Yamagata Aritomo
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Gensui Prince Yamagata Aritomo | |||||
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山縣 有朋 | |||||
President of the Japanese Privy Council | |||||
In office 26 October 1909 – 1 February 1922 | |||||
Monarchs | |||||
Preceded by | Oki Takato | ||||
Succeeded by | Kuroda Kiyotaka | ||||
Prime Minister of Japan | |||||
In office 8 November 1898 – 19 October 1900 | |||||
Monarch | Meiji | ||||
Preceded by | Ōkuma Shigenobu | ||||
Succeeded by | Itō Hirobumi | ||||
In office 24 December 1889 – 6 May 1891 | |||||
Monarch | Meiji | ||||
Preceded by | Sanjō Sanetomi (Acting) | ||||
Succeeded by | Matsukata Masayoshi | ||||
Personal details | |||||
Born | Kawashima, Chōshū Domain, Japan | 14 June 1838||||
Died | 1 February 1922 Odawara, Kanagawa Prefecture, Empire of Japan | (aged 83)||||
Political party | Independent | ||||
Spouse | |||||
Domestic partner | Yoshida Sadako (1893–1922) | ||||
Children | Funakoshi Matsuko (daughter) | ||||
Relatives | Field Marshal (Gensui) | ||||
Battles/wars | Boshin War Russo-Japanese War | ||||
Awards | Order of the Golden Kite (1st class) Order of the Rising Sun (1st class with Paulownia Blossoms, Grand Cordon) Order of the Chrysanthemum Member of the Order of Merit Knight Grand Cross of the Order of St Michael and St George | ||||
Japanese name | |||||
Kanji | 山縣 有朋 | ||||
Hiragana | やまがた ありとも | ||||
Katakana | ヤマガタ アリトモ | ||||
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Gensui Prince Yamagata Aritomo (山縣 有朋, 14 June 1838 – 1 February 1922) also known as Prince Yamagata Kyōsuke,[1] was a Japanese statesman and military commander who was twice-elected Prime Minister of Japan, and a leading member of the genrō, an élite group of senior statesmen who dominated Japanese politics after the Meiji Restoration. As the Imperial Japanese Army's inaugural Chief of Staff, he was the chief architect of the Empire of Japan's military and its reactionary ideology.[2] For this reason, some historians consider Yamagata to be the “father” of Japanese militarism.[3][page needed]
During the latter part of the
Early career
Yamagata Tatsunosuke was born on 14 June 1838, in Kawashima,
He went to Shokasonjuku, a private school run by Yoshida Shōin, where he was active in the growing underground movement to overthrow the Tokugawa shogunate. He was a commander in the Kiheitai, a paramilitary organization created on semi-western lines by the Chōshū domain. During the Boshin War, the revolution of 1867 and 1868 often called the Meiji Restoration, he was a staff officer.
After the defeat of the
Military career
As War Minister, Yamagata pushed through the foundation of the
Yamagata in 1877 led the newly modernized Imperial Army against the Satsuma Rebellion led by his former comrade in revolution, Saigō Takamori of Satsuma. At the end of the war, when Saigo's severed head was brought to Yamagata, he ordered it washed, and held the head in his arms as he pronounced a meditation on the fallen hero.
He also prompted
Yamagata was awarded the rank of
]Political career
Yamagata was one of seven elite political figures, later called the genrō, who came to dominate the government of Japan. The word can be translated principal elders or senior statesmen. The genrō were a subset of the revolutionary leaders who shared common objectives and who by about 1880 had forced out or isolated the other original leaders. These seven men (plus two who were chosen later after some of the first seven had died) led Japan for many years, through its great transformation from an agricultural country into a modern military and industrial state. All the genrō served at various times as cabinet ministers, and most were at times prime minister. As a body, the genrō had no official status, they were simply trusted advisers to the Emperor. Yet the genrō collectively made the most important decisions, such as peace and war and foreign policy, and when a cabinet resigned they chose the new prime minister. In the twentieth century their power diminished because of deaths and quarrels among themselves, and the growing political power of the Army and Navy. But the genrō clung to the power of naming prime ministers up to the death of the last genrō, Prince Saionji in 1940.
