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Seishirō Itagaki
was a Japanese military officer and politician who served as a general in the Imperial Japanese Army during World War II and War Minister from 1938 to 1939. Itagaki was a main conspirator behind the Mukden Incident and held prestigious chief of staff posts in the Kwantung Army and China Expeditionary Army during the early Second Sino–Japanese War. Itagaki became War Minister but fell from grace after Japanese defeat in the Soviet–Japanese border conflicts, serving as general for several field armies until surrendering Japanese forces in Southeast Asia in 1945. Itagaki was convicted of war crimes by the International Military Tribunal for the Far East and executed in 1948. Early life Seishirō Itagaki was born on 21 January 1885 in Morioka, Iwate Prefecture, into a former ''samurai'' family that had served the Nanbu clan of the Morioka Domain. Itagaki's father, Masanori Itagaki, served as mayor for Kesen District and as a headmaster for a girls school. Itagaki was raised in ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Ministry Of War Of Japan
The , also known as the Ministry of War, was the cabinet-level ministry in the Empire of Japan charged with the administrative affairs of the Imperial Japanese Army (IJA). It existed from 1872 to 1945. History The Army Ministry was created in April 1872, along with the Navy Ministry, to replace the of the early Meiji government. Initially, the Army Ministry was in charge of both administration and operational command of the Imperial Japanese Army. However, with the creation of the Imperial Japanese Army General Staff Office in December 1878, it was left with only administrative functions. Its primary role was to secure the army budget, weapons procurement, personnel, relations with the National Diet and the Cabinet and broad matters of military policy. The post of Army Minister was politically powerful. Although a member of the Cabinet after the establishment of the cabinet system of government in 1885, the Army Minister was answerable directly to the Emperor (the commander- ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
5th Division (Imperial Japanese Army)
The was an infantry division of the Imperial Japanese Army. Its call sign was the . The 5th Division was formed in Hiroshima in January 1871 as the , one of six regional commands created in the fledgling Imperial Japanese Army. Its personnel were drafted from Hiroshima, Yamaguchi and Shimane. Origin The Hiroshima Garrison had responsibility for the western region of Honshū ( Chugoku district), ranging from Hyōgo Prefecture to Yamaguchi Prefecture. The six regional commands were transformed into divisions under the army reorganization of 14 May 1888. Operational history The 5th Division entered the First Sino-Japanese War with the battle of Seonghwan on 28 July 1894. It also participated in the battle of Pyongyang on 15 September 1894, securing Japanese control over Korea. On 24 October 1894, the 5th Division made an unopposed crossing of the Yalu River into Chinese territory, encountering only token rearguard resistance and thus ending the Battle of Jiuliancheng on 24 ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Battle Of Xuzhou
The Battle of Xuzhou was a military conflict between the Empire of Japan and the Republic of China (1912–49), Republic of China forces in May 1938 during the Second Sino-Japanese War. History In 1937 the North China Area Army had chased Song Zheyuan's 29th Army to the south along the Jinpu Railway (see Tianjin–Pukou Railway Operation) after his defeat in the Battle of Lugou Bridge. After Japan won the Battle of Nanjing, the North China Area Army advanced southward to establish a Japanese connection between Beijing and Nanjing, ignoring the non-expansionist policy of the Imperial General Headquarters in Tokyo. Most mechanized and air forces in eastern China were wiped out in the Battle of Shanghai, which concluded in late November 1937. Although new equipment was purchased, it had yet to be shipped. Han Fuqu, the chairman of the Shandong province, rejected orders from Chiang Kai-shek and kept retreating to preserve his force. After Qingdao was occupied in January 1938, Han's ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Battle Of Xinkou
