A Choice of Evils

by Meira Chand

  ‘I am indebted to you, Father.’ Kenjiro bowed low before Yuzuru.

  ‘Take care. I ask nothing more,’ Yuzuru replied.

  32

  Sword of Power 2

  1940 – 1945

  Successive German victories after the outbreak of war in Europe impressed the military opportunists in Japan. They saw immediately that, by joining Germany and Italy in an alliance, and by taking advantage of weakened Western possessions in Asia, Japan could proceed more quickly with building the New Asian Order. An alliance would also, it was believed, deter Russian and Anglo-American interference in this New Asian Order. Such a pact demanded that, should any greater war escalate in Europe, Japan would participate on Germany’s behalf.

  Negotiations towards the Tripartite Pact were not to Emperor Hirohito’s liking. War still raged in China, Japan did not need yet further entanglement abroad. That the China war continued to drag on, swallowing unending supplies of men, resources and armaments, was a frustration to him. He wanted a positive victory, not the constant drain of an incomplete mission. Some time after the rape of Nanking he had been shown captured Chinese propaganda film, when things could no longer be hidden from him. His distaste was tempered only by the knowledge that he had no control of military operations in the field. He could not have prevented the massacre.

  Although not a pacifist, he was no avid warmonger. As a monarch faced with an unavoidable war, he wished to see his country victorious. His fear was that a pact with Germany might draw Japan into battles not of her choosing, bringing disaster. The taking of risk was not part of Hirohito’s methodical nature. He was a scientist who believed in the successful conclusion of carefully studied and accumulated evidence. It was therefore a shocked and further infuriated Hirohito who learned in August 1939 that Germany, whom Japan was relying upon as an ally against Russia, had signed a Non-Aggression pact with the Soviet Union. This announcement not only left the question of a military alliance with Germany in disarray, but precipitated the fall of the Japanese Government.

  In Tokyo American Ambassador Grew was already concerned. If general war breaks out, Grew wrote in his diary, it is almost inevitable that the United States will be unable to stay out. If Japan is tied up in the German camp in a military alliance, it will be impossible for America to remain at peace with Japan. It therefore behooves Japan to look into the future and decide where her friendship ought in her own interests to be placed.

  Prince Konoye was nominated as the new Prime Minister. Hirohito had confidence in Konoye and expected him to check the army’s inordinate quest for power. But Konoye came to office for a second time full of bombast and ideas. He envisioned a World Order based on his concept of a Greater East Asia Co-Prosperity Sphere, an association of nations, grouped like a family about Japan. The age old version of Hakko Ichiu was about to begin anew. Konoye’s premiership was not to everyone’s liking. His previous disastrous vacillating leadership during the brutal rape of Nanking, had generated criticism.

  Now, three days before he took office, Konoye agreed at an informal meeting with his proposed War Minister, General Tojo, and also his Foreign Minister, and Navy Chief, to make a military alliance with Germany the priority of the new Cabinet. It was felt that, in the event of a war, such a pact might avert an attack on Japan by America. The Tripartite Pact must be signed quickly however, before Nazi armies crossed the English Channel, conquered Britain and won the war. Once this was done it was feared Germany would have little use for Japan.

  Ever geared for war and a clash with America and imperialistic Britain, the militarists were busy. Colonel Hashimoto of the Panay bombing, dashed about wildly to fuel public opinion. He urged the nation to forget the shadow of Russia in the north and turn south to face Japan’s real threat for the future, Great Britain, a country ready at any crisis to send their fleet to threaten Japan. He called for immediate war upon Britain. He urged the alliance with Rome and Berlin in order to form a united Fascist front against democracy and Communism. Kill all those who oppose the alliance, he exhorted at mass rallies. Anti-Western, anti-British feeling blazed once more in certain circles across Japan. Feelings in Britain were also high. The shelling of British gunboats on the Yangtze along with the Panay, and the careless wounding of the British Ambassador, Sir Hugh Knatchbull-Hugessan, had raised British ire to fever pitch. Only American hesitation prevented British action.

