2 
Japanese army. To arrive at that we must go back to its origin and see what it 
was in the feudal time. Now military organization is so bound up with 
political and social organization that it is difficult to speak of one without the 
other. Japan is a striking example of that solidarity. Its political organization 
underwent a complete revolution between 1868 and 1873, and the miitary fol¬ 
lowed suit. From a feudal state the Empire passed in five years to an 
absolute monarchy, that is to say, in that short period it effected an evolu¬ 
tion comparable to that of France in two centuries from Louis XI to Kichelieu. 
Let us then see what was the feudality which foundered in the revolution of 
1868 : it will be apparent that it was essentially military. We will examine the 
causes which led to its suppression and finally note how the central authority 
succeeded in making a national army out of feudal bands animated by the spirit 
of clanship. 
The Feudality. 
The Shoguns. —The Empire was divided between 300 to 400 Princes or 
Daimios, among whom the Taicoon had a special position not easily understood 
by Europeans. 
The Taicoon was originally a sort of lieut.-general of the Emperor or Mikado, 
his true name was Shogun. The name of Taicoon, which several Shoguns took, 
implies an idea of sovereignty and was therefore a usurpation. 
The Shogun, of whom several were men of high standing and of great energy, 
had little by little extended their power to such a point that the Mikado, who 
had not ceased to be the true sovereign, seemed to have renounced for ever all 
interference in government. A recluse in his court of Kioto known also as Miaco, 
he was considered by foreigners as a fetish invisible to mortal eye and deprived of 
all real power. The diplomacy of Europe and America fell into the same mistake, 
and the first treaties signed between 1854 and 1866 were effected with the Tai¬ 
coon as the sole temporal sovereign. However it was found on the day the 
Mikado wished to ostensibly resume the reins of government that his power was 
immense and uncontested. The Taicoon, summoned by the “ Son of Heaven 55 in 
February, 1868, to surrender the power which he had usurped, abdicated almost 
immediately after a feeble resistance. His young brother, who was his presump¬ 
tive heir, was received at the Tuileries in 1867 with Royal honours. Six years 
later he was a pupil-sub.-lieutenant at the military school of Yedo, and he came 
one day in the ranks with his comrades to visit the arsenal which a French mission 
had established in the palace of his ancestors, the Mito family, which had been 
confiscated and of which the garden and park covered about 150 acres in the 
middle of Yedo (Tokio). 
In fact the Mikado 1 had been always regarded by every Japanese as the supreme 
master of the empire. Chief of the Shinto religion, regarded by its votaries as a 
descendant of the gods, the Mikado has in reality been for 2,500 years the sole 
proprietor of the soil; and in the history of European kings no analogy 
could be found to explain the immense authority of his name. Also in the event 
of rebellions and civil wars in Japan it is never the Mikado’s authority which is 
at stake, but that of the party in power, whom the rebels accuse of deceiving the 
Emperor. 
During the feudal time it was as in Europe. Every prince maintained his 
men at arms with his own resources ; consequently their number was propor¬ 
tional to the wealth and importance of their master. They numbered altogether 
about 400,000. 
i The present Mikado, Mutsu Hito, was born in 1852, and succeeded to the throne 13th Feb¬ 
ruary, 1867. 
