Fleet Faction

Alfred Thayer Mahan, whose work heavily influenced Japanese naval policy

Following the Russo-Japanese War, the proponents of a larger battle line fleet were vindicated as they saw the Battle of Tsushima as a textbook Mahanian "Decisive Battle". A number of the battles in that war were fought at a greater distance than many had thought possible, showing the advantage in having guns that could fire the maximum distances. Satō Tetsutarō, who would become a future influence on Japanese naval strategy in the interwar period, established the principle of the Big Gun based on his inferences from Tsushima.[4] Tetsutaro's writing would heavily influence Kato Kanji's thinking in regards to a future maritime conflict with the United States, with his postulations on a 70% ratio in total naval strength vis-à-vis the USN influencing later naval opposition to arms control.[5]

Further following Mahanian thinking in regards to a "hypothetical enemy", the navy ministry, under Kato Tomosaburo, assigned the United States the designation of a "budgetary enemy" and argued that Japanese naval strength should be expanded and based on the US Pacific Fleet's armament strength.[6] The IJN also obtained confidential information in regards to the US's plans for a war against Japan in the Pacific (War Plan Orange), further vindicating the Navy's stance on the decisive battle doctrine and the 70% strength ratio.[7] Such doctrine regarding the United States as a primal budgetary threat to the IJN became internalized and justified within the naval ministry as "maintaining balance" with a US navy that sought to become "second to none".[7]

Japanese expansionism significantly worsened Anglo-Japanese relations and American-Japanese relations in the 1920s. The Japanese occupation of the Shandong Peninsula worsened the Shandong problem with the Republic of China.[8] The Japanese imposition of the 21 Demands and Nishihara Loans further worsened relations with the west, which combined with evolving British Commonwealth interests and the looming Washington Naval Conference would result in the collapse of the Anglo-Japanese Alliance.[9]

Design concept of the Kii-class battleships, part of the Eight-Eight Fleet

The First World War gave the Japanese navy a cause for increasing the size of its budgetary requests.[10] The Japanese seizure of strategically valuable territories in the Central Pacific, administrated by the South Seas Mandate, changed the strategic calculus of the navy in the event of a war with a major naval power. The IJN also undertook the construction of secret military installations in Micronesia, in violation of demilitarization laws concerning the administration of the region.[11] The strategic calculus of the Navy was the creation of "unsinkable aircraft carriers", attempting to nullify the US Navy's advantage in tonnage via the fortification of Japan's interior lines in the Western Pacific.[12] Following Woodrow Wilson's renewal of a shipbuilding program increasing the strength of the US Navy, the Imperial Diet, pressured by the IJN, approved a motion calling for the expansion of Japan's fleet to include eight battleships and eight battlecruisers.[13] Immediately, issues with the fleet expansion plan surfaced because of the cost of procurement of such expensive vessels. Kato Tomosaburō, the architect of the 8-8 fleet plan, stated that competing with the industrial and budgetary hegemony that the United States had, constituted a feat that Japan could not achieve.[14] Tomosaburo concluded that the cost of constructing such a large fleet would amount to financial ruin for Japan, which was under the strain of a post war economic recession.[14] The navy ministry, trying to avoid an arms race while under adverse financial and budgetary restrictions, accepted an invitation to the Washington Naval Conference.[14] The Japanese diet concurrently passed a resolution calling for a reduction in arms spending, which had grown to 48% of Japan's budgetary expenses.[15]

The navy gained internal political influence after the naval treaty, allotting it significant influence over the Seiyukai party, which advocated for an increased naval budget.[23] The navy's influence over the Seiyukai allowed them to manufacture a sense of crisis regarding the strength of Japanese naval power, creating pro navy propaganda and influencing the public in order to support "navalism".[24] The Fleet Faction's efforts would not go without merit, as the public's support for naval expansion increased year over year.[24] Kanji was appointed commander in chief of the Combined Fleet in August 1927, where he instituted massive training exercises to make up for the navy's inferiority in tonnage with the western powers.[25] Kanji described US naval exercises in 1925 as a "naked demonstration of the American naval buildup against Japan" and a "full-dress rehearsal for a transpacific offensive".[25] Tomosaburo, in the aftermath of the inter-naval bickering of the treaty tried to reform the navy by installing civilian ministers as administrators.[20] His death would result in the failure of his attempted reforms, though the treaty provisions negotiated by Japan would be enforced.[26] As the Treaty faction retained significant influence in the IJN, it supported subsequent arms control agreements including the Geneva Naval Conference and London Naval Treaty.[27] By the signature of the London Naval Treaty in 1930, Harold Quigley from Current History concluded that the Japanese military had moved to "greater democratic rule" with the "defeat of the naval die-hards" as Japan was maintaining its pro treaty position.[28] However, a growing rift was opening between the commanders of the Combined Fleet and the Navy Ministry. Yamamoto Eisuke, who was the commander of the Combined Fleet in 1930, protested that the fleet was constantly engaged in exercises because of its inability to match Western armaments.[29] Yamamoto described the officials in the navy ministry as "civilian desk officers" and angrily tied the navy's failings to the Washington Conference and Kato Tomosaburo.[29] The conflict between the two factions continued to boil as Kato Kanji resigned in the aftermath of the 1930 treaty, refusing to accept the naval board's negotiated position on tonnage strength.[28]

