When we think of World War Two, one of the first things that comes to mind is
the rise of dictators. Italy saw the rise of Benito Mussolini and his national fascit party
beginning with their march on Rome in 1922. Adolf Hitler rose to power as
the leader of the Nazi Party, becoming the Fuhrer und Reichskanzier in 1934,
consolidating a dictatorship lasting from 1933 to 1945. Although it never had an official dictator,
the Empire of the Rising Sun gradually saw one man rise to the top echelon. This episode is
part one of our mini-series on Hideki Tojo within our larger series on the Pacific War.
Throughout Hideki Tojo’s life, a small military consideration was getting larger and larger,
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Hideki Tojo was born on December 30th, 1884 to a relatively low ranking samurai family in
the Kojimachi district of present day Chiyoda, Tokyo. He was the third son of Hidenori Tojo,
a Lt General in the Imperial Japanese Army, and Chitose Tojo, the daughter of a Buddhist priest.
Tojo had an education typical of most Japanese youth during the Meiji Era.
The purpose of the Meiji educational system was to train boys to be soldiers and girls to produce as
many sons as possible, who could then die for the Emperor in war. Japanese students were taught that
war was the most beautiful thing in the entire world, that the Emperor was a living god and
that the greatest honor was to die for him. Tojo was notorious for being opinionated and combative,
with a lack of sense of humor during his youth. Japanese schools in the Meiji era were notoriously
competitive and Tojo fought often with other boys to pursue his goals. He was deemed to have average
intelligence by those who knew him, but would compensate for this with an extreme work ethic.
Tojo followed in his father’s footsteps, joining the Army Cadet School in 1899,
and then the Japanese Military Academy in 1904. In 1905, Tojo shared the general outrage felt by most
in Japan in response to the Treaty of Portsmouth, signed at the end of the Russo-Japanese War.
The treaty was seen as a betrayal of Japan by the United States, leading to the anti-American
riots known as the Hibiya Riots . Tojo, like many others in Japan, believed that America,
specifically President Theodore Roosevelt, had cheated Japan of its gains in the war against
Russia, which pushed their nation to the verge of bankruptcy. Tojo viewed this as a racist affront
to Japan and that the West would never recognize a non-white country as a first-tier power.
This anger towards the West would leave a long lasting impact in Tojo’s life.
Upon graduating from the Japanese Military Academy,
ranked 10th of 363 cadets in March of 1905, he was instilled with the military values of the period,
those being complete loyalty to the Emperor and subversion of one’s individuality to the state.
He was commissioned as a second Lt in the IJA and, in 1909, he married Katsuko Ito. They had
three sons, Hidetake, Toshio and Teruo, alongside four daughters, Mitsue, Sachie, Makie and Kimie.
In 1912, he entered the Army Staff College, and by 1915 earned the rank of Captain and Commanding
Officer of the 3rd Imperial Guards Regiment. At the end of World War One, Japan earned a spot
in the “Council of Ten'' to officially decide the peace terms. Japan had bitter memories of
the Yellow Peril rehtory and was aggravated by discrimination agaisnt Asiatics amongst Western
Nations. Versailles offered a chance to overturn the imposed racial inferiority of Japan and to
finally allow them to take their rightful place among the victorious Great Powers. Japan brought
to the table the Racial Equality Proposal in the Treaty of Versailles for members of the League of
Nations. The proposal received a majority vote, but was overturned by President Woodrow Wilson.
This was accompanied, in 1924, by the Asian Exclusion Act , furthering the Gentlemen’s
Agreement of 1907. For most Japanese, including Tojo , it seemed that the U.S. would never accept
Japan as an equal, cementing Tojo’s hatred. From 1918 to 1919, Tojo saw some action,
serving briefly in Siberia as part of the Japanese expeditionary force sent to
intervene in the Russian Civil War. Afterwards, between 1919 and 1922, he was sent as a military
attache to Germany to be trained by the German military alongside other military personnel.
In the 1920s, the German military favored preparing for the next war by creating a
totalitarian Wehrstaat, a Defense state, and this idea was adopted by the Japanese military.
In 1922, Tojo was on his way back home and took a train ride across the United States,
his first and only visit to America. His impression was that Americans were materialistic,
soft people only devoted to the pursuit of wealth and hedonistic desires such as sex and drinking.
In 1928, Tojo was assigned as a bureau chief in the IJA and was promoted to Colonel.
