Hirohito and the Making of Modern Japan (96 page)

The emperor was also far from pleased with the policy plan. At the September 5 briefing, he showed his irritation with Sugiyama and the army high command as a whole, and revealed differences in strategic thinking between him and his chiefs of staff. As would
become clearer over the next four days, Hirohito was warning them that the global situation was still fraught with possibilities; for him to formally resolve on war at this stage would be premature.
⁵⁷

At 9:40
A.M
. the next day, September 6, twenty minutes before the start of the imperial conference, Hirohito summoned Kido and told him that he was going to raise some questions at the meeting, whereupon Kido replied that “Privy Council President Hara should be the person to raise the important points of your majesty's concern.” Therefore it would be “best for your majesty, to give your warning at the very end,” saying something to the effect that everyone “should cooperate fully to bring about success in the diplomatic negotiations.”
⁵⁸

The main topics at the conference that day were the preparations for war and when to finalize a decision to open hostilities. During the conference Sugiyama had in his possession, and may even have introduced, prepared question-and-answer materials for the emperor. These materials made two things clear: that the United States could not be defeated, and that it was therefore impossible to predict when a war with the United States would end. However, if Japan achieved a great victory in the southern operations, Britain would be defeated and knocked out of the war,

Upon conclusion of the formal presentations, Hirohito gave the “Outline for Carrying Out the National Policies of the Empire” his sanction—with misgivings, without an optimistic prospect of victory, or even any notion of the course that a protracted war might take. All the participants now had to complete preparations for war with the United States, Britain, and the Netherlands by the last ten days of October, and they had to make the decision to start the war if there was no longer hope of achieving their demands through the Washington negotiations by an unspecific deadline in early October.

Hirohito at this stage was still taking his time. To drive home his wariness on the question of war or peace, and to make his high command cooperate in giving diplomacy more time to work, he spoke out (as prearranged with Kido) just before the September 6 meeting concluded.
⁶⁰
“What do you two chiefs of staff think?” he asked. “Neither of you has said a word.” Then, taking a piece of paper from his pocket, he read aloud a famous
tanka
by Emperor Meiji: “Across the four seas all are brothers./In such a world why do the waves rage, the winds roar?”
⁶¹
When he had finished, the chiefs of staff stated their intention to give priority to diplomacy, and the conference adjourned in a tense mood.

Meiji had written his poem at the beginning of the Russo-Japanese War to express his worries about the possible outcome. The next year, fortunately, he had been able to compose poems celebrating victory. Thus Meiji's poem had its roots in his anxiety about the chances for victory.
⁶²
When Hirohito read aloud the poem to his two rarely fully cooperative chiefs of staff, the question “Why do the waves rage, the winds roar?” sent a strong, clear message. As the conference ended, the chiefs of staff—having been made aware of the emperor's apprehension over their readiness for the possible outcome of the two-track policy they were embarking on—promised to give diplomacy more priority, and over the next few days the chiefs of staff would strive to assuage Hirohito's doubts
about their disunity, insufficient war preparations, and acting in haste.

On September 9 Army Chief of Staff Sugiyama gave Hirohito a detailed report on the planned southern advance operation. The emperor once again wanted reassurance about the Soviets, asking what he would do “if pressure comes from the north?” Sugiyama answered:

The next day Sugiyama briefed the emperor again and was again questioned, this time regarding the mobilization for the southern advance operation:

In just three days a war with the United States, at which the emperor had balked on September 6, had become a matter of lesser importance than a two-front war.

A few days later the man who had planned the attack on the United States, Adm. Yamamoto Isoroku, commander of the Combined Fleet, paid a visit to Prime Minister Konoe, who was becoming increasingly despondent. According to the “record” of their conversation (made more than a month later), Yamamoto tried to reassure Konoe: “I don't know about the army,” he told him, “but as you try to adjust diplomatic relations [with the United States], you don't have to worry about the navy. The coming war will be protracted and dirty, and I don't intend to sit idle on the flagship neglecting my duty.” The admiral intended to do everything he could to force an early, decisive, showdown battle in which he would commit his entire fleet, making especially important use of air and submarine forces. If he won that battle, a long war of attrition might be avoided—if not also won. In this top-level pep talk for the depressed prime minister, they both seem still to have believed that the hoped-for meeting at sea between Prince Konoe and President Roosevelt might come to pass. Konoe wanted a diplomatic breakthrough but feared that even if he did meet with Roosevelt, nothing would issue from their talk and war would begin. Admiral Yamamoto suggested using deception. “[I]f the talks at sea should break down, don't assume a defiant attitude. Depart leaving everything vague. And the fleet will take action while you are en route home.”
⁶⁵

But Prince Konoe was now thinking of departing the cabinet he headed, not a summit with an American president who did not want to help the empire, but strangle it. On September 26, with the deadline set on September 6 fast approaching, he complained to Privy Seal Kido that he was getting out if the military insisted on mid-October for making the decision to open hostilities.
⁶⁶

Hirohito's early-October deadline for “adjusting” relations with
the United States passed with no progress in the negotiations. On October 13 he told Kido: “In the present situation there seems to be little hope for the Japan–U.S. negotiations. If hostilities erupt this time, I think I may have to issue a declaration of war.”
⁶⁷
The next day Konoe held his last cabinet meeting. Army Minister T
j
did most of the talking:

Two days later, on October 16, Konoe resigned—a victim of the time element in the national policy document he himself had helped to craft. After the Manchurian Incident, Konoe had been vociferously anti-Anglo-American and pro-German. On January 21, 1941, he had declared firmly before a secret session of the Diet that “Germany will win.”
⁶⁹
Now he was just as sure that Germany would lose, and also sure that the senior officers of both services could not promise a Japanese victory. Konoe's policy of seeking to end the international pressure on Japan by negotiating in Washington had alienated pro-Axis forces in the government and military.
Rightly convinced that the emperor and Kido supported the arguments for war put forward by T
j
, Sugiyama, and Nagano, and that the emperor no longer trusted him, Konoe prepared to withdraw from the scene.