His reign was the longest of all Japanese emperors, and oversaw the greatest changes to Japanese society.
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He attended the boy's department of Gakushuin Peer's School from 1908 to 1914 and then a special institute for the Crown Prince (Tōgū-gogakumonsho) from 1914 to 1921. On November 29, 1921, he became Regent of Japan, in place of his ailing father. In 1922, Prince Regent Hirohito took a six month tour of the United Kingdom and five other European countries (France; Italy, Vatican City; the Netherlands; and Belgium) thus becoming the first Japanese crown prince to travel abroad.
He married his distant cousin Princess Nagako, the eldest daughter of Prince Kuni Kuniyoshi, on January 26, 1924. There were seven children from the marriage:
One notable case was the assassination of moderate Prime Minister Tsuyoshi Inukai in 1932, which marked the end of any real Civilian control of the military. This was followed by an attempted military coup in February 1936, mounted by junior Army officers; it was occasioned by a loss of ground by the militarist faction in Diet elections. The coup resulted in the murder of a number of high government and Army officials, and was put down with Hirohito angrily assuming a major role in confronting them.
Still, from the 1930s on, the military clique held almost all political power in Japan, and pursued policies that eventually led Japan to fight the second Sino-Japanese War and World War II.
On September 4, 1941, the Japanese Cabinet met to consider the war plans prepared by Imperial General Headquarters, and decided that:
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The "objectives" to be obtained were clearly defined: a free hand to continue with the conquest of China and South-east Asia, no increase in US or British military forces in the region, and cooperation by the West "in the acquisition of goods needed by our Empire".
On September 5, Prime Minister Konoe informally submitted a draft of the decision to the Emperor, just one day in advance of the Imperial Conference at which it would be formally implemented. According to the traditional view (again, contradicted by Bix's research), Hirohito was deeply concerned by the decision to place "war preparations first and diplomatic negotiations second" and announced his intention to break with centuries-old protocol and, at the Imperial Conference on the following day, directly question the chiefs of the Army and Navy general staffs - a quite unprecedented action. Konoe quickly persuaded Hirohito to summon them for a private conference instead, at which the Emperor made it plain that a peaceful settlement was to be pursued "up to the last". Chief of Naval General Staff Admiral Osami Nagano, a former Navy Minister and vastly experienced, later told a trusted colleague "I have never seen the Emperor reprimand us in such a manner, his face turning red and raising his voice."
Nevertheless, all speakers at the Imperial Conference were united in favour of war rather than diplomacy. Baron Yoshimichi Hara, President of the Imperial Council and the Emperor's representative, then questioned them closely, producing replies to the effect that war would only be considered as a last resort from some, and silence from others.
At this point, the sovereign astonished all present by addressing the conference personally, and in breaking the tradition of Imperial silence left his advisors "struck with awe". (Prime Minister Konoe's description of the event.) Emperor Hirohito stressed the need for peaceful resolution of international problems, expressed regret at his ministers' failure to respond to Baron Hara's probings, and recited a poem written by his grandfather, the Emperor Meiji which, he said, he had read "over and over again":
Recovering from their shock, the ministers hastened to express their profound wish to explore all possible peaceful avenues. The war preparations continued without the slightest change, however, and within weeks Cabinet would replace the insufficiently belligerent Konoe with the hard line General Hideki Tojo, chosen by Hirohito. On December 8 (December 7 in Hawaii) 1941, in simultaneous attacks, Japanese forces struck at the US Fleet in Pearl Harbor and began the invasion of South-East Asia. From here, there was no turning back.
Whatever his actual involvement leading up to hostilities, with the nation now fully committed to the war, Emperor Hirohito took a keen interest in military progress and did all he could to boost morale. To begin with, the news was all good. He also chose the PM, that went to war, and could have chosen one that did not, and he supported the move to war. As the tide of war gradually began to turn (around late 1942 and early 1943), some people argue that the flow of information to the palace gradually began to bear less and less relation to reality, while others suggest that the emperor worked closely with Prime Minister Tojo, continued to be well and accurately briefed by the military, and knew Japan's military position precisely right up to the point of surrender. In the first six months of war, all the major engagements had been victories. Throughout the following years, the sequence of drawn, and then decisively lost engagements were also reported to the public as great victories. Only gradually did it become apparent to the people in the home islands that the situation was very grim. U.S. air raids on the cities of Japan starting in 1944 made a mockery of the unending tales of victory. Later that year, with the downfall of Hideki Tojo's government, Hirohito appointed two other prime ministers to continue the war effort, Kuniaki Koiso and Kantaro Suzuki. Both were unsuccessful and Japan was nearing defeat.
