Yamagata Aritomo

**Gensui** **Prince**
Yamagata Aritomo
Gensui Prince Yamagata Aritomo
山縣有朋
President of the Japanese Privy Council
	In office; 26 October 1909 – 1 February 1922
Monarchs	Meiji; Taishō;
Preceded by	Itō Hirobumi
Succeeded by	Kiyoura Keigo
	In office; 21 December 1905 – 14 June 1909
Monarch	Meiji
Preceded by	Itō Hirobumi
Succeeded by	Itō Hirobumi
	In office; 11 March 1893 – 12 December 1893
Monarch	Meiji
Preceded by	Oki Takato
Succeeded by	Kuroda Kiyotaka
Prime Minister of Japan
	In office; 8 November 1898 – 19 October 1900
Monarch	Meiji
Preceded by	Ōkuma Shigenobu
Succeeded by	Itō Hirobumi
	In office; 24 December 1889 – 6 May 1891
Monarch	Meiji
Preceded by	Sanjō Sanetomi (Acting)
Succeeded by	Matsukata Masayoshi
Personal details
Born	14 June 1838; Kawashima, Chōshū Domain, Tokugawa shogunate
Died	1 February 1922 (aged 83); Odawara, Kanagawa Prefecture, Empire of Japan
Political party	Independent
Spouse	Yamagata Tomoko (m. 1868; died 1893)
Domestic partner	Yoshida Sadako (1893–1922)
Children	Funakoshi Matsuko (daughter)
Relatives	Yamagata Isaburō (nephew)
Military service
Allegiance	Empire of Japan
Branch/service	Imperial Japanese Army
Years of service	1868–1905
Rank	Field Marshal (Gensui)
Battles/wars	Boshin War Battle of Aizu; Battle of Hatchōoki; Battle of Hokuetsu; Satsuma Rebellion Siege of Kumamoto Castle; Battle of Tabaruzaka; Battle of Shiroyama; First Sino-Japanese War Battle of Jiuliancheng; Battle of Pyongyang (1894); Russo-Japanese War
Awards	Order of the Golden Kite (1st class); Order of the Rising Sun (1st class with Paulownia Blossoms, Grand Cordon); Order of the Chrysanthemum; Member of the Order of Merit; Knight Grand Cross of the Order of St Michael and St George
Japanese name
Kanji	山縣有朋
Hiragana	やまがたありとも
Katakana	ヤマガタアリトモ
Romanization
Transcriptions
Romanization	Yamagata Aritomo

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 Restoration. As the Imperial Japanese Army's inaugural Chief of Staff, he was the chief architect of the Empire of Japan's military and its reactionary ideology.^[2] For this reason, some historians consider Yamagata to be the “father” of Japanese militarism.^[3]^{[page needed]}

During the latter part of the Meiji Era, Yamagata vied against Marquess Itō Hirobumi for control over the nation's policies. After Itō was assassinated in 1909, he emerged as the most powerful figure among Japan's genrō.^[4]^[5]^[6] Henceforth, Yamagata remained the nation's preeminent statesman until a political crisis arising from his meddling in Crown Prince Hirohito's engagement resulted in him losing power shortly before his death in February 1922.^[5]^[7]^[8]