Yamagata also held a large and devoted power base among officers in the army and militarists in Japanese society. He profoundly distrusted all democratic institutions, and constantly strove to undercut their influence as a member of the genrō. Likewise, he devoted the later part of his life defending the privileges of the Restoration regime's institutions, especially those held by the army.[11] [page needed]
During his long and versatile career, Yamagata held numerous important governmental posts. In 1882, he became president of the Board of Legislation (Sanjiin) and as
After the creation of the
In addition to his service as prime minister, Yamagata obtained considerable experience traveling abroad as a diplomat. Attending the coronation of the Russian Czar Nicholas II on November 1, 1894, he made a tentative offer to Spain on buying the Philippines for £40 million.[12] Likewise, in 1896, he led a diplomatic mission to Moscow, which produced the Yamagata–Lobanov Agreement confirming Japanese and Russian rights in Korea
Yamagata also served as President of the
From 1900 to 1909, Yamagata opposed Itō Hirobumi, leader of the civilian party, and exercised influence through his protégé, Katsura Tarō.[13] After the assassination of Itō Hirobumi in 1909, Yamagata became the most influential statesman in Japan and remained so until his death in 1922,[14] although he retired from active participation in politics after the Russo-Japanese War. As president of the Privy Council from 1909 to 1922, Yamagata remained the power behind the government and dictated the selection of future prime ministers until his death.[14]
In 1912 Yamagata set the precedent that the army could dismiss a cabinet. A dispute with Prime Minister
However, his power was greatly damaged in 1921 when he expressed strong opposition to the engagement of
Yamagata died on 1 February 1922 and he was given a state funeral.
Personal life and hobbies
Prince Yamagata was a talented garden designer, and today the gardens he designed are considered masterpieces of Japanese gardens. A noted example is the garden of the villa Murin-an in Kyoto.[15]
As Yamagata had no heir, in 1861 he adopted a nephew
In April 1868 at the age of 29, Yamagata married the 16 year-old Tomoko, a daughter of the headman of the Chōshū Domain before his departure to Kyoto. Yamagata returned back to the Domain in July to hold a wedding ceremony. They had seven children, all except his second daughter Matsuko (born August 1878) had died young.
After his wife Tomoko's death in 1893, Yamagata took in a geisha named Yoshida Sadako as his de facto wife; her name was never registered onto the Yamagata family registry.
Awards
Japanese
Peerages in the Kazoku and other titles
- Count (July 7, 1884)
- Genrō (May 26, 1895)
- Marquis(August 5, 1895)
- Gensui (January 20, 1898)
- Prince (September 21, 1907)
Decorations
- Grand Cordon of the Order of the Rising Sun, 2 November 1877
- Grand Cordon of the Order of the Rising Sun, with Paulownia Blossoms, 5 August 1895
- Grand Cordon of the Order of the Chrysanthemum, 3 June 1902; Collar, 1 April 1906
- Order of the Golden Kite, 2nd Class, 5 August 1895; 1st Class, 1 April 1906
Order of precedence
- Fifth Rank, August 1870
- Fourth Rank, December 1872
- Third Rank, December 1884
- Second Rank, October 1886
- Senior Second Rank, 20 December 1895
- Junior First Rank, 1 February 1922 (posthumous)
Foreign
- German Empire:
- Knight of the Royal Order of the Crown, 1st Class, 22 December 1886
- Grand Cross of the Order of the Red Eagle, 14 June 1899
- Royal Military Order of Our Lord Jesus Christ, 25 August 1887
- Kingdom of Italy: Grand Cross of the Order of Saints Maurice and Lazarus, 30 October 1889
- Austria-Hungary: Knight of the Order of the Iron Crown, 1st Class, 22 November 1890
- France: Grand Cross of the Legion of Honour, 7 May 1897
- United Kingdom:
- Honorary Member of the Order of Merit, with Swords, 21 February 1906
- Honorary Knight Grand Cross of the Order of St Michael and St George, 3 July 1918
- Order of St. Alexander Nevsky, 14 January 1916
Notes
- ^ Norman, E. Herbert and Lawrence Timothy Woods. "The Restoration." Japan's emergence as a modern state: political and economic problems of the Meiji period. UBC Press. 2000. 65. Retrieved on August 6, 2009.
- JSTOR 2751956– via JSTOR.
- ^ Roger F. Hackett, Yamagata Aritomo in the Rise of Modern Japan 1838–1922 (1971).
- ISBN 978-3-643-10085-6.
After the death of [Itō] Hirobumi in 1909, Yamagata became the most influential [Japanese] politician and remained so until his death in 1922. As president of the Privy Council from 1909 to 1922, Yamagata remained the power behind the [Japanese] government and dictated the selection of future prime ministers. To strengthen the grip of the state on citizens [,] Yamagata instituted a military circumscription system that relied on militarily trained loyal subjects, expanded its control on local entities by directly or indirectly appointing prefectural governors, city mayors and district heads and by establishing and extending the power of police.
- ^ ISBN 0-313-30296-0.
YAMAGATA ARITOMO (1838-1922)–leader of the Chōshū faction of genrō; called the 'Father of Japan's Army'; often Premier and Home Minister; controlled the government after the death of Itō in 1909.
- ISBN 0-8014-3492-0.
