Imperial Army General Staff Office

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The Imperial Army General Staff Office of Japan (also called the Army General Staff Office or Sambō Hombu) was one of the four principal agencies charged with overseeing the Imperial Japanese Army. Created in 1878 and modelled on the German General Staff ( Die Grosse Generalstab), the Imperial Army General Staff was responsible for the preparation of war plans; the training and employment of combined arms; military intelligence; the direction of large manuevers; troop deployments; and the complitation of field service regulations, military histories, and maps. The chief of the Army General Staff was the ranking uniformed officer in the Japanese Imperial Army and enjoyed, along with the minister of war, the minister of the navy, and the chief of the Naval General Staff, direct access to the emperor. In wartime, the Imperial Army General Staff formed part of the army section of the Imperial General Headquarters, an ad-hoc body under the supervision of the emperor created to assist the monarch in his exercise of supreme command. The American Occupation authorities abolished the Imperial Army General Staff in September 1945.


[edit] Origins and Development

Following the overthrow of the Tokougawa shōgunate in 1867 and the "restoration" of direct imperial rule, the leaders of the new regime sought to reduce Japan's vulnerability to Western imperialism by systematically emulating the technological, governing, social, and military practices of the European great powers. The stunning victory of Prussia and the other members of the North German Confederation in the 1870-1871 Franco-Prussian War convinced the Meiji oligarchs of the superiority of the Prussian military model. In February 1872, they created the Japanese Imperial Army and the Imperial Japanese Navy under the supervision of a Ministry of the Military Affairs (Hyōbu-shō). The minister of military affairs was a member of the Daijō-kan (Great Council of State), the principal executive organ of the new government. Universal male conscription was introduced the following year.

In December 1878, at the urging of Yamagata Aritomo, the Meiji government fully adopted the Prussian/German general staff system by abolishing the Military Affairs Ministry, creating a separate Ministry of the Navy, and dividing the administrative and operational functions of the army between two agencies. A reorganized Ministry of War would serve as the administrative, supply, and mobilization agency of the army. The war minister would serve as a member of the Daijō-kan (which was replaced by a Western-style cabinet system in 1884). An independent Army General Staff would have responsibility for strategic planning and command functions. Furthermore, the chief of the Army General Staff had direct access to the emperor and could operate independently of the war minister and civilian officials. Yamagata became the first chief of the Army General Staff in 1878 and held the post until 1882. He served again from 1884 to 1885 and from 1904 to 1905.

As in Prussia, the Japanese War Ministry and the Army General Staff were independent of each other. Thanks to Yamagata's influence, the chief of the General Staff became far more powerful than the war minister and was never subordinate to the prime minister or the cabinet as a whole. The independence of the military from civilian oversight was codified in the 1889 Meiji Constitution which designated the emperor as supreme commander of the army and the navy. Furthermore, a 1900 imperial ordinance decreed that the two service ministers had to be chosen from among the generals (or admirals) or lieutenant generals (or vice-admirals) on the active-list. Since the chief of the Army General Staff was the ranking army officer, he technically outranked the war minister. By ordering the incumbent war minister to resign or by ordering generals to refuse an appointment as war minister, the chief of the General Staff could effectively force the resignation of the cabinet or forstall the formation of a new one. Of the seventeen officers who served as chief of the Army General Staff between 1879 and 1945, three were princes of the imperial blood (Prince Arisugawa Taruhito, Prince Komatsu Akihito, and Prince Kan'in Kotohito) and thus enjoyed special access to the throne and great prestige by virtue of their ties to the emperor.

[edit] Organization

The Imperial Army General Staff Office initially consisted of the chief of the Army General Staff (always a general or field marshal), a vice chief of the Army General Sffa (always a lieutentant general), and four bureaus: G-1 (Operations), G-2 (Intelligence), G-3 (Transport), and G-4 (Historical and Maps). The General Staff College and the Land Survey Department were also under the supervision of the Imperial Army General Staff Office. A fifth bureau, G-5 (Fortifications), was created in January 1889 and abolished in December 1908. In January 1889, a General Affairs Bureau came into existence, with responsibility for general affairs, personnel affairs, accounting, war organization and mobilization planning.

