The Kishū Army and the Setting of the Prussian Model in Feudal Japan,1860–1871

Abstract

In 1860–1 the Tokugawa bakufu established diplomatic relations with the kingdom of Prussia. The fascination for the Prussian military system rapidly spread in Japan, a land that was destabilized by political struggles between principalities and engaged in a military modernization. As a consequence of the Austro-Prussian War and the Second Chōshū War in 1866, the principality of Kishū was the first Japanese state to apply the Prussian system to its army. This was the root of the crucial Prussian influence on the Imperial Japanese Army from the late nineteenth century.