  Hirohito’s genro, Prince Saionji, even more ancient and bed-ridden, still worried for the nation and his Emperor. To him all foreign policy must be based on co-operation with Britain and the United States. He looked bitterly at the proposed alliance. ‘What can we do tied to Italy or Germany? It is ridiculous and I am suspicious. To think of Japan with the United States to the east and Britain to the west, that is meaningful. But an alliance with Italy and Germany? What possible meaning can that have?’

  As well as having misgivings about Hirohito’s involvement in dangerous adventures, Saionji was shattered by the Emperor’s refusal to follow his advice, or share his vision of a liberal Japan. Marquis Kido, old confidant of the Emperor and back once more in the Imperial Household after a time in politics, as Keeper of the Privy Seal, agreed with Saionji’s pacifist views. Kido, too, worried that the Emperor would be pushed into a combative stance by the militarists. Prince Konoye appeared of little help, full of his own grandiose visions, and moving as was so often his habit, with the majority opinion.

  Some time before the pact was to be signed, Marquis Kido called upon the Emperor and found him relaxed after a morning swim. They talked about the Burma Road crisis.

  ‘I suppose Britain will reject our request to end their support road to Chiang Kai-shek. In this case we shall occupy Hong Kong, and eventually declare war upon Britain,’ Hirohito announced. Kido warned caution, alarmed that the need for strategy was never far from Hirohito’s meticulous mind.

  Hirohito, however, remembered Bismarck’s words. International alliances always demand that there must be one horseman and one donkey, and Germany must always be the horseman. If the Tripartite Pact was signed, he wished Japan to be the horseman, not the donkey. Hakko Ichiu was now no longer a Shinto catchphrase, justifying the Emperor’s right to dominate the world. It was now a slogan of practical application, a religious vindication of Japan’s new power and influence.

  Old Saionji from his deathbed sent one last message to his Emperor. The time was approaching, said Saionji, for Hirohito to exercise his influence fearlessly, as his Grandfather Meiji had always done. Even his younger brother, Chichibu, exhorted him to take a stand against those who engineered a pact that turned Japan in direct confrontation with a war she could not win.

  On the day of the Imperial Conference to ratify the Tripartite Alliance, Hirohito sat on a throne before a gold screen. A few feet below the dais were the men who now steered the course of Japan. Saionji’s words and those of Chichibu were readily in his mind, but Saionji lay dying and Chichibu was ill in bed. Spread out below Hirohito were forces he knew he could not easily control. He teetered between elation and doubt. Japan’s growing power overwhelmed him with excitement. But the consequences of aggressive policies that he knew no way to contain, filled him also with trepidation.

  His fault was that he was not a great monarch, only a mediocre man. Even his own father-in-law had perceived Hirohito’s faults and told his daughter, the Empress, ‘The Emperor is weak-willed, so it is necessary for the Empress to help him from behind the scenes. You must be strong . . .’ Hirohito’s childhood conditioning placed a further constraint on his ability to oppose a possible war. He believed in the orderly evolution of politics and government. When this did not happen and logical argument had no effect, his pedantic manner and retiring nature could not easily deal with the reality of violence.

  Now, at this most important of Imperial Conferences, Hirohito protected himself in his usual manner, with a dour-faced silence, letting events take their course. The strategy of silence made final judgements of him difficult. And silenc
e was all that was ever constitutionally demanded of a monarch at any Imperial Conference. In active silence Hirohito now allowed a darkness to descend upon his nation, the consequences of which he would only later realise. When the Imperial Conference was over, Hirohito looked Konoye straight in the eye.

  ‘Well, you and I will now have to stand or fall together,’ he announced. Konoye had a tendency to give up when things became difficult, and Hirohito was already unsure whether Konoye, if the worst occurred, would take with his monarch the bitter medicine of a greater war.

