‘The plotters had also targeted the visiting film star Charlie Chaplin for assassination,
while in Europe a week prior the French President Joseph Athanase Doumer was shot to death by a Russian émigré.’
ON 15 May 1932 (Showa 7), Prime Minister Inukai Tsuyoshi was assassinated by young Naval officers in what is now called the 5.15 Incident. [National Diet Library of Japan; https://www.ndl.go.jp/modern/e/cha4/description02.html]
This is one of the events that portended the Rise of the Militarists: “The Japanese system of party government finally met its demise with the May 15th Incident in 1932, when a group of junior naval officers and army cadets assassinated Prime Minister Inukai Tsuyoshi (1855-1932). Although the assassins were put on trial and sentenced to fifteen years’ imprisonment, they were seen popularly as having acted out of patriotism. Inukai’s successors, military men chosen by Saionji, the last surviving genro, recognized Manchukuo and generally approved the army’s actions in securing Manchuria as an industrial base, an area for Japanese emigration, and a staging ground for war with the Soviet Union. Various army factions contended for power amid increasing suppression of dissent and more assassinations.” [Ronald E. Dolan and Robert L. Worden, editors. Japan: A Country Study. Washington: GPO for the Library of Congress, 1994]
This assassination is even branded as “The Reichstag Fire of Prewar Japan” by Brian Victoria (Oxford Centre for Buddhist Studies): “In the spring of 1932 two important figures, politician Inoue Junnosuke and business leader Dan Takuma, were assassinated in what became popularly known as the Blood Oath Corps Incident (Ketsumeidan Jiken). The sense of unease these two assassinations caused in Japanese society was only compounded when, on May 15, 1932, Prime Minister Inukai Tsuyoshi was also assassinated in what became known as the May 15th Incident (Goichigo Jiken). While these two incidents are typically treated separately in the history of the period, it was civilian and military members of the same Zen-trained ultranationalist band who carried out all three assassinations… I came across a set of circumstances (clues?) that suggested the existence of a conspiracy, possibly involving even the emperor, leading to these assassinations. While only three Japanese leaders were killed, the result was the demise of political party-based cabinets, effectively bringing Taisho democracy to an end.” [https://networks.h-net.org/node/20904/discussions/6217869/mjhw-online-meeting-assassination-and-zen-terror-friday-july-10th]
That indeed is the question (as raised by Brian Victoria): “While exploring these incidents, I will ask how the historian should deal with the possibility of a conspiracy, especially in the face of a lack of definitive proof of its existence?”
David Bergamini has the answer: “Kido left out of his diary the important news that the Emperor, acting on the former ambassador’s advice, had given his final go-ahead to the coup d’etat scheme. But Kido showed by his actions that he understood perfectly that the coup would be staged that day. On leaving the palace he called on Secretary-Spy Harada.”
“At 7 p.m., a little more than an hour after the shooting, Inukai called a Cabinet meeting at his bedside and discussed with his ministers the measures which would have to be taken.
He learned that his assassins had driven on past the Metropolitan Police Headquarters, firing bullets wildly into the air. They had continued to the Bank of Japan where they had repeated the same performance. Finally they had pulled up at the secret police station in Kojimachi, paid off their cabbies, and given themselves up.”
“Standing by in attendance on Hirohito, Kido and Makino waited for Inukai to die and make the necessary ceremonial preparations for the investiture of a temporary prime minister who would take the reins of state until Saionji came up to Tokyo. When Inukai did not die, Hirohito dispatched his own personal physician to Inukai’s residence to have a look at the case.” [Japan’s Imperial Conspiracy. New York: William Morrow and Company, Inc., 1971]
The plotters had also targeted the visiting film star Charlie Chaplin for assassination, while in Europe a week prior the French President Joseph Athanase Doumer was shot to death by a Russian émigré.ON 15 May 1932 (Showa 7), Prime Minister Inukai Tsuyoshi was assassinated by young Naval officers in what is now called the 5.15 Incident. [National Diet Library of Japan; https://www.ndl.go.jp/modern/e/cha4/description02.html]
This is one of the events that portended the Rise of the Militarists: “The Japanese system of party government finally met its demise with the May 15th Incident in 1932, when a group of junior naval officers and army cadets assassinated Prime Minister Inukai Tsuyoshi (1855-1932). Although the assassins were put on trial and sentenced to fifteen years’ imprisonment, they were seen popularly as having acted out of patriotism. Inukai’s successors, military men chosen by Saionji, the last surviving genro, recognized Manchukuo and generally approved the army’s actions in securing Manchuria as an industrial base, an area for Japanese emigration, and a staging ground for war with the Soviet Union. Various army factions contended for power amid increasing suppression of dissent and more assassinations.” [Ronald E. Dolan and Robert L. Worden, editors. Japan:A Country Study. Washington: GPO for the Library of Congress, 1994]
This assassination is even branded as “The Reichstag Fire of Prewar Japan” by Brian Victoria (Oxford Centre for Buddhist Studies): “In the spring of 1932 two important figures, politician Inoue Junnosuke and business leader Dan Takuma, were assassinated in what became popularly known as the Blood Oath Corps Incident (Ketsumeidan Jiken). The sense of unease these two assassinations caused in Japanese society was only compounded when, on May 15, 1932, Prime Minister Inukai Tsuyoshi was also assassinated in what became known as the May 15th Incident (Goichigo Jiken). While these two incidents are typically treated separately in the history of the period, it was civilian and military members of the same Zen-trained ultranationalist band who carried out all three assassinations… I came across a set of circumstances (clues?) that suggested the existence of a conspiracy, possibly involving even the emperor, leading to these assassinations. While only three Japanese leaders were killed, the result was the demise of political party-based cabinets, effectively bringing Taisho democracy to an end.” [https://networks.h-net.org/node/20904/discussions/6217869/mjhw-online-meeting-assassination-and-zen-terror-friday-july-10th]
That indeed is the question (as raised by Brian Victoria): “While exploring these incidents, I will ask how the historian should deal with the possibility of a conspiracy, especially in the
face of a lack of definitive proof of its existence?”
David Bergamini has the answer: “Kido left out of his diary the important news that the Emperor, acting on the former ambassador’s advice, had given his final go-ahead to the coup d’etat scheme. But Kido showed by his actions that he understood perfectly that the coup would be staged that day. On leaving the palace he called on Secretary-Spy Harada.”
“At 7 p.m., a little more than an hour after the shooting, Inukai called a Cabinet meeting at his bedside and discussed with his ministers the measures which would have to be taken.
He learned that his assassins had driven on past the Metropolitan Police Headquarters, firing bullets wildly into the air. They had continued to the Bank of Japan where they had repeated the same performance. Finally they had pulled up at the secret police station in Kojimachi, paid off their cabbies, and given themselves up.”
“Standing by in attendance on Hirohito, Kido and Makino waited for Inukai to die and make the necessary ceremonial preparations for the investiture of a temporary prime minister who would take the reins of state until Saionji came up to Tokyo. When Inukai did not die, Hirohito dispatched his own personal physician to Inukai’s residence to have a look at the case.” [Japan’s Imperial Conspiracy. New York: William Morrow and Company, Inc., 1971]
The plotters had also targeted the visiting film star Charlie Chaplin for assassination, while in Europe a week prior the French President Joseph Athanase Doumer was shot to death by a Russian émigré.
