Posted: 25 November 2005 at 4:54am | IP Logged

http://www.thehistorynet.com/mh/blsunsetofthesamurai/

Sunset of the Samurai --from Military History Magazine

In 1877, the samurai of Satsuma province and their reluctant leader, Takamori Saigo, hurled a final challenge at Japan's westernizing government.

By John Rickman

On a muddy field outside Kagoshima on September 25, 1877, the feudal system that had dominated Japan for 700 years died, not with a whimper but with a defiant roar. At 6 that morning, the 40 remaining warriors of the last traditional samurai army in Japanese history rose from their foxholes, drew their swords and charged into the guns of the 30,000-man-strong imperial army.

Twenty-three years earlier, Japan was officially ruled by a figurehead emperor, while the real power rested in the hands of the shogun, or "barbarian-expelling commander in chief." Under the shogun, and answerable only to him, came the daimyo ("great lords"), who were clan heads and hereditary provincial governors. Within the han (a term meaning both "province" and "clan"), society was a rigidly controlled pyramid, with the peasant at the bottom. The glue that held that structure together was the military caste that served the daimyo: the samurai.

That system began to come apart in 1854, when U.S. Navy Commodore Matthew Calbraith Perry sailed into Kagoshima Harbor and invited Japan to join the modern world -- at gunpoint. Determined to prevent future humiliations, Japanese leaders decided that they needed a modern army equipped with the most up-to-date weapons, trained by the best officers of the day: the French and Germans. In 1872, the imperial army was reorganized as a force of 46,000 conscripts from every social class. Suddenly, 2 million samurai found themselves ineligible for careers that had once been theirs alone.

During the 1860s, Japan underwent a period of turmoil as conservative-minded daimyo and samurai attacked both the government and foreigners in an attempt to restore the country's isolation. Japan's future was ultimately resolved in 1868, however, when Emperor Mutsuhito stepped into power under the title of Meiji ("enlightened peace"), abolished the shogunate, ratified a constitution and moved the imperial capital to Edo, which was renamed Tokyo. While the army was becoming westernized, statesmen such as Prince Tonomi Iwakura and Toshimichi Okubo championed industrialization, so Japan could sustain a modern, competitive war machine. In August 1871, the daimyo lost their old domains -- for which they were given compensatory pensions -- and the old provinces were replaced with prefectures. In the same year, the wearing of swords in public became optional, and in 1876 it became illegal. For the unemployed samurai, such edicts piled degrading insult upon injury. Many able men who had fought and bled to return real power to the emperor in 1868 now spoke of the "good old days" of samurai dominance. Prominent among them was Field Marshal Takamori Saigo. Born in Satsuma, the westernmost province on the island of Kyushu, in 1827, "Great Saigo," as his supporters called him, had backed the Meiji emperor in 1867.

So great was his dedication that when his government sought a plausible excuse for a war with Korea, Saigo offered to go there as ambassador in 1873, intending to insult the Korean government to such a degree that it would be forced to kill him, thereby providing Japan with its casus belli. Saigo was already on board a ship to Korea when the government reconsidered its agreement to his scheme and recalled him.

Although deprived of his grand gesture, Saigo and fellow conservatives continued to agitate for war and a samurai-based army, but the peace party got the upper hand in the imperial councils. The war party resigned in protest, and Saigo returned to his home city of Kagoshima, where he went into voluntary retirement from public life. Even personal appeals for aid from his close friend, Shimpei Eto, who led 2,000 Kyushu samurai in revolt in 1874, failed to move him. The rebellion was quickly crushed, and Eto was beheaded.

A large number of imperial guardsmen had resigned with Saigo and later accompanied him to Kyushu. To help support and employ those men, Saigo started a series of 132 private schools, or shigakko, scattered throughout Satsuma province. Instruction at the schools centered on the Chinese classics, although French and English were also taught. In addition, all students were required to take part in weapons training and instruction in tactics. Saigo also started an artillery school. Emphasis was placed on the historical prowess of the Satsuma warrior, and students were indoctrinated in Bushido, the samurai's ancient chivalric code.

Word of the shigakkos' martial nature was greeted with considerable alarm in Tokyo. The government had already dealt with several small but violent samurai revolts, and the prospect of Satsuma samurai, which were widely regarded as the best in Japan, being led in rebellion by the Great Saigo was too terrible to contemplate. During the days of the han, Satsuma had taken a lead in arms manufacture and importation. As a result, there was considerable weaponry stockpiled at several armories scattered throughout the province. On January 30, 1877, a government ship arrived in Kagoshima and, without explanation, began removing munitions. Officials intended to transport them to Osaka. The result transformed the government's concerns about rebellion into a self-fulfilling prophesy. Outraged by these high-handed tactics, 50 students attacked the Somuta arsenal and tried to carry off arms. During the next three days, more than 1,000 students raided the naval yards and the Iso arsenal, stealing 84,000 rounds of ammunition.

