that it considered Japan's action in China a violation of existing treaties. At the same time the United States Government acted with extreme caution and restraint, resisting public pressure to boycott the shipment of oil and scrap iron to Japan and declining all offers to mediate in the dispute. Japan was just as anxious to avoid an open break and when the Panay was sunk in December 1937, quickly apologized and made indemnity. But so long as Japan persisted in its efforts to conquer China and the United States continued to insist on the territorial integrity of China and to aid that nation, no real solution of the China incident or restoration of good relations between the two countries was possible. As the area of disagreement with the United States and Great Britain grew larger, Japan moved closer to the Axis. To the military, the future of Japan was closely tied to the destiny of Nazi Germany. The Anti-Comintern Pact had already paid dividends. Hitler had refused to participate in the Brussels Conference of November 1937, called to seek a settlement of the conflict in China, and had kept the Western Powers so preoccupied with European problems that they were unwilling to take any coordinated action in the Far East. But when the Japanese sought a full political and military alliance which would free them from the danger of Russian interference and recognize their special position in China, Hitler countered with a demand for military aid against Britain and France. This the Japanese were not prepared to promise and for two years the negotiations hung fire. Meanwhile the relations between Japan and the United States steadily worsened. Six months after the sinking of the Panay, the United States placed a "moral embargo" on the export of aircraft and aircraft equipment to Japan, the first in a series of economic measures designed to deter Japanese aggression. Japan responded in November by announcing its intention of establishing a " Co-Prosperity Sphere" in east Asia and expressing a pious hope that other nations would " understand the true intentions of Japan and adopt policies suitable for the new conditions." [11] Both the United States and Great Britain recognized this policy for what it was and countered with loans to the Chungking government. By the spring of 1939 the Army was ready to commit Japan fully to the Axis. But there was sharp disagreement in the Cabinet. The Navy and Foreign Ministers insisted on an agreement directed primarily against the Soviet Union and refused to accept any commitment which might involve Japan in a war against the Western Powers. They were willing, however, to agree to lesser commitments in the hope that the United States and Great Britain might thus be forced to accept the situation in China. But the Army pressed for the full military agreement demanded by Germany, and even planned to negotiate separately to secure such an alliance. Neither side would give way. On 23 August 1939 Germany, without Japan's knowledge, concluded a neutrality pact with Russia. A week later Germany invaded Poland and the war in Europe began. The German-Soviet Pact was a stunning blow to Japan's program for expansion and to the Army's prestige. The Japanese felt betrayed and bewildered and the Premier promptly offered his resignation to the Emperor, asserting bitterly that the failure of Japan's foreign policy had resulted from "the unreasonableness of the Army." [12] A combination of civilian statesmen and Navy leaders, taking advantage of the Army's political eclipse, then attempted to reorient national policy toward better relations with Great Britain and the United States. The Cabinet formed for this purpose lasted only four months and was succeeded by a compromise Cabinet headed by Admiral Mitsumasa Yonai, the former Navy Minister. All efforts to win over America and Britain foundered on the issue of China. On 26 July the United States had served notice on Japan of its intention to abrogate the commercial treaty which had governed the trade relations between the two countries since 1911, and in December of 1939 prohibited Americans from furnishing Japan with technical information and manufacturing rights for the production of high-grade aviation gasoline. After January 1940, when the commercial treaty lapsed, the United States was free to employ economic sanctions against Japan. Congress, in June of that year, passed the National Defense Act which made it possible for the President to prohibit exports to Japan and on 2 July President Franklin D. Roosevelt put the export license system into effect by restricting the shipment of arms and ammunition, certain strategic materials such as aluminum, and airplane parts. Japanese sentiment, which had veered toward the Western Powers after the German-Soviet Pact, shifted back toward Germany in the spring of 1940 as the Axis gained one victory after another in quick succession. Once more the Army point of view found favor and support. The German-Soviet Pact had ruled out, at least