^ Norman, E. Herbert and Lawrence Timothy Woods. "The Restoration." Japan's emergence as a modern state: political and economic problems of the Meiji period. UBC Press. 2000. 65. Retrieved on August 6, 2009.
^ Norman, E. Herbert (1943). "Soldier and Peasant in Japan: The Origins of Conscription (Part II)". Pacific Affairs. 16 (2): 158. doi:10.2307/2751956. JSTOR 2751956 – via JSTOR.
^ Roger F. Hackett, Yamagata Aritomo in the Rise of Modern Japan 1838–1922 (1971).
^ Hein, Patrick (2009). How the Japanese Became Foreign to Themselves: The Impact of Globalization on the Private and Public Spheres in Japan. Münster, Germany: Lit Verlag. p. 73. ISBN 978-3-643-10085-6. After the death of [Itō] Hirobumi in 1909, Yamagata became the most influential [Japanese] politician and remained so until his death in 1922. As president of the Privy Council from 1909 to 1922, Yamagata remained the power behind the [Japanese] government and dictated the selection of future prime ministers. To strengthen the grip of the state on citizens [,] Yamagata instituted a military circumscription system that relied on militarily trained loyal subjects, expanded its control on local entities by directly or indirectly appointing prefectural governors, city mayors and district heads and by establishing and extending the power of police.
^ ^a ^b Perez, Louis G. (1998). The History of Japan. Greenwood,CT: Greenwood Press. p. 211. ISBN 0-313-30296-0. YAMAGATA ARITOMO (1838-1922)–leader of the Chōshū faction of genrō; called the 'Father of Japan's Army'; often Premier and Home Minister; controlled the government after the death of Itō in 1909.
^ Samuels, Richard J. (2003). Machiavelli's Children: Leaders and Their Legacies in Italy and Japan. Ithaca, NY: Cornell UniversityPress. p. 62. ISBN 0-8014-3492-0. Yamagata served in the Privy Council for seventeen years and continuously as President from 1909 (when Itō was assassinated in Korea) until 1922 when he died. He was even more successful than Itō in insinuating his bureaucratic allies into the Privy Council. He placed his protégés strategically within each of the institutions he sought to control: the civilian bureaucracy, the military, the House of Peers, the colonial administrations, the Privy Council. He was never reluctant to use and reward his supporters or, conversely, to punish his opponents by intervening in elections, by excluding them from important posts, or by dissolving political groups altogether...He tried to control the House of Peers to assure support for military expansion and favorable budgets. But he constructed his most influential network around the emperor, both in the Privy Council and in the imperial household. By the time he was done, Yamagata had outlived his competitors, and had completed institutional arrangements to preclude the rise of others. He was genrō of the genrō, oligarch of the oligarchs.
^ Bix 2001, pp. 96–97: "...Since [Prince] Hirohito had already met Princess Nagako and liked her, and she had all the qualifications needed to become an empress, [Imperial Household Minister] Hatano informed Prince Kuni by letter, in January 1918, of his daughter's selection as the crown prince's fiancée. The Kuni family thereupon hired Sugiura [Shigetake], Hirohito's ethics teacher, to begin giving her weekly lectures in ethics. ¶The imperial engagement ceremony was scheduled to be held at the end of 1920, but in June 1920 the most powerful of the remaining genrō, Field Marshal Yamagata, attempted to have the engagement canceled on the ground that color blindness existed in the Shimazu family, on Nagako's mother's side. On June 18 Yamagata forced Hatano to resign—ostensibly for not having thoroughly investigated the matter but also in order to expedite sending Hirohito on a foreign tour—and began to install his own Chōshū-faction followers, starting at the top with Gen. Nakamura Yūjirō, as the new minister of the imperial household. Supporting Yamagata was Prime Minister Hara [Takashi]. He too was troubled by the possibility that the Taishō emperor's chronic ill health and mental debility might have been caused by genetic defects in the imperial family, but he was also hoping to strengthen his influence in court affairs by cultivating good relations with Yamagata. Thinking of a healthy imperial family in the future, rather than the maintenance of the purity of the imperial bloodline for its own sake, Yamagata wrote to Prince Kuni asking him to 'withdraw out of respect for the imperial house.' ¶Instead of submitting, Prince Kuni dug in his heels and secretly fought back, enlisting the support of Empress Sadako and Sugiura..."
^ Bix 2001, pp. 98–99: "[...] Sugiura told his old friend Tōyama Mitsuru, the ultranationalist leader of the 'old right,' that Yamagata hated Prince Kuni and intended to aggrandize his own power at the court...Tōyama's comrades in the Amura River Society...as well as members of Uchida Ryōhei's Society of Masterless Samurai...now began to harass Yamagata physically. Sometime in January 1921 two pan-Asianists of the 'new right,' the Orientalist scholar Ōkawa Shūmei and the China 'expert'[,] and Nichiren Buddhist thinker Kita Ikki, learned about Yamagata's attempt to annul the crown prince's engagement. Ōkawa had recently formed, with Professor Mitsukawa Kametarō of Takushoku University, a nationalist, anti-Marxist discussion group, the Yūzonsha...which Kit later joined. From its ranks rumors spread of a plot to assassinate Yamagata. ¶ In early February 1921, with the forty-fourth Diet still in session and the problem of the kokutai threatening to surface as a weapon in the hands of the opposition parties, Prime Minister Hara [Takashi] withdrew his support for Yamagata...Imperial Household Minister Nakamura also submitted to Sugiura, as did another Yamagata backer, the high court official Hirata Tōsuke. Faced with all these losses...Yamagata gave up the struggle. [¶] On the evening of February 10,1921, officials of the Imperial Household Ministry and Home Ministry informed the Tokyo newspapers that the crown prince's engagement would go ahead as planned and that Nakamura and his vice minister, Ishihara Kenzō, had both resigned...[On February 22] Yamagata offered to resign as genrō and president of the privy council and to return his many medals and renounce his titles...Hara and the court declined to accept his resignation but Yamagata had clearly fallen from power..."

[1] Norman, E. Herbert and Lawrence Timothy Woods. "The Restoration." Japan's emergence as a modern state: political and economic problems of the Meiji period. UBC Press. 2000. 65. Retrieved on August 6, 2009.

[2] Norman, E. Herbert (1943). "Soldier and Peasant in Japan: The Origins of Conscription (Part II)". Pacific Affairs. 16 (2): 158. doi:10.2307/2751956. JSTOR 2751956 – via JSTOR.

[3] Roger F. Hackett, Yamagata Aritomo in the Rise of Modern Japan 1838–1922 (1971).

[4] Hein, Patrick (2009). How the Japanese Became Foreign to Themselves: The Impact of Globalization on the Private and Public Spheres in Japan. Münster, Germany: Lit Verlag. p. 73. ISBN 978-3-643-10085-6. After the death of [Itō] Hirobumi in 1909, Yamagata became the most influential [Japanese] politician and remained so until his death in 1922. As president of the Privy Council from 1909 to 1922, Yamagata remained the power behind the [Japanese] government and dictated the selection of future prime ministers. To strengthen the grip of the state on citizens [,] Yamagata instituted a military circumscription system that relied on militarily trained loyal subjects, expanded its control on local entities by directly or indirectly appointing prefectural governors, city mayors and district heads and by establishing and extending the power of police.

