page_title: Yamagata Aritomo
section_title: Political career
hierarchical_section_title: Yamagata Aritomo / Political career
caption_attribution_description: Portrait of Katsura Taro (桂太郎, 1848 – 1913)
context_page_description: Gensui Prince Yamagata Aritomo, also known as Prince Yamagata Kyōsuke, was a senior-ranking Japanese military commander, twice-elected Prime Minister of Japan, and a leading member of the genrō, an élite group of senior statesmen who dominated Japan after the Meiji Restoration. As the Imperial Japanese Army's inaugural Chief of Staff, he was the chief architect of the Empire of Japan's military and its reactionary ideology. For this reason, some historians consider Yamagata to be the “father” of Japanese militarism.
  During the latter part of the Meiji Era, Yamagata Aritomo vied against Marquess Itō Hirobumi for control over the nation's policies. After Itō was assassinated in 1909, he became the most powerful figure in Japan save for Emperor Meiji himself. When Meiji died in 1912, Yamagata used his successor's infirmity to justify becoming the country's de facto ruler. In this capacity, he committed his energies to defending the privileges of the Restoration regime, especially those held by the army. Henceforth, Yamagata dominated national policy until a fall out with the Imperial family led to him losing power shortly before his death in February 1922.
context_section_description: Yamagata was one of seven elite political figures, later called the genrō, who came to dominate the government of Japan. The word can be translated principal elders or senior statesmen. The genrō were a subset of the revolutionary leaders who shared common objectives and who by about 1880 had forced out or isolated the other original leaders. These seven men (plus two who were chosen later after some of the first seven had died) led Japan for many years, through its great transformation from an agricultural country into a modern military and industrial state. All the genrō served at various times as cabinet ministers, and most were at times prime minister. As a body, the genrō had no official status, they were simply trusted advisers to the Emperor. Yet the genrō collectively made the most important decisions, such as peace and war and foreign policy, and when a cabinet resigned they chose the new prime minister. In the twentieth century their power diminished because of deaths and quarrels among themselves, and the growing political power of the Army and Navy. But the genrō clung to the power of naming prime ministers up to the death of the last genrō, Prince Saionji in 1940.
  Yamagata also held a large and devoted power base among officers in the army and militarists in Japanese society. He profoundly distrusted all democratic institutions, and constantly strove to undercut their influence as a member of the genrō.
  During his long and versatile career, Yamagata held numerous important governmental posts. In 1882, he became president of the Board of Legislation (Sanjiin) and as Home Minister (1883–87) he worked vigorously to suppress political parties and repress agitation in the labor and agrarian movements. He also organized a system of local administration, based on a prefecture-county-city structure which is still in use in Japan today. In 1883 Yamagata was appointed to the post of Lord Chancellor, the highest bureaucratic position in the government system before the Meiji Constitution of 1889.
  After the creation of the Cabinet of Japan, Yamagata became the third Prime Minister of Japan. During his first term from December 24, 1889 to May 6, 1891, he became the first prime minister compelled to share power with a partially-elected Imperial Diet under the Meiji Constitution which took effect in 1890. On October 30, 1890, he presided over the enactment of the Imperial Rescript on Education. In order to pass a budget for the fiscal year 1891 (beginning in April), he had to negotiate with a liberal majority in the House of Representatives, the elected lower house of the Diet. Yamagata became Prime Minister for a second term from November 8, 1898 to October 19, 1900. In 1900, while in his second term as Prime Minister, he ruled that only an active military officer could serve as War Minister or Navy Minister, a rule that gave the military control over the formation of any future cabinet. He also enacted laws preventing political party members from holding any key posts in the bureaucracy.
  In addition to his service as Prime Minister, Yamagata obtained considerable experience traveling abroad as a diplomat. Attending the coronation of the Russian Czar Nicholas II on November 1, 1894, he made a tentative offer to Spain on buying the Philippines for £40 million. Likewise, in 1896, he led a diplomatic mission to Moscow, which produced the Yamagata–Lobanov Agreement confirming Japanese and Russian rights in Korea
  Yamagata also served as President of the Privy Council from 1893–94 and 1905–22. While serving his second term as president in 1907, he was elevated to the peerage and received the title of koshaku (prince) under the Japanese kazoku system.
  From 1900 to 1909, Yamagata opposed Itō Hirobumi, leader of the civilian party, and exercised influence through his protégé, Katsura Tarō. After the assassination of Itō Hirobumi in 1909, Yamagata became the most influential statesman in Japan and remained so until his death in 1922, although he retired from active participation in politics after the Russo-Japanese War. As presiden
caption: Prince Katsura Tarō, thrice Prime Minister of Japan. He was Yamagata's mentee and close ally.
exif: {"Image ImageWidth": "690", "Image ImageLength": "890", "Image BitsPerSample": "[8, 8, 8]", "Image PhotometricInterpretation": "2", "Image Orientation": "Horizontal (normal)", "Image SamplesPerPixel": "3", "Image XResolution": "72", "Image YResolution": "72", "Image ResolutionUnit": "Pixels/Inch", "Image Software": "Adobe Photoshop CC 2015 (Windows)", "Image DateTime": "2020:09:13 08:19:59", "Image ExifOffset": "236", "Thumbnail Compression": "JPEG (old-style)", "Thumbnail XResolution": "72", "Thumbnail YResolution": "72", "Thumbnail ResolutionUnit": "Pixels/Inch", "Thumbnail JPEGInterchangeFormat": "386", "Thumbnail JPEGInterchangeFormatLength": "6234", "EXIF ExifVersion": "0221", "EXIF ColorSpace": "Uncalibrated", "EXIF ExifImageWidth": "690", "EXIF ExifImageLength": "890"}