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The Japanese Empire: Grand Strategy from the Meiji Restoration to the Pacific War by S. C. M. Paine

2019; Sophia University; Volume: 73; Issue: 2 Linguagem: Inglês

10.1353/mni.2081.0011

1880-1390

Frederick R. Dickinson,

Chinese history and philosophy

Reviewed by: The Japanese Empire: Grand Strategy from the Meiji Restoration to the Pacific War by S. C. M. Paine Frederick R. Dickinson The Japanese Empire: Grand Strategy from the Meiji Restoration to the Pacific War. By S. C. M. Paine. Cambridge University Press, 2017. Hardcover (220 pages), £59.99/$74.99; softcover (218 pages), £19.99/$24.99. One of only a handful of military historians currently publishing on Japan in English, Sarah Paine deserves applause for this concise overview of modern Japanese military operations. Although understandably packaged to capitalize on an enduring popular fascination for Japanese empire building, the volume is, in fact, less useful as a study of the Japanese empire, or even of Japanese “grand strategy”—despite its subtitle. Rather, it offers a powerful glimpse of modern Japanese development from [End Page 274] a novel angle. Through the prism of military operations, the rise of modern Japan appears nothing if not daring, fractious, and exceedingly tenuous. More a synthetic volume than one of original research, The Japanese Empire nonetheless surveys military operations from the First Sino-Japanese War (1894–1895) through the Pacific War (1941–1945) in a way that accentuates the sheer audacity of the modern Japanese experiment. Many have pondered the enigma of a Japanese decision for war in 1941 against an enemy that the country’s commanders had little hope of defeating. But this volume reminds us that modern Japan’s civilian and military leaders took extraordinary risks from the get-go. In 1894, imperial Japan was still two and a half decades young, and the national parliament, established in 1890, engaged in incessant political battles with the new cabinet. The First Sino-Japanese War was fought on the continent, where China held a clear advantage in lines of communication, transportation, and supply. Chinese military resources far outnumbered those of Japan: nearly 900,000 ground troops to Japan’s 120,000 and twice as many warships, the best two of which were better armed and armored than any Japanese ship. In the first major battle of the war, the Taedong River and cliffs above it shielded well-armed Chinese troops at P’yǒngyang, and the depth of the river allowed for efficient Chinese troop and supply transport from the Yellow Sea. In subsequent campaigns in Manchuria and Shandong, China held the upper hand in the hilly, difficult terrain of northeast China, with two well-situated, well-supplied, modern naval bases at Lüshun (Port Arthur) and Weihaiwei and 28,000 Chinese troops at Jiuliancheng. Despite significant Chinese advantages, Tōgō Heihachirō (then a naval captain) sank a British-owned steamship, the Kowshing, as it transported Chinese troops and officers to Korea in July 1894. Tōgō would, of course, gain celebrity in 1905 for destroying the Russian Baltic Fleet in the Tsushima Strait. But even bolder was this sinking of the Kowshing and willful murder of over 1,000 Chinese soldiers, one week before a formal Japanese declaration of war against the premier political, military, economic, and cultural hegemon of Asia. During the formal war, Japan transported over 100,000 soldiers to the continent before neutralizing the Chinese Northern Seas Squadron. Many of those troops crossed the Taedong River to P’yǒngyang and the Yalu River to Jiuliancheng entirely unprotected. At the siege of Lüshun, Japan lacked the proper grade and range of ammunition for its siege guns. Paine details critical operational weaknesses that ultimately doomed China—lack of a unified command, lack of regular pay or medical services for its soldiers, failure to appreciate the importance of naval power or to use an appropriate naval battle formation, only one operable railway, poorly maintained roads, encryption broken by Japan, a defensive strategic posture, and inability to mobilize international sympathy. But even more telling is the degree to which Japanese audacity expanded with each new victory. Following the November 1894 fall of Lüshun, Commanding General Yamagata Aritomo prepared to march on Beijing. Although Prime Minister Itō Hirobumi sacked Yamagata before he could threaten a mortal blow to the Qing dynasty, Tokyo spied other opportunities to vastly expand Japanese war aims. Three [End Page 275] days after the formal opening of...