When discussing the rise of militarism in Japan’s Meiji Era, it was mentioned in passing that Japan adopted a British model for its Navy and a Prussian model for its Army. Japan’s preference for Prussian/German military models was not accidental or sudden. It grew directly out of choices, experiences, and disappointments made during the late Tokugawa and early Meiji years. 

By the late Tokugawa Shogunate period there were groups that were imperial loyalists and wanted to end the rule of the shoguns and reform the nation under the Emperor. The tensions ultimately lead to the Boshin War (1868–1869)  which pitted the imperial loyalists (primarily the Satsuma, Choshu, and Tosa domains) against the Tokugawa shogunate and its allied northern domains. The Shogunate forces had taken on French military methods, tactics, and weapons. They failed to save the Tokugawa Shogunat.

The victorious imperial loyalists who formed the Meiji Era drew lessons from their opponent’s defeat: (1) military reform could not be separated from political legitimacy and national unity, (2) the shogun supporters had adopted methods tied to a fallen regime (losers in the Franco-Prussian War). This stigma mattered enormously in Meiji political culture.

What Japan saw in Prussia was a small-to-mid-sized state defeating a great power with victory through universal conscription, a professional general staff, transportation and mobilization planning, and tight civil–military integration. To Meiji leaders, Prussia looked like Japan: late-developing, resource-conscious, and surrounded by potential enemies. Of supreme importance was that Japan needed a land army first, to suppress internal revolts and deter Russia and China.

Prussia offered something France and Britain did not: a theory of the army’s constitutional role. The key ideas were that the army serves the state (in this case, the Emperor); the officer corps embodies loyalty, discipline, and moral authority; and civilian politicians do not micromanage military doctrine. These principles aligned seamlessly with Emperor-centered legitimacy, fear of partisan politics, and the desire to prevent another “shogunate.” The Army would be a servant to the Emperor and therefore the State. Japan did not simply copy Prussia. It chose Prussia because Prussia solved Japan’s Meiji-era problems.

The Meiji Constitution encoded Prussian assumptions with the army and navy answering directly to the Emperor; military ministers required active-duty officers, and the Diet (Parliament) had limited control over defense policy. This arrangement prevented party politics from controlling the military and reflected Prussian constitutional monarchy rather than British parliamentary supremacy.

In the short term, Japan rapidly created  a modern, disciplined army that experienced success in the Sino-Japanese War (1894–95) and Russo-Japanese War (1904–05). But along with that success came an environment where the seeds of later insubordination and factionalism were sown. 

• The military had weak civilian oversight (the military occupied 4 seats in the cabinet and held a virtual veto over any decisions by civil government), 
• Military autonomy was institutionalized by the failure/inability of the civil government to control military operations or hold military leadership responsible (examples include the Mukden Incident in 1931, the Marco Polo Bridge incident in 1937 and the Nomanhan Incident in 1939). The Marco Polo incident was the action that began the 2nd Sino-Japanese War which was the start of the larger Asia-Pacific War, and 
• Radical factions within the military had little qualms about assassinating civil leaders, including the Prime Minister, that they felt were obstructing their aims.

Ironically, the very features that appealed to the first generation of Meiji leaders were the root causes that destabilized civilian government in the 1930s and contributed to the start of the Asia-Pacific War.

Image credit: various photographs from Naval Aviation Museum, National World War II Museum, and US Navy Archive.