Japan's Siberian Intervention, 1918–1922: 'A Great Disobedience Against the People'(New Studies in Modern Japan)

The fifty months of the Siberian Intervention encompass the existential crisis which affected Japanese at virtually all levels when confronted with the new "world situation" left in the wake of the First World War. From elite politicians and military professionals, to public intellectuals and the families of servicemen in small garrison towns, the intervention was perceived as a test of how Japan might fit itself into the emerging postwar world order. Both domestically and internationally Japan's actions in Siberia were seen as critical proof of the nation's ability, depending on one's viewpoint, to embrace or to ride out the "trends of the times," the seeming triumph of constitutional democracy and Wilsonian internationalism. The course of the Siberian Intervention illuminates the struggle to cement "responsible" party cabinets at the heart of Japanese decision making, the high water mark of efforts to bring the Japanese military under civilian control, the attempt to fundamentally reshape Japanese continental policy, and the hopes of millions of Japanese that their voices be heard and their desires respected by the nation's leaders. The book attempts a broad examination of domestic politics, foreign policy, and military action by incorporating a wide array of voices through a detailed examination of public comment and discussion in journals and magazines, the major circulation daily newspapers of Tokyo and Osaka as well as those of smaller cities such as Nara, Mito, Oita, and Tsuruga.

Table of Contents:
Chapter 1 Introduction: "To Demonstrate Our Power To Aid Civilization": The Meaning of Japan's Intervention in Siberia Chapter 2 1. "A Delicious Stew": Entropy and Plurality in Japanese Politics, 1890-1917 Chapter 3 2. "There is No Reason Not to Oppose It": Debating Intervention, December 1917- June 1918 Chapter 4 3. "The Seiyukai Will Greatly Contribute to the Fate of the Empire": Intervention and the Rise of the Hara Cabinet, July-November 1918 Chapter 5 4. "International Democracy Cannot Exist in Opposition to Democracy at Home": The Rise and Fall of "Allied" Intervention November 1918-December 1919 Chapter 6 5. "The Army Minister's Head Must be Placed on the Chopping Block First": The Transition to Unilateral Intervention, January-August 1920 Chapter 7 6. "Indefinitely Stationing Troops is Harmful and Unproductive": Towards Withdrawal "In Principle," September 1920-May 1921 Chapter 8 7. "Oh, Meaningless Intervention!": A Year of Drift, June 1921-June 1922 Chapter 9 8. "Who Must Take Responsibility For This Crime?": Withdrawal and Reckoning the Costs of Intervention, June-November 1922 Chapter 10 Afterword: "A Situation In Which We Can Only Come Out Losers": The Siberian Intervention and the Evolution of Imperial Japan

About the Author :
Paul E. Dunscomb is associate professor of history at the University of Alaska, Anchorage.

Review :
Paul Dunscomb fills a major historical lacuna, explaining in clear, persuasive prose the nature of Japan's incursion into Siberia late in World War I and the complex issues that have so long baffled historians. Drawing on a rich array of primary sources, both governmental and journalistic, he sheds light not only on the often disastrous experiences of Japan's army but on the domestic debates that the expedition triggered. Dunscomb is incisive in exploring the internal struggles of Taish? Japan's political world, sometimes between interventionists and "realists," more often between the cabinet and the army, which used tones that presaged the militarists' rhetoric of the 1930s in insisting on its "right of supreme command." The issues raised here also speak (sometimes uncannily) to more recent military incursions elsewhere in the world, particularly in Vietnam and Afghanistan. Dunscomb has turned his keen eye for the historical narrative to Japan's public voice and its influence during the Taisho era. He offers us a vibrant analysis of the cacophony of opinions that surrounded the Japanese military intervention in Siberia and suggests the need to return to the idea of empire as a motive historical force. Paul Dunscomb's masterful linkage of Japanese military actions in Siberia to the ambivalent political and social reactions at home expertly analyzes the expedition's central role in undermining popular Japanese enthusiasm for democracy after World War I. Thoroughly researched and splendidly written, this first comprehensive account of Japan's Siberian adventure raises fresh issues about the complexities of policy-making under the Meiji Constitution. The story line is gripping and the book offers some new approaches. Whereas existing studies tend to finish when the japanese soldier disembarked on Russian Far Eastern soil, Dunscomb carries the story on to Japan's unilateral involvement after the Americans and Europeans had pulled their forces out of Siberia and the ultimate humbling repatriation of her forces in 1922. Dunscomb covers the diplomatic and military sides of the intervention but he blends them skillfully with public opinion, political party standpoints, newspaper coverage, and expressions of intellectual opinion. Moreover, he gives interesting vignettes of Tsuruga, a town and community adversely affected by the intervention. In this meticulously researched volume, Paul E. Dunscomb reveals how integral Japan's Siberian Intervention between 1918 and 1922 was to the trajectory of not simply the Japanese empire but domestic political development in the early twentieth century....The analytical framework in which Duscomb situates the Siberian Intervention will be familiar to students of modern Japanese history. This is because he skillfully ties his study to the most innovative recent works in Imperial Japanese politics and diplomacy, particularly those of Andrew Gordon and Frederick Dickinson. Indeed, a major strength of the book is the precise delineation in chapter 1 of the cutting-edge historiography over the last two decades of Japanese modernity and empire....Dunscomb provides much evidence for other scholars to ponder and process. For that reason and the numerous strengths outlined above, Japan’s Siberian Intervention is now clearly the standard work on the subject. Dunscomb cautions us his book is not a sequel to James William Morley’s, which focuses on “the diplomatic process by which Japan’s Siberian Intervention began,” nor is it a “campaign history” of the Japanese army in Siberia (p. 1). Rather, the book is largely a political history of the diplomatic and military entanglements the intervention posed for Japan’s policy makers at home. As such, it should be of interest to scholars of Japanese imperialism and political history, more so than military, and is a solid contribution to those fields. Dunscomb hopes that the book will spark new interest and scholarship on this often overlooked but very important episode in Japan’s modern history.