Background
Aritomo Yamagata was born on June 14, 1838, in Hagi, the castle town of Choshu domain, to a low-ranking samurai family. In his youth he went by the name Kyosuke.
Aritomo Yamagata was born on June 14, 1838, in Hagi, the castle town of Choshu domain, to a low-ranking samurai family. In his youth he went by the name Kyosuke.
His education began around 1858 in a private school called Shoda-Shonyuku, directed by Yoshida Shoin nationalist ideologue. His nationalist formation led him to enlistment in the pro-imperial movement of xenophobic features that insisted on the deification of the emperor and the expulsion of foreigners. However, because that was soon Yoshida Shoin imprisonment, it was a short teacher student relationship for several months. Yamagata Aritomo is proud to call himself as Shoin’s teacher pupil and says the major impact he received.
In 1863 Yamagata was chosen commanding officer of the Kiheitai, the best-known of the irregular troop units formed by the revolutionaries in Chōshū. He was wounded while serving during the Shimonoseki Incident in 1864—the bombardment of Chōshū by an allied fleet of Western powers that destroyed Japanese defenses. The defeat opened Yamagata’s eyes to the superiority of the Western military system and convinced the leaders of the Sonno Joi movement that their “antiforeign” policy was doomed to failure unless Japan acquired efficient modern armament equal to that of the Western powers.
In 1867 the Tokugawa shogunate was overthrown, and in 1868 the Meiji government was proclaimed. When adherents of the shogunate in the north rose against the Meiji emperor, Yamagata headed a military expedition to suppress the revolt. The incident convinced him that the popular troops he led were superior to the regular army of the northern domains and that the country’s security would best be safeguarded by a system of universal obligatory military service.
Yamagata was sent abroad to study military institutions as a step toward modernizing the Japanese army. After returning to Japan in 1870, he became secretary to the vice minister of military affairs. Intending to abolish the system of the feudal domains and to centralize political power, he proposed forming an Imperial Force (Goshimpei). In early 1871, when a force of about 10,000 men drawn from the feudal armies was organized, Yamagata was promoted to vice minister of military affairs. This Imperial Force was later renamed the Imperial Guard (Konoe), and Yamagata became its commander.
With the help of the restoration hero Saigō Takamori, who wielded great influence in the army, Yamagata succeeded in introducing conscription. He became minister of the army after the government reorganized the military system into an army and a navy. After Saigō had resigned from the government in protest of what he thought was its restrained policy toward Korea, Yamagata assumed greater influence over the government.
The right to determine government policies still lay largely in the hands of the councillor (sangi) to the Executive Council. Thus, in 1874 when a punitive expedition to Formosa (Taiwan) was discussed, Yamagata, though minister of the army, had no voice in the decision. This fact made him determined to work toward separating military policies from civilian control. Because the Japanese army was not yet ready for war against China, he had opposed the Formosa expedition, and, in order to allay his opposition, the government reluctantly promoted him to sangi in August 1874.
In 1877 Saigō and his adherents in western Kyushu rose against the government, and Yamagata headed the expeditionary forces that put down the revolt. His victory proved once again the superiority of the conscript army over the former samurai troops. It also helped to establish his leadership in the army.
In 1878 Yamagata issued “Admonition to the Military,” a set of instructions to soldiers that emphasized the old virtues of bravery, loyalty, and obedience to the emperor and was intended to counteract democratic and liberal trends. After separating the Operations Department from the Army Ministry and reorganizing the General Staff Office, he resigned as army minister and assumed the position of chief of the general staff. He also took the important step of refashioning the Japanese military system according to the Prussian model.
In 1882 Yamagata induced the emperor to promulgate the “Imperial Rescript to Soldiers and Sailors”—in essence a recapitulation of Yamagata’s “Admonition to the Military”—which was to become the spiritual guidepost of the imperial army until Japan’s surrender at the end of World War II. In anticipation of the Sino-Japanese War, he reorganized the army to adapt it for field operations.
He entered politics in 1882 while still chief of the general staff and became president of the Legislative Board (Sangiin), a group of elders who advised the government concerning the establishment of the basic principles of the Meiji constitution. As home minister from 1883 to 1889, he established local government bodies, modernized the police system, and perfected controls over both institutions. As always, he was intent on creating a strong executive in anticipation of a future challenge from the parties. He was created a count in 1884 and resigned as chief of the general staff.
In 1889, after surveying systems of local government in Europe for a year, he returned to Japan to become the first prime minister under the country’s newly established parliamentary system. More conservative than Itō Hirobumi, who had drafted the Japanese constitution, Yamagata proposed to the first Diet that Japan should expand its dominion over part of the Asian continent. When he was promoted to full general, he became the virtual head of the army. He induced the emperor to proclaim the “Imperial Rescript on Education,” the guideline under the Meiji regime. In 1891 Yamagata, exhausted by party strife, resigned as prime minister. He served, however, as minister of justice (1892–93) and president of the Privy Council (1893–94) and remained a member of the genro (elder statesmen), an informal body of confidential advisers to the emperor.
Yamagata was put in command of troops sent to Korea when the Sino-Japanese War broke out in 1894, but sickness forced him to return home in the middle of the war.
In May 1895, after its victory over China, Japan was confronted by a combined Russian-German-French diplomatic intervention. Yamagata, who became special ambassador to Moscow in 1896, helped reach a compromise with Russia regarding the two countries’ interests on the Korean peninsula. His promotion to field marshal in 1898 affirmed his preeminent position in Japan’s military and political life.
