87 Facts About Iwane Matsui

Iwane Matsui was a general in the Imperial Japanese Army and the commander of the expeditionary force sent to China in 1937.

Iwane Matsui was convicted of war crimes and executed by the Allies for his involvement in the Nanjing Massacre.

Iwane Matsui volunteered for an overseas assignment there shortly after graduating from the Army War College in 1906.

Iwane Matsui played a key role in founding the influential Greater Asia Association.

Iwane Matsui retired from active duty in 1935 but was called back into service in August 1937 at the start of the Second Sino-Japanese War to lead the Japanese forces engaged in the Battle of Shanghai.

Iwane Matsui was the sixth son of Takekuni Matsui, an impoverished samurai and former retainer to the daimyo of Owari during the Tokugawa shogunate.

Iwane Matsui enrolled in the Central Military Preparatory School in 1893 and in 1896 was accepted into the Imperial Japanese Army Academy.

Iwane Matsui was an excellent student and graduated second in his class in November 1897.

Iwane Matsui's classmates included the future generals Jinzaburo Masaki, Nobuyuki Abe, Shigeru Honjo, and Sadao Araki.

In 1901, Iwane Matsui was admitted into the Army War College, an elite institution which accepted only about ten percent of annual applicants.

Iwane Matsui was still taking classes there in February 1904, when the College closed due to the outbreak of the Russo-Japanese War.

Iwane Matsui was immediately sent overseas where he served in Manchuria as a company commander in a combat unit of the 6th Regiment.

At war's end, Iwane Matsui resumed his studies at the Army War College, and graduated at the top of his class in November 1906.

Iwane Matsui's father was a scholar of Chinese classics and Matsui studied the Chinese language during his military education.

Arao believed that China and Japan, as the two strongest powers in Asia, had to forge a close trading and commercial partnership under Japanese hegemony to resist Western imperialism, an idea which Iwane Matsui incorporated into his own worldview.

Iwane Matsui's stated ambition was to become "a second Sei Arao".

Iwane Matsui worked in China between 1907 and 1911, and then again as resident officer in Shanghai between 1915 and 1919.

In 1921 Iwane Matsui was posted to Siberia as a staff officer, but returned in 1922 to China where he served until 1924 as an advisor to Zhang Zuolin in the Chinese city of Harbin and did intelligence work for Japan's Kwantung Army.

Iwane Matsui's work took him throughout China, and he came to know many prominent Chinese soldiers and politicians.

Iwane Matsui formed an especially warm friendship with Sun Yat-sen, the first president of the Republic of China.

In 1907 when a young Chiang Kai-shek wanted to study abroad, Iwane Matsui helped him find a place to stay in Japan.

Iwane Matsui quickly rose through the ranks and in 1923 was promoted to the rank of major general.

Iwane Matsui was the first "China expert" to be appointed to that position and would have a major influence determining Japan's foreign policies toward China.

Iwane Matsui hoped that Chiang would succeed and form a strong partnership with Japan to resist both Western influence in Asia and communism.

Iwane Matsui headed to Jinan to help settle the affair, but while he was still there Japanese army officers assassinated Zhang Zuolin, the warlord leader of Manchuria.

Iwane Matsui, who had been a supporter of Zhang, immediately left for Manchuria to find out what had happened.

Iwane Matsui demanded that the officers responsible for the assassination be punished.

In December 1928 Iwane Matsui left his post as Chief of the Intelligence Division in order to make an official, year-long trip to Europe.

Iwane Matsui was interested in France as well as China; he spoke fluent French and had already done work for the Japanese Army in both France and French Indochina.

At the time Iwane Matsui was back in Japan commanding the 11th Division, but at the end of the year he was sent to Geneva, Switzerland, to attend the World Disarmament Conference as an army plenipotentiary.

At first Iwane Matsui condemned the invasion as the work of renegade army officers, but he was equally stung by what he believed were unfair denunciations of Japan itself by Chinese delegates to the League of Nations.

