was a Japanese military leader and theorist in Bakumatsu period Japan

Japan

Japan is an island nation in East Asia. Located in the Pacific Ocean, it lies to the east of the Sea of Japan, China, North Korea, South Korea and Russia, stretching from the Sea of Okhotsk in the north to the East China Sea and Taiwan in the south...

. He is regarded as the “Father of the Modern Japanese Army”.

Early life and education

Ōmura was born in what is now part of Yamaguchi city

Yamaguchi, Yamaguchi

is the capital city of Yamaguchi Prefecture, Japan.As of February 1, 2010, the city has an estimated population of 198,971 and a population density of 194.44 persons per km²...

, in the former Chōshū Domain, where his father was a rural physician. From a young age Ōmura had a strong interest in learning and medicine, travelling to Osaka

Osaka

is a city in the Kansai region of Japan's main island of Honshu, a designated city under the Local Autonomy Law, the capital city of Osaka Prefecture and also the biggest part of Keihanshin area, which is represented by three major cities of Japan, Kyoto, Osaka and Kobe...

 to study rangaku

Rangaku

Rangaku is a body of knowledge developed by Japan through its contacts with the Dutch enclave of Dejima, which allowed Japan to keep abreast of Western technology and medicine in the period when the country was closed to foreigners, 1641–1853, because of the Tokugawa shogunate’s policy of national...

under the direction of Ogata Kōan at his Tekijuku

Tekijuku

Tekijuku was a school established in Senba Osaka, in 1838 during the Tenpō era of the late Edo period. Its founder was Ogata Kōan, a doctor and scholar of Dutch studies...

academy of western studies when he was twenty-two. He continued his education in Nagasaki under the direction of German physician Philipp Franz von Siebold

Philipp Franz von Siebold

Philipp Franz Balthasar von Siebold was a German physician and traveller. He was the first European to teach Western medicine in Japan...

, the first European to teach Western medicine in Japan. His interest in Western military tactics

Military tactics

Military tactics, the science and art of organizing an army or an air force, are the techniques for using weapons or military units in combination for engaging and defeating an enemy in battle. Changes in philosophy and technology over time have been reflected in changes to military tactics. In...

 was sparked in the 1850s and it was this interest that led Ōmura to become a valuable asset after the Meiji Restoration

Meiji Restoration

The , also known as the Meiji Ishin, Revolution, Reform or Renewal, was a chain of events that restored imperial rule to Japan in 1868...

 in the creation of Japan’s modern army.

Early career

After studying in Nagasaki, Ōmura returned to his village at the age of twenty-six to practice medicine, but accepted an offer from daimyō

Daimyo

is a generic term referring to the powerful territorial lords in pre-modern Japan who ruled most of the country from their vast, hereditary land holdings...

Date Munenari

Date Munenari

Marquis was the eighth head of the Uwajima Domain during the Late Tokugawa shogunate and a politician of the early Meiji era.-Early life:Munenari was born in Edo, the 4th son of the hatamoto Yamaguchi Naokatsu...

 of nearby Uwajima Domain

Uwajima Domain

The was a feudal domain in Iyo Province of Japan during the Edo period. It was ruled from 1608 to 1613 by the Tomita clan. After a brief period as Tokugawa-controlled tenryō territory, the domain passed into the hands of the Date clan. The founder was Date Hidemune , first-born son of Date Masamune...

 in 1853 to serve as an expert in Western studies and a military school instructor in exchange for the samurai

Samurai

is the term for the military nobility of pre-industrial Japan. According to translator William Scott Wilson: "In Chinese, the character 侍 was originally a verb meaning to wait upon or accompany a person in the upper ranks of society, and this is also true of the original term in Japanese, saburau...

rank that he was not born into. As foreign incursions into Japanese territorial waters increased, and as pressure from foreign powers for Japan to end its national seclusion

Sakoku

was the foreign relations policy of Japan under which no foreigner could enter nor could any Japanese leave the country on penalty of death. The policy was enacted by the Tokugawa shogunate under Tokugawa Iemitsu through a number of edicts and policies from 1633–39 and remained in effect until...

 policy, Ōmura was sent back to Nagasaki to study the construction of warship

Warship

A warship is a ship that is built and primarily intended for combat. Warships are usually built in a completely different way from merchant ships. As well as being armed, warships are designed to withstand damage and are usually faster and more maneuvrable than merchant ships...

s and navigation

Navigation

Navigation is the process of monitoring and controlling the movement of a craft or vehicle from one place to another. It is also the term of art used for the specialized knowledge used by navigators to perform navigation tasks...

. He traveled to Edo

Edo

, also romanized as Yedo or Yeddo, is the former name of the Japanese capital Tokyo, and was the seat of power for the Tokugawa shogunate which ruled Japan from 1603 to 1868...

 in 1856 in the retinue of Date Munenari, and was appointed a teacher at the shoganate’s Bansho Shirabesho

Bansho Shirabesho

The ', or "Institute for the Study of Barbarian Books," was the Japanese institute charged with the translation and study of foreign books and publications in the late Edo Period. Founded in 1857, it functioned as a sort of bureau of the Tokugawa Shogunate. It was renamed ' in 1862, and ' in 1863...