The officer in charge of removing the arms lodged a formal protest with the provincial government. The police, however, reported that they were unable to find even one of the raiders, in spite of the students' having paraded their trophies through the city streets. Giving up in disgust, the officer ordered the ship to leave Kagoshima. The students then seized the arms factories, hired more workers and went into full production. When Saigo, who was away hunting at the time, heard what had happened, he flew into a rage at the student leaders. The deed was done, however, and he later congratulated his students.

Between February 3 and 7, the Satsuma provincial government arrested 58 government agents. Several of them were Satsuma-born Tokyo policemen, the type of men the government wanted for spying operations in Satsuma since they could speak the dialect, which even today is unintelligible to outsiders. Soon after word of the arrests got out, a rumor circulated that several of the suspected spies had confessed under torture to having been sent by the government to kill Saigo and stir up insurrection as an excuse for the government to invade. His students began agitating for war.

Over his subordinates' objections, Saigo decided to go to Tokyo and try to negotiate with the government. He opposed taking an armed bodyguard with him, preferring to rely on his rank as a marshal of the imperial army for his protection. Matters had gone beyond Saigo's control, however, since an advance body of rebellious samurai had already departed for Tokyo without his knowledge. The rebels knew that Saigo was too much of a traditionalist to abandon his fellow samurai in a time of crisis, and would be morally obligated to take command.

Saigo was still trying to avoid war. Rejecting large numbers of volunteers, he began his journey with only 12,000 students. Furthermore, he made no attempt to contact any of the other han for support, and no troops were left on Kagoshima to secure his base against an attack. For his war chest, Saigo took only 25,000 yen, sufficient to buy supplies for a month. To aid in the air of legality that he was trying to project, Saigo wore his army uniform.

On February 17, Saigo paid his respects at the gate of the Shimayu clan, his hereditary overlords. He then departed Kagoshima with his rear guard, the main body of his army having left the day before. Marching north, the army was hampered by the deepest snowfall Satsuma had seen in more than 50 years.

Two days earlier, Maj. Gen. Taketa Tani, commander of Kumamoto Castle, had received a letter, purportedly from Saigo. In brusque terms, the letter informed him that Saigo would soon be passing by his command, and requested that the garrison be turned out to meet Saigo and receive his orders. The authenticity of that letter is doubtful, since its harsh tone was calculated to incite determined resistance. Saigo, with his small force, could hardly have wanted a fight, and if he had, he would not have warned Tani that he was on the way. Moreover, the letter was not in Saigo's handwriting. There is, however, a second letter authenticated as being in Saigo's hand, which politely informed Tani that he and his army would soon be passing through Kumamoto on a peaceful mission, asking that measures be taken to prevent alarming the population. The first letter may have been sent by shigakko extremists hoping to provoke a confrontation.

Whatever Saigo's intentions, Tani had no intention of letting his army pass. By February 21, he had 3,800 soldiers and 600 policemen at his disposal. The police contingent was no mean addition to the garrison, for Japanese policemen were a paramilitary force recruited from the samurai class, comparable to the French gendarmerie or Italian carabinieri. It is interesting to note, however, that the Japanese police shunned the use of firearms, preferring to rely on their swords and martial arts skills.

Since most of the garrison of Kumamoto Castle was from Kyushu, and many of the officers were natives of Kagoshima, their loyalties were open to question. Rather than risk desertions or defections, Tani decided to stand on the defensive. After laying in a large store of food and demolishing several hundred houses around the castle to provide fields of fire, the general and his command settled down to wait for Saigo.

Small clashes and skirmishes took place on February 21, forcing the imperial advance guards to withdraw inside Kumamoto. Although the castle, built in 1598, was among the strongest in Japan, Saigo was confident that his 9,000 samurai would be more than a match for Tani's hitherto-untried peasant conscripts. After surrounding the castle on the 22nd and keeping up small-arms fire all day, the rebels launched a series of ill-coordinated assaults on the walls after dark. Though bloodily repulsed by concentrated fire, the samurai continued to hurl themselves at the walls with suicidal ferocity. After two days of fruitless attack, however, their ardor began to wane. While 3,000 men dug into the rock-hard icy ground around the castle and tried to starve the garrison out, a rebel detachment sent to block the passes north of town soon encountered the forward elements of the relief force. After several sharp clashes, both sides disengaged on the 26th.

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Article from Military History Magazine

Sunset of the Samurai

By the time fighting resumed on March 3, both sides had been reinforced and numbered about 10,000 each. They faced each other along a 61Ľ2-mile front from Tabaruzuka southwest to Ariake Bay. Although Prince Taruhito Arisugawa was the official commander of the imperial forces assigned to put down the Satsuma rebels, real command was in the hands of General Aritomo Yamagata. A samurai from Chosu who had studied military science in Europe and headed the War Ministry in 1870, Yamagata was an old friend of Saigo's. He believed in authoritarian government and shared Saigo's desire for military expansion into Taiwan, Korea and Manchuria, but he also favored modernizing the Japanese army along Prussian lines. It was Yamagata who ordered a frontal assault on the Satsuma positions on March 4, which developed into the eight-day Battle of Tabaruzuka.

As the two sides were well dug in, a fierce war of position developed in which neither side could gain an advantage. There was little shooting, either due to lack of ammunition or from inclination. Imperial troops, no less than the rebels, made their assaults with cold steel alone. By the time the imperial forces managed to dislodge the rebels, each side had suffered more than 4,000 killed or wounded.