Iwane Matsui suspected that the Western powers and the League of Nations were deliberately attempting to provoke conflict between Japan and China.

Iwane Matsui believed that the 30 million Manchurians had been relieved by the Japanese invasion and conquest, which he called 'the Empire's sympathy and good faith' and that the solution to the larger regional problem was for the nations of Asia to create their own "Asian League", which would "extend to the 400 million people of China the same help and deep sympathy that we have given Manchuria".

Iwane Matsui then returned to Japan in August 1934 to take a seat on Japan's Supreme War Council.

Meanwhile, Sino-Japanese relations continued to deteriorate and Iwane Matsui too was gradually souring toward the Nationalist government of Chiang Kai-shek, the same government he had strongly promoted back when serving as Chief of the Intelligence Division.

Iwane Matsui's career came to an abrupt end in August 1935 when Nagata, a member of the so-called "Control Faction", was assassinated by a member of the rival Imperial Way Faction.

Now that he was a reservist, Iwane Matsui had more time to pursue his pan-Asian project.

In February and March 1936, amid ongoing tension with China, Iwane Matsui made a second trip to China, this time on a government-sponsored goodwill tour.

Iwane Matsui met personally with Chiang, and though he found little common ground with him, they at least were united in their anti-communism.

Iwane Matsui came out of the meeting believing that joint anti-communism could be the basis for Sino-Japanese cooperation in the future.

The reason why Iwane Matsui was selected is not entirely clear, but his reputation as a "China expert" was likely a major factor.

Iwane Matsui had never believed that he had been given enough soldiers to handle the job and was continuously pressing the high command for more reinforcements.

Iwane Matsui forcefully asserted that the war with China would not end until Nanjing was in their control, and he envisaged that the fall of Nanjing would result in the total collapse of Chiang Kai-shek's government.

Iwane Matsui had gotten his way, but he still understood that his troops were tired from the fighting in Shanghai.

Iwane Matsui therefore decided to advance slowly with the aim of securing the city within two months.

Iwane Matsui revised his plans only upon discovering that his own armies were well ahead of their scheduled operational targets.

The CCAA suffered significant casualties fighting along the mountainous terrain just north of the city because Iwane Matsui had forbidden his men from using artillery there to prevent any damage from coming to its two famous historical sites, Sun Yat-sen Mausoleum and Ming Xiaoling Mausoleum.

Nevertheless, Iwane Matsui's instructions said nothing about treatment of Chinese POWs.

Regardless, Iwane Matsui held firm, and in many cases his men responded to the conundrum by ordering that all their prisoners be executed immediately after capture.

When Iwane Matsui returned to Nanjing on February 7,1938, for a two-day tour he assembled his subordinates, including Prince Asaka and Heisuke Yanagawa, and harangued them for failing to prevent "a number of abominable incidents within the past 50 days".

The capture of Nanjing had not led to the surrender of the Nationalist Government as Iwane Matsui had predicted and the war with China continued.

Undeterred, Iwane Matsui began planning out new military operations in places such as Xuzhou and Zhejiang province soon after he had returned to Shanghai.

Iwane Matsui was bound and determined to press forward with his ambition to found a new regime to rival Chiang Kai-shek's Nationalist Government, and though he did not finish the job before leaving office, the Reformed Government of the Republic of China would eventually come into being in March 1938.

Reports of the atrocities in Nanjing had reached the Japanese government and some within the Army General Staff blamed Iwane Matsui for mishandling the crisis and causing Japan international embarrassment.

Iwane Matsui sailed out of Shanghai on February 21,1938, and landed back in Japan on February 23.

Later that year Iwane Matsui bought a new home in Atami in Shizuoka Prefecture and from then until 1946 he spent his winters living in Atami and his summers living at his old house on Lake Yamanaka.

In spite of retiring from the military, Iwane Matsui hoped to get another job in China working with the Japanese-sponsored government there.

Iwane Matsui continued to serve in this capacity until January 1940 when he resigned to protest Prime Minister Mitsumasa Yonai's opposition to an alliance with Nazi Germany.