temporarily, expansion northward, but the opportunities for easy conquest in the south were better than ever once Holland and France had fallen. The forces behind a full military and political alliance with Germany could now argue that such an alliance would secure Japan on the north, discourage American interference in China, and smooth the paths of empire to the south. Once more overtures were made to the Germans. This time Hitler asked as payment for supporting Japan's ambitions in southeast Asia a Japanese commitment to hold the United States at bay by threatening Hawaii and the Philippines if America entered the war in Europe. The Premier thought the price too high, and the Army, now fully restored to its former prestige and political influence, brought about the fall of the Cabinet on 16 July 1940. Prince Konoye, who had been Premier in 1938 and was favorable to the Army's program, took over the reigns of government next. In July 1940 Japan stood ready to embark on a course of unreserved expansion to establish the new order in Greater East Asia on the ruins of the crumbling British, Dutch, and French Empires. Only the United States was in a position to check Japan's ambitions, but such opposition, the Japanese believed, could be overcome with the assistance of Germany and Italy. Once a military pact with the Axis Powers had been signed and the war in China ended, then Japan would be free to establish the new order in Asia. All this, the Japanese leaders hoped, could be accomplished peacefully, but if not, the Japanese intended to be ready, for since 1931 they had been preparing the nation for war. [1] Under Articles 11, 12, and 62 of the Japanese Constitution, the Diet had partial control of the budget and this gave it some leverage over the military. [2] E. E. N. Causton, Militarism and Foreign Policy in Japan (London: G. Allen and Unwin, Ltd., 1936), pp. 75-82; R. K. Reischauer, Japan, Government and Politics (New York: Ronald Press Company, 1939), pp. 90-93. For a general description of the Japanese high command, see Yale Candee Maxon, Control of Japanese Foreign Policy: A Study of Civil-Military Rivalry, 1930-1945 (Berkeley: University of California Press, 1957). [3] The Japan Year Book, 1934 (Tokyo: Foreign Affairs Association of Japan, 1934); Henry L. Stimson, The Far Eastern Crisis (New York: Harper & Brothers, 1936); International Military Tribunal for the Far East (IMTFE), Defense and Prosecution Cases of Japanese Aggression in Manchuria, Japanese War Crimes Files, National Archives; Political Strategy Prior to Outbreak of War (in 5 parts), pt. I, Japanese Studies in World War II, 144, pp. 1-9, Mil Hist Sec, Far East Command (FEC). This series was prepared by former Japanese Army and Navy Officers under the supervision of G-2, FEC. Both the original Japanese version and translations are on file in OCMH. [4] Reischauer, Japan, Government and Politics, pp. 154-57; Clyde, The Far East, pp.600-604, 664; Judgment, International Military Tribunal for the Far East, November 1948 thereafter cited as IMTFE, Judgment), pt. B, pp. 98-103, copy in OCMH. Unless otherwise noted, the account which follows is base on these sources, passim, and on Herbert Feis, The Road to Pearl Harbor, The Coming of the War Between the United States and Japan (Princeton: Princeton University Press, 1950); Joseph W. Ballantine, "Mukden to Pearl Harbor: The Foreign Policies of Japan," Foreign Affairs, XXVII, No. 4 (July, 1949), 651-64; and Maxon, Control of Japanese Foreign Policy, passim. [5] IMTFE, Judgment, pt. B, pp. 113-19; Hugh Byas, Government by Assassination (New York: Alfred A. Knopf, 1942); Latourette, The History of Japan, p. 219; The Japan Year Book, 1939, pp. 134-36. [6] Memoirs of Prince Konoye, in Pearl Harbor Attack: Hearings Before the Joint Committee on the Investigation of the Pearl Harbor Attack (Washington, 1946), 39 Parts, (hereafter cited as Pearl Harbor Attack Hearings), pt. 2o, exhibit 173, p. 4014. [7] IMTFE, exhibit 216; Political Strategy Prior to Outbreak of War, pt. I, Japanese Studies in World War II, 144, app. 1. [8] ibid. [9] Political Strategy Prior to the Outbreak of War, pt. I, app. 5, Japanese Studies in World War II, 144. [10]Diary of Marquis Koichi Kido, submitted as an affidavit to IMTFE, p. 34. For a full account of the China incident from the Japanese point of view, see Political Strategy Prior to Outbreak of War, pt. I, Japanese Studies in World War II, 144. [11] United States Relations with China, Dept of State Pub 3572 (Washington, 1949), p. 21. [12] Saionji-Harada Memoirs, 1931-1940 (24 parts with appendixes), Civil Intel Sec, G-2 FEC, copy in OCMH, quoted in Feis, The Road to Pearl Harbor, p. 34. -- #L.W. Jewell Moderator at the Veterans Information Site (veteran@cc.purdue.edu)# #& WWII-L Listowner: "Sunday's horoscope is note worthy because of its strange,# #sudden and wholly unpredictable and inexplicable occurrences, affecting all # #phases of life." "Your Horoscope" L.A. Evening Herald Express, Sat, 12/06/41 #