At the height of the battle, Saigo wrote a private letter to Prince Arisugawa, restating his reasons for going to Tokyo. His letter indicated that even at that late date Saigo was not committed to the rebellion and sought a peaceful settlement. The government, however, refused to negotiate. Its armament factories were producing 500,000 rounds of small-arms ammunition a day. The empire was on a full war footing and was determined to crush the rebellion.

In order to cut Saigo off from his base, an imperial force made up of three warships, bearing 500 policemen and several companies of infantry, arrived in Kagoshima on March 8. After the troops landed, they seized the arsenals and took the provincial governor into custody.

Deprived of supplies from home, rebel forces lived on food purchased from the local peasants with paper promissory notes, bearing the stamp of the Satsuma commander. Those notes continued in circulation long after the rebels had been driven out of the area and in spite of a government ban on their use. Nor was popular support for the rebels limited to monetary matters. A local dissident leader, Kichijuro Ikebe, gathering a force of 2,000 samurai from students of the private schools that he had founded in imitation of the Great Saigo, joined the rebellion.

During the stalemate at Tabaruzuka, Yamagata decided to land a detachment behind the rebel lines, so as to fall on them from the rear. That force, comprising two infantry brigades and 1,200 policemen, boarded ship at Nagasaki on March 17 and sailed to Yatsushiro Bay. Though contested by rebels, the imperial forces landed with nominal losses, then pushed north to the city of Miyanohara, reaching it on the 19th. After receiving reinforcements, the imperial force, now totaling 4,000, attacked the rear elements of the Satsuma army and drove them back upon the main rebel force.

Meanwhile, at Kumamoto Castle stocks of food were running dangerously low. The shortage of ammunition was so severe that rationing was necessary and the artillerists were reduced to firing unexploded Satsuma shells back at the besiegers. The garrison, however, no longer had to contend with the wild frontal assaults that had characterized the early stage of the siege. Most of the fighting was now confined to sniping and isolated clashes between rival swordsmen.

General Tani, facing the supply problem, decided to dispatch a sortie in hopes of linking up with the relief force. At that time, the relief force was then only a few miles away. On the night of April 8, eight companies of infantry under Major Sasukata Oku slipped through the Satsuma lines, dispatching the enemy sentinels with swords or garrotes. Oku's small force, though discovered and attacked the next morning, was able to keep a hole open in the rebel lines long enough to revictual the garrison before passing through and linking up with the imperial army.

Working in cooperation, the two imperial forces closed in on the Satsuma army. A final attack was planned for April 14, but before it could be carried out, Saigo disengaged and his men took up new positions on high ground east of Kumamoto. The imperial forces linked up with the castle garrison the next day, ending 54 days of siege.

Both armies had suffered heavy casualties, but the conscription system allowed the imperial army to replace its losses. It now had more than 20,000 men, compared to the rebels' 8,000. Many of the Satsuma commanders advocated a fight to the death where they stood, but Saigo vetoed the plan. Reorganizing his army into nine companies, he retreated to the east.

After seven days and a march of 100 miles through rugged wastes, the samurai limped into Hitoyoshi. Morale was so low that Saigo ordered that any samurai who deserted, failed to obey orders or abandoned his weapons would be compelled to commit suicide. Lacking any definite strategy, the rebels dug in to await the next government offensive.

Although reinforced, the imperial army had suffered so much from the fighting that it was forced to suspend operations for several weeks in order to regroup. During that period, one of Saigo's subordinates slipped into Kagoshima, despite the presence of the imperial garrison, and raised a force of 1,500 samurai. To prevent a recurrence of that sort of thing, the garrison was reinforced by an additional infantry brigade on May 4.

After their reorganization, imperial troops resumed the offensive and forced the rebels back to Miyazaki. Several weeks of guerrilla fighting followed as the government forces mopped up small pockets of samurai scattered throughout the Kyushu hills. On July 24, the imperial forces opened their main offensive against Saigo's army in Miyakonojo. Retreating before the government troops, the samurai next tried to make a stand at Nobeoka, a coastal city north of Miyakonojo.

By landing troops at Oita and Saiki to the north of Saigo's position and making rapid forced marches up from the south, Yamagata was able to surround Saigo again, but the rebels proved too strong to hold. Concentrating on one point of the encirclement, they were able to cut their way free. The battle around Nobeoka had been so fierce that the imperial army was forced to detail troops to keep floating bodies from fouling a pontoon bridge over which their supply lines passed. John Capen Hubbard, an American sea captain in the service of the Mitsubishi company, happened to be in the area soon after the battle, and in a letter to his wife reported that most of the bodies were of rebels.

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Article from Military History Magazine

Sunset of the Samurai

By August 17, constant marching, fighting and retreating had reduced the Satsuma army to a mere 3,000 effectives. Almost all of their modern firearms had been lost. Among the rebel weapons captured by the imperials at Nobeoka were numerous matchlock muskets of ancient vintage. The only heavy ordnance the rebels still possessed were some homemade wooden cannons wrapped with bamboo strips.

