国際軍縮会議と日本陸軍

This paper examines the disarmament policy of the Imperial Japanese Army from the Paris Peace Conference to the Washington Conference.<br>There are few studies about the disarmament policy of the Japanese Army in international disarmament conferences in the inter war period, dispite the fact that there are many studies about the disarmament policy of the Japanese Navy. And many studies about problems of Japanese Army disarmament have been discussed as pure domestic problems, especially about the Yamanasi Disarmament and the Ugaki Disarmament. Actually, international disarmament conferences in the inter war period achieved few successes in the army disarmament, but it doesn't mean that the Japanese Army had no interest in that sort of thing. If anything, the Japanese Army showed deep interest in the progress of international disarmament conferences.<br>Before the Paris Peace Conference, the Japanese Army showed little concern about a disarmament. But, the Covenant which was established in the Paris Peace Conference had the article 8, the disarmament article. Since then, Japan, a permanent member of the League Council, had to comit international disarmament problems. Then the Japanese Army faced a real disarmament crisis almost for the first time. The Japanese Army sharply reacted this crisis and rejected the international disarmament practically on the pretext of national security.<br>But, circumstances of Japan such as the fall of the Russian Empire, the financial difficulties and especially the antimilitarism movement were against the Japanese Army. In these circumstances, some higher officers changed their traditional antidisarmament policy, and they sought people's support of the other millitary policies in exchange for the disarmament. TANAKA Giichi, the Minister of War, leaded them. Other officers, especially UEHARA Yusaku, the Chief of the Staff, folded fast to their antidisarmament policy.<br>The Washinton Conference was the first stage of the political strife between these two factions. Before the opening of the Conference, in the biginning, Uehara group had holded the initiative, and established their own Disarmament Program, almost the antidisarmament program. Prime Minister HARA Takashi and his main Cabinet ministers were anxious about the Army's hard attitude, and appealed to Tanaka and YAMAGATA Aritomo, an elder general and statesman who was a cooperator with Hara, to take measures to solve this problem. Dispite the fact that Tanaka group was inferior to that of Uehara one in that time, Tanaka group moderated the Army's firm antidisarmament policy. Finally, Tanaka group succeeded in making Uehara group submit disarmament partly. Althought it was a lax program, disarmament was generally accepted by the whole Army. It was the first step toward genuine disarmament undertakings, the Yamanasi Disarmament and the Ugaki Disarmament.