The reality is that power always lies with the people carrying the guns. It’s hard to remember in the U.S. or most of Europe because the military usurping the government is almost unthinkable. But imagine if the army and the marines decided that W was worth fighting aganst. Who woudl stop them? The political leaders always rule only by their ability to inspire loyalty in the military and the strength of their public support.
America has quite a bit of faith in the process, and if W’s approval rating got to be 5%, everyone would still be appalled at a coup, but take a look at central and south america sometime…
My understanding is that the actual procedure was for the major cabinet figures to have a meeting to advise the Emperor. They would gather in the presense of the Emperor and present their plans to him for his approval. A great deal of weight was placed on presenting a single consensus view. If there were differences in opinion, the opposing factions might each present their sides but it was expected the cabinet would reach a single view.
While this was going on the Emperor would sit and listen. At the end when the cabinet had presented their plans, there would be a pause. This was supposedly an opportunity for the Emperor to give any orders he wished. But the reality was that nothing would be said. The Emperor in theory had an absolute veto but in practice it was virtually never used. So the Japanese Imperial government was essentially run on the principle of “we told him what we were going to do and he didn’t say no”.
Little Nemo: The flip side of that is that when he did say no, the cabinet listened.
wnorthr: The surrender had one condition attached - the condition of the emporer. Granted, once the Japanese had surrendered the US could have done pretty much whatever they wanted.
Cardinal: While the various gun holding factions of plotters had done much to move Japan towards policies they wished, through both assassination of opposition figures and initiating small to medium sized military actions against China and the Soviet Union (whose responses pretty much guaranteed escalation from an incident to a war), attacking the US (or really, any of the European holdings in Southeast Asia) required a scale of unified effort that no one small faction could manage on its own. For this purpose, the acquiescence of the Emperor was required. (As an aside: have there ever been any significant navy based coups d’etat?)
The composition of the Japanese Government did change throughout the war. Tojo ceased to be the head of government once he became discredited. Even in the final days of the war the bulk of the military chose literal loyalty to the Emperor (and surrender) over a revolt (which was also described in terms of loyalty). Yes, many figures hemmed and hawed, but a sufficiency of senior figures stayed loyal or did not abet those opposed to the broadcast of the surrender. Defiance in Manchuria and Mongolia-far from the palace-was tolerated - but not to the emperor’s face.
MMI I have always understood that the Japanese floated the idea of surrender to the US if they could keep the emperor. I thought that a lot of people criticised us later for the Nagasaki bomb because we wouldn’t accept that condition.
From what I remember critics say that after Heroshima the Japanese would have surrendered if we agreed to allow the emperor to stay - this would allow them to save face. We said no, absolute surrender only and bombed Nagasaki to let them think we would keep destroying cities til they gave up .
I may be wrong on this as it’s just memory but I thought the final surrender was unconditional.
The cluster of surrender documents and how it was done clearly indicates there was an understanding of some sort, concerning Hirohito.
Hirohito signed a proclaimation acknowledging the surrender agreement and directed others to sign the Instrument of Surrender “in behalf of” the Emperor of Japan. Other Japanese countersigned it.
But Hirohito never signed the “Instrument of Surrender”.
“In behalf of” might mean as agent of, but there was no need to have an agent, the US could have forced him to sign the document itself. The phrase was meant to be “in the interest or for the benefit of” the Emperor.
It was a face saving device, permitting the sides to end the war.
It was absolutely the rule. From the ninth century with the establishment of the Fujiwara Regency, and more definitively after ~1000 C.E. , the Japanese Imperial court ceased to be the dominant power in Japanese politics. It still was an important player for some centuries due to the landed wealth it possessed, but attempts to reestablish its primacy failed in the Jokyu War of 1221 and emperor Go-Daigo’s Kemmu Restoration, which succeeded in breaking the Kamakura Shogunate but ultimately just led to its replacement with the Ashikaga Shogunate and the existence for about a half-century of a quiescent independent “southern court” ( 1336-1395 ). After the reabsorption of the “southern court” in 1395, really no emperor was anything but a figurehead from then on out, the arguments about Hirohito not withstanding.
No, the surrender was indeed unconditional. (Photographs of the Instrument of Surrender can be found here, although it is more readable in the text printed here along with other related documents.)