The rebels' next position was on the rugged slopes of Mount Enodake. They were soon surrounded. Determined not to let the rebels escape again, Yamagata issued orders for extra security precautions and then set about tightening the ring.

With their backs against the wall, outnumbered 7-to-1, large numbers of samurai surrendered, but for many others the very idea was anathema. As victory and surrender were ruled out, there remained only the hope for a glorious death. Enodake's rugged slopes, however, were not to Saigo's liking as a final resting place. He decided to break the ring of steel one more time, determined to fall back on Kagoshima or die trying.

On the evening of August 19, Saigo burned his private papers and his imperial army uniform. Abandoning their sick and wounded, the remnants of his army climbed to the misty summit of Mount Enodake, where the imperial cordon was weakest. Forced to carry Saigo on a special litter, since he was suffering from a hydrocele, the little army managed to slip through the fog undetected, quietly dispatching the few guards who barred its path.

Yamagata, who had no idea in which direction Saigo had gone, sent out patrols in all directions. After eight days of tramping through rugged, rain-swept mountains and misty forests, Saigo's men found their path blocked by a large patrol. They halted, facing the imperials all day. When night came, they split their force in two, slipped around both flanks of the patrol and escaped again. On September 1, the remaining 500 rebels slipped into Kagoshima, having eluded government patrols in a heavy rain. Gathering a few pieces of artillery from the private schools and some food from the local people, they took possession of Shiroyama ("castle mountain").

The government troops began arriving soon after, and once again the rebels were surrounded. With 30,000 troops at his disposal, Yamagata outnumbered Saigo's forces 60-to-1. Having been outfought and outmaneuvered so often in the past, however, he was determined to leave nothing to chance. The imperial troops spent several days constructing an elaborate system of ditches, walls and obstacles to prevent another breakout. To his already extensive artillery train, Yamagata added the weight of five warships in the harbor and began to systematically reduce the rebel positions. During the siege, more than 7,000 shells were fired, and the imperial forces had another 7,000 in ready reserve if needed.

In comparison, Saigo's force was reduced to melting down metal statuettes that local civilians smuggled in, and casting the metal into bullets. Medical supplies consisted of one carpenter's saw for amputations and a few rags for bandages. The only shelters were shallow holes scraped in the hillside. During the last days of the siege, Saigo lived in a hole measuring only 6 feet deep and 3 feet wide.

Yamagata's battle plan was to assault the samurai position from all sides at once. A special force was ordered to seize the area between a private school and Somuta, and occupy Iwasakiguchi, thereby splitting Shiroyama in half. Every man was to hold his position at all costs. Units were forbidden to assist one another without express permission. If a unit retreated with enemy troops in pursuit, the neighboring units were to fire into the area indiscriminately, killing their own men if necessary.

Two of Saigo's officers approached the imperial positions under a white flag in the hope of finding a way to save him. To their disgust, the officers were treated as if they were deserters. Before returning to their own camp, they were given a letter from Yamagata to Saigo, which entreated him in the friendliest terms to cease the senseless slaughter and surrender.

Saigo read the letter carefully. His resolve remained unshaken. The war had cost the imperial forces more than 6,000 troops killed and 10,000 wounded, while the much smaller samurai army had lost 7,000 dead and 11,000 wounded. Too much blood had been spilled, but honor forbade surrender. Calling his closest friends to his dugout, Saigo spent his last night in a sake party.

Following an intensive artillery bombardment that lasted most of the night of September 24, imperial forces stormed the mountain at 3 a.m. By 6 a.m., only 40 rebels were still alive. While being carried toward Iwasakiguchi, Saigo was wounded in the thigh and stomach. Losing blood rapidly, he selected a suitable spot to die. One of his most loyal followers, Shinsuke Beppu, carried him farther down the hill on his shoulders. Then, kneeling on the ground, Saigo had Beppu cut off his head with a single sword stroke. A servant hid the head to keep it from falling into enemy hands. At that point, Beppu and the last of the samurai drew their swords and plunged downhill toward the enemy positions until the last of them was mowed down.

By 7 a.m., the Satsuma Rebellion was over. The greatest threat to the Meiji government was also the last of a series of civil wars that had raged through Japan for 1,500 years. Ironically, the conflict did more to defeat samurai goals than any act of legislation could have done. Fighting to preserve the old order, the samurai had gone down in bloody defeat to modern weapons wielded by the lower-class soldiers they despised. The modern Japanese army had passed its first test and would soon develop into a force that would terrorize Asia and briefly humble the Western forces of Russia, Germany, Britain, the Netherlands and the United States.

In spite of the futility of his cause, however, Takamori Saigo's integrity and strength of convictions left a lasting impression on both the people and the government he had opposed. The latter posthumously withdrew the brand of traitor from his name and made his son a marquess. Later honored by a statue in Tokyo's Ueno Park, Saigo is still popularly regarded as a heroic figure: the last of the noble samurai.

