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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 ...
- Overview
- Early career
- Rise to political power
Yamagata Aritomo (born Aug. 3, 1838, Hagi, Japan—died Feb. 1, 1922, Tokyo) Japanese soldier and statesman who exerted a strong influence in Japan’s emergence as a formidable military power at the beginning of the 20th century. He was the first prime minister under the parliamentary regime, serving in 1889–91 and 1898–1900.
Yamagata was from a family of the lowest samurai rank in the Chōshū domain, a region of western Japan strongly opposed to the Tokugawa military dictatorship that ruled Japan from the early 17th century until the Meiji Restoration of 1868 reestablished the formal authority of the emperor. He began his career as an errand boy of the treasury office and an informer in the police administration. Educated from about 1858 at Shōka-Sonjuku, a private school, he became a promising member of revolutionary loyalists who were incensed by the growth of foreign influence under the shogunate and who raised the cry “Sonnō jōi” (“Revere the emperor! Expel the barbarians!”). 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 Sonnō Jōi 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.
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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 Itō 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.
Jun 27, 2018 · Aritomo Yamagata (1838-1922) was a Japanese general and a member of the oligarchy which dominated Meiji Japan. 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.
Prince Aritomo Yamagata (山縣 有朋, Yamagata Aritomo) (June 14, 1838 – February 1, 1922) was a field marshal in the Imperial Japanese Army and the third and ninth Prime Minister of Japan. A general and a member of the Japanese oligarchy, he is considered one of the architects of the military and political foundations of Meiji era Japan.
Yamagata Aritomo (山県有朋, 1838-1922) was one of the seven members of the genrō, the group of senior statesmen who shaped modern Japan in and after the Meiji period. He is considered the father of the modern Japanese army and served twice as prime minister.
Gensui Prince Yamagata Aritomo also known as Prince Yamagata Kyōsuke, 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.
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Yamagata Aritomo (山縣 有朋, June 14, 1838 – February 1, 1922) was a Field Marshal in the Imperial Japanese Army. He was twice Prime Minister of Japan. Yamagata was the founder of the Imperial Japanese Army. [1]