Chiefs of the Army General Staff

  • Field Marshal Count Yamagata Aritomo (24 Dec 1878 - 4 Sep 1882)
  • Field Marshal Oyama Iwao (4 Sep 1882 - 13 Feb 1884)
  • Field Marshal Marquis Yamagata Aritomo (13 Feb 1884 - 22 Dec 1885)
  • General Prince Arisugawa Taruhito (22 Dec 1885 - 14 May 1888)
  • Lieutenant General Ozawa Takeo (14 May 1888 - 9 Mar 1889)
  • General Prince Arisugawa Taruhito (9 Mar 1889 - 26 Jan 1895)
  • Field Marshal Prince Komatsu Akihito (26 Jan 1895 - 20 Jan 1898)
  • General Kawakami Soroku (20 Jan 1898 - 16 May 1899)
  • Field Marshal Prince Oyama Iwao [peer] (16 May 1899 - 20 Jun 1904)
  • Field Marshal Prince Yamagata Aritomo [peer] (20 Jun 1904 - 20 Dec 1905)
  • Field Marshal Prince Oyama Iwao (20 Dec 1905 - 11 Apr 1906)
  • General Kodama Gentaro (11 Apr 1906 - 30 Jul 1906)
  • Field Marshal Baron Oku Yasukata (30 Jul 1906 - 19 Jan 1912)
  • Field Marshal Hasegawa Yoshimichi (19 Jan 1912 - 17 Dec 1915)
  • Field Marshal Uehara Isamu (17 Dec .1915 - 17 Mar 1923)
  • General Kawai Misao (17 Mar 1923 - 2 Mar 1926)
  • General Suzuki Soroku (2 Mar 1926 - 19 Feb 1930)
  • General Kanaya Hanzo (19 Feb 1930 - 23 Dec 1931)
  • Field Marshal Prince Kan'in Kotohito (23 Dec 1931 - 3 Oct 1940)
  • Field Marshal Sugiyama Hajime (3 Oct 1940 - 21 Feb 1944)
  • General Tōjō Hideki (21 Feb 1944 - 18 Jul 1944)
  • General Umezu Yoshijiro (18 Jul 1944 - Sep 1945)



Vice Chiefs of the General Staff

  • Field Marshal Oyama Iwao (5 Dec 1878 - 16 Oct 1879)
  • Post not filled (16 Oct 1879 - 6 Feb 1882)
  • Lieutenant General Soga Sukenori (6 Feb 1882 - 21 May 1885)
  • General Kawakami Soroku (21 May 1885 - 16 Mar 1886)
  • Lieutenant General Soga Sukenori (16 Mar 1886 - 26 Jul 1886)
  • Lieutenant General Ozawa Takeo (26 Jul 1886 - 12 May 1888)
  • Post not filled (12 May 1888 - 9 Mar 1889)
  • General Kawakami Soroku (9 Mar 1889 - 20 Jan 1898)
  • Post not filled (20 Jan 1898 - 26 Aug 1898)
  • General Osako Hisatoshi (26 Aug 1898 - 25 Apr 1900)
  • Field Matshal Terauchi Masaki (25 Apr 1900 - 27 Mar 1902)
  • Major General Tamura Iyozu (17 Apr 1902 - 1 Oct 1903)
  • General Fukushima Sei (2 Oct 1903 - 12 Oct 1903)
  • General Kodama Gentaro (12 Oct 1903 - 11 Apr 1906)
  • General Fukushima Sei (16 Apr 1906 - 25 Apr 1912)
  • Lieutenant General Oshima Kenichi (25 Apr 1912 - 17 Apr 1914)
  • General Akashi Jiro (17 Apr 1914 - 4 Oct 1915)
  • General Tanaka Giichi (4 Oct 1915 - 10 Oct 1918)
  • General Fukuda Masataro (10 Oct 1918 - 5 May 1921)
  • General Kikuchi Shinnosuke (5 May 1921 - 24 Nov 1922)
  • Field Marshal Muto Nobuyoshi (24 Nov 1922 - 1 May 1925)
  • General Kanaya Hanzo (1 May 1925 - 5 Mar 1927)
  • General Minami Jiro (5 Mar 1927 - 1 Aug 1929)
  • Lieutenant General Okamoto Renichiro (1 Aug 1929 - 22 Dec 1930)
  • Lieutenant General Ninomiya Osamu (22 Dec 1930 - 9 Jan 1932)
  • Lieutenant General Masaki Jinsaburo (9 Jan 1932- 19 Jun 1933)
  • General Ueda Kenkichi (19 Jun 1933 - 1 Aug 1934)
  • Lieutenant General Sugiyama Hajime (1 Aug 1934 - 23 Mar 1936)
  • General Nishio Juzo (23 Mar 1936 - 1 Mar 1937)
  • Lieutenant General Imai Kiyoshi (1 Mar 1937 - 14 Aug 1937)
  • General Tada Hayao (14 Aug 1937 - 10 Dec 1938)
  • Lieutenant General Nakajima Tetsuzo (10 Dec 1938 - 2 Oct 1939)
  • Lieutenant General Sawada Shigeru (2 Oct 1939 - 15 Nov 1940)
  • General Tsukada Osamau (15 Nov 1940 - 6 Nov 1941)
  • Lieutenant General Tanabe Moritake (6 Nov 1941 - 8 Apr 1943)
  • Lieutenant General Hata Hikosaburo (8 Apr 1943 - 21 Feb 1944)
  • Lieutenant General Ushiroku Jun (21 Feb 1944 - 7 Apr 1944)
  • Lieutenant General Kawabe Torashiro (7 Apr 1945 - Sep 1945)


[edit] Sources

U.S. War Department, Handbook of Japanese Military Forces, TM-E 30-480 (1945; Baton Rogue and London: Louisiana State University Press, 1991, reprint).

Sabura Hayashi and Alvin D. Cook, Kōgun: The Japanese Army in the Pacific War (Quantico, VA: Marine Corps Association, 1959).

Shin'ichi Kitaoka, "Army as Bureaucracy: Japanese Militarism Revisited," Journal of Military History, special issue 57 (October 1993): 67-83.

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