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John Rickman writes from Cupertino, Calif. For further reading, he recommends: The Satsuma Rebellion of 1877: An Inquiry into some of its Military and Political Aspects, by James Harold Buck; Great Saigo: The Life of Saigo Takamori, by Saneasu Mushikoji; and Yamagata Aritomo in the Rise of Modern Japan, 1838 - 1922, by Roger F. Hacket.

Posted: 04 January 2006 at 9:02pm | IP Logged

Saigo Takamori

From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia.

Saigō Takamori's statue in Ueno park

Saigō Takamori (西郷 隆盛 Saigō Takamori, 23 January 1827/28 - 24 September 1877), one of the most influential samurai in Japanese history, lived during the late Edo Period and early Meiji Era. As a low-level samurai, he was recruited to travel to Edo, modern day Tokyo, to assist Shimazu Nariakira, daimyō of Satsuma han. He was later put in command of over fifty thousand samurai, a large part of the imperial army.

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Boshin War (1868-69)

As a leader of the Imperial forces in the Boshin War, Saigō was one of the key figures in the Meiji Restoration. In spite of his humble background, he became the state councilor and army general of the new state.

Seikanron debate (1873)

Saigō initially disagreed with the modernization of Japan and the opening of commerce with the West. He did insist, however, that Japan go to war with Korea because of the refusal of that country's government to recognise the legitimacy of the Emperor Meiji as head of state of the Empire of Japan. But because the other leaders of the restoration strongly opposed these plans out of budgetary and cost considerations, Saigō resigned and returned to his hometown of Kagoshima.

Satsuma Rebellion (1877)

Shortly thereafter, he established a private academy in Kagoshima for the faithful samurai that had also resigned their posts in order to follow him from Tokyo. In 1877, led by Saigō, they revolted against the central government (the Satsuma Rebellion), which had just eliminated their rice stipends. The imperial palace had recruited new guards who had previously been rice-growing peasants. They were armed with modern weapons. The samurai, also being equipped with modern weapons, were able to seriously challenge the imperial army in battle for several months. Badly injured in the hip during the final battle, the Battle of Shiroyama, instead of being killed or captured by the enemy, Saigō asked for his head to be cut off by a comrade to preserve his honor. Legend and art show that Saigō committed seppuku, a traditional form of suicide.

 Unable to overcome the affection that the people had for this hero of tradition, the Meiji Era government recognized his bravery and pardoned him posthumously on February 22, 1889.

Statue of Saigo

A famous statue of Saigō walking his dog stands in Ueno Park, Tokyo. It was unveiled on December 18, 1898. Saigō met the noted British diplomat Ernest Satow in the 1860s, as recorded in the latter's A Diplomat in Japan, and he was present at the unveiling as recorded in his diary.

Saigō's last stand against the Meiji government was the historical basis for the 2003 film The Last Samurai.

Reference

The Last Samurai : The Life and Battles of Saigo Takamori, Mark Ravina, Wiley, 2004 ISBN 0471089702

Posted: 04 January 2006 at 9:03pm | IP Logged

THE ORGANIZATION OF THE IMPERIAL AND SATSUMA ARMIES

After the Restoration of 1868, one of the top priorities of the new Imperial government was the formation of a national army under its control. On October 2, 1870, one month after the French defeat at Sedan, the government announced that its army would be modeled after the French Army (the announcement also stated that the new navy would be modeled after that of Britain). One of the major considerations in choosing the French system over that of Prussia was that more Japanese military men spoke French than German.

By the time of the Satsuma Rebellion, the Imperial Japanese Army numbered over 34,000 men and consisted of both line and imperial guard troops. The line infantry was divided into 14 regiments of 3 battalions each. Each battalion consisted of 4 companies. In peace time, each company had approximately 160 privates and 32 officers and non-commissioned officers. During war time a company's strength was to be increased to 240 privates. A battalion had 640 men in peace time and was supposed to have 960 men in war time.

There were two "regiments" of line cavalry and one "regiment" of imperial guard cavalry. The two line regiments each contained 120 men in peace time and were to be increased to 150 men each during war time. Contemporary illustrations show the cavalry armed with lances.

The Imperial Artillery consisted of 18 batteries divided into 9 battalions, with 120 men per battery during peace time. During war time, the mountain artillery was supposed to have 160 men per battery and the field artillery was supposed to have 130 men per battery.

Due to the suddenness of events in Satsuma, the line units of the Imperial Army seem to have taken the field at their peace time strength.

The Imperial Guard (most of whom were ex-samurai) was always maintained at war time strength. The guard infantry was divided into 2 regiments of 2 battalions each. A battalion was 672 men strong and was organized as per the line battalions. The cavalry regiment consisted of 150 men. The artillery battalion was divided into 2 batteries with 130 men per battery.

The Japanese Army did not have a brigade or corps system like the French or many other European armies. Japan was divided into six military districts: Tokyo (Yedo), Sendai, Nagoya, Osaka, Hiroshima and Kumamoto. There were usually two or three regiments of infantry, plus artillery and other auxiliary troops, assigned to each district. The Imperial guard was assigned to the Tokyo district.

