Hirohito and the Making of Modern Japan (91 page)

Kido's important diary entry of September 14, 1940, registers Hirohito's concern with the disunity between the high command and Matsuoka, but also his belief that it was best to go ahead and implement the advance, for “if we procrastinate, the machinations of Britain and the United States will become increasingly intense and there is a possibility of them joining up with French Indochina or with China.”
⁵⁰
Shortly afterward the emperor issued Imperial Headquarters Army Order Number 458, ordering the area army to begin the entry into French Indochina. Once again he had dealt with a situation of elite conflict at home by sanctioning new aggression abroad.

No war was declared, but Japan had now expanded its war in China by definitely stepping into World War II. The Roosevelt administration, which had in place a “moral embargo” on aircraft shipments to Japan, responded, symbolically, by embargoing scrap iron and aviation gasoline. Henceforth Roosevelt would seek to counter Japan by applying economic sanctions incrementally, by
aiding China just enough to keep Japan bogged down, by negotiating with Japan on an informal basis, and—most important—by rapidly rearming and preparing the U.S. army and navy for war against the Axis.

III

Japan's leaders took their second fateful step toward a larger war when the liaison conference and the Konoe cabinet reached full consensus on a military alliance with Nazi Germany and Fascist Italy. To insure the legitimacy of their decision, an imperial conference—Hirohito's third—convened on September 19 and shortly afterward he sanctioned the treaty. When Kido saw him on September 24, Hirohito remarked that he wanted “to worship in person at the
kashikodokoro
[Place of Awe]” in the palace, and ask for the protection of the gods since “in this case we are not simply celebrating as at the time of the Japan-British treaty; we are going to face a serious crisis depending on how the situation develops.”
⁵¹
Later the treaty was forwarded to the Privy Council which completed its purely formalistic deliberations in just one day.

On September 27, 1940, Japanese representatives in Berlin signed the Tripartite Pact with the dictatorships of Germany and Italy. The affiliation of fascist Rumania and Hungary followed. By the terms of the pact, Japan recognized the leadership of Germany and Italy in “the new order in Europe” while they recognized Japan's dominance in “Greater East Asia.” The three powers pledged “to assist one another with all political, economic, and military means” if “attacked by a power at present not involved in the European War or in the Sino-Japanese conflict.”
⁵²
This last article was intended to check Britain and keep the United States out of the war.

The deliberations leading to this key event had gone on for three years. Hirohito had had ample opportunities to ponder its
implications, including the near certainty that it would deprive Japan of diplomatic flexibility and end forever its chance for cooperation with the United States and Britain. Although he did not trust Nazi Germany, his opposition had never been to a military alliance with the Nazis that countered Soviet pressure on Manchukuo, but only to one that took Britain, France, and the United States as the main enemies.
⁵³

Thus, when Konoe was hinting he would resign, at the very end of 1938 and the beginning of 1939, Hirohito reportedly said to his new Chief Aide-de-Camp Hata: “If [the army] doesn't want Prime Minister Konoe to resign that much, instead of persuading him to remain, go along with the decision of the Five Ministers Conference, made earlier, to strengthen the defense against Communism, and…make this anti-Communist alliance just against the Soviet Union. Go tell this to the General Staff.”
⁵⁴
Hirohito was then clearly not against the Tripartite Pact itself; he was only opposed to including Britain and France among its targets.

A year and a half later, at the very moment President Roosevelt had increased his support for the hard-pressed British by making his Lend-Lease destroyers-for-bases deal, Hirohito, despite misgivings, abandoned his opposition and assented to the treaty. It was an opportunistic and dangerous move, certain to deepen Japan's difficulties with the Anglo-Americans once Germany renewed its conquests in Europe. More than that, it was a very self-conscious break with the Meiji legacy of Anglo-American friendship in foreign policy, and Hirohito knew it, which is another reason he vacillated so long before making it.

In the lead-up to his personal conversion to the military's line on foreign policy, Hirohito likened himself to his grandfather Meiji on the eve of the Russo-Japanese War, when It
Hirobumi had pledged Meiji his loyalty unto death if Japan should lose the war. “When matters have come this far, Konoe should really share the joy and suffering with me,” he told Kido on September 15, echoing
It
's pledge to Meiji.
⁵⁵
Later Konoe told Harada: “When I went to the Palace the next day [September 16], the emperor said that, ‘Under the present circumstances this military agreement with Germany can't be helped. If there is no other way to handle America, then it can't be helped.'” Konoe added that the emperor also asked him, “What will happen if Japan should be defeated? Will you, prime minister, bear the burden with me?”
⁵⁶