, institute for western studies. During this time, he also continued his education by learning English

English language

English is a West Germanic language that arose in the Anglo-Saxon kingdoms of England and spread into what was to become south-east Scotland under the influence of the Anglian medieval kingdom of Northumbria...

 under the Yokohama

Yokohama

is the capital city of Kanagawa Prefecture and the second largest city in Japan by population after Tokyo and most populous municipality of Japan. It lies on Tokyo Bay, south of Tokyo, in the Kantō region of the main island of Honshu...

-based American missionary James Curtis Hepburn

James Curtis Hepburn

James Curtis Hepburn, M.D., LL.D. was a physician who became a Christian missionary. He is known for the Hepburn romanization system for transliteration of the Japanese language into the Latin alphabet, which he popularized in his Japanese–English dictionary.- Biography :Hepburn was born in...

.

In 1861 Chōshū domain hired Ōmura back to teach at the Chōshū military academy and to reform and modernize the domainal army; they too gave him the ranking of samurai. It was this same year that Ōmura began his involvement with Kido Takayoshi

Kido Takayoshi

, also referred as Kido Kōin was a Japanese statesman during the Late Tokugawa shogunate and the Meiji Restoration. He used the alias when he worked against the Shogun.-Early life:...

, a political moderate who served as liaison between the domain bureaucracy and radical elements among the young, lower-echelon Chōshū samurai who supported the Sonnō jōi

Sonno joi

is a Japanese political philosophy and a social movement derived from Neo-Confucianism; it became a political slogan in the 1850s and 1860s in the movement to overthrow the Tokugawa bakufu, during the Bakumatsu period.-Origin:...

movement and the violent overthrow of
Tokugawa rule.

As a Military Leader

After his return to Chōshū, Ōmura not only introduced modern western weaponry, but he also introduced the concept of military training for both samurai and commoners. The concept was highly controversial, but Ōmura was vindicated when his troops routed the all-samurai army of the Shogunate in the Second Chōshū Expedition of 1866. These same troops also formed the core of the armies of the Satchō Alliance

Satcho Alliance

The ', or Satchō Alliance was a military alliance between the feudal domains of Satsuma and Chōshū formed in 1866 to combine their efforts to overthrow the Tokugawa shogunate of Japan....

 at the Battle of Toba-Fushimi

Battle of Toba-Fushimi

The occurred between pro-Imperial and Tokugawa shogunate forces during the Boshin War in Japan. The battle started on 27 January 1868 , when the forces of the Tokugawa shogunate and the allied forces of Chōshū, Satsuma and Tosa domains clashed near Fushimi...

, Battle of Ueno

Battle of Ueno

The Battle of Ueno was a battle of the Boshin War, which occurred on July 4, 1868 , between the troops of the Shōgitai under Shibusawa Seiichirō and Amano Hachirō, and Imperial "Kangun" troops....

 and other battles of the Boshin War

Boshin War

The was a civil war in Japan, fought from 1868 to 1869 between forces of the ruling Tokugawa shogunate and those seeking to return political power to the imperial court....

 of the Meiji Restoration

Meiji Restoration

The , also known as the Meiji Ishin, Revolution, Reform or Renewal, was a chain of events that restored imperial rule to Japan in 1868...

 from 1867-1868.

The Making of the Meiji Military

After the Meiji Restoration, the government recognized the need for a stronger military force that placed their loyalty in the central government as opposed to individual domains. Under the new Meiji government, Ōmura was appointed to the post of hyobu daiyu, which was equivalent to the role of Vice Minister of War in the newly created Army-Navy Ministry. In this role, Ōmura was tasked with the creation of a national army along western lines. Ōmura sought to duplicate the policies he had previously successfully implemented in Chōshū on a larger scale, namely, the introduction of conscription

Conscription

Conscription is the compulsory enlistment of people in some sort of national service, most often military service. Conscription dates back to antiquity and continues in some countries to the present day under various names...

 and military training for commoners, rather than reliance on a hereditary feudal force. He also strongly supported the discussions towards the abolition of the han system

Abolition of the han system

The was an act, in 1871, of the new Meiji government of the Empire of Japan to replace the traditional feudal domain system and to introduce centralized government authority . This process marked the culmination of the Meiji Restoration in that all daimyo were required to return their authority...

, and with it, the numerous private armies maintained by the daimyō, which he considered a drain on resources and a potential threat to security.

During a council meeting in June 1869, Ōmura argued that if “the government was determined to become militarily independent and powerful, it was necessary to abolish the fiefs and the feudal armies, to do away with the privileges of the samurai class, and to introduce universal military conscription.” Ōmura's ideal military consisted of an army patterned after that of the Napoleonic French armies and a navy that was patterned after the British Royal Navy

Royal Navy

The Royal Navy is the naval warfare service branch of the British Armed Forces. Founded in the 16th century, it is the oldest service branch and is known as the Senior Service...

