Military Career
As War Minister, Yamagata pushed through the foundation of the Imperial Japanese Army General Staff, which was the main source of Yamagata's political power and that of other military officers through the end of World War I. He was Commander of the General Staff in 1874–76, 1878–82, and 1884–85.
Yamagata in 1877 led the newly modernized Imperial Army against the Satsuma Rebellion led by his former comrade in revolution, Saigō Takamori of Satsuma. At the end of the war, when Saigo's severed head was brought to Yamagata, he ordered it washed, and held the head in his arms as he pronounced a meditation on the fallen hero.
He also prompted Emperor Meiji to write the Imperial Rescript to Soldiers and Sailors, in 1882. This document was considered the moral core of the Japanese army and naval forces until their dissolution in 1945.
Yamagata was awarded the rank of field marshal in 1898. He showed his leadership on military issues as acting War Minister and Commanding General during the First Sino-Japanese War; as the Commanding General of the Japanese First Army during the Russo-Japanese War; and as the Chief of the General Staff Office in Tokyo.
He is considered political and military ideological ancestor of the Hokushin-ron as he traced the first lines of a national defensive strategy against Russia after Russo-Japanese War.
Read more about this topic: Yamagata Aritomo
Famous quotes containing the words military career, military and/or career:
“The domestic career is no more natural to all women than the military career is natural to all men.”
—George Bernard Shaw (1856–1950)
“War both needs and generates certain virtues; not the highest, but what may be called the preliminary virtues, as valour, veracity, the spirit of obedience, the habit of discipline. Any of these, and of others like them, when possessed by a nation, and no matter how generated, will give them a military advantage, and make them more likely to stay in the race of nations.”
—Walter Bagehot (1826–1877)
“I’ve been in the twilight of my career longer than most people have had their career.”
—Martina Navratilova (b. 1956)