The Background of the First Revision of "the National defense Plan"

Abstract

The first revision of the "National Defense Plan" in 1918 has not been analyzed sufficiently mainly due to lack of historical materials. This paper intends to make a comparative study of the Army's and the Navy's original plans by using new materials from the HAMAOMOTE Matasuke Papers and TAKESHITA Isamu Papers. First of all, we must understand why the Army and the Navy were able to agree to revise the National Defense Plan that affected their individual basic war plans, despite their sharp opposition on matters regarding the arms budget. Therefore, the first part of this paper examines the process of the dissolution of the arms budget problem in the second OKUMA Shigenobu cabinet that was shocked by the outbreak of the First World War. The First World War made the military even more aware of the importance of Chinese raw materials. At that time, Japan's support for the third Chinese revolution to destroy Yuan Shih-kai's monarchy added momentum to Japanese hopes for a stronger foothold in China. The Army was now joined by the Navy in urging a stronger military policy with respect to China. Therefore, it was the Chinese problem that initiated the first revision of the "National Defense Plan". When the plan was originally made in 1907, the Navy had refused to include provisions for war operations in China, because it feared that the Navy would then be made secondary to the Army. But due to the internal and external changes produced by the First World War, the Navy now accepted the stipulations to for operations in China. Although originally the Army and Navy had different opinions as what nation presented the strongest military threat, Russia or America, now their respective plans offered the possibility of joining together with the China-plan as a bridge. The appearance of this common target together with the internal political structural demands for the banding together of the Army and the Navy, made the first revision of the National Defense Plan possible.