Yamagata served in the Privy Council for seventeen years and continuously as President from 1909 (when Itō was assassinated in Korea) until 1922 when he died. He was even more successful than Itō in insinuating his bureaucratic allies into the Privy Council. He placed his protégés strategically within each of the institutions he sought to control: the civilian bureaucracy, the military, the House of Peers, the colonial administrations, the Privy Council. He was never reluctant to use and reward his supporters or, conversely, to punish his opponents by intervening in elections, by excluding them from important posts, or by dissolving political groups altogether...He tried to control the House of Peers to assure support for military expansion and favorable budgets. But he constructed his most influential network around the emperor, both in the Privy Council and in the imperial household. By the time he was done, Yamagata had outlived his competitors, and had completed institutional arrangements to preclude the rise of others. He was genrō of the genrō, oligarch of the oligarchs.
- ^ Bix 2001, pp. 96–97: "...Since [Prince] Hirohito had already met Princess Nagako and liked her, and she had all the qualifications needed to become an empress, [Imperial Household Minister] Hatano informed Prince Kuni by letter, in January 1918, of his daughter's selection as the crown prince's fiancée. The Kuni family thereupon hired Sugiura [Shigetake], Hirohito's ethics teacher, to begin giving her weekly lectures in ethics. ¶The imperial engagement ceremony was scheduled to be held at the end of 1920, but in June 1920 the most powerful of the remaining genrō, Field Marshal Yamagata, attempted to have the engagement canceled on the ground that color blindness existed in the Shimazu family, on Nagako's mother's side. On June 18 Yamagata forced Hatano to resign—ostensibly for not having thoroughly investigated the matter but also in order to expedite sending Hirohito on a foreign tour—and began to install his own Chōshū-faction followers, starting at the top with Gen. Nakamura Yūjirō, as the new minister of the imperial household. Supporting Yamagata was Prime Minister Hara [Takashi]. He too was troubled by the possibility that the Taishō emperor's chronic ill health and mental debility might have been caused by genetic defects in the imperial family, but he was also hoping to strengthen his influence in court affairs by cultivating good relations with Yamagata. Thinking of a healthy imperial family in the future, rather than the maintenance of the purity of the imperial bloodline for its own sake, Yamagata wrote to Prince Kuni asking him to 'withdraw out of respect for the imperial house.' ¶Instead of submitting, Prince Kuni dug in his heels and secretly fought back, enlisting the support of Empress Sadako and Sugiura..."
- ^ Bix 2001, pp. 98–99: "[...] Sugiura told his old friend Tōyama Mitsuru, the ultranationalist leader of the 'old right,' that Yamagata hated Prince Kuni and intended to aggrandize his own power at the court...Tōyama's comrades in the Amura River Society...as well as members of Uchida Ryōhei's Society of Masterless Samurai...now began to harass Yamagata physically. Sometime in January 1921 two pan-Asianists of the 'new right,' the Orientalist scholar Ōkawa Shūmei and the China 'expert'[,] and Nichiren Buddhist thinker Kita Ikki, learned about Yamagata's attempt to annul the crown prince's engagement. Ōkawa had recently formed, with Professor Mitsukawa Kametarō of Takushoku University, a nationalist, anti-Marxist discussion group, the Yūzonsha...which Kit later joined. From its ranks rumors spread of a plot to assassinate Yamagata. ¶ In early February 1921, with the forty-fourth Diet still in session and the problem of the kokutai threatening to surface as a weapon in the hands of the opposition parties, Prime Minister Hara [Takashi] withdrew his support for Yamagata...Imperial Household Minister Nakamura also submitted to Sugiura, as did another Yamagata backer, the high court official Hirata Tōsuke. Faced with all these losses...Yamagata gave up the struggle. [¶] On the evening of February 10,1921, officials of the Imperial Household Ministry and Home Ministry informed the Tokyo newspapers that the crown prince's engagement would go ahead as planned and that Nakamura and his vice minister, Ishihara Kenzō, had both resigned...[On February 22] Yamagata offered to resign as genrō and president of the privy council and to return his many medals and renounce his titles...Hara and the court declined to accept his resignation but Yamagata had clearly fallen from power..."
- OCLC 310394344.
- OCLC 14970117.
- ^ a b c Hackett, Yamagata Aritomo in the Rise of Modern Japan 1838–1922 (1971).
- ISBN 978-971-27-2336-0.
- ISBN 9781442281844.
- ^ ISBN 0-8014-3492-0.
- ^ [1] Archived March 22, 2005, at the Wayback Machine and [2] Archived February 29, 2012, at the Wayback Machine links on Yamagata's gardening talent
- ^ Biography of Yamagata Isaburo at the National Diet Library
References
- Bix, Herbert (2001). Hirohito and the Making of Modern Japan. New York City, New York: HarperCollins Publishers. ISBN 0-06-093130-2.
- Craig, Albert M. (1961). Chōshū in the Meiji Restoration. Harvard University Press. OCLC 482814571
- Dupuy, Trevor N. (1992). Encyclopedia of Military Biography. I B Tauris & Co Ltd. ISBN 1-85043-569-3.
- Hackett, Roger F. (1971). Yamagata Aritomo in the Rise of Modern Japan 1838–1922. Harvard University Press. SBN 674-96301-6.
- ISBN 9780691054599; OCLC 12311985