Following the end of the war, he committed suicide on 16 December 1945. ==Early life== Fumimaro Konoe was born in Tokyo on 12 October 1891 to the prominent Konoe family, one of the main branches of the ancient Fujiwara clan.
Japanese historian Hotta Eri described the Konoe as "First among the go-sekke"; Fumimaro would be its 29th leader. Konoe's father, Atsumaro, had been politically active, having organized the Anti-Russia Society in 1903.
He also described China as a rival to Japan in international relations. == House of Peers == In 1916, while at university, Fumimaro took his father's seat in the house of peers.
And in December 1918, he also published an essay entitled "Reject the Anglo-American-Centered Peace" (英米本位の平和主義を排す).
Eventually the seiyukai was able to gain the Aritomo's support, and Kei became premier in 1918.
After his return from Europe he was aggressively recruited by the most powerful political faction of Japan's budding Taisho democracy of the 1920s: the kenkyukai, a conservative, militaristic faction, led by Yamagata Aritomo and generally opposed to democratic reform.
The alliance formed a political party (meiseikai), but was unable to secure popular support, and dissolved within two years of formation (in 1928). == Road to First Premiership == In the 1920s Japanese foreign policy was largely in line with Anglo-American policy, the treaty of Versailles, the Washington Naval Conference treaty, and there was agreement between the great powers over the establishment of an independent Chinese State.
Konoe's government pressured political parties to dissolve into the IRAA, he resisted calls to form a political party akin to Nazi party, believing it would revive the political strife of the 1920s.
The most important among these officials was Yoshiharu Tazawa, whom he met after he became the managing director of the Japan Youth Hall (Nippon Seinenkan) in 1921.
Konoe's association with the youth hall began two months after the publication of an article in July 1921, where he stressed education of the electorate's political wisdom and morality, and lamented that education only taught youth to accept ideas passively from their superiors.
In September 1922, he joined them. The opposing faction was the seiyukai, led by Hara Takashi, which drew its strength from the lower house.
He therefore supported Hara Kei's seiyukai government, as did most of the kenkyukai. However, by 1923 the seiyukai had split into two factions, and could no longer control the government.
The Youth Corps (Seinendan) was thereafter created to foster a moral, sense of civic duty among the people, with the overall purpose of destroying the meiboka system. In 1925 Konoe and these officials formed the Alliance for a New Japan (Shin Nippon Domei) which endorsed the concept of representative government, but rejected the value of party and local village bosses, instead advocating that new candidates from outside the parties should run for office.
As the house of peers became allied with different political factions in the lower house, Konoe left the kenkyukai in November 1927. Like his position in regard to the nobility, he believed that the emperor should not take political positions.
The alliance formed a political party (meiseikai), but was unable to secure popular support, and dissolved within two years of formation (in 1928). == Road to First Premiership == In the 1920s Japanese foreign policy was largely in line with Anglo-American policy, the treaty of Versailles, the Washington Naval Conference treaty, and there was agreement between the great powers over the establishment of an independent Chinese State.
The great depression of the 1930's, the rise Soviet military power in the east, further insistence on limitations to Japanese naval power, and increased Chinese resistance to Japanese aggression in Asia, marked the abandonment of Japanese cooperation with the Anglo-American powers.
The Japanese government began to seek autonomy in foreign policy, and — as the sense of crisis deepened — unity and mobilization became overreaching imperatives. Konoe assumed the vice presidency of the house of peers in 1931.
The American historian Gerhard Weinberg wrote about Konoe's escalation of the war: "The one time in the decade between 1931 and 1941 that the civilian authorities in Tokyo mustered the energy, courage and ingenuity to overrule the military on a major peace issue they did so with fatal results — fatal for Japan, fatal for China, and for Konoe himself". Due to a trade imbalance, Japan had lost a large amount of its gold reserves by late 1937.
In 1932 political parties lost control of the cabinet.
Konoe ascended to the presidency of the house of peers in 1933 and spent the next few years mediating between elite political factions, elite policy consensus and national unity. Meanwhile, Fumimaro sent his eldest son Fumitaka to study in the US, at Princeton, wishing to prepare him for politics and make him an able proponent of Japan in America.
Fumimaro visited Fumitaka in 1934 and he was shocked by rising anti-Japanese sentiment.
In a speech in 1935 Konoe said that the "monopolization" of resources by the Anglo-American alliance must end and be replaced by an "international new deal" to help countries like Japan take care of their growing populations. Konoe's views were thus a recapitulation of those he had expressed at Versailles, almost 20 years earlier.
During his tenure, he presided over the Japanese invasion of China in 1937 and the breakdown in diplomatic relations resulting in Japan’s entry into World War II.
At a costume party before Saionji's daughter was married in 1937, he was reported to have dressed as Hitler.
Despite these misgivings Saionji nominated Konoe to the emperor, and in June 1937 Konoe became Prime Minister.
Nevertheless, a consensus emerged among Japanese military leadership that the nation was not ready for war with China, and a truce was made on 11 July. The ceasefire was broken by 20 July after Konoe's government sent more divisions to China, causing full-scale war to erupt. In November 1937 Konoe instituted a new system of joint conference between the civil government and the military called liaison conferences.
The American historian Gerhard Weinberg wrote about Konoe's escalation of the war: "The one time in the decade between 1931 and 1941 that the civilian authorities in Tokyo mustered the energy, courage and ingenuity to overrule the military on a major peace issue they did so with fatal results — fatal for Japan, fatal for China, and for Konoe himself". Due to a trade imbalance, Japan had lost a large amount of its gold reserves by late 1937.