The uniforms of the Japanese Imperial Army resembled those of the French Garde Mobile in appearance. Japanese infantrymen wore a dark blue kepi, a short jacket with French style field pack, and dark blue pants (in summer, the uniform was white). They were armed with breech-loading Snider rifles and could fire approximately six rounds per minute. The cavalry wore red kepis with a small white plume in the front, dark blue jackets, red pants with a yellow stripe, and black boots. At least one illustration shows their saddle blankets as being red with yellow trim and their lance pennants were red over white. Artillery consisted of over 100 artillery pieces, including 5.28 pound mountain guns, Krupp field guns of various calibers, and mortars.

In addition to the army, the central government also used marines and Tokyo policemen in its struggle against the Satsuma samurai. The police were primarily comprised of ex-samurai (many of whom were from Satsuma) and were armed only with wooden batons and swords (Japanese police did not carry firearms until the Rice Riots of 1918). The police were mobilized in units ranging from 300 to 600 men.

The Satsuma samurai army was initially organized into six battalions (or regiments) of 2,000 men each. Each battalion was divided into ten companies of 200 men, which were further divided into four platoons of 50 men. On its march to Kumamoto Castle, the army was divided into three divisions; an advance guard of 4,000 men, another division of 4,000 men, and a rearguard of 2,000 men. There were 200 artillerymen and 1,200 laborers in the army. In April 1877, Saigo reorganized the army into nine infantry units of 350 to 800 men each.

The samurai attempted to dress in a similar manner to give the appearance of uniformity. Their dress consisted of their own clothes and armor was not worn, except by a few officers who wore a breastplate. Saigo and some of his officers wore their military uniforms. Each samurai wore a white cloth on his upper arm so that they could identify themselves.

The samurai were armed with Enfield muzzle loading rifles and could fire approximately one round per minute. Their artillery consisted of 28 mountain guns, 2 field guns (15.84 pounders), and 30 assorted mortars.

When the students raided the Kagoshima armories a large number of sword blades were seized. Many of these blades were of inferior quality and were fitted with blackened iron hilts. The hilts were bound with rough braid or canvas. Some samurai who later joined the Satsuma army may have carried yaris (spears).

Although the Satsuma Army did not contain any cavalry, a few officers such as Saigo were mounted.

Copyright © by Robert W. Burke, Jr. May 21, 1991

Posted: 04 January 2006 at 9:05pm | IP Logged

Saigo Takamori, 1827-1877 - The Last Samurai

Saigo Takamori in a Kabuki Play

by Kunichika Toyohara, 1894

The film The Last Samurai brought a lot of attention and hype to a historic figure in Japan - Saigo Takamori. Although the film is very impressive and worth seeing it, the story is a fiction that takes historic events and characters as a basis and source of inspiration.

But who was Saigo Takamori and what was the insurrection of the samurai all about?

Who is Who? - Film and Real Characters

For those of you who saw the film, a short reference to names.

Saigo Takamori is the historical figure for Katsumoto in the film - played by Watanabe Ken. And Omura, his opponent in the film and proponent of a strict Westernization of Japan, was in reality Okubo Toshimichi, 1830-1878. The producers of the film obviously tried to model the actors after their historic appearance. The two actors, representing Katsumoto and Omura have a certain physical similarity with their paragons from history.

No historic basis exists for the US captain Algren in the film. The Satsuma rebellion was an all Japanese event.

A Giant of a Man

Saigo Takamori

with dog and a servant

Saigo Takamori was born as the son of a low-ranking samurai. After some military and religious training, he joined the services of Shimazu Nariakira, the local daimyo of Satsuma, on the Southern island of Kyushu.

After the death of his lord, Saigo Takamori fell in disgrace. He was even banned to a remote island and had unsuccessfully tried to commit suicide. Saigo was later readmitted to serve in the daimyo's army and was among the commanders of the successful march of the Satsuma and Choshu troupes towards Kyoto.

Saigo was of an impressive appearance. He was 180 cm (nearly 6 feet) tall, a huge giant for his time and for Japanese men. And while tall people often tend to be skinny and fragile, Takamori was quite the opposite - a stout giant with a huge head and a neck like a bear.

The Samurai Class

The origins of the samurai as a class of its own go back to the times when the Heike and Genji fought bitter wars against each other during the 10th and 11th century. Toyotomi Hideyoshi, 1537-1598 introduced far-reaching reforms to the status of the warrior class. To have better control over the samurai they were ordered to live permanently in castles. Before Hideyoshi's reforms, most samurai cultivated a piece of land. And only in war times they were called to arms. In order to feed and maintain the new warrior class, Hideyoshi had introduced a system of rice taxation.

Hideyoshi had introduced a rigid system of social classes with samurai on top of the hierarchy, next the farmers, then the crafts persons, and the merchants at the lowest end (shi-no-ko-sho samurai-farmer- craftsmen-merchant). The membership to a class was defined by birth. Moving from one class to another was impossible.

The samurai had far-reaching privileges. Only they were allowed to wear weapons. To a certain degree they were above the law and could for instance kill a commoner who had insulted them. The life of a sumurai was defined by bushido - a code of honor, which is not easily accessible to Westerners. Central points of bushido are the total loyalty towards one's master and the conviction that an honorable death is preferable to a life in shame.