The Battle of Xinkou () was a decisive engagement of the Taiyuan Campaign, the second of the 22 major engagements between the National Revolutionary Army and Imperial Japanese Army during the Second Sino-Japanese War. Prelude After battles at Nankou, the Chahar Expeditionary Force of the Japanese Kwangtung Army occupied Datong in Shanxi province, and began their assault on the Yenbei area. The Japanese Fifth Division started their attack from Hebei marching westwards and taking the towns of Guanglin, Linchou, Hungyuan in northwest Shanxi. By late September, the Japanese commander Itagaki Seishiro ordered the fifth division and the Chahar Expeditionary Force to begin attacking the Chinese defense line along the inner Great Wall in Shanxi. The Commander of the 2nd War Zone, Yan Xishan, ordered Chinese troops to retreat and set up a defense line in Niangziguan and Pingxingguan. Even after the Eighth Route Army led by Lin Biao successfully ambushed the Japanese at the Battle of ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Battle Of Pingxingguan
The Battle of Pingxingguan (), commonly called the Great Victory of Pingxingguan in Mainland China, was an engagement fought on 25 September 1937, at the beginning of the Second Sino-Japanese War, between the Eighth Route Army of the Chinese Communist Party and the Imperial Japanese Army. The battle resulted in the loss of 400 to 600 soldiers on both sides, but the Chinese captured 100 trucks full of supplies. The victory gave the Chinese Communists a tremendous boost since it was the only division-size battle that they fought during the entire war. Background After the capture of Beiping (present Beijing) at the end of July 1937, Japanese forces advanced along the Beijing–Baotou railway to Inner Mongolia. Having anticipated the move, Chiang Kai-shek had appointed the Shanxi warlord Yan Xishan as Pacification Director of Taiyuan. Theoretically Yan had authority over all the Chinese military forces in his theatre of operations, including Lin Biao's 115th Division of the Comm ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Battle Of Taiyuan
The Japanese offensive called 太原作戦 or the Battle of Taiyuan was a major battle fought in 1937 between China and Japan named for Taiyuan (the capital of Shanxi province), which lay in the 2nd Military Region. The battle concluded in a victory for Japan over the National Revolutionary Army (NRA), including part of Suiyuan, most of Shanxi and the NRA arsenal at Taiyuan, and effectively ended large-scale organized resistance in the North China area. Japanese forces included the Japanese Northern China Area Army under Hisaichi Terauchi, elements of the Kwantung Army, and elements of the Inner Mongolian Army led by Demchugdongrub. Chinese forces were commanded by Yan Xishan (warlord of Shanxi), Wei Lihuang (14th Army Group), and Fu Zuoyi (7th Army Group), as well as Zhu De who led the Eighth Route Army of the Chinese Communist Party (under the Second United Front alliance). Occupation of the territories gave the Japanese access to coal from Datong in northern Shanxi, but also ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Operation Chahar
Operation Chahar ( ja, チャハル作戦, Chaharu Sakusen), known in Chinese as the Nankou Campaign (), occurred in August 1937, following the Battle of Beiping-Tianjin at the beginning of Second Sino-Japanese War. This was the second attack by the Kwantung Army and the Inner Mongolian Army of Prince Teh Wang on Inner Mongolia after the failure of the Suiyuan Campaign (1936). The Chahar Expeditionary Force was under the direct command of General Hideki Tōjō, the chief of staff of the Kwantung Army. A second force from the Peiping Railway Garrison Force, later the 1st Army under General Kiyoshi Katsuki, was also involved. Japanese Order of battle The Chinese forces opposing this invasion of Suiyuan were the Suiyuan Pacification Headquarters under the command of General Yan Xishan. Fu Zuoyi, the governor of Suiyuan, was made commander of the 7th Group Army, and Liu Ju-ming, governor of Chahar, was made its deputy commander, defending Chahar with the 143rd Division and ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Battle Of Beiping–Tianjin
The Battle of Beiping–Tianjin (), also known as the Battle of Beiping, Battle of Peiping, Battle of Beijing, Battle of Peiking, the Peiking-Tientsin Operation, and by the Japanese as the (25–31 July 1937) was a series of battles of the Second Sino-Japanese War fought in the proximity of Beiping (now Beijing) and Tianjin. It resulted in a Japanese victory. Background During the Marco Polo Bridge Incident on 8 July 1937, the Japanese China Garrison Army attacked the walled city of Wanping (宛平鎮) after an ultimatum to allow its forces to search for an allegedly missing soldier had elapsed. Wanping, in the neighborhood of Lugou Bridge, was on the main railway line west of Beiping and was of considerable strategic importance. Prior to July 1937, Japanese forces had repeatedly demanded the withdrawal of the Chinese forces stationed at this place. Chinese General Song Zheyuan ordered his forces to hold their positions and attempted to avert war through diplomacy. On 9 Ju ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Second Sino-Japanese War