Japanese denunciation of the Treaty, 1934

In the 1930s, as the Fleet Faction's influence steadily increased due to the militarist takeover of the armed forces, the "pragmatic" politicians and naval officers of the treaty faction were sidelined in favor of the expansionists.[30] Former naval minister Takabe Takereshi was forcibly retired to the reserves in the early 1930s and was subject to an assassination attempt by junior officers in the navy.[30] "Pragmatic officers" such as Teikichi Hori and Yamanashi Katsunoshin were dismissed from high command by Mineo Osumi, who was under the influence of the faction.[30][29]

With hawks in control of the IJN, the IJN allowed arms control agreements negotiated by members of the treaty faction to expire and began requesting increasingly higher budget appropriations from the central government in order to expand the size of the fleet.[30][29] The militarists also announced the formulation of a "Pan-Asiatic doctrine", termed the Amau doctrine, claiming hegemony in East Asia against "western exploitation".[31] Japanese representatives to the Second London Naval Convention walked out of the convention, resulting in the failure of a substantive treaty. After the expiration of the Washington Treaty, Japan openly engaged in a naval buildup, expanding the tonnage of its navy significantly. Japan's naval buildup triggered an arms race with the United States, which historian Stephen Pelz described as the "Race to Pearl Harbor".[32]

The contention over the Washington Naval Treaty resulted in increased military dissatisfaction with the civilian government, who had collaborated with Tomosaburo to reduce naval expenditures—pressuring Japan to accept the terms of the naval treaty.[15] Prime Minister Osachi Hamaguchi was assassinated by militarists enraged by his signing of the London Naval Treaty in 1930.[33] Japanese naval officers also participated in the League of Blood Incident, assassinating Junnosuke Inoue and Dan Takuma. Junior officers then attempted to instigate a coup d'etat against the civilian government in the May 15 incident, assassinating prime minister Inukai Tsuyoshi and attempted to assassinate Charlie Chaplin in order to cause a war with the United States.

• Schencking, Charles (1998). "Bureaucratic Politics, Military Budgets and Japan's Southern Advance: The Imperial Navy's Seizure of German Micronesia in the First World War". War in History. 5 (3): 308–326. JSTOR 26007298.
• Hirama, Yôichi (1991). "Japanese Naval Preparations for World War ll". Naval War College Review. 44 (2): 63–81. JSTOR 44638027.
• Trotter, Ann (1971). "Tentative Steps for an Anglo-Japanese Rapprochement in 1934". Modern Asian Studies. 8 (1): 59–83. doi:10.1017/S0026749X00004753. JSTOR 311627. S2CID 145630455.
• Asada, Sadao (1993). "The Revolt against the Washington Treaty: The Imperial Japanese Navy and Naval Limitation, 1921-1927". Naval War College Review. 46 (3): 82–97. JSTOR 44637473.
• Nomura, Kichisaburo (1935). "Japan's Demand for Naval Equality". Foreign Affairs. 13 (2): 196–203. doi:10.2307/20030656. JSTOR 20030656.
• Johnson, William (1972). "Naval Diplomacy and the Failure of Balanced Security in the Far East—1921–1935". Naval War College Review.
• Perry, John (1966). "Great Britain and the Emergence of Japan as a Naval Power". Monumenta Nipponica. 21 (3/4): 305–321. doi:10.2307/2383375. JSTOR 2383375.
• Hurd, Archibald (1903). "The Growing Naval Power of Japan". The North American Review. 177 (563): 570–577. JSTOR 25119466.
• Bose, Himadri (2020). "Influence of Alfred Thayer Mahan on Japanese Maritime Strategy" (PDF). Journal of Defence Studies.
• Quigley, Harold (1930). "The Far East". Current History. 32 (5): 1024–1027. doi:10.1525/curh.1930.32.5.1024. JSTOR 45339059.
• Goedeken, Edward (1978). "The 1927 Geneva Naval Disarmament Conference". Iowa State University.

• Asada, Sadao (2013). From Mahan to Pearl Harbor: The Imperial Japanese Navy and the United States. Naval Institute Press. ISBN 9781612512952.
• Adams, John (2008). If Mahan Ran the Great Pacific War: An Analysis of World War II Naval Strategy. Indiana University Press. ISBN 9780253000293.
• Evans, David. C; Peattie, Mark (1997). Kaigun: Strategy, Tactics, and Technology in the Imperial Japanese Navy, 1887–1941. Naval Institute Press. ISBN 0-87021-192-7.
• Gow, Ian (2004). Military Intervention in Pre-War Japanese Politics: Admiral Kato Kanji and the 'Washington System'. Routledge. ISBN 9781135795917.
• Schencking, Charles (2005). Making Waves: Politics, Propaganda, and the Emergence of the Imperial Japanese Navy, 1868-1922. Stanford University Press.
• Pelz, Stephen (2013). The Failure of the Second London Naval Conference and the Onset of World War II. Harvard University Press.