After Hideyoshi came Tokugawa Ieyasu, 1543-1616. He finished the job of pacifying and unifying Japan. Ieyasu moved the capital to Edo and established the rule of the Tokugawa shogunate (military rulers), which should last until 1868. This period of roughly 265 years was a time of peace, stability and modest wealth under the strict rule of the Tokugawa bakufu.

The samurai class was about 8% of the total population. Due to the absence of war, they were now without their original occupation. Many of them took some public posts as civil servants. But basically they were an idle class that had to be fed by the classes of the farmers, craftsmen and merchants.

The Restoration of the Emperor

In January 1868, troupes from Satsuma and Choshu had marched to Kyoto in a coup d'etat, occupied the imperial palace and proclaimed the restoration of power to the emperor. The Japanese emperor had been a purely representative figure for more than a thousand years. Driving force behind this move were powerful clans - mainly from the South - opposed to the Tokugawa family. The emperor was more like a chess figure, of whom they took use to achieve their goals and gain public support.

In 1868 the young emperor Prince Mutsuhito, only 15 years old, (was) moved from Kyoto to his new residence in Tokyo. It marked the official end of the Tokugawa rule and the beginning of the Meiji era, named after the name which the young emperor had chosen. Meiji means the Enlightened Leader.

On May 15, 1868, a last uprise of adherents of the old shogunate order was turned down in the bloody battle of Ueno, the site of the park with the same name in Tokyo. Two thousand men loyal to the Tokugawa shogunate were gunned down by imperial troops under the leadership of Saigo Takamori.

The emperor held no real power, but he should become the flagship symbol of the new era. The actual power was exercised by a few noblemen and samurai from the Southern provinces of Satsuma and Choshu like Saigo Takamori and Okubo Toshimichi. These men were called the oligarchs. They secluded the young emperor from any outside influences and from the public. During the first years all decrees of the government were signed by the emperor and propagated to the public as the emperor's will.

Only in later years, the emperor gained more freedom and began to travel all over Japan on official visits. But that happened at a time when the system of Meiji government was firmly established and when the country and the public were unified under a new Japanese nationalism.

Abolishment of Samurai Privileges

Although the fight against the old order of the Tokugawa shogunate had been led with the battle cry sonno joi, meaning something like "respect the emperor and expel the barbarians", the advocats of strict reforms after Western models soon got the upper hand. The new Meiji era marked the beginning of an extremely ambitious program of reforms in all areas of the Japanese society. Japan catapulted itself from a feudal state to a modern, powerful Asian nation shaped after Western models.

The driving force behind this process of modernization was Okubo Toshimichi. He and Saigo Takamori came both from Satsuma and had been close friends in the beginning. And also Toshimichi was the son of a samurai of lower ranks.

It was clear that something like the medieval class structure and customs of samurai and local aristocratic leaders could not be tolerated any longer under the new leadership. In 1871 far-reaching reforms had been introduced, which in practice abolished the class of the samurai and expropriated the once so powerful daimyo, the aristocratic regional leaders.

In January of 1872 the Japanese government had announced its intention to establish a national Japanese army of conscripts after Western patterns.

Saigo Takamori had supported the reforms in the beginning. But when the privileges of his own samurai class were abandoned, his conservative character was in conflict between the loyalty towards his country on one hand and towards his own class on the other hand.

Another bone of contention between Saigo and the majority of the Meiji government was the Korean issue. Takamori was a strong advocat of a swift invasion of Korea. The majority was against - not so much for ethical reasons. But they considered such a move as premature, too risky and were afraid of intervention by the Western powers. This discussion sheds an interesting light on the developments that unfolded twenty years later, when a nationalistic Japan invaded and occupied Korea in the Sino-Japanese war of 1894/95.

The Satsuma Rebellion of 1877

The Final Battle, from a triptych

by Toshinobu Yamazaki

In the beginning of the Meiji government, many samurai found an employment in the imperial forces. The new conscript army must have been rather unattractive for the samurai. Thus the samurai class not only lost all privileges, but many saw themselves deprived of any possibilities to make a living and maintain themselves and their families.

As a consequence local riots broke out like in Saga in Kyushu province in 1874. The central government could not tolerate any losses of power or establishments of independent, regional war lords and crushed these riots swiftly by sending the newly formed national army into the region to restore law and order.

Wearing swords was forbidden in 1876 with the exception of ceremonial events. Overall a reasonable and appropriate decision. But it upset the majority of the samurai.

In 1876 Saigo Takamori resigned from his government post and went back to Kagoshima. He founded a local military school and dissatisfied samurai gathered around him in large numbers.

The central government watched the open build-up of a regional, political and military force in Satsuma with great concern. In late 1876 it came to an open conflict when samurai rebels raided and occupied ammunition and weapon depots of the central government.

Saigo had the original intention to march with his army towards Tokyo. His first military charge was the siege of the imperial garrison in the castle of Kumamoto. That was probably a decisive military mistake. While Saigo's army was bound by the siege, the government gained additional time to deploy troops and bring military supplies to the South.