The Second Sino-Japanese War (1937–1945) or War of Resistance (Chinese term) was a military conflict that was primarily waged between the Republic of China and the Empire of Japan. The war made up the Chinese theater of the wider Pacific Theater of the Second World War. The beginning of the war is conventionally dated to the Marco Polo Bridge Incident on 7 July 1937, when a dispute between Japanese and Chinese troops in Peking escalated into a full-scale invasion. Some Chinese historians believe that the Japanese invasion of Manchuria on 18 September 1931 marks the start of the war. This full-scale war between the Chinese and the Empire of Japan is often regarded as the beginning of World War II in Asia. China fought Japan with aid from Nazi Germany, the Soviet Union, United Kingdom and the United States. After the Japanese attacks on Malaya and Pearl Harbor in 1941, the war merged with other conflicts which are generally categorized under those conflicts of World War II a ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Pacification Of Manchukuo
The Pacification of Manchukuo was a Japanese counterinsurgency campaign to suppress any armed resistance to the newly established puppet state of Manchukuo from various anti-Japanese volunteer armies in occupied Manchuria and later the Communist Northeast Anti-Japanese United Army. The operations were carried out by the Imperial Japanese Kwantung Army and the collaborationist forces of the Manchukuo government from March 1932 until 1942, and resulted in a Japanese victory. Japan seizes control The earliest formation of large anti-Japanese partisan groups occurred in Liaoning and Kirin provinces due to the poor performance of the Fengtien Army in the first month of the Japanese invasion of Manchuria and to Japan's rapid success in removing and replacing the provincial authority in Fengtien and Kirin. The provincial government of Liaoning Province had fled west to Chinchow. Governor Zang Shiyi remained in Mukden, but refused to cooperate with the Japanese in establishing ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Mukden Incident
The Mukden Incident, or Manchurian Incident, known in Chinese as the 9.18 Incident (九・一八), was a false flag event staged by Japanese military personnel as a pretext for the 1931 Japanese invasion of Manchuria. On September 18, 1931, Lieutenant Suemori Kawamoto of the Independent Garrison Unit of the 29th Japanese Infantry Regiment () detonated a small quantity of dynamite close to a railway line owned by Japan's South Manchuria Railway near Mukden (now Shenyang). The explosion was so weak that it failed to destroy the track, and a train passed over it minutes later. The Imperial Japanese Army accused Chinese dissidents of the act and responded with a full invasion that led to the occupation of Manchuria, in which Japan established its puppet state of Manchukuo six months later. The deception was exposed by the Lytton Report of 1932, leading Japan to diplomatic isolation and its March 1933 withdrawal from the League of Nations. The bombing act is known as the Liutiao ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Japanese Invasion Of Manchuria
The Empire of Japan's Kwantung Army invaded Manchuria on 18 September 1931, immediately following the Mukden Incident. At the war's end in February 1932, the Japanese established the puppet state of Manchukuo. Their occupation lasted until the success of the Soviet Union and Mongolia with the Manchurian Strategic Offensive Operation in mid-August 1945, towards the end of the Second World War. The South Manchuria Railway Zone and the Korean Peninsula had been under the control of the Japanese Empire since the Russo-Japanese War of 1904–1905. Japan's ongoing industrialization and militarization ensured their growing dependence on oil and metal imports from the US. The US sanctions which prevented trade with the United States (which had occupied the Philippines around the same time) resulted in Japan furthering its expansion in the territory of China and Southeast Asia. The invasion of Manchuria, or the Marco Polo Bridge Incident of 7 July 1937, are sometimes cited as an alternat ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