The following day, Lord Keeper of the Privy Seal Koichi Kido prepared a draft document which summarised the hopeless military situation and proposed a negotiated settlement. According to some sources, the Emperor privately approved of it and authorised Kido to circulate it discreetly amongst the less hawkish cabinet members; others suggest that the Emperor was indecisive, and that the mixed signals from the palace delayed the peace process, costing many tens of thousands of Japanese and Allied lives. By mid-June the cabinet had agreed to approach the Soviet Union to act as a mediator, though not before the bargaining position had been improved by a repulse of the coming Allied invasion of mainland Japan.
On June 22, Hirohito broke tradition once again to speak to his ministers, saying "I desire that concrete plans to end the war, unhampered by existing policy, be speedily studied and that efforts be made to implement them." The attempt to negotiate a peace via the Soviet Union came to nothing: the Allies were determined not to settle for anything short of "Unconditional surrender", and as late as July 1945 neither the Emperor nor his government were prepared to consider that option: they insisted on at least one condition, a guarantee of the emperor's continuing position in Japanese society.
On August 15, 1945, following the atomic bombing of Hiroshima and Nagasaki and the entry of the Soviet Union into the war against Japan, Hirohito, after more hesitation, abandoned the condition of preserving his own position and finally made the radio broadcast announcing the unconditional surrender of Japan's military forces (known as Gyokuon-hōsō). This broadcast exhorted the Japanese to "accept the unacceptable" in surrender. Because Hirohito was in charge of the cause of Pacific War, there were attempts to put him on trial for war crimes by numerous leaders, among them President Harry S Truman, U.S. General Douglas MacArthur insisted that Hirohito remain Emperor to keep him as a symbol of continuity and cohesion of the Japanese people. Hirohito was spared trial and retained the throne, but Hirohito was forced to explicitly reject (in the Ningen-sengen 人間宣言, lit. "declaration of human being") the traditional claim that the Emperor of Japan was divine, and a descendant of the Sun Goddess. According to the Japanese constitution of 1889, Hirohito had a divine power over his country, which was derived from the mythology of the Japanese Imperial Family who were said to be the offspring of the creator of Japan or Amaterasu. The imperial title was thus transformed from 'imperial sovereign' to 'constitutional monarch' in 1946. It should, however, be noted that immediately after Hirohito's repudiation of divinity, he implicitly reaffirmed it by asking the occupation authorities for permission to worship an ancestress and then worshipping the Sun Goddess; this reaffirmation would have been comprehensible to all Japanese though not necessarily by the occupation authorities.
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Although Hirohito was forced to reject any claims to his own divine status, his status was deliberately left vague, partly because General MacArthur thought him likely to be a useful tool to get the Japanese to accept the occupation, and partly due to behind-the-scenes maneuverings by Yoshida Shigeru to thwart MacArthur's attempts at casting Hirohito as a European-style monarch. While Hirohito was usually seen as a Head of state, there is still a broad dispute about whether he became a mere citizen or something else. Many scholars claim that today's tennō (usually translated into Emperor of Japan in English) is not an Emperor. That view determines whether Japan is a democratic republic or a constitutional monarchy. See the "Emperor of Japan" article for discussion of the position of Emperor of Japan.
Regardless, for the rest of his life, Hirohito was an active figure in Japanese life, and performed many of the duties commonly associated with a figurehead Head of state. The emperor and his family maintained a strong public presence, often holding public walkabouts and making public appearances on special events and holidays. He also played an important role in rebuilding Japan's diplomatic image, traveling abroad to meet with many foreign leaders, including numerous American presidents and the United Kingdom's Elizabeth II.
In his lifetime, he was interested in Marine biology, and the Imperial Palace contained a laboratory from which Hirohito published several papers in the field.
| Preceded by: Taishō | Emperor of Japan 1926-1989 | Succeeded by:<br.>Akihito |