Indeed, the central Meiji government, legalized by a decrete to crush the rebellion - signed by the emperor - acted swiftly and sent the new national army. The siege of Kumamoto castle was ended after 54 days. Saigo's troops were defeated and slowly pushed back to Kagoshima in the utmost South.

The Last Battle

After numerous skirmishes and battles, Saigo Takamori with a small number of roughly 300 die-hard samurai gathered for a last stand in the hills of Shiroyama not far away from Kagoshima Castle and with a great view upon the sea.

By now, the rebels were hopelessly outnumbered, short of food, bare of ammunition and exhausted. It had been raining for days which made their old-fashioned cannons unuseable.

By now, Saigo and his last men knew that they had no chance and that their cause was lost. What kept them from surrendering was this strange (for Western minds) perception of honor. "An honorable death is preferable to a life in shame." To some unconfirmed reports, the commander of the imperial forces had sent a last letter to Saigo urging him to give up the hopeless fight.

In the early morning hours of September 24, 1877, the final artillery bombardment began. We could not find any detailed reports about the battle. This is probably an indication that the assault was not a hand-to-hand combat, but an artillery massacre against a small group of men who virtually had only their swords left to defend themselves.

The bodies of Saigo Takamori and other leaders of the rebellion were found beheaded. The last samurais had committed seppuku by cutting off each other's head with one strike of the sword. This was the traditional samurai way of committing suicide on the battlefield when no time was left for a ceremonial suicide.

Saigo Takamori - a Tragic Hero?

Statue in Ueno Park

Saigo Takamori was revered by the ordinary Japanese people as a hero. And this attitude has not lost any of its momentum until our days - especially in the South of Japan. His esteem in the area of Kagoshima is best comparable to the esteem of General Robert E.Lee in Texas.

One can find a statue of Saigo Takakamori in full (Western) uniform in the Central Park of Kagoshima. And another - even more famous statue was erected in Ueno Park in Tokyo. It shows the great statesman and "last samurai" leisurely dressed in a kimono walking his dog.

Many years later, the Meiji government made a clever move. They pardoned the popular hero posthumously in 1889, promoted him to highest honours and did their best to establish the image of a tragic hero.

The Satsuma Rebellion and Ukiyo-e

The news of the Satsuma rebellion had created a great thirst among the public to learn and view more about the events. Many ordinary Japanese could not at all or only poorly read and write at that time. And photography was still at its beginning. Therefore images made in traditional Japanese woodblock technique were a major means of bringing exciting events to the public.

Japanese newspapers employed or gave commissions to popular woodblock designers like Yoshitoshi. And for print publishers it was a good business in a generally reclining market.

The impression quality of these prints is not always the best. News related ukiyo-e was produced fast. Those who were on the market first, made the business. Collectors should know this and should be willing to make compromises. The charm of these designs and the value lie more in the historic subject and the rarity of individual designs. Also yokohama-e, images of Westerners and their customs and achievements are in this category.

Prints related to the Satsuma rebellion were designed by more or less all artists of the period like Kunichika or Yoshitora. And at the head of the pack was of course Yoshitoshi - the leading designer for sensational subjects of crime and blood.

For Yoshitoshi, who for years had hardly enough to eat, the huge demand for popular illustrations of the Satsuma rebellion was like a turning point of his career. He was flooded with commissions. And 5 years later, in 1882 he received a steady employment by Tokyo's leading newspaper.

The Film - Myths and Fictions

In the film The Last Samurai Tom Cruise plays Captain Algren, who comes to Japan as a military adviser for the Meiji government and ends up fighting for the cause of the samurai. The character of captain Algren is a fiction. No Westerner was among the samurai warriors.

In the early days of the Meiji era a few Western military advisers and trainers were however in the country. But they came from France and from Germany. Japan had decided to build up the new army of conscripts after French and Prussian models. No Americans were in any way involved in the build-up of Japan's army.

In 1871 a decrete was announced which recommended all official persons in public service or of higher social status, to wear Western clothes and to abandon the traditional samurai ponytail. This was a recommendation, but no ban.

The major myth of the film is the picture of brave samurai fighting with bows and arrows and swords against canons and modern guns - just as if they detested modern weaponry.

Apart from the final fight at Shiroyama, when the samurai rebels had been out of ammunition, this is nonsense under any historical aspects. Fire arms had been introduced by the Portuguese in the 16th century. Oda Nobunaga had immediately recognized the value of firearms for warfare and adopted them swiftly. The Japanese added some improvements to this technique and they had been used by samurai ever since.

Saigo's samurai rebels were equipped with cannons and guns. But their equipment was indeed inferior to the fire power of the imperial army. While the rebels were equipped with old guns which could shoot once per minute, the government forces had modern rifles that could fire six rounds per minute.

The armors and helmets worn by the samurai in the film, make a gorgeous picture and would be a great enrichment for a costume festival. But again - historically, this is wrong. The samurai rebels clad either in Western uniforms or in their own clothes. For better identification between friend and foe, the rebels wore a white band wrapped around the upper arm. Saigo Takamori himself is shown on all contemporary illustrations in a Western-style uniform of a high-ranking officer with all bells and whistles attached.