GENERAL SEISHIRO ITAGAKI
By KINJIRO ITO
WHEN General Seishiro Itagaki was promoted in the early part of this summer to the rank of full general on his appointment as Governor-General of Chosen (Korea), the news was received with an unusual amount of interest by the general public and even had, in some measure, an electrifying effect on the minds of people, in Chosen in particular; for his appointment, even if only by coincidence, synchronized with a tremendous international development and came with dramatic effect.
The news of his appointment came closely after the outbreak of the Soviet-German war, in the hour when the world had scarcely recovered from the shock of the new cataclysm and when it was generally feared that the grim war clouds hanging low over Europe might at any time cast their lengthening shadows over Siberia. In that hour the position of the garrison in Chosen, charged with the Kwantung Army with the defence of the northwestern sector of the Japanese Empire, was viewed from a new angle; the rôle of the army in Chosen had become one of peculiar importance. It was not surprising that the man who had just been named its commander was brought under closer scrutiny. There was no secret either of his experience as a soldier, well tempered in the crucible of war, or of the rôles he had played on many fronts. His ability was so well known that people instinctively felt, on hearing of his new post, that his presence gave good cause for assurance.
This is not to say that the northwest defences are or were threatened to any serious extent. But it has always been the first principle of national defence to "be so prepared as to
avert danger" and the transfer of a man of General Itagaki's calibre to command that important part of the Empire's system of defences seemed so in conformity with that principle that it was natural that General Itagaki loomed up as the man of the hour.
Few characters are more openly expressive than those of General Itagaki. He is one of those who may literally be taken at their face value. To look at him is to see his kindly disposition and perceive a mind capable of deep sympathy and understanding. Because of his kindliness, he is never remote, but is always easily accessible. He has but little to say of or for himself; he is sparing of words but a good listener. In all companies he creates an atmosphere which the Japanese describe as being "as balmy as a spring breeze." These aspects of his character stand in contrast to what he has shown himself to be as a soldier—cool almost to severity, daring in face of danger, decisive and never wavering in decision. It will be sufficient to mention that at the time of the Manchurian outbreak of 1931 he was senior officer of the staff, and won honour in the annals of this incident. The beginning of the China campaign saw him as a division commander. Active on various fronts, the leadership he displayed in operations in the mountainous country in the southern part of North China and under no less difficult conditions in the hard contested battle of Hsuchou added to his fame. His record proves him a typical soldier, fitted rather to take the field than to sit at the desk of an administrator, though under the first Konoye Cabinet and under the succeeding Hiranuma Cabinet he was as Minister of War in charge of the central administration of the Army.
His services in the Manchurian incident were recognized as meriting high honours. On April 6, 1935, he was decorated with the Third Class of the Order of the Golden Kite. No better tribute could possibly have been paid to his distinguished record in the military campaign of 1931-32.
It was by accident that he found himself on the scene when the Manchurian incident occurred, with the military clash at
Liutiaokou outside Mukden on the night of September 18, 1931, but it was no accident that as colonel and senior staff officer of the Kwantung Army he proved himself more than equal to the occasion. This military incident, which was to be the start of the new order movement, first, in the Far East and, next, in Europe, the Konoye Cabinet was disposed to localize, but Colonel Itagaki knew well the temper of the Northeastern Army under the young Marshal of Mukden and the peril in which the Japanese residents and all Japanese interests stood in face of these troops whose anti-Japanese spirit had been fanned to a very high pitch. He knew that these arrogant forces could be dealt with in one way alone. He decided that it would be better to deal with them and rid the country of their menace for all time by one decisive stroke. From Shihchienfang, Mukden, with a few others of the staff, he issued orders despatching the garrison into decisive action in all directions. His decision taken at that supreme moment and his direction that followed with lightning speed proved so successful that the anti-Japanese forces, some 200,000 strong, which had encircled the Japanese colony, were almost instantly overcome and swept away, causing them to surrender their headquarters at Peitaying. True, this military success owed not a little to the gallant and efficient co-operation given by the officers and men, but the staff officer who took that great decision in that fateful hour knew what a tremendous responsibility he was taking and what were the possible consequences.
Any decision of great import calls for courage, and only men of superb courage can, when put to the greatest test of their lifetime, rise equal to the occasion. That was what Colonel Itagaki did when called upon to face a great emergency and decide on his sole responsibility how to cope therewith. Unobtrusive in speech and behaviour as to be thought too reserved and retiring, a man who till then had failed to show a spark of brilliance, once put to the supreme test, displayed the true quality of his mind, and emerged from the trial successfully to become the hero of the hour.
