In the early 1850s, Japan was under the reign of the Tokugawa shogunate.
This government had been installed in 1603, ending the long period of internal
quarreling and war and replacing it with 250 years of peace. The center of this
government, the city of Edo, had grown to be the world´s largest city, with
over one million inhabitants in the late 18th century.
The Tokugawa shogunate had managed to attain great stature. It had drawn
from the Emperor virtually all power, had moved the government from Kyoto to
Edo, and had closely bounded each of the provincial rulers of the feudal system
to the shogun. One of the primary reasons that this system, which had gone out
of fashion in Europe almost a hundred years earlier, could remain working for
such an extended period was a careful guarding by the shogunate of the principal
values of the Japanese society. It allowed virtually no commercial contact with
foreign countries (beyond the Netherlands and China, which were both allowed
remote trading posts), and no contact whatsoever between the population and the
foreigners, and had banned all voyages abroad.
Thus, it was with considerable shock that it experienced the arrival of
an U.S. expedition led by Commodore Matthew Calbraith Perry which arrived in
the bay that bordered Edo. The black ships of this fleet, powered by steam and
radiating a mysterious grace and imminent power, supposedly seeking nothing
more than the delivery of a letter to the Emperor asking for commercial
relations, and possibly the release of imprisoned American whalersmen that had
strayed to close to Japanese waters. After a piratical attack conducted by
Perry against the port of Yokohama, it was clear the foreigners were an obvious
threat. No longer could Japan isolate itself from the outside. It now had to
choose either voluntary abandonment of its most closely guarded principle, or
go down under the pressure of imperialist powers, much like its neighbor,
China, was doing at the very same time. And thus, when Perry returned with his
fleet from its winter quarters in Macao, he was greeted with an invitation for
extended talks on the matter of trade relations. The Treaty of Kanagawa spelled
an end to Japan’s isolationism and inner peace.
Swiftly, opposition against the foreigners erupted. Violence, hatred,
open hostilities against the outsiders, led by young samurai who had the
support of the powerless Emperor in Kyoto, flared up in the early 1860s.
Britain, France, the Netherlands and the U.S. sent warships to bombard the
harbors of Kagoshima and Shimonoseki in 1864. In the flames of the bombardment,
the revolution turned from the all too powerful outsiders to the Tokugawa
shogunate. Provincial leaders marched against the Tokugawa, who had opposed the
actions against the foreign nations and now fought for their own rule but
eventually succumbed to the power of the revolution. Support for this movement
had come from the Western powers, that had supplied weapons and advice.
The winning factions of this struggle, which ended on January 3rd
1868, with the resignation of the last shogun, announced the Emperor to be once
more the sovereign head of the state. Mutsuhito, the young emperor that had
come from Kyoto to Edo to take control over a state emerging from medieval
backwardness into the light of future global power, announced his reign to be
Meiji – “enlightened government”. Edo became the residence of government and
Emperor, and was renamed Tokyo – “Eastern Capital”.
The leaders of the revolution (now called a restoration), soon turned
over their possessions to the emperor. By 1871, the feudal provinces were made
prefectures, their lords became governors, and all the lines of power now ran
to the Emperor.
It was this restoration, and an immediate bid for military power based
on the Western nations´examples, that saved the ancient nation from coming
under the rule of imperialist forces as did China. British officers took to
building the Empire a navy that would be capable of preventing further
incursions like Perry´s. German army officers restructured the old samurai
armies and molded them into an effective fighting force. Dutch engineers took
to building necessary infrastructure that could support both the warships bought
in Europe and the Armies build up at home.
Further European ideas and ideals came to the modernizing Empire,
including a justice system based on the French model, a system of education
based on the American model, and a system of political liberty that was to be
found in the still absolute though nominally constitutional monarchies in
Europe. Freedom of expression and thought were not among those granted to the
Japanese, and basing the educational model on America´s did not prevent the
Japanese from introducing even the youngest children to the idea of supreme
rule by the Emperor, without argument. Books favorable to democracy were
banned, and parties with desires to adopt democracy were forced to abandon
their wishes or be banned as well.
