ABSTRACT
With the creation of an army regiment inside the borders of Gifu, the relationship between local people and the military, at least in the lowland areas nearest the base, was obviously closer and more visible than at any time since the Tokugawa era. In the years after the Russo-Japanese war, moreover, the military worked to improve its public image and to spread the ideal of ‘good soldiers, good civilians’ (ryo-hei ryo-min). Even more than in the past, the army’s intention was to use its soldiers, both during and after their service, to maintain and strengthen conservative attitudes in civil society. This was part of the wider Boshin moral reform movement of postwar Japan, designed to hold back the tides of materialism and individualism by reminding Japanese of their pre-Meiji values and practices. As the changes to the conscription law mentioned earlier, plus the increased number of army divisions, meant an unprecedented number of men were being drafted into the army after 1906, this is the time now to peer inside the barracks and see how the Gifu regiment and, more especially, how the ordinary soldiers, appeared to their host society. First, however, it may be helpful to comment on the conscription system and some of its problems in the immediate aftermath of a war which officially, and certainly in the military, was being presented not just as a triumph of strategy and tactics but as a triumph of the national spirit. A sense of local attitudes towards conscription after 1905 may be gained
from reports of two celebrations. Both took place in the high country town of Takayama which, being so remote from the centres of rapid sociocultural change and rising materialism, one might expect to be a bastion of conservatism. In the first case, a party was given in mid-1907 in the municipal park by the town authorities and reservist association for all of the local young men who had just passed the draft examination; this was a relatively lavish affair and the entertainment included dancing by local geisha and a performance of traditional music. In contrast, a young man in mid-1908 failed the draft examination and hosted his own party to celebrate what, to him, was a great success. To this party, he invited his friends and family. According to the notice in the Gifu press, his parents were also delighted at the result and there was no indication of any family embarrassment or any criticism, either from the reporter or from other townspeople, that the
revellers might lack a sense of duty or patriotism.1 From this, one can only conclude that Japanese provincial society was able to accommodate a diversity of views about military service less than three years after the war against Russia. In view of the evidence from earlier years, it is probably fair to say that this accommodation was the norm throughout the Meiji era, well before the age of ‘Taisho-democracy’. While the young man of Takayama had at least presented himself for
examination in 1908, one of the problems for the imperial army throughout much of its history was draft evasion. In these postwar years, there was an inconclusive public debate on the contemporary situation. On the one hand, it was asserted that the malpractices of former times, when young men had been willing even to injure themselves to avoid conscription, had been transformed by the victory of 1905, and the trend now, if anything, was for more men to offer themselves as one year volunteers and, more generally, to welcome the draft (in this view, the only group singled out for criticism was the sons of the well-off who employed their wealth, for example by embarking on trips to the West, to escape military service). On the other hand, it was reported that the education ministry believed the long-standing trend among students to evade conscription was actually on the increase after the war. The military and educational authorities frequently worked together (although not always in harmony) on ways to combat draft evasion but, as the GNN warned in January 1907, ‘if this vice [of draft dodging] spreads yet further it will end with the military police having to carry out a mass round up’.2
