The population also helped the rise in militarism greatly. No army can function without a group eager to fight. This group in Japan was the farmers. While many were disillusioned with the military after World War One (since it was the democratic nations who won, not Japan), they then rapidly regained and then surpassed their former militaristic views. This was due to the tremendous pressure being put on them: with the population growing at a rate of almost one million per year, it fell to the farmers to feed the nation, as well as to grow products for export (particularly silk) with which to buy rice. This group was hit very hard, several times: firstly when the war boom burst in 1921, then again in the banking crisis. They were hardest hit, however, by the Great Depression, why the value of silk halved. This left many farmers almost destitute, since many used silk as a secondary crop to provide additional income. All of these financial burdens turned the farmers away from the zaibatsu (the big industrial companies) and the government which many saw as representing first and foremost the interests of zaibatsu. Prime Minister Hara’s assassination also helped this disillusionment (since Hara was the first prime minister from among the lower classes), as well as the corruption charges that were leveled against several governments.
It was also the growth in population that made the need for more space and raw materials, particularly iron and oil. It was this need that turned the people towards the military, who were seen as the only group capable of gaining Japan the extra resources and space needed to continue as a power, forcing the situation the Manchuria Incident and all that followed in China. When this met with initial success, a wave of militaristic support followed, since the army had managed to almost double the size of Japan. Thanks to propaganda, the army was also seen as a way of ridding Japan of the greedy capitalists and westerners whom many saw as holding back the Meiji Constitution, something that the Japanese regarded with almost a religious dogma as a solution to all their problems as well as forcing the west into recognizing Japanese equality (this became a particular sticking point after Australia blocked the racial equality clause in the treaty of Versailles.
At this time the Japanese armed forces were rapidly developing: going from an army that many in the West deemed inferior to the loyal, elite force of the Second World War. Even though the navy was constrained by various treaties such as the one signed at the Washington Conference, it was still regarded as the best in the pacific. The army also had the advantage of having the emperor as their commander-in-chief. Due to this, whatever actions they took could be claimed to be the “Imperial Will” – something which the whole of the pro-monarchist Japan accepted as an excuse for everything. However, as the army developed and grew in power, two factions emerged. The first was the Kodo-ha (the imperial way faction): a group of radical younger officers who, influenced by the writer Kita Ikki’s book, wanted a military coup followed by a Showa restoration (a full restoration of the Emperor’s power); they believed in the Manchuria Invasion, but only as a way to form a buffer against the Soviet Union. The other group was the Tosei-ha (the control faction): comprised mainly of more senior officers, they believed in gradual changes of Japanese society, coupled with expansion abroad into China. The tension between these two groups burst out on 26 February, when the Kodo-ha rebelled, but were put down by the Emperor they had risked so much for. To crush the rebellion, the Tosei-ha was given extra power by the Emperor, which they kept even after the rebellion had been successfully crushed. This left the army in a very powerful position: they were now united (as the Kodo-ha collapsed after the failed coup, allowing the Tosei-ha to take over) and they had even more power than they had before the incident.
The rise in power by the military was helped by the government. No government made a decisive decision on the military: the budget was cut but then more power was granted to the police forces, which was an extension of the military. The government overall, however, was pro-military, for instance they granted the military the right to conscription. The military power over the government was helped, not only by the last genro as has already been mentioned, but also by the Meiji Constitution, which meant that no government could exist without a war minister chosen by the armed forces (and if they did not exist then that government had to abdicate), and this constitution was so powerful in Japanese minds that none would ever gainsay it. The military were also helped by the growth of a radical student body: out of the two, the government saw the military as the lesser of two evils. Due to this the government gave the military more power to police in particular, this also being aimed at subduing the unrest caused by the several waves of economic unrest. The military realized their power extended further than this however, after several incidents, notable among them being the assassination of a Chinese warlord by the Kwantung Army but no trials, despite Hirohito’s cal for them, and several failed ploys to overthrow the government, over which no one went to trial, despite their treasonous nature.
During the 1920’s and 1930’s, militarism in Japan grew to the fever pitch that created the no-retreat attitude that sparked the war in the Pacific against the USA. This increase was closely linked to several internal events that rocked Japan during that time such as the success and subsequent growth of the military, a strongly pro-militarist genro whom had no one to moderate his advice to the Emperor, and rising pro-military feeling among the general population, recovering from the post-war initial slump in such sentiment.