  Hirohito put his seal to the fateful pact. On 27th September 1940, the Tripartite Pact was finally signed in Berlin between Germany, Italy and Japan. Hirohito ordered special Shinto rites inside the Palace to ask for the blessings of the Gods for this extraordinary pact. He spoke in obeisance before the Mirror of Knowledge, praying for the future of Japan. As absolute monarch he was thought by many to be in complete command. But government decisions once ratified were presented as the Imperial Will. What Hirohito thought of those decisions was immaterial. The will of the State was the will of the Emperor; unless it was requested of him, there could be no other way.

  Immediately after the signing of the pact, events began to quicken. With German connivance, the Vichy Government in France was forced to agree to the Japanese occupation of French Indochina. From these bases Japan could easily later strike at both China and Malaya. President Roosevelt was aghast and made efforts to persuade Japan to alter its plans for Indochina. When persuasion failed, Roosevelt ordered all Japanese funds and assets in America frozen. An embargo was placed upon everything but cotton and food. Japan was immediately bereft of massive amounts of iron and oil, the main ingredients for war.

  In June 1941, Hitler launched his attack on Russia, moving the aggression in Europe towards world war. Already in Japan, at the beginning of the year, the armed forces had envisaged this turn of events. At a conference of naval strategists secret plans had been laid for an attack on Pearl Harbor. Hirohito knew that war was planned. As always, he had resigned himself to the course of events. He wanted only to be certain a victory would be won. The Emperor was aware, as were also Marquis Kido and Prince Saionji, of the underlying weakness in Japan’s position. But from his pinnacle, still captive to the dream of Hakko Ichiu, it seemed to Hirohito that Japan now rode the crest of an historical wave and might yet be victorious. Hirohito’s doubts were about the manner and timing of the assault. No such doubts beset his armed forces. They waited impatiently to hurl themselves like warriors of old, into the cursed attack.

  A worried American Ambassador Grew early in 1941 sent a cable from Tokyo to the State Department in Washington. ‘There is talk around town,’ he wrote, ‘to the effect that the Japanese, in case of a break with the United States, are planning to go all out in a surprise attack on Pearl Harbor.’ In America nobody took Grew’s remarks seriously.

  Although the armed forces could not wait for war, in the Emperor’s circles hesitation still reigned. Hirohito once more oscillated between certainty and doubt. Admiral Nagano in audience with the Emperor could not alleviate Hirohito’s anxiety.

  ‘If war with America breaks out, our supply of oil would be sufficient for only a year and a half. Under these circumstances we would have no alternative but to take the initiative,’ the Admiral admitted.

  ‘If we do that can we then win a sweeping victory as in the Russo-Japanese war?’ Hirohito wanted to know. Reports in piles were on his desk, insisting a victory could be had by a German-style blitzkrieg.

  ‘If I am told to fight regardless of consequences, I shall run wild for the first six months or a year, sweeping all before me. But I have no confidence at all for the second and third years of a war. It is doubtful we could ever win, to say nothing of the kind of great victory we saw in the Russo-Japanese war.’ Admiral Nagano was an honest man.

  A constant stream of Admirals and Army Generals trudged the long corridors of the Imperial Palace, summoned by Hirohito to recite their reports and hear his questions. The Emperor asked General Sugiyama, Chief of Staff of the army, how soon a campaign against Malaya could be terminated once started.

  ‘Within three months,’ the General replied.

  ‘You made the same prediction at the beginning of 1931, before the attack on Mukden. And we could say that campaign is not yet finished after nearly ten years,’ Hirohito reprimanded.

  ‘There is a great difference between the two. China is a continent. The southern areas are islands,’ Sugiyama replied.

  ‘If you call the Chinese hinterland vast, would you not describe the Pacific as even more immense? With what confidence can you predict three months?’ Hirohito was filled with anger. The embargo by America on the sale of oil and iron to Japan had placed the country in an impossible position. It could not hold out for long.

  Admiral Nagano, standing beside Sugiyama, came to his rescue. ‘Something must be decided quickly. Each day we delay we increase the risk of losing the game. The situation between Japan and the United States is like a patient with an illness which might require an operation. Avoiding one could mean the patient wastes away. But there is hope of recovery if a drastic act of surgery is undergone. That is war.’

