Kodama Gentarō

Viscount Kodama Gentarō (兒玉 源太郎^?, 16 March 1852 – 23 July 1906) was a general in the Imperial Japanese Army, and government minister during Meiji period Japan. He was instrumental in establishing the modern Imperial Japanese military.

Biography

Early life

Born in Tokuyama, Suō Province (modern Yamaguchi prefecture), from a samurai class family loyal to the Chōshū domain, Kodama began his military career fighting in the Boshin War for the Meiji Restoration against the forces of the Tokugawa shogunate. As a soldier in the fledgling Imperial Japanese Army, he saw combat during the suppression of the Satsuma Rebellion. He later enrolled in the Osaka Heigakuryo (大阪兵学寮） military training school). He was commissioned in 1881.^[1]

Military career

Kodama was appointed head of the Army Staff College, where he worked with German Major Jakob Meckel to reorganize the modern Japanese military after the Prussian system.^[2]

Kodama went on to study military science as a military attaché to Germany. After his return to Japan, he was appointed Vice-minister of War in 1892.

After his service in the Sino-Japanese War (1894-5), Kodama became Governor-General of Taiwan. During his tenure, he did much to improve on the infrastructure of Taiwan and to alleviate the living conditions of the inhabitants.^[3] Having proved himself an excellent administrator, Kodama spent the following decade serving as Minister of the Army under Prime Minister Itō Hirobumi, retaining the post and taking on the concurrent roles of Minister of Home Affairs and Education under the following Prime Minister Katsura Tarō.

In 1904, Kodama was promoted to full general. However, he was asked by Marshal Ōyama Iwao to be Chief of General Staff of the Manchurian Army during the Russo-Japanese War. This was a step down for him in terms of rank, but he nevertheless chose to take the position; it was a sacrifice which elicited much public applause. Throughout the Russo-Japanese War he guided the strategy of the whole campaign, as General Kawakami Sōroku had done in the First Sino-Japanese War ten years previously.^[4] Following the war, he was named Chief of the Imperial Japanese Army General Staff, but he died soon afterwards.

Kodama was raised in rapid succession to the ranks of danshaku (baron) and shishaku (viscount) under the kazoku peerage system, and his death in 1906 of a cerebral hemorrhage was regarded as a national calamity.^[1] After his death Emperor Meiji posthumously awarded him with the first-ever 1st degree of the Order of the Golden Kite; he later received the ultimate honor of being raised to the ranks of Shinto kami; shrines to his honor still exist at his home town in Shunan, Yamaguchi prefecture, and on the site of his summer home on Enoshima, Fujisawa, Kanagawa prefecture.

References

Books

• Connaughton, Richard (2003). Rising Sun and Tumbling Bear. Cassell. ISBN 0-304-36657-9. 
• Ching, Leo T.S. (2001). Becoming Japanese: Colonial Taiwan and the Politics of Identity Formation. University of California Press. ISBN 0520225538. 
• Dupuy, Trevor N. (1992). Encyclopedia of Military Biography. I B Tauris & Co Ltd. ISBN 1-85043-569-3. 
• Kowner, Rotem (2006). Historical Dictionary of the Russo-Japanese War. Scarecrow. ISBN 0-8108-4927-5. 
• Harries, Meirion (1994). Soldiers of the Sun: The Rise and Fall of the Imperial Japanese Army. Random House. ISBN 0-679-75303-6. 
• Mutsu, Gorō (1985). "Kodama Gentarō." Kodansha Encyclopedia of Japan. Tokyo: Kodansha Ltd.

External links

• National Diet Library. "Kodama, Gentaro". Portraits of Modern Japanese Historical Figures. http://www.ndl.go.jp/portrait/e/datas/77.html?c=7. 

Notes

External links

•  "Kodama, Gentaro, Viscount". Encyclopedia Americana. 1920. 
•  Chisholm, Hugh, ed (1911). "Kodama, Gentaro, Viscount". Encyclopædia Britannica (11th ed.). Cambridge University Press.