Background
Terauchi Masatake was born in Chōshū Domain (present-day Yamaguchi Prefecture) as the son of a samurai. He was the third son of Masasuke Tada. His early name was Jusaburd. In his early years he was adopted by the Terauchi family.
Photograph shows Count Terauchi Masatake (1852-1919) who was a Gensui (Marshal) in the Imperial Japanese Army and served as 9th Prime Minister (1916-1918) of Japan, with his cabinet.
Terauchi (right) with Field Marshal Shunroku Hata in Xuzhou
Photographic portrait of Count Terauchi Masatake
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正毅 寺内
Terauchi Masatake was born in Chōshū Domain (present-day Yamaguchi Prefecture) as the son of a samurai. He was the third son of Masasuke Tada. His early name was Jusaburd. In his early years he was adopted by the Terauchi family.
As a young soldier, he fought in the Boshin War against the Tokugawa shogunate, and later was commissioned second lieutenant in the fledging Imperial Japanese Army. He was injured and lost his right hand during the Satsuma Rebellion of 1877, but his physical disability did not prove to be an impediment to his future military and political career.
In 1882, after being sent to France for military study as military attaché, Terauchi was appointed to several important military posts. He was the first Inspector General of Military Education in 1898. He was appointed as Minister of the Army in 1901, during the first Katsura administration. The Japanese victory in the Russo-Japanese War (1904-1905) occurred during his term as War Minister. After the war, he was ennobled with the title of danshaku (baron), and in 1911, his title was raised to that of hakushaku (count).
General Viscount Terauchi was appointed as the third and last Japanese Resident-General of Korea on the assassination of Prince Itō in Harbin by An Jung-geun. As Resident-General, he executed the Japan–Korea Annexation Treaty in 1910, and thus became the first Japanese Governor-General of Korea.
In 1916, Count Terauchi became the 9th person to serve as Prime Minister of Japan. During the same year, he received his promotion to the largely ceremonial rank of Gensui (or Marshal). His cabinet consisted solely of career bureaucrats as he distrusted career civilian politicians. During part of his administration he simultaneously also held the post of Foreign Minister and Finance Minister.
During his tenure, Count Terauchi pursued an aggressive foreign policy. Terauchi upheld Japan's obligations to the United Kingdom under the Anglo-Japanese Alliance in World War I, dispatching ships from the Imperial Japanese Navy to the South Pacific, Indian Ocean and Mediterranean, and seizing control of German colonies in Tsingtao and the Pacific Ocean. After the war, Japan joined the Allies in the Siberian Intervention (whereby Japan sent troops into Siberia in support of White Russian forces against the Bolshevik Red Army in the Russian Revolution).
In September 1918, Terauchi resigned his office, due to the rice riots that had spread throughout Japan due to inflation; he died the following year.
Quotes from others about the person
Isabel Anderson: ''The Japanese Governor-General, Count Terauchi, is a very strong and able man, and under his administration many improvements have been made in Korea. This has not always been done without friction between the natives and their conquerors, it must be confessed, but the results are certainly astonishing. The government has been reorganized, courts have been established, the laws have been revised, trade conditions have been improved and commerce has increased. Agriculture has been encouraged by the opening of experiment stations, railroads have been constructed from the interior to the sea-coast, and harbours have been dredged and lighthouses erected. Japanese expenditures in Korea have amounted to twelve million dollars yearly.''
Terauchi's eldest son, Gensui Count Terauchi Hisaichi, was the commander of the Imperial Japanese Army's Southern Expeditionary Army Group during World War II. The 2nd Count Terauchi was also a Gensui (or Marshal) like his father.