[Perez1998-5] Perez, Louis G. (1998). The History of Japan. Greenwood,CT: Greenwood Press. p. 211. ISBN 0-313-30296-0. YAMAGATA ARITOMO (1838-1922)–leader of the Chōshū faction of genrō; called the 'Father of Japan's Army'; often Premier and Home Minister; controlled the government after the death of Itō in 1909.

[6] Samuels, Richard J. (2003). Machiavelli's Children: Leaders and Their Legacies in Italy and Japan. Ithaca, NY: Cornell UniversityPress. p. 62. ISBN 0-8014-3492-0. Yamagata served in the Privy Council for seventeen years and continuously as President from 1909 (when Itō was assassinated in Korea) until 1922 when he died. He was even more successful than Itō in insinuating his bureaucratic allies into the Privy Council. He placed his protégés strategically within each of the institutions he sought to control: the civilian bureaucracy, the military, the House of Peers, the colonial administrations, the Privy Council. He was never reluctant to use and reward his supporters or, conversely, to punish his opponents by intervening in elections, by excluding them from important posts, or by dissolving political groups altogether...He tried to control the House of Peers to assure support for military expansion and favorable budgets. But he constructed his most influential network around the emperor, both in the Privy Council and in the imperial household. By the time he was done, Yamagata had outlived his competitors, and had completed institutional arrangements to preclude the rise of others. He was genrō of the genrō, oligarch of the oligarchs.

[FOOTNOTEBix200196–97-7] Bix 2001, pp. 96–97: "...Since [Prince] Hirohito had already met Princess Nagako and liked her, and she had all the qualifications needed to become an empress, [Imperial Household Minister] Hatano informed Prince Kuni by letter, in January 1918, of his daughter's selection as the crown prince's fiancée. The Kuni family thereupon hired Sugiura [Shigetake], Hirohito's ethics teacher, to begin giving her weekly lectures in ethics. ¶The imperial engagement ceremony was scheduled to be held at the end of 1920, but in June 1920 the most powerful of the remaining genrō, Field Marshal Yamagata, attempted to have the engagement canceled on the ground that color blindness existed in the Shimazu family, on Nagako's mother's side. On June 18 Yamagata forced Hatano to resign—ostensibly for not having thoroughly investigated the matter but also in order to expedite sending Hirohito on a foreign tour—and began to install his own Chōshū-faction followers, starting at the top with Gen. Nakamura Yūjirō, as the new minister of the imperial household. Supporting Yamagata was Prime Minister Hara [Takashi]. He too was troubled by the possibility that the Taishō emperor's chronic ill health and mental debility might have been caused by genetic defects in the imperial family, but he was also hoping to strengthen his influence in court affairs by cultivating good relations with Yamagata. Thinking of a healthy imperial family in the future, rather than the maintenance of the purity of the imperial bloodline for its own sake, Yamagata wrote to Prince Kuni asking him to 'withdraw out of respect for the imperial house.' ¶Instead of submitting, Prince Kuni dug in his heels and secretly fought back, enlisting the support of Empress Sadako and Sugiura..."

[FOOTNOTEBix200198–99-8] Bix 2001, pp. 98–99: "[...] Sugiura told his old friend Tōyama Mitsuru, the ultranationalist leader of the 'old right,' that Yamagata hated Prince Kuni and intended to aggrandize his own power at the court...Tōyama's comrades in the Amura River Society...as well as members of Uchida Ryōhei's Society of Masterless Samurai...now began to harass Yamagata physically. Sometime in January 1921 two pan-Asianists of the 'new right,' the Orientalist scholar Ōkawa Shūmei and the China 'expert'[,] and Nichiren Buddhist thinker Kita Ikki, learned about Yamagata's attempt to annul the crown prince's engagement. Ōkawa had recently formed, with Professor Mitsukawa Kametarō of Takushoku University, a nationalist, anti-Marxist discussion group, the Yūzonsha...which Kit later joined. From its ranks rumors spread of a plot to assassinate Yamagata. ¶ In early February 1921, with the forty-fourth Diet still in session and the problem of the kokutai threatening to surface as a weapon in the hands of the opposition parties, Prime Minister Hara [Takashi] withdrew his support for Yamagata...Imperial Household Minister Nakamura also submitted to Sugiura, as did another Yamagata backer, the high court official Hirata Tōsuke. Faced with all these losses...Yamagata gave up the struggle. [¶] On the evening of February 10,1921, officials of the Imperial Household Ministry and Home Ministry informed the Tokyo newspapers that the crown prince's engagement would go ahead as planned and that Nakamura and his vice minister, Ishihara Kenzō, had both resigned...[On February 22] Yamagata offered to resign as genrō and president of the privy council and to return his many medals and renounce his titles...Hara and the court declined to accept his resignation but Yamagata had clearly fallen from power..."

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