Hirohito passively assented to the treaty, then rationalized his action as personal submission to an inexorable historical process. The conflicts of the different bureaucratic forces, he implied, had driven him into sanctioning the most fundamental shift in the monarchy's stance on foreign relations since his grandfather sanctioned Japan's alliance with Britain in 1902. Yet at the time Hirohito was fully aware that his flip-flop on the Tripartite Pact was a major turning point that carried the possibility of war with the United States.
⁵⁷
Later, he blamed it mainly on Matsuoka, but also faulted his brothers—Chichibu and Takamatsu—and never reflected on his own mistaken judgement in sanctioning the Pact.
⁵⁸

Around this time a subtle shift occurred in the internal ranking of the imperial family. Hirohito's most outspoken critic and next in line to the throne, Prince Chichibu, had become seriously ill with tuberculosis. Chichibu's retirement from an active public life meant that Prince Takamatsu stood to become regent in an emergency. Henceforth he would be reading more official documents and gratuitously proffering advice that Hirohito usually did not consider helpful.
⁵⁹
Rather than line up firmly with Hirohito in Japan's foreign policy crisis, Takamatsu drew closer to Chichibu. The brothers approved of the Tripartite Pact as the best hope in the circumstances, and continued to find Hirohito's performance lacking.

As for Kido, he later insisted that he and the emperor “had to adopt a balance-of-power policy in order to avoid becoming isolated and, at the same time, not be drawn into [the European war].
There was no way to negotiate with the United States without having the power of the alliance in the background. The explanations of Konoe and Matsuoka persuaded us. We didn't like it but couldn't help signing it.”
⁶⁰
Kido, unlike the emperor, held the army mainly responsible for the Tripartite Pact but never admitted the navy's decisive role.

On September 27, 1940, Hirohito issued an imperial rescript to the nation in which, contrary to his usual practice, he apparently chose to let stand the wording that had been prepared for him by others. The rescript declared:

Soon after the release of the rescript, the Tripartite Pact was signed, and on October 4, Prime Minister Konoe issued a belligerent statement at a press conference in Kyoto declaring that, “If the United States does not understand the positions of Japan, Germany, and Italy, and regards our pact as a provocative action directed against it, and if it constantly adopts a confrontational attitude, then the three countries will fight resolutely.”
⁶²
Few Japanese leaders at the time understood the tremendous ideological significance of the Tripartite Pact for the United States, or how the Roosevelt administration would now use it to deepen anti-Japanese feeling. Meanwhile the emperor, accompanied by Kido, observed special grand naval maneuvers off Yokohama. A week later, still
uncertain about his break with Britain, he reported in prayers to the gods that he had made an alliance with Germany and Italy, and asked for their protection.
⁶³

The following month the entire nation celebrated the 2,600th anniversary of the founding of the state by the mythical Emperor Jimmu. Preparations for this
kigensetsu
had been underway since 1935. One day before the start of the official commemorative events, on November 9, a government regulation established an “Office of Shinto Deities” within the Home Ministry to further the “spiritual mobilization” of the nation in preparation for total war. Started by the first Konoe cabinet at the beginning of the China war, the campaign sought the participation of youth about to be sent to war, exhorting them to “respect the Shinto deities,” “serve the state,” and rush forward to victory in the war against China.

For this event government agencies launched fifteen thousand new projects and festivities of various kinds, costing 1.63 billion yen.
⁶⁴
At the peak of the celebrations, on November 10 and 11, an estimated five million people attended banquets. Food prepared as military field rations, in remembrance of the troops on the front lines, was consumed by celebrants in the palace plaza. Amid these reminders of the war, and of the new direction in foreign policy, the Tokyo
Asahi shinbun
on November 10 ran a column entitled “Questions and Answers About the New Order,” which emphasized the important role that youth would play in the new world order.
⁶⁵
On the eleventh, pictures of Emperor Hirohito and Empress Nagako spread across the pages of the leading newspapers. His imperial rescript of that date reminded readers of “the violent upheavals in today's world” and enjoined them “to promote at home and abroad the grand principle of the Way of the Gods, thus contributing to the welfare of humankind.”
⁶⁶
Any doubts that Hirohito had allowed himself to become not only the symbol and legitimizer of the “New Order,” but also the mouthpiece for its rhetoric were put to rest. At 11:25
A.M
. some fifty thousand representatives from all over Japan
and the world, including members of the Hitlerjugend, shouted in unison, “Banzai!”; warships anchored in Tokyo Bay fired salutes; and radio coverage of the joyous event continued throughout the day.