The establishment of a system for military deployment in the case of national disaster : Changing attitudes and organizational structure

Abstract

At the time of the Great Kanto Earthquake of 1923, a system for disaster relief mobilization in Japan was already in place; however, it is not clear exactly when military regiments, which were formed during the early Meiji Era for the purpose of defense against attack from abroad and the maintenance of internal security to stabilize the Restoration government, were put in charge of protecting life and property from the threat of national disasters. The research to date on the internal function of the military; that is, maintaining law and order, has focused mainly on its peacekeeping function with respect to quelling civil unrest, while not putting enough emphasis on protection and relief. Consequently, the present article, attempts to shed light on the transformation taking place in the military's social function in modern Japan and the meaning of its "disaster mobilization" programs, by clarifying the process in which troops were deployed in disaster relief, based on an investigation of the changing attitudes of the military towards disaster and evolving legal institutions like the Garrisoning Ordinance of 1888. Originally, measures to be taken by the military in response to disasters fell in the realm of "defense," while relief efforts were fundamentally considered outside that realm. Consequently, the revisions made to the Garrisoning Ordinance in March 1910 provided for a system under which the military was to be deployed in the case of national disaster. Accordingly, "disaster" came to be defined not only as man-made threats to the state and its subjects, such as rebellion and rioting, but also included natural calamities from which the state and it subjects must be protected. This process of systemizing disaster relief also marked a process of change in military consciousness clearly recognizing the existence of the "nation" as an important element of the Japanese state and society. That is to say, under conditions in which the nation had been mobilized in a successful war effort, the military could no longer ignore public opinion and was forced to change itself accordingly. The changing ways in which it responded to disasters should be considered as one example of the proactive and concrete measures taken by the military to engage with the Japanese masses.