Military developments in Manchuria in 1931 and the following year imposed on Colonel Itagaki further arduous duties, his share in the establishment of the new state of Manchoukuo during his term in the country being the most important. In August, 1933, he was promoted major-general and recalled to Tokyo to join the General Staff, which, in all such cases, meant a preparatory step to appointment to a higher post. It was, therefore, generally expected that he would soon occupy an important position when he was sent on a trip to Europe.
Wherever he went, General Itagaki found himself treated as a hero by the Japanese abroad. All his countrymen were interested to see and hear the man whose name had been so prominently associated with the new state of Manchoukuo as its designer and its architect. Of all receptions given him abroad the most memorable was that in London, the speech he delivered at the Japan Club on this occasion attracting considerable attention not only among the Japanese colony, but even among a large section of British society. It happened that he was in London just about the time when the Lord Lytton mission, sent to China and Manchuria by the League of Nations, had returned and reported on the Manchurian incident. Importance was, therefore, naturally attached to what the man who had played one of the leading rôles in the incident had to say.
In his speech, General Itagaki thoroughly covered the whole affair; the political background, the outbreak, the course that later events took up to the creation of Manchuokuo as a state based on racial accord and co-operation and Japan's friendly act in abolishing extraterritorial rights and restoring the South Manchuria Railway concession zone to the new Manchurian state. His speech of more than an hour was impressive for the force of conviction it carried and for the full and logical presentation of the case it made. Presenting not only the views of a man who had first-hand knowledge on the subject, but more important as making known the programme on which the Japanese Government had embarked for the construction of a new order in the Far East, General Itagaki's speech was a refutation
of the Lytton mission's conception and judgment. General Itagaki's journey abroad was then most fruitful from the standpoint of national diplomacy so far as he succeeded in rectifying the impression made by those who had observed events through the coloured glasses of biased minds.
In the summer of 1934 General Itagaki returned to Manchuria as supreme military adviser to the military administration department of the new Empire with the task of helping, from inside, the growth and development of the infant state. His appointment was nowhere more approved than in Manchoukuo itself where both official and private quarters were alike happy to have him back. It was evident that he should be treated with great honour in the country to which he had been most helpful since its earliest days.
Moreover he himself is most at home in China and Manchuria. He found himself on the continent soon after his graduation from the Military College, the posts he held in the years following taking him to many parts of China and Manchuria. As a captain, for instance, he held for some time a post at Kunming, Yunnan Province, then controlled by the late Tang Chi-yao as his own domain and citadel, almost independent of the central authority, under his powerful military strength and the slogan of "For Greater Yunnan." In this remote part of the country the young Japanese officer, a stranger alone and isolated, won the confidence of all with whom he had contact. Tang Chi-yao, for instance, never addressed him except with the honorific he used only to those he held in high esteem. This first-rate statesman of the time would hardly have shown so much respect to a young army officer without good reason. It is not improbable that he found in him, young as he was, that largeness of heart, that breadth of thought, and that capacity for generosity associated with the most worthy characters.
General Itagaki's first return to Manchoukuo after its establishment was then acclaimed heartily on all sides. This hardly came as a surprise to those who had seen the unprecedentedly large throngs of people gathered at Hsinking Station when
he had left for Japan, including all sections of official and social circles. It was, therefore, scarcely an exaggeration that one of the Manchu officials said when General Itagaki came back to Manchoukou that he could not but receive the new military adviser as one making a home coming.
And it may be asked, whence and wherefore his popularity? Those qualities of mind which had won him the respect of men like Tang Chi-yao are to a great extent responsible. At the same time the generosity of his character must not be overlooked. Even when he was still a staff officer in Manchuria, he took up the initiative in creating what was later to be known as popular pacification work. A junior officer who had been charged to work out a plan for the undertaking reported to Colonel Itagaki, proposing one which called for a disbursement of ten thousand yen. The officer who had developed the plan was almost ready in mind to be taken to task for his extravagant ideas. Colonel Itagaki, having gone through the plan, said: "I'm afraid you've been too conservative. Suppose we try this thing out with a little more money." And he at once trebled the figure. The junior officer, who was thus not only supported but even encouraged, naturally appreciated approval of his plan, and his appreciation became even greater when it was seen that the amount of thirty thousand yen proved barely sufficient to meet the need of pacification work.
Lieutenant-General Kwanji Ishihara, generally considered one of the most brilliant among our military leaders, was lieutenant-commander and member of the staff at the time of the Manchurian outbreak. He and his senior Itagaki were considered a happy combination, as both had about the same outlook in making plans, doing work and directing affairs for the Kwantung Army. General Ishihara, who was naturally in personal relations so intimate as to be said to be like "fish and water" with General Itagaki, admires his senior colleague for his great capacity of mind for work and his generous heart. It must be these qualities that won the confidence of so many people in Manchoukuo and made him respected in the ranks and
among his colleagues, especially by the younger officers of the Kwantung Army who had contact with his work and personality.
