Today in class we continued with presentations. We did ours for the entire class.
Between the 20s and 30s they changed from peace loving to wanting to go to war against China. They made their military slightly smaller with a couple pacts.
That’s all that we did today as ours took the entire period.
1. How did the Treaty of Versailles impact them? Japan gained Germany’s islands north of the equator. It gave part of China’s territory that was German controlled to Japan rather than back to China. It gave them a seat on the League of Nations. It also got a key part in China with the transfer of the Shandong province that had good resources. They entered a very prosperous post war era.
2. What type(s) of government did this country have in the interwar years (1919-1938)? They had a two-party political system in Japan after World War I, getting the nickname "Taishō Democracy." In 1918, Hara Takashi had become the first commoner to serve as prime minister. In 1922 the Comintern worked to establish the Japanese Communist Party because they were key in achieving their revolution in Asia. In 1923 they announced their goals of ending feudalism, abolishing the monarchy, siding with the Soviet Union and withdrawing troops from foreign nations. The Peace Preservation Law passed in 1928 to ban political parties that had been infiltrated by communists, this pushed communism underground. In 1926 Hirohito becomes emperor. After pushing for a more democratic rule however it wasn’t strong enough and they continued having emperors rule. They had mostly a constitutional monarchy in which the Emperor is the figurehead of the country but the main power is in the Prime Minister. They are governed by a constitution and the House of Representatives and Counselors keep him in check like our president.
3. How did their leader, that led them throughout WWII, come to power?
He was the first son to the Crown Prince Yoshihito and Crown Princess Sadako. When his grandfather, the emperor, died he was proclaimed Crown Prince and heir on November 2, 1916. He went to Gakushuin Peer’s School for 1908 to 1914 then to a special crown prince school from 1914 to 1921. He took a trip around Europe and when he returned he became regent of Japan because his father was stricken with mental illness. He married his distant cousin Nagako. He assumed the throne of upon the death of father. This ended the Taishō period and started the Shōwa era.
Hideko Tojo was the Prime minister to Hirohito. He was appointed Army Minister in 1941. He was a strong supporter of siding with Italy and Germany and he expanded the war with China. Hirohito wished to have strong connections in the army and didn’t want anyone from the Imperial family to have responsibility for the war so he chose Tojo to be the next prime minister.
4. How did this leader change their country (for the better and worse) prior to WWII?- His army won battles and wars in Manchuria from 1931 on.
5. What were the goals of the leader?-
They wanted to maintain a supply of natural resources from invaded China and to set up governments that would bow to them but not disrupt Japanese interests. They wanted to attack the United States at Pearl Harbor to hopefully force the United States into a peace treaty that would give them free reign of China. Because of the collapse of the silk trade they wished to give land in China to peasants. They wished to secure Manchuria as a buffer against the Soviet Union.
6. What was the military strategy of this country in the inter-war years(1919-1938)?- Believed it necessary to destroy or neutralize American striking power in the Pacific where the U.S. Pacific Fleet at Pearl Harbor and the U.S. Far East Air Force in the Philippines, before moving southward and eastward to occupy Malaya, the Netherlands Indies, the Philippines, Wake Island, Guam, the Gilbert Islands, Thailand, and Burma. Once in control of these areas, the Japanese intended to establish a defensive perimeter stretching from the Kurile Islands south through Wake, the Marianas, the Carolines, and the Marshalls and Gilberts to Rabaul on New Britain.
7. What role did they play in WWII?
Japan sided with the Axis Powers during WWII. They became with the invasion and seizing of the Manchuria region of Asia in 1931. They withdrew from the League of Nations in 1933. In 1937 the expanded their war with China. The second Sino-Japanese War was started by this and they were able to take the entire coast of China and the capital city, however China never gave in. They took French Indochina, Vietnam area, and officially sided with the Axis Powers in 1940. In December 1941 Japan attacked the United States at Pearl Harbor although they weren’t in the war and they took many other islands in the Pacific. After the battle of Midway in 1942 they slowly lost those territories they had gained. On August 6 1945 the US dropped the first atomic bomb and on August 8 the Soviet Union entered the war against Japan. On August 9th the second atomic bomb was dropped and Hirohito surrendered on August 14.
8. Who were their allies in WWII?- Germany, Italy, Hungary, Romania, Slovakia, and Bulgaria.
9. How did WWII impact/effect the country?
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