Iwane Matsui named it the Koa Kannon, which means the "Pan-Asian Kannon", and he consecrated it in honor of all the Japanese and Chinese soldiers who perished during the Second Sino-Japanese War.

At the time The New York Times praised Iwane Matsui's act, noting that "few Western generals have ever devoted their declining years to the memory of the men who died in their battles".

Henceforth, on every single day that Iwane Matsui spent in Atami for the rest of his life he prayed in front of the Koa Kannon once early in the morning and once in the evening.

Between June and August 1943 Iwane Matsui undertook a tour of Asia, including China, Indochina, Singapore, Thailand, Burma, Malaysia, Indonesia, and the Philippines in order to promote his ideas.

Iwane Matsui met with Wang Jingwei in China and with Subhas Chandra Bose, the head of the Indian National Army, in Singapore.

Iwane Matsui caused a diplomatic incident in Indochina, which was still nominally under French colonial rule, when he delivered a speech demanding that it be granted full independence.

Iwane Matsui's efforts played a key role in the creation and consolidation of the Greater East Asia Co-Prosperity Sphere, which was the culmination of Iwane Matsui's lifelong vision of an "Asian League" united against the West.

Nevertheless, on August 15,1945, at his home in Atami Iwane Matsui heard Emperor Hirohito announce that Japan had surrendered unconditionally to the Allies.

Iwane Matsui converted from Shintoism to Buddhism and asked that his wife do the same.

Iwane Matsui had told friends before going to Sugamo Prison that at the IMTFE he planned to defend not only himself but Japan's wartime conduct as a whole.

Iwane Matsui insisted that Japan had acted defensively against aggression by foreign powers and that Japan's war aims were to liberate Asia from Western imperialism.

Still, Iwane Matsui admitted to the IMTFE that he bore "moral responsibility" for the wrongdoing of his men.

Iwane Matsui denied that he bore "legal responsibility" because, he claimed, it was the military police of each division who were in charge of prosecuting individual criminal acts, not the army commander.

However, Iwane Matsui testified that he had urged that any offenders be sternly punished, a statement which, the prosecution quickly noted, implied that he did have some level of legal responsibility.

The Tribunal is satisfied that Iwane Matsui knew what was happening.

Iwane Matsui did nothing, or nothing effective to abate these horrors.

Iwane Matsui did issue orders before the capture of the city enjoining propriety of conduct upon his troops and later he issued further orders to the same purport.

Iwane Matsui was in command of the Army responsible for these happenings.

Iwane Matsui had the power, as he had the duty, to control his troops and to protect the unfortunate citizens of Nanking.

Iwane Matsui must be held criminally responsible for his failure to discharge this duty.

Iwane Matsui blamed the atrocities on the alleged moral decline of the Japanese Army since the Russo-Japanese War, and said,.

Iwane Matsui later brought these ashes to the shrine Matsui had founded, the Koa Kannon, and they remain there to this day.

In 1978, all seven war criminals executed by the IMTFE, including Iwane Matsui, were officially enshrined in Yasukuni Shrine in a secret ceremony conducted by head priest Nagayoshi Matsudaira.

In Japan the majority of the historical literature on Iwane Matsui's life focuses on his role in the Nanjing Massacre.

Iwane Matsui has both sympathizers, who depict him as "the tragic general" who was unjustly executed, and detractors, who assert that he had the blood of a massacre on his hands.

Tanabe concurs with Yoshida that Iwane Matsui should have put in place policies to protect Chinese POWs and should not have ordered a premature triumphal entrance into the city of Nanjing.

The journalist Richard Minear points out that Iwane Matsui's penalty was disproportionately severe compared to the other convicted defendants.

The popular nonfiction author Takashi Hayasaka asserts that he often heard Iwane Matsui referred to as "the Hitler of Japan" by Chinese citizens during his travels in the city of Nanjing because of Iwane Matsui's connection to the Nanjing Massacre.

However, Iwane Matsui's name was not always notorious in China for this reason.