Meiji Military Reforms

Abstract This chapter examines the history of Meiji military reforms and their centrality to Japan’s sovereign survival. It accounts for the Meiji government’s willingness and capacity to undertake extensive military reforms, and elucidates the contours of Japan’s military transformation, its choices and consequences. The chapter proceeds in four sections. Rejecting the idea of the Meiji reforms as a radical rupture, the first section highlights the important foundations laid by Tokugawa military reforms during the final decades of shogunal rule, as well as their limits. The second section considers the reform efforts of the early Meiji government, exploring the challenges and opportunities entailed in building a standardized national army. The third section focuses more closely on Meiji Japan’s Westernizing reforms, evaluating the strategic choices and constraints involved in Japan’s emulation of international best practice. The chapter concludes by exploring the importance of these reforms for Japan’s military ascendancy in terms of its performance in the Sino-Japanese (1894–1895) and Russo-Japanese (1904–1905) Wars.