Aritomo Yamagata

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.

Aritomo Yamagata was born the son of a low-ranking samurai family on April 22, 1838, in Hagi, the castle town of Choshu domain. Like Hirobumi Ito Yamagata studied at the private academy of Shoin Yoshida, who advocated revolt against unworthy rulers and severely criticized the shogunate's weak response to the Western nations. Not surprisingly, Yamagata became an active participant in the imperial loyalist movement in Choshu. As an officer of the Kiheitai, a militia force made up of both peasants and samurai, he fought under the leadership of Shinsaku Takasagi in engagements with the Westerners at shimonoseki, in the Choshu civil war, and in the wars of the restoration.

During the 1870s Yamagata became the main force behind the organization of a national army. He was the chief architect of the military conscription law of 1873, which created an army recruited from the peasantry and other commoners as well as from the former samurai class. He also introduced in 1879 the German model of a general-staff system of military administration, which made the army independent of civilian control. He held high-ranking positions in the army until his death, exercising considerable influence on military planning and policy, and his proteges dominated the military high command down to the early 1920s.

Although 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). Yamagata remained a firm believer in "transcendental government", free from control or interference by the popularly elected house of the Diet. 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.

At his death on Feb. 22, 1922, Yamagata had long been one of the most powerful figures on the political scene. But because of his opposition to popular government and his cold and aloof personality, he was also one of the least popular.

Further Reading

Roger F. Hackett, Yamagata Aritomo in the Rise of Modern Japan, 1838-1922 (1971), is an able and scholarly biography based on Japanese sources. Both Josef Washington Hall, Eminent Asians: Six Great Personalities of the New East (1930), and Marius B. Jansen, ed., Changing Japanese Attitudes toward Modernization (1965), devote a chapter to Yamagata and his work. An interesting contemporary study is Rikitaro Fujisawa, The Recent Aims and Political Development of Japan (1923). For general background see Hugh Borton, Japan's Modern Century, from Perry to 1970 (1955; rev. ed. 1970); George M. Beckmann, The Modernization of China and Japan (1962); Joseph Pittau, Political Thought in Early Meiji Japan, 1868-1889 (1967); and Robert E. Ward, ed., Political Development in Modern Japan (1968). □

Aritomo Yamagata , 1838-1922, Japanese soldier and statesman, chief founder of the modern Japanese army. A samurai of Choshu, he took part in the Meiji restoration. He studied military science in Europe and returned in 1870 to head the war ministry. Strongly influenced by Prussian military and political ideas and favoring military expansion abroad and authoritarian government at home, he supported Japanese military control of Taiwan, Korea, and Manchuria. As home minister (1883-87) he dissolved the new political parties and repressed the agrarian movement. In 1900, while premier, he ruled that only an active military officer could serve as war or navy minister, a rule that gave the military control over any cabinet. From 1900 to 1910 he opposed Hirobumi Ito, leader of the civilian party, and exercised influence through his protégé, Taro Katsura. As president of the privy council from 1909 to 1922, he was the power behind the throne and the leading advocate for higher military appropriations.

Bibliography: See R. F. Hackett, Yamagata Aritomo in the Rise of Modern Japan, 1838-1922 (1971).

Yamagata Aritomo (1838–1922) Japanese soldier and statesman. A member of a samurai family, he was an early opponent of the westernization of Japan, but, having experienced western military supremacy, he became a strong advocate of the modernization of the recently created MEIJI state. Serving in a succession of senior posts, he was the prime architect of the modern Japanese army, shaping a mass conscript army organized on the principle of unswerving loyalty to the emperor. He served as the first Prime Minister (1889–91) after the introduction of the parliamentary system and held the post again (1898–1900). Serving also as chief of the general staff during the RUSSO-JAPANESE WAR he exercised great influence and power, largely behind the scenes, in the years leading up to World War I.