Since the Manchurian outbreak of 1931 the Kwantung Army has marched into the public limelight. Its younger officers, brave and high spirited, have been the driving force in many spheres of national development. And he who supervised all their activities, even when still a staff officer, was regarded as certain to become Minister of War. Some went so far as to say that only when he took office as War Minister would the position of the Japanese Army be what it should be. After his participation in the China campaign for eight months, leading his division at Nankou, Pataling, Paoting, and Hsuchou, he was called on to hold the war portfolio in the first Konoye Cabinet. Those who had little knowledge of the position he had come to take within the Army were surprised, wondering if it were wise to entrust the War Ministry to a lieutenant-general who was a stranger to administration. Such apprehension was not unwarranted, for it had always been the custom to choose the War Minister from those who had been chief of the Bureau of Military Affairs or Vice-Minister, or from those whose careers had been spent at the Ministry. General Itagaki who had passed most of his time on the Asiatic continent had naturally remained unconnected with the field of administration. The high hurdle he took from the post of division commander to the office of central administration was, therefore, something unusual.
His appointment was also extraordinary, considering the order of seniority. He was in the sixteenth graduating class of the Military College. Many seniors in rank to him were as well, if not better, known for their public services and record. Not only was there General Hajimé Sughiyama, the most senior in rank, but there were also General Koiso of the twelfth class, commander of the garrison in Chosen; General Nishio, of the fourteenth class, Inspector-General of Military Education; General Umézu, of the fifteenth class, Vice-Minister of War. None of these had been Minister of War, and any might have been appointed to the portfolio without any question. So when
Prince Konoye, in forming his first Cabinet, chose General Itagaki instead of any one of these, the deciding factor was most probably the popularity and prestige that General Itagaki enjoyed among the younger army officers who had become an element of increasing influence.
In concluding this account, it may be pertinent to make some reference to his family matters. He was born in 1885 at Morioka, in Iwaté Prefecture, formerly the domain of the feudal lord of Nambu, in which clan his family stood among the highest, his grandfather Naosaku, before the abolition of the feudal system, having served as one of the clan-councillors. Naosaku not only took a leading part in the movement for the restoration of Imperial rule, but was also known for his Confucian scholarship, being one of the best scholars in the clan. But Nambu, like most of the other clans in the northeast, was eclipsed by the Choshu and Satsuma clans when these rose to ascendency under Imperial rule, and the Nambu interests declined, being at one time even branded as rebels. Naosaku Itagaki, thoroughly disgusted, retired from public life to Kumanai, a rural district north of Morioka, and assumed the literary name "Soh-in," meaning "the shadow of grasses," thereby denoting he had withdrawn into a corner of the world so obscure, and devoted the rest of his life to scholarly pursuits.
He was succeeded by his eldest son Masanori, who had five children, one of whom, Seishiro, went to live with his grandfather at his place of retirement from when he was four years old. From his grandparent the boy received strict discipline, being trained in that hard school in which a gentleman of arms had formerly been expected to temper his mind and attain the moral standard which befitted the most honoured class of society. It may be said that the fortitude and the unbending will that at times betray themselves beneath the kindly and almost benign outward appearance of General Itagaki were in good part acquired in those early days of childhood which he passed in the sole company of his well-accomplished grandfather.
At the end of his second year at the middle school at Morioka,
the young Itagaki applied for entrance to the Military Cadet School. Rather small for his age, he found himself about two inches below the required height, but the examining doctor and officer whom he most anxiously watched, with his heart almost turning cold, must have been moved by the tearful eyes turned up to them almost in pitiful appeal, for they agreed on the spot that a boy so young as he would be almost certain to add a couple of inches in time to meet the school requirements; and the lad was passed. Had these men been a little more exacting or had their hearts been a little colder, there would have been no Itagaki of Manchurian fame. General Itagaki who has found his own niche in the Army as a type of great soldier would have been missed just when the machinery of defence, though rich in various types of talent, stood in particular need of men to lead it through the unusual times.
The experience of the Manchurian incident and of the China conflict from 1937 has not been without effect on the making of General Itagaki as soldier and man. In the soldier whose thought is as pliant as that of the younger officers, who follow their ideas far afield on the contiment [sic] of Asia, we find a man of broad enough outlook and of balanced enough mentality to be able to give well considered counsel and direction to the young National régime of Nanking. On that phase of his activity little light may yet be thrown, but there is no doubt that the soldier who proved his leadership in 1931 in the art of war has added to his armoury, through his tenure of office at Nanking, what only hard experience and ripened wisdom can give. Nor is there any doubt that the people of this country, when they saw him placed in command of the northwestern sector of the national system of defence, felt assured that wherever such a one stands guard, peace is unshakable.