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There were several events and phenomena in Japan’s history that supplied ample fuel to a simmering fire that seemed to have been burning in the minds of much of the military and naval leadership of Japan before 1941. While much of Japan was quietly intent on merely surviving, the dominant social group in the archipelago was constantly trying to either stay in charge or justify having been in charge. This essay is one of several that visit the most important elements of samurai rage against the West and their own subjects, and their constant fear of being overthrown or even contradicted. As shown by the various “insults” and momentous events in Japan over the centuries, the formation of movements and societies and the ensuing incidents happened all too easily. Too, Japan and the Japanese were apparently masters at holding a grudge.
Japanese fear of the Russians was deep and old—even deeper than normal Japanese xenophobia.
In the history of provocations that need never have occurred, we should carefully study the Tsu Shima Incident of 1861. On 13 March 1861, Russian corvette Podsednik dropped anchor in the Ozaki Inlet of Tsu Shima Island and demanded landing rights. This was yet another of several Russian provocations since 1792, but this one seemed more dangerous than the others because it involved, essentially, an armed invasion. The matter became more complicated when a second Russian ship arrived, and the Russians demanded to land and build a base.
The local Japanese authorities could do little but back away and send to the shogun for instructions.
While the Saga Domain (which controlled the island) sent two warships to monitor the situation, the Japanese appealed to Britain for help. On 12 April, there was a skirmish between Russian sailors and a group of local fishermen. The Russians killed one Japanese and took two hostages, causing the rest to flee. Soon, two British warships joined the Japanese vessels, and it became apparent that the Russian situation had become dangerous.
All the Russian vessels departed by the end of September.
It is unclear exactly why the Russians chose that island and that time to provoke such a visceral response from the Japanese. The Russian captain later said it was to keep the British out, but it is not clear if Victoria had designs on that wind-swept rock. The incident further soured relations between Japan and Russia, but elevated the British in Japanese eyes for their swift and certain action, scaring away the Russians without firing a shot.
Japan would long remember both.
Beginning in 1904, Japan entered another aggressive period of expansion on mainland Asia, which, even though it was costly to Japan in human and economic terms, seemed to fuel and embolden the military’s ambition. Japan wanted Port Arthur, and as much of Korea and Manchuria as would make the Emperor more settled in his mind about the Russians—or, at least, that’s what the IJA told everyone.
The expansion of the Russian Empire into East Asia had always been a matter of some concern to the Japanese.
The Russian presence in Vladivostok, Port Arthur, Talienwan Bay—one of the largest fishing ports in Asia—and their construction of the South Manchurian Railroad and the Trans-Siberian Railway were downright alarming. Even three years after the Boxer Rebellion, there were over a hundred thousand Russian troops in Manchuria with no sign they were going to leave, even after they had ejected the Chinese in 1901. Russian timber and mining concessions near the Yalu and the Tumen Rivers made Manchuria look like a Russian—and not a Chinese—province.
The samurai needed to act before the perception became a reality.
The Anglo-Japanese alliance of 1902 was one effort to block further Russian expansion in East Asia, but Kaiser Wilhelm II maintained public support of Russia, even urging his cousin Nicholas II to make a play for Korea. Though Russia and Japan negotiated their differences beginning in 1903, it became clear to the Japanese that Russia was just stalling, waiting for the connection of the Trans-Siberian and South Manchurian rail lines—connecting Vladivostok and Port Arthur to Europe—to be completed. With the German colony just across the Bohai Sea at Tsingtao, it became very important to the samurai that the strike on Russia should come sooner than later. On 6 February 1904, Tokyo recalled its ambassador to St. Petersburg and broke off diplomatic relations.
In the predawn hours of 8 February 1904, a Japanese squadron attacked the Russian squadron at Port Arthur.
Three hours later, Japan delivered a declaration of war to the Russians. Although the attack did not sink any Russian ships, several were irreparable at Port Arthur. The subsequent blockade and siege of Port Arthur and the Japanese landings in Korea set the tone for the entire conflict: Japan taking the initiative, Russia reacting clumsily, Japan fighting against odds and winning while the Russians tried to hang on grimly, continually losing ground to the seemingly invincible Japanese. Port Arthur held out until 2 January 1905, when the center of the conflict shifted to Mukden in Manchuria, where the fighting lasted until the Russians withdrew on 10 March 1905. The battle between the Japanese fleet and the Russian Baltic squadron off Tsu Shima, 27-28 May 1905, was a Russian disaster, but anticlimactic.
Enter the Americans.
The Treaty of Portsmouth, with Theodore Roosevelt as mediator, marked the dawn of a new era in East Asia, one where Japan was dominant. The samurai had won all the battles and now reaped the fruits of its labors and sacrifices. It had won the Liaotung Peninsula once and for all; it was dominant in Korea and was now the guardian of the South Manchuria Railway. Russia had to give up its expansion in East Asia, for now it was so weakened by internal strife and economic troubles that it couldn’t afford any more.
But, it wasn’t all sunshine and roses for Japan.
While she had defeated a European Great Power, was now recognized as a Great Power herself (though that recognition would not be official until 1919), she had also revealed herself to be fragile. Japan had lost some 90,000 men to combat and disease in less than two years in a war that was only a day’s sailing from home; her economy was in shambles; there was widespread famine in the archipelago because of the loss of manpower in the fields and losing food imports that she had depended on for a generation. The samurai doctrine had been to “lead from the front,” and the subsequent loss of company and battalion level officers was nearly catastrophic. It remained to be seen what lessons Japan and the samurai would learn from this episode.
But Japan dominated East Asia…for now.
Roots of Samurai Rage and Fear: The Road to Destruction
This book has become surprisingly detailed. I learned the Russians invaded Japan decades before Perry, but the British intervened and ejected them. I’ve also worked out, incidentally, that the government suppressed communism in Japan in the early 20th Century.
And Finally...
On 1 November:
1800: John Adams moves into his new quarters in Washington, DC. The building was initially called the President’s Palace, President’s House, or Presidential Mansion. James Madison officially named it the Executive Mansion in 1810. Theodore Roosevelt officially named it the White House in 1901. Adams was the first president to live in the building, if only for three months and change.
1950: Puerto Rican secessionists Oscar Collazo and Griselio Torresola attempt to break into Blair House while the White House undergoes renovations in Washington, DC. Torresola mortally wounds White House Police officer Leslie Coffelt, who kills him in return fire. A jury convicted Collazo of attempted murder, but Jimmy Carter pardoned him in 1979. Coffelt is one of only two people killed protecting the President.
And today is PRIME MERIDIAN DAY, commemorating day in 1884, when representatives from 25 countries at the International Meridian Conference in Washington, DC, agreed on the location and centrality of the Prime Meridian (0 degrees) that passes through Greenwich, England, from the North Pole to the South. Fixing this line made navigation not only simpler, but uniform maps and uniform time zones possible.