But it was not quite that simple. The surrender was an unconditional surrender by the Japanese government of their armed forces; the Japanese government itself remained in being, although with the crucial proviso that, ‘The authority of the Emperor and the Japanese Government to rule the state shall be subject to the supreme commander for the Allied Powers, who will take such steps as he deems proper to effectuate these terms of surrender’. This was broadly similar to what had been agreed with the Italians in 1943, as that also involved the government agreeing the surrender. The German surrender, on the other hand, had been different as that made no mention at all about the German government. That was because that surrender was being agreed by the German army which could not make undertakings on behalf of the German government (in so far as such a thing by then existed).
But this did not mean that the Japanese government was off the hook. The terms of the surrender involved the Japanese government accepting the Potsdam declaration. That had called for the elimination ‘for all time the authority and influence of those who have deceived and misled the people of Japan into embarking on world conquest’. That could have included the emperor, although, by speaking of ‘self-willed militaristic advisers’, the declaration had already hinted that the Allies could adopt the age-old excuse that a ruler had only been misled by evil counsellors. Therefore, in public and in international law, the Allies had left their options open. Which is not to say that separate hints could not have been dropped in private.
There was one other factor that may have had a bearing. The Allies had already agreed to allow Victor Emmanuel III to remain on as king of Italy, although it is true that he did subsequently abdicate and, of course, no Italians at all were tried for war crimes.
Nonsense. In modern diplomatic protocol, monarchs never personally sign treaties or equivalent documents. And ‘in behalf of’ was simply the standard diplomatic legalese to indicate that the signatories were indeed acting as the emperor’s official representatives. The wording existed as a formula with this exact meaning precisely because treaties were so rarely signed in person by heads of state (and never if they were a monarch). It may sound a bit odd and archaic, but that’s diplomatic draftsmanship for you.
I think that what I am writing comes from the book Downfall, although I may also be remembering a more recent book that covered decrypts by Ultra and Magic (both during and after the war- can’t remember the name).
Before the first bomb, in June of 45 or so the Emperor and his council came to the opinion that Japan had to seek an ‘early’ end to the war. IIRC Terms they considered were essentially evacuation of non-Japanese territories, no occupation of Japan, self-disarmament, internal trials of war criminals, and maintenance of the imperial system, though with a new government of course. (There is no way these terms would be accepted). After the first bomb the government again considered its position, but decided that it was unlikely in the extreme that the US had more than one bomb, or that world public opinion would allow the US to use a second device. After the second bomb the Japanese had to accept that the threats embedded in the Potsdam declaration were not a bluff. APB I suppose I am using ‘the surrender’ as shorthand for the entirety of the process, including understandings not covered by the text, in contrast to the German surrender which, as you note, gave the Germans zilch other than a stop to fighting. (side note: Doenitz ordered his subordinates to surrender unconditionally, and he was the official head of state/government/party/military. The difference between military/party/state/government seems a little irrelevent when you don’t have terribly much of any)
Tamerlane: I am reading your post as saying that Hirohito was solely a figurehead, without any influence. Is that a fair assessment?
Not quite - I wasn’t clear, but I was mostly thinking about pre-Meiji emperors. The Meiji Restoration was a slight alteration in pattern and the Meiji and post-Meiji emperors appear to have been well-informed men that had some, but limited influence ( though really throughout its history power in Japan usually appears to have been exercised by committee anyway ). I’d say instead of being solely figureheads, they were probably best described as largely figureheads. Hirohito undoubtedly played a backroom political role, just not a dominant one for the most part ( except as symbol ).
Probably. But it’s difficult to say what would have actually happened if Hirohito had chosen to forbid the war in 1941. There had been numerous political figures who had been assassinated by fanatical officers for trying to oppose the military. And in 1945, there was a group of officers who tried to overthrow Hirohito in order to defy his surrender order and keep fighting. My guess is that if Hirohito had tried to oppose the declaration of war, he wouldn’t have succeeded. The military would have devised some face-saving way to declare he was unable to rule and would have gone ahead and done what they wanted.
But it’s a moot point. There’s no evidence Hirohito would have vetoed the war even if he had been sure his veto would have worked. The situation in 1941 was vastly different than the one in 1945. Hirohito’s willingness to admit Japan had lost the war at the latter date does not mean he was against war at the former date.
Officially there was no “condition” to Japan’s surrender. The Instrument of Surrender clearly gives the Allied forces complete power over Japan, and even says the Emperor’s authority would be subject to Allied approval.
And the surrender is made on “behalf of the Emperor” so that’s no less than the Emperor himself surrendering to the occupying powers.
It also basically says all civil proclamations made by the Supreme Allied Commander were binding as law, so technically the document gives the Allies absolute power over all aspects of Japan.
Now, the reality was the Americans quietly promised to preserve the Emperor and the Japanese would never have signed the unconditional surrender without that deal.