Yamagata’s second cabinet was organized in November 1898. Half of its members were generals and admirals, and with their help he succeeded in accelerating his expansionist policy in Asia. When the Boxer Rebellion broke out in China, Yamagata, at Great Britain’s request, dispatched the largest of the foreign contingents that were sent to put down the uprising. That force played a major role in suppressing the Chinese nationalist movement and boosted Japan’s international position. Domestically, Yamagata did his best to suppress the social-labour movement in its incipient stage, while strengthening the autonomy of the armed service and the bureaucracy. He also issued a governmental regulation that permitted only officers on active service to be appointed army and navy ministers, thus virtually freeing the military from civilian control.
Yamagata’s second cabinet resigned in October 1900, when it found that it could deal neither with the nation’s financial crisis brought on by military expansion nor with the problem of the division of China by the powers after the Boxer Rebellion. From 1903 until 1909 he and Ito alternately served as president of the Privy Council. During the Russo-Japanese War (1904–05) he was chief of the general staff, and in 1907 he was awarded the title of prince for his distinguished service. He anticipated a recurrence of war between Japan and Russia and prepared a contingency plan for war with the United States and Russia, which eventually played a substantial part in the entry of Japan into World War II.
Without a rival after Ito’s assassination in 1909, Yamagata led Japan as a virtual dictator, backed by the military and the bureaucracy under his influence. He consistently opposed the creation of a genuine cabinet. When the Chinese revolution broke out in 1911, he endeavoured to help sustain the Qing dynasty, and soon after the outbreak of World War I he succeeded in transforming the agreement with tsarist Russia into the military pact. In 1921, however, he meddled in the crown prince’s marriage and was publicly censured. Yamagata died in disgrace the following year.
He was instrumental in building a modern army, strengthening the power of the civil and military bureaucracy, and checking the development of popular influences on the government. In 1879 he introduced the German model of a general-staff system of military administration, which made the army independent of civilian control.
Yamagata was an advocate of a strong foreign policy, based on the need to extend Japan's defense perimeter to Korea and the Asian mainland. He supported enthusiastically the decision to fight China in 1894, and subsequently he urged an anti-Russian policy, which led to war and victory in 1905. He continually sought to buttress Japan's military position and political influence on the Asian mainland.
He also took a leading role in putting down the rebel forces in the Scinan civil war. He worked vigorously to inculcate a proper military spirit in the newly organized conscript army, increasing his efforts in order to counteract any deleterious effects that the rising popular rights movement might have upon the discipline and resolve of the armed forces. These efforts culminated in the promulgation of the Imperial Rescript on the Military in 1882.
In 1889 he formed his own cabinet for the first time, serving simultaneously as prime minister and home minister and playing an important role in the establishment of the Japanese Diet, the setting up of a new system of prefectures and subprefectures, and the promulgation of the Imperial Rescript on Education.
Starting from 1911, which was a time of the Chinese revolution, he made attempts of sustaining the Qing dynasty, so his achievement after the outbreak of World War I was in succeeding of transformation of the agreement with tsarist Russia into the military pact.
Yamagata was radical in his military innovations, he was a thoroughgoing conservative in civilian politics. As minister of home affairs from 1883 to 1888, he built up a strong centrally controlled police force, drafted laws suppressing political opposition, and reorganized the local government system in order to strengthen the power of local officials to maintain local order. He wished to keep political power in the hands of a responsible, dedicated bureaucracy, free of self-interest and backed by the more stable propertied elements in the countryside.
Yamagata grudgingly supported the constitutional system devised by Hirobumi Ito, serving twice as premier (1889-1891, 1898-1900). As genro, or senior statesman, he bent every effort to keep political party leaders from organizing cabinets and maneuvered to put his own followers in the premiership. Only in 1918 did he finally consent to the idea of party rule.
Yamagata was an advocate of a strong foreign policy, based on the need to extend Japan's defense perimeter to Korea and the Asian mainland. He supported enthusiastically the decision to fight China in 1894, and subsequently he urged an anti-Russian policy, which led to war and victory in 1905. He continually sought to buttress Japan's military position and political influence on the Asian mainland.
He had a deep dislike of political parties and endeavored to promote the interests of the bureaucracy, placing various bureaucrats and military men who belonged to his faction such as Hirata Tosuke, Kiyoura Keigo, and Katsura Taro in key government positions and, in his role as agenro (elder statesman), through them exercising great influence over the political scene. In 1921, however, he was discovered to have been plotting to interfere in the selection of a consort for the crown prince and, as a result, fell from power.
He became a promising member of revolutionary loyalists who were incensed by the growth of foreign influence under the shogunate. Yamagata remained a firm believer in "transcendental government", free from control or interference by the popularly elected house of the Diet.
He supported enthusiastically the decision to fight China in 1894, and subsequentlyhe urged an anti-Russian policy, which led to war and victory in 1905.
Quotations: He was the one who raised the cry “Sonnō jōi” (“Revere the emperor! Expel the barbarians!”).
Because of his cold and aloof personality, he was also one of the least popular political figures on the political scene.
As Yamagata had no children, he adopted a nephew, the second son of his eldest sister, to be his heir. Yamagata Isaburō subsequently assisted his adopted father by serving as a career bureaucrat, cabinet minister, and head of the civilian administration of Korea.
February 6, 1858 – September 24, 1927
