Naval History of Japan - Meiji Restoration (1868): Creation of The Imperial Japanese Navy

Meiji Restoration (1868): Creation of The Imperial Japanese Navy

The Imperial Japanese Navy (IJN) (Japanese: 大日本帝国海軍) was the navy of Japan between 1867 and until 1947, when it was dissolved following Japan's constitutional renouncement of the use of force as a means of settling international disputes.

From 1868, the restored Meiji Emperor continued with reforms to industrialize and militarize Japan in order to prevent it from being overwhelmed by the United States and European powers. The Imperial Japanese Navy was formally established in 1869. The new government drafted a very ambitious plan to create a Navy with 200 ships, organized into 10 fleets, but the plan was abandoned within a year due to lack of resources. Internally, domestic rebellions, and especially the Satsuma Rebellion (1877) forced the government to focus on land warfare. Naval policy, expressed by the slogan Shusei Kokubou (Jp:守勢国防, lit. "Static Defense"), focused on coastal defenses, a standing army, and a coastal Navy, leading to a military organization under the Rikushu Kaiju (Jp:陸主海従, Army first, Navy second) principle.

During the 1870s and 1880s, the Japanese Navy remained an essentially coastal defense force, although the Meiji government continued to modernize it. In 1870 an Imperial decree determined that the British Navy should be the model for development, and the second British naval mission to Japan, the Douglas Mission (1873–79) led by Archibald Lucius Douglas laid the foundations of naval officer training and education. (See Ian Gow, 'The Douglas Mission (1873–79) and Meiji Naval Education' in J.E. Hoare ed., Britain & Japan: Biographical Portraits Volume III, Japan Library 1999.) Togo Heihachiro was trained by the British navy.

During the 1880s, France took the lead in influence, due to its "Jeune Ecole" doctrine favoring small, fast warships, especially cruisers and torpedo boats, against bigger units. The Meiji government issued its First Naval Expansion bill in 1882, requiring the construction of 48 warships, of which 22 were to be torpedo boats. The naval successes of the French Navy against China in the Sino-French War of 1883-85 seemed to validate the potential of torpedo boats, an approach which was also attractive to the limited resources of Japan. In 1885, the new Navy slogan became Kaikoku Nippon (Jp:海国日本, lit. "Maritime Japan").

In 1886, the leading French Navy engineer Emile Bertin was hired for four years to reinforce the Japanese Navy, and to direct the construction of the arsenals of Kure and Sasebo. He developed the Sanseikan class of cruisers, 3 units featuring a single but powerful main gun, the 12.6 inch Canet gun.

This period also allowed Japan to adopt new technologies such as torpedoes, torpedo-boats and mines, which were actively promoted by the French Navy (Howe, p281). Japan acquired its first torpedoes in 1884, and established a "Torpedo Training Center" at Yokosuka in 1886.