He then began to take an interest in militarist politics. In 1934, he was promoted to Major
General and served as Chief of the Personnel Department within the Army Ministry. It was then
that he wrote a chapter in a book titled, Essays in time of national emergency , calling for Japan
to become a totalitarian national defense state. In his essay, Tojo accused Britain,
France and the U.S. of waging an ideological war against Japan since 1919, insisting that
Japan must stand tall and spread its own moral principles to the world. The following year, Tojo
was given command of the Kempeitai in Manchuria and earned himself the nickname Kamisori,
meaning “Razor” for his cold-blooded nature and strict by-the-book mentality.
It was also during this time that the IJA had competing political factions such as the
Toseiha “Control Faction” and Kodoha “Imperial Way Faction”. Both factions were militaristic,
favoring a policy of expansionism associated with a dictatorship under the Emperor . The
Kodoha faction sought to achieve this via a coup d'etat and was willing to use
assasination to meet its goals. The Kodoha also advocated for an invasion of the Soviet Union.
The Toseiha faction was also willing to use assasination to meet their goals,
but sought reform by working within the existing system and foresaw a future war to be a total war.
They sought to maximize Japan’s industrial and military capacity by working alongside the
Japanese bureaucracy and Zaibatsu conglomerates, which the Kodoha despised. The Tosieha were
unwilling to do something as radical as a coup d'etat. Tojo was a member of the Toseiha and
during the February 26 coup attempt of 1936 led by many Kodoha supporters, he opposed the rebels.
Emperor Hirohito was outraged by the attacks, and as the commander of the Kempeitai, Tojo ordered
the arrest of all officers in the Kwantung Army suspected of supporting the coup. This
led to the Toseiha faction to purge many radical members of the military. Coup leaders were tried
and executed. Following the purge, the Toseiha and Kodoha gradually unified under the Toseiha banner,
including Tojo among their leaders. In 1937, Tojo was promoted to Chief
of staff of the Kwantung Army. Like most of his colleagues, Tojo regarded preparing for a war
with the Soviet Union as first priority, but also supported the forward policy in Northern China.
When the Second Sino Japanese War broke out, Tojo commanded the Chahar Expeditionary Force
during Operation Chahar. Tojo personally led the 1st Independent Mixed Brigade,
crushing the Chinese forces in Changpei, Shenweitaiko on the Great Wall and Hanno Dam. This
was Tojo’s only real combat experience, but he proved up to the task and gained popular support.
Tojo went on to order forces to attack Hebei and other parts of Northern China. He also went
on to play a key role in utilizing Manchuria’s natural resources to feed the industry of Japan,
gaining close connections to important figures like the Deputy Minister of Industry in Manchukuo,
Nobusuke Kishi, and the ultra-natonalist CEO of the South Manchuria Railway, Yosuke Matsuoka.
In 1938, Tojo was recalled to Japan to serve as Vice-Minister of War and Chief of Army Aviation
under Army Minister Seishiro Itagaki. Seishiro Itagaki was a member of Fumimaro Konoe’s cabinet,
and on July 22nd, 1940 Tojo was appointed War Minister by Prime Minister Konoe.
Konoe chose Tojo because he represented both the Army’s hardline views and the Toseiha faction’s
views, but was relatively reasonable to deal with. Tojo was well respected for his intense work ethic
and proved himself devoted to the Emperor, believing him to be a living god
and favoring “direct imperial rule”. In his new role, Tojo expanded the Second Sino Japanese War,
which included the supervision of atrocities committed in China. Tojo was also instrumental in
forming the Tripartite Pact between Japan, Germany and Italy. Konoe had started the war with China in
1937 and sought to establish better relations with Germany and the United States, taking
advantage of the changes to the international order caused by Germany’s sweeping victories in
the spring of 1940. Konoe sought to have Germany mediate an end to the Second Sino Japanese War
by pressuring Britain to end its support of China, hoping for a pro-Japanese peace settlement. Yet to
attempt a diplomatic solution to the China Affair, Konoe required a solid cover, that being the
ultra-nationalist Tojo. Ultimately, Konoe sought to make Japan the dominant power in East Asia,
while trying to have the United States recognize the Greater East Asia Co-prosperity Sphere.
This would, however, never become a reality because of Tojo.
As Army Minister, Tojo did not only expand the war with China, he also pushed the unofficial invasion
of French Indochina in September 1940. This was met with Western condemnation, and the United
States embargoed scrap-metal shipments to Japan and closed the Panama Canal to Japanese shipping.