Konoe by contrast, was not interested in peace, and instead chose to escalate the war by suggesting deliberately humiliating terms that he knew Chiang Kai-shek would never accept, to win a "total victory" over China. In January 1938, Konoe issued a statement where he declared that "Kuomintang aggression had not ceased despite its defeat," that it was "subjecting its people to great misery," and that Japan would no longer deal with Chang.
In response to continued US support for the so-called Open Door Policy, Konoe rejected it "as he had since Versailles, but left open possible western interests in southern China." In a declaration on November 3, 1938, Konoe said Japan seeks a new order in east Asia, that Chiang no longer spoke for China, that Japan would reconstruct China without help from foreign powers, and that a "tripartite relationship of .
Japan, Manchukuo, and China" would "create a new culture, and realize close economic cohesion throughout east Asia." In April 1938 Konoe and the military pushed a National Mobilization Law through the Diet which declared a state of emergency, allowed the central government to control all manpower and material, and rationed the flow of raw materials into the Japanese market.
Japanese victories continued at Xuzhou, Hankow, Canton, Wuchang, Hanyang – but still the Chinese kept on fighting! Konoe resigned in January 1939, leaving war that he had a large part in making to be finished by someone else, and was appointed chairman of the Privy Council.
Konoe was awarded the 1st class of the Order of the Rising Sun in 1939. ==Konoe's second term, the Matsuoka foreign policy== Due to dissatisfaction with the policies of Prime Minister Mitsumasa Yonai later that year, the Japanese Army demanded Konoe's return.
Roosevelt and Churchill, 1939–1941, W.
Konoe was recalled after Saionji for the last time before his death later that year endorsed Konoe one last time. On 23 June, Konoe resigned his position as Chairman of the Privy Council, and on 16 July 1940, the Yonai cabinet resigned and Konoe was appointed Prime Minister.
One of his first moves was to launch the League of Diet Members Supporting the Prosecution of the Holy War to counter opposition from politicians such as deputy Saitō Takao who had spoken against the Second Sino-Japanese War in the Diet on 2 February. The Imperial Rule Assistance Association (IRAA) was created in 1940 under Konoe as a wartime mobilization organization, ironically in alliance with local meiboka, since their cooperation was required to mobilize the rural population.
Despite this response foreign minister Yosuke Matsuoka signed the Tripartite Pact on 27 September 1940 over the objection of some of Konoe's advisors including former Japanese ambassador to the US Kikujiro Ishii.
In November 1940 Japan signed the Sino-Japanese treaty with Wang Jinwei, who had been a disciple of Sun Yat-sen and headed a rival Kuomintang government in Nanjing.
In December 1940 the British reopened the Burma road and lent 10 million pounds to Chang's Kuomintang.
Finding a replacement source of petroleum was paramount, as the US supplied 93% of Japan's oil in 1940.
Upon failing to reach a peace agreement, Konoe resigned as Prime Minister on 18 October 1941 prior to the outbreak of hostilities.
The American historian Gerhard Weinberg wrote about Konoe's escalation of the war: "The one time in the decade between 1931 and 1941 that the civilian authorities in Tokyo mustered the energy, courage and ingenuity to overrule the military on a major peace issue they did so with fatal results — fatal for Japan, fatal for China, and for Konoe himself". Due to a trade imbalance, Japan had lost a large amount of its gold reserves by late 1937.
Konoe recommenced negotiations with the Dutch in January 1941 in an attempt to secure an alternate source of oil. In February 1941 Konoe chose Admiral Nomura as Japanese ambassador to the US.
Matsuoka and Stalin signed the Soviet–Japanese Neutrality Pact in Moscow on 13 April 1941, which made it clear that the Soviets would not help the allies in the event of war with Japan.
On 18 April 1941 word arrived from Nomura of a diplomatic breakthrough, a draft of understanding between the US and Japan.
Matsuoka changed the US draft into a counteroffer which essentially gutted most of the Japanese concessions in regard to China and expansion in the Pacific then had Nomura deliver it to Washington. On Sunday, 22 June 1941, Hitler broke the Molotov-Ribbentrop pact by invading the Soviet Union.
The next day on 15 October Konoe's friend and advisor Hotsumi Ozaki was exposed and arrested as a soviet spy. Konoe resigned on 16 October 1941, one day after having recommended Prince Naruhiko Higashikuni to the Emperor as his successor.
I know much more.' In short, the Emperor had absorbed the view of the army and the navy high commands." ==Post premiership, final years of the war and suicide== On 29 November 1941, at a luncheon with the emperor with all living former prime ministers in attendance, Konoe voiced his objection to war.
Upon hearing of the attack on Pearl Harbor, Konoe said regarding Japan's military success, "What on earth? I really feel a miserable defeat coming; this will only last 2 or 3 months." Konoe played a role in the fall of the Tōjō government in 1944.
Following the end of the war, he committed suicide on 16 December 1945. ==Early life== Fumimaro Konoe was born in Tokyo on 12 October 1891 to the prominent Konoe family, one of the main branches of the ancient Fujiwara clan.
In February 1945, during the first private audience he had been allowed in three years, he advised the Emperor to begin negotiations to end World War II.
In December 1945, during the last call by the Americans for alleged war criminals to report to the Americans, he took potassium cyanide poison and committed suicide.
In 1946, Hirohito explained this decision: "I actually thought Prince Higashikuni suitable as chief of staff of the Army; but I think the appointment of a member of the imperial house to a political office must be considered very carefully.
Norton and Co, New York, 1976. Oka, Yoshitake.
The Emperor's Advisor: Saionji Kinmochi and Pre-War Japanese Politics, Croom Helm, London, and Nissan Institute for Japanese Studies, University of Oxford, 1987 Iriye, Akira.
The Origins of the Second World War in Asia and the Pacific, Longman, London and New York, 1987. Jansen, Marius B.
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