It was mainly the fact that the Emperor´s sacred status was guaranteed
by the prefectural leaders that enabled political change, for these prefectural
leaders did have certain power aspirations of their own. In 1881, the first
parliament convened, and in 1888, the a constitution was adopted.
Japan´s new status was emphasized by the Empire by spreading its might
abroad. In 1878, it occupied the Ryukyu chain, with Okinawa as the new
prefecture capital. Earlier, in 1875, the Kuriles to the north had been
occupied to provide a buffer against Russian aggression.
It would be up to the Chinese to engage the Japanese in full-scale war
for the first time. Both sides had been working to get Korea into their sphere
of influence. China had the older standing relations, but Japan copied what it
had learned from the Western nations and successfully pressed Korea to accept
trade relations. It also forced upon the Koreans a bid for independence from
their mighty Chinese neighbor, who had dominated the Korean peninsula for
several centuries, and whose place Japan would then take. These moves behind
the scenes eventually caused tension to rise to a level were nothing but war
could follow.
Japan would be the victor of this war. It executed a surprise attack on
a Chinese squadron even before the declaration of war, then continued to stand
by the ground forces, supporting the successful campaign on Korean soil. In the
single naval battle, off the Yalu, it succeeded in repulsing a superior but
less well led squadron of Chinese ships and finally bottled up the Chinese
fleet in its harbor of Weihaiwei. Japanese Army forces beat the Chinese on
Korean soil, and eventually, a war-weary China gave in to its fate. In the
Treaty of Shimonoseki, Japan gained Port Arthur, the Laiotung Peninsula and
Formosa, and not the least international reputation and a heightened spirit of
self-confidence. Russia, Germany and France, however, prevented the Japanese
from taking the fruits of its victory. Russia leased Port Arthur and the
Peninsula. Only Formosa entered the Empire.
This initial victory would be standing alone for long. As a new
continental power, represented by a fatherly Emperor who had became more than a
sovereign, it sent troops to surpress the Chinese uprising against the Western
nations in 1900. Two years later, it signed a alliance with Great Britain. A nation
unknown fifty years before had become the partner of the world´s most powerful
nation. And it took to exploit this new alliance. Its continental desires still
were aimed at Port Arthur. In 1904, it surprisingly attacked the Russians at
their new fleet base. It had aimed at a treaty that would keep Russia out of
Korea, but Russia had dismissed all talk. Now, the Imperial Navy struck. Forces
were landed and the siege of the harbor began. The Russian Fleet tried to
escape and destroy the blockade forces, but was beaten back. The besieged fleet
called for help, and Czar Nicholas sent the Baltic Fleet to relieve the Pacific
forces. In October 1904, the new fleet left the Baltic, but before it could
reach and unite itself with the Pacific Fleet, Port Arthur fell. The new fleet
continued on, hoping to get into Vladivostok and form a fleet in being, if not
more. But the Japanese caught the enemy
in the straits of Tsushima, between Japan and Korea, and soundly defeated the
Russians. Only a handful of fast light cruisers escaped; Japan had won an overwhelming
victory against a superior enemy. If there had been any doubt in the Western
nations´ minds that there was a new force to be reckoned with, this war
dispelled it all.
When the Great War began in 1914, Japan was the primary power in the Far
East. It possessed the whole of Korea and Formosa, the Ryukyu´s, the Bonins,
and was able to exercise its power anywhere its fleet would go. Thus, not
surprisingly, the possibility of gaining more territory at low cost made the
Great War a welcome opportunity. Posing an ultimatum on Germany that demanded
the Kaiser to cede its possessions in China and the Pacific to Japan, the
Empire made sure that it would get those territories one way or the other. When
the Kaiser refused to cede such possessions, Japanese forces took a few months
to occupy Tsingtao, the Marianas, the Palaus, the Carolines and the Marshalls.
It did not participate to a great extend in anything else; and with the end of
the Great War, it retained all the captured areas with the exception of
Tsingtao.