. For this reason, even though the French government had lent tactic support to the Tokugawa regime during the wars of the Meiji Restoration through supply of weapons and military advisors, Ōmura continued to push for the return of the French military mission to train his new troops.

Ōmura faced opposition from many of his peers, including most conservative samurai who saw his ideas on modernizing and reforming the Japanese military as too radical. What Ōmura was advocating was not only ending the livelihood of thousands of samurai, but also the end of their privileged position in society.

A man of strong character, Ōmura had come to entertain such disgust at the cramped military system of feudalism that a story is told of his refusing to talk to a close companion of arms who offended him by wearing his long samurai sword during a conference.

The Later Years

It was the opposition of some of these samurai that led to his demise in the late 1860s. While in the Kansai region looking at sites for future military schools in September 1869, Ōmura was attacked by eight disgruntled ex-samurai, ironically, mostly from Chōshū.

These ex-samurai were followers of the by-then abandoned Sonnō jōi

Sonno joi

is a Japanese political philosophy and a social movement derived from Neo-Confucianism; it became a political slogan in the 1850s and 1860s in the movement to overthrow the Tokugawa bakufu, during the Bakumatsu period.-Origin:...

movement and retained a zealously xenophobic antipathy to foreigners and Western ideas. On the night of October 9, 1869, he and several associates were attacked at an inn in Kyoto

Kyoto

is a city in the central part of the island of Honshū, Japan. It has a population close to 1.5 million. Formerly the imperial capital of Japan, it is now the capital of Kyoto Prefecture, as well as a major part of the Osaka-Kobe-Kyoto metropolitan area.-History:...

. Wounded in several places, he barely escaped with his life by hiding in a bath full of dirty water. The wound on his leg would not heal, and he traveled to Osaka

Osaka

is a city in the Kansai region of Japan's main island of Honshu, a designated city under the Local Autonomy Law, the capital city of Osaka Prefecture and also the biggest part of Keihanshin area, which is represented by three major cities of Japan, Kyoto, Osaka and Kobe...

 to be treated by the Dutch doctor A F Bauduin, who wanted to amputate his leg. However, before the operation could be performed, Ōmura died of his wounds on December 7.

Ōmura’s assassins were soon apprehended and sentenced to death, but were reprieved due to political pressure at the last moment by government officials who shared their views that Omura’s reforms were an affront to the samurai class. They were executed a year later.

Legacy

Soon after Ōmura's death, a bronze statue was built in his honor by Okuma Ujihiro. The statue was placed in the monumental entry to Yasukuni Shrine

Yasukuni Shrine

is a Shinto shrine located in Chiyoda, Tokyo, Japan. It is dedicated to the soldiers and others who died fighting on behalf of the Emperor of Japan. Currently, its Symbolic Registry of Divinities lists the names of over 2,466,000 enshrined men and women whose lives were dedicated to the service of...

, in Tokyo. The shrine was erected to Japanese who have died in battle and remains one of the most visited and respected shrines in Japan. The statue was the first Western style sculpture in Japan

Ōmura ideas for modernizing Japan’s military were largely implemented after his death by his followers such as Yamagata Aritomo

Yamagata Aritomo

Field Marshal Prince , also known as Yamagata Kyōsuke, was a field marshal in the Imperial Japanese Army and twice Prime Minister of Japan. He is considered one of the architects of the military and political foundations of early modern Japan. Yamagata Aritomo can be seen as the father of Japanese...

, Kido Takayoshi

Kido Takayoshi

, also referred as Kido Kōin was a Japanese statesman during the Late Tokugawa shogunate and the Meiji Restoration. He used the alias when he worked against the Shogun.-Early life:...

, and Yamada Akiyoshi. Yamada Akiyoshi was the strongest leader out of the four and was mainly responsibly for establishing Japan’s modern military using Ōmura's ideas. Yamada promoted Ōmura's ideas by establishing new military academies that taught Ōmura's ways. Yamagata Aritomo and Saigo Tsugumichi also had Ōmura's ideas in mind when passing legislation imposing universal military conscription in 1873.

Yamagata Aritomo, a devote follower of Ōmura, traveled to Europe to study military science and military techniques that could be adapted in Japan. Upon returning from Europe, he organized a 10,000 men force to form the core of the new Imperial Japanese Army

Imperial Japanese Army

-Foundation:During the Meiji Restoration, the military forces loyal to the Emperor were samurai drawn primarily from the loyalist feudal domains of Satsuma and Chōshū...

. As Ōmura had hoped for, the French military mission returned in 1872 to help equip and train the new army. Although Ōmura died before having the opportunity to enforce many of his radical ideas, the lasting impression that he left on his followers led to his policies and ideas to shape the making of the Meiji military years later.

External links

• National Diet Library Bio & Photo
• Global Security - Meiji Military
• http://www.jstor.org/view/03636917/di973569/97p0119n/0