Hirohito and the Making of Modern Japan (98 page)
Read Hirohito and the Making of Modern Japan Online
Authors: Herbert P. Bix
Tags: #General, #History, #Biography & Autobiography, #Military, #World War II
Thus General T
j, the army's strongest advocate of war and the main opponent of troop withdrawal from China, received consensus and was recommended. Later that day Hirohito unhesitatingly elevated Tjto become his, and the nation's, new prime minister. “[A]bsolutelyâ¦dumbfounded” was how Tjdescribed his feelings to his secretary on being selected.
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“Nothing ventured, nothing gained,” was Hirohito's comment to Kido ten days afterward.
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The emperor and Kido and those close to them now believed that war was unavoidable. On the day of Tj's appointment, Prince Takamatsu confided to his diary: “We have finally committed to war and now must do all we can to launch it powerfully. But we have clumsily telegraphed our intentions. We needn't have signaled what we're going to do; having [the entire Konoe cabinet] resign was too much. As matters stand now we can merely keep silent and without the least effort war will begin.”
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So too thought many in the Roosevelt adminstration. And Konoe out, Tjin, seemed a confirmation.
Konoe's chief cabinet secretary, Tomita Kenji, later recorded Konoe's reminiscences of the circumstances surrounding his resignation, in which he implied that Hirohito was clearly at fault.
Of course his majesty is a pacifist, and there is no doubt that he wished to avoid war. When I told him, as prime minister, that to initiate war is a mistake, he agreed. But the next day he would tell me, “You were worried about it yesterday; but you don't have to worry so much.” Thus, gradually, he began to lean toward war. And the next time I met him, he leaned even more toward war. In short, I felt the emperor was telling me: My prime minister does not understand military matters; I know much more. In short, the emperor had absorbed the views of the army and navy high commands. Consequently, as a prime minister who lacked authority over the high command, I had no way of making
any further effort because the emperor, who was the last resort, was this way.
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The emperor would one day, down the long bloody road of World War II, praise Tjfor serving him loyally while saying of Konoe, who had tried to prevent war with the United States, that he lacked “firm beliefs and courage.”
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To add to the irony, it was Konoe, not the emperor, who was arrested after the war as a probable war criminal.