Tojo would follow this up by negotiating with Vichy France to gain permission for Japanese
troops to be placed in Southern French Indochina in July 1941. This was met again with retaliation
by the United States, who froze Japanese assets on July 26th, 1941. Roosevelt met with the Japanese
ambassador to the U.S., Admiral Nomura the same day, telling him that if Japan agreed
to pull out of Indochina, Japanese assets could be unfrozen. Konoe did not take any aggressive
action to implement Roosevelt’s offer, as he could not restrain the militarists, led by Tojo.
As Minister of War, Tojo regarded the seizure of Indochina as irreversible due
to its approval by the Emperor. By July 28th, Japan formally occupied Southern Indochina,
and by August 1st, the United States imposed an oil embargo on Japan.
By October 1941, it seemed that resolving the China affair and Indochina conflict
diplomatically was going nowhere, and during Prime Minister Konoe’s last cabinet meeting,
Tojo hawkishly did most of the talking . The prevailing opinion within the IJA was that
continuing negotiations would lead to Japan losing face, yet many still sought to avoid conflict with
the West. Tojo argued that he did not want war with the United States, but that any compromises
henceforth would only encourage the U.S. to make more extreme demands of Japan. It might be
better to choose war and uphold national honor. Tojo and the militarists pressed the cabinet to
commit to an actual deadline for a decision for war with the West, set for October 15th, 1941.
Prime Minister Konoe held a last private meeting with Tojo on October 14th, one day before the
deadline for war. Konoe attempted to press Tojo to stand down from his war stance and accede to U.S.
demands for a military withdrawal from China and Indochina. Tojo ruled it was out of the question,
and in the following cabinet meeting declared the Military's resolve for war. After the conference,
Tojo went to see the Lord Keeper of the Privy Seal to push for Konoe’s resignation.
Prime Minister Konoe had become isolated at this point, convinced that the Emperor no longer
trusted him. Tojo sent the head of the cabinet planning board, Teeichi Suzuki, to urge Konoe to
resign. If he did so, Tojo would endorse Prince Naruhiko Higashikuni as the next Prime Minister.
Suzuki said that Tojo realized that Japan could not hope to face the U.S.
and that a cabinet under Higashikuni could reverse Japan’s course of action, as he was said to be
the only person who could control the Army and the Navy. Konoe resigned on October 16th, 1941
after recommending Prince Naruhiko Higashikuni to the Emperor as his successor.
Two days later, Emperor Hirohito rejected the option, arguing that a member of the imperial
family should not carry the responsibility for a war against the West, as a defeat would ruin the
prestige of the house Yamato. Emperor Hirohito chose instead Hideki Tojo, who was known for
his devotion to the Emperor, with the promise that the new Prime Minister would re-examine all
possible options for overting war with the United States. Tojo pledged to the Emperor
personally to obey this order and indeed did show a true sense of loyalty performing this duty.
This was seen on one occasion when Emperor Hirohito sent a communication to the Army
saying that it should drop the idea of stationing troops in China to counter military operations of
the Western Powers, and Tojo complied obediently. By November 2nd, 1941, Tojo and the Chiefs of
staff, Hajime Sugiyama and Osami Nagano, reported to Emperor Hirohito their failure to find any
potential peaceful solutions with the Western Powers. Emperor Hirohito gave his consent to war
and, the very next day, Fleet Admiral Osami Nagano exposed to the Emperor the details of the plan to
attack Pearl Harbor. The attack was accompanied by orders from Admiral Isoroku Yamamoto that the
fleet was to return to Japan at a moment’s notice should negotiations succeed. On November 5th,
1941, Emperor Hirohito approved the operations for a war against the West.
On November 26th, the United States issued a memorandum called the Hull Note , which demanded
the complete withdrawal of Japanese forces from China and Indochina in exchange for lifting the
oil embargo, but left the term China undefined. The Hull Note implied that the U.S. might
recognize the empire of Manchukuo and did not impose a real deadline for the Japanese withdrawal
from China. The next day, Tojo intentionally misrepresented the Hull Note to the Cabinet as
an ultimatum to Japan, claiming that it demanded Japanese withdrawal from all of China, instead
of just the parts occupied since the outbreak of war in 1937. Under Tojo and his cabinet’s advice,
Emperor Hirohito approved, during the Imperial Conference of December 1st 1941, the Pearl Harbor
attack and war against the United States, Britain and the Netherlands. In a memorandum
about Hirohito’s assent, Tojo was quoted to say “I’m perfectly relieved. You can say we have
already won the war, given the current situation”. Next episode of our series on the Pacific War will
be released soon, so make sure you are subscribed and have pressed the bell button to see it.
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