  ‘We must be victorious against America and Britain, but will it be the kind of total victory scored against Russia in 1905?’ Hirohito again asked General Nagano. He could not share the optimism of his military advisors.

  ‘We are not sure of winning,’ Nagano was forced to admit.

  Hirohito was depressed. Talking to Marquis Kido after this meeting he said he was not against the principle of war with America and Britain. ‘But one shouldn’t make war without foreseeing victory, or this will mean embarking on a war of desperation.’

  If there must be war then victory was what Hirohito wanted. As this did not seem predictable with any real confidence, he urged Marquis Kido to recommend to all a continuance at the negotiating table. If America could be brought to heel through negotiations, without the need to resort to war, while allowing Japan to continue expansion in south-east Asia, that would be the best victory of all.

  It was clear to not only Hirohito but to the government at large, that, even against their better judgement, a future was planning itself. War would come, even though there was no hope of winning. A future was already wilfully asserting itself against any remaining elements of reason. Of the monstrous size of the challenge ahead, or its ultimate consequences, there seemed only a dull awareness. War must be a quick Japanese blitzkrieg that would dazzle the world and lead to the negotiating table. There Japan could argue a course to retain some part of her gains in Asia.

  A further Imperial Conference took place in the Autumn of 1941. Hirohito mounted the dais and sat once more before the many-panelled golden screen. Before him the Cabinet, the Chiefs of Staff, the President of the Privy Council, and the President of the Cabinet Planning Board and others waited. The discussion for war began. It was long and lively, and soon it was clear that whatever was said, the decision to fight was already made. Throughout the debate Hirohito sat in the silence expected of him. A few words to end the conference was all that was needed or indeed officially expected from him.

  At last the Emperor rose abruptly. His action was unexpected and the roomful of men looked up in surprise. Hirohito’s glasses had misted over and he took them off and rubbed them nervously with his thumbs. He replaced them on his nose and began to speak in a high, thin voice.

  ‘I myself have no doubt as to the answer to the great question before us.’ He put his hand into a pocket and pulled from it a piece of paper. ‘I would like to read to you a poem that was written by my grandfather, the great Emperor Meiji.

  The seas surround all quarters of the globe

  And my heart cries out to the nations of the world.

  Why then do the winds and waves of strife

  Disrupt the peace between us?’

  He paused as he finished reading and looked at the crowded room before him. ‘This
is a poem which has always been one of my favourites, for it expresses what is in my heart and was in my grandfather’s when he wrote it – his great love of peace.’

  The room bowed to the Emperor and he sat down. For a few moments there was an embarrassed silence. Hirohito had expressed his frustration at the present state of affairs. The meaning of the poem was ambiguous. To some it argued for peace. But it could also be construed as meaning that, since the world was destined to lie under Japan’s divine protection, why did so many nations refuse to accept this peaceful solution to things? Little time was wasted on defining the true meaning of the Emperor’s poem. And Hirohito, in his nervousness, had gone as far as a man of timid nature, fastidious in the observation of detail and protocol, might go. There was nothing more he could do. He listened to the final decision of the Imperial Conference. It was to move towards war, if the present diplomatic negotiations with America failed.

  Soon, in October 1941 under the pressure of an approaching war he was powerless to stop, Prime Minister Konoye decided to resign. Hirohito was beside himself with indecision. He had been advised by Konoye against war in favour of diplomacy. Later, after listening to military men, Hirohito sensed all hope of diplomacy was lost and returned to Konoye in an opposite frame of mind. He announced the Government must compose an imperial rescript declaring war. To many it seemed that the Emperor swung like a pendulum between two poles of thought, unable to make up his mind upon vital issues.

  –––

  At Konoye’s departure General Tojo succeeded to the Premiership. Emperor Hirohito was a frugal, conscientious man and, from his hours at a microscope, used to giving much attention to detail. He did not dislike General Tojo, who combined in his character something of these same qualities. Surrounded by legions of the obsequious, Tojo’s blunt directness was refreshing to Hirohito. His strength was something concrete to lean upon after Konoye’s weak leadership. Tojo’s forceful sense of direction made him appear the right man for a difficult job.