明治初期における陸軍「士官」養成制度の形成と展開 : 陸軍教導団を中心に

抄録

This article attempts to identify how the national army of Japan was formed in the early Meiji era by focusing on the history of military training institutions, mainly the Rikugun Kyododan陸軍教導団, an academy established to train noncommissioned officers, which was closed in 1899 with the successful implementation of compulsory conscription. At the beginning of the Meiji era, the new government found itself faced with the danger of private armies formed among the samurai classes in the han藩feudal territories and thus decided to organize a national standing army under its direct control. The government also decided to open a military academy, Rikugun Kyododan (formerly known as Kato Seihei河東精兵) in order to gather and train in the French style cadets selected from the existing private armies. At the same time, another academy called the Seinen Gakusha青年学舎(the predecessor to the National Military Academy) was opened in order to train commissioned officers with the purpose of standardizing the existing private armies and incorporating them into the national standing army. However, with the abolition of the han, the latter institution was closed and the training of both CO's and NCO's was conducted at the Rikugun Kyododan. When the government embarked on a system of compulsory conscription, which was aimed at increasing the number of NCO cadets, training was again divided into two academies, Rikugun Kyododan for non-coms conscripted from the general public and the new Rikugun Shikan Gakko陸軍士官学校for CO's. However, contrary to the government's intentions, applicants to the former continued to come from the han armies and other volunteers rather than conscription. Therefore, the closing of the Rikugun Kyododan in 1899 ironically marked the time when a sufficient amount of NCO candidates could be supplied via conscription, thus completing the final transition to a bona-fide modern bureaucratic army for Japan.