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Curse on This Country: The Rebellious Army of Imperial Japan
Imperial Japanese soldiers were notorious for blindly following orders, and their enemies in the Pacific War derided them as "cattle to the slaughter." But, in fact, the Japanese Army had a long history as one of the most disobedient armies in the world. Officers repeatedly staged coups d’états, violent insurrections, and political assassinations; their associates defied orders given by both the government and the general staff, launched independent military operations against other countries, and in two notorious cases conspired to assassinate foreign leaders despite direct orders to the contrary.
In Curse on This Country, Danny Orbach explains the culture of rebellion in the Japanese armed forces. It was a culture created by a series of seemingly innocent decisions, each reasonable in its own right, which led to a gradual weakening of Japanese government control over its army and navy. The consequences were dire, as the armed forces dragged the government into more and more of China across the 1930s—a culture of rebellion that made the Pacific War possible. Orbach argues that brazen defiance, rather than blind obedience, was the motive force of modern Japanese history.
Curse on This Country follows a series of dramatic events: assassinations in the dark corners of Tokyo, the famous rebellion of Saigō Takamori, the "accidental" invasion of Taiwan, the Japanese ambassador’s plot to murder the queen of Korea, and the military-political crisis in which the Japanese prime minister "changed colors." Finally, through the sinister plots of the clandestine Cherry Blossom Society, we follow the deterioration of Japan into chaos, fascism, and world war.
In Curse on This Country, Danny Orbach explains the culture of rebellion in the Japanese armed forces. It was a culture created by a series of seemingly innocent decisions, each reasonable in its own right, which led to a gradual weakening of Japanese government control over its army and navy. The consequences were dire, as the armed forces dragged the government into more and more of China across the 1930s—a culture of rebellion that made the Pacific War possible. Orbach argues that brazen defiance, rather than blind obedience, was the motive force of modern Japanese history.
Curse on This Country follows a series of dramatic events: assassinations in the dark corners of Tokyo, the famous rebellion of Saigō Takamori, the "accidental" invasion of Taiwan, the Japanese ambassador’s plot to murder the queen of Korea, and the military-political crisis in which the Japanese prime minister "changed colors." Finally, through the sinister plots of the clandestine Cherry Blossom Society, we follow the deterioration of Japan into chaos, fascism, and world war.
384 pages, Hardcover
First published February 14, 2017
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About the author
Danny Orbach
6 books6 followersDanny Orbach is Senior Lecturer in the Departments of Asian Studies and General History at the Hebrew University of Jerusalem.
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Displaying 1 - 8 of 8 reviews
January 28, 2026
Danny Orbach's Curse on This Country chronicles the Imperial Japanese Army's ingrained culture of insubordination, which Orbach considers the key to that country's increasing belligerence which resulted in World War II. Orbach argues that Japan's imperial system post-Meiji had an essential flaw: the Emperor occupied an anomalous position, where he was revered as a god but not expected to play an active role in governance, leaving military and political leaders latitude to interpret how their loyalty should be best-expressed. Thus, the Imperial Army in particular felt little compunction about triggering expansion overseas, while often organizing coups and assassinations at home, on the grounds that they expressed the true will of the Emperor - a habit that far predates the Showa period, embodied in the principle of gekojuko (roughly "the lower rules the higher"). From the conquest of Taiwan in 1874, to the murder of Korea's Queen Min in 1895 and more famously the Mukden Incident in 1931, the Army constantly forced the pace of empire-building, knowing that they'd receive little more than reprimands for insubordination if they succeeded. As often the case, this overseas aggression was soon visited at home, as the Army's leadership began to oust or even kill ministers they didn't prefer, leading to a tension between the state and military that was never resolved. By Hirohito's ascension the Army itself became riven with factions, each convinced they were the true embodiment of the Imperial Way, with extremist groups like the Cherry Blossom Society turning Japan into a veritable gangster state. This culminated in the February 26 incident of 1936, a failed coup where fanatical soldiers tried to purge the Emperor's cabinet - which in turn caused Hirohito to finally put his foot down, ordering the executions of soldiers who took the principles of gekojuko too far. Though it stops before the outbreak of World War II (as late as August 1945, particularly fanatical officers pondered another coup to prevent surrender), Orbach's book makes a persuasive case that Imperial Japan was driven less by design than belligerence, not unregulated obedience but the decision of arrogant fanatics who thought they knew the Emperor's will better than the Emperor himself.
February 25, 2018
A fantastic book. Tracing the origins of the Imperial Japanese army's power and its rebellious nature, this book is history and psychology.
August 4, 2018
Danny Orbach does an excellent job chronicling the incidents and historical context which reveal that the notion of “absolute obedience” of the Imperial Japanese Army and Navy was nothing more than a convenient ideological ruse that the military used to justify its own ambitions.
It was not that senior civilian officials or even the Emperor himself were unaware of the culture of insubordination within the military. It’s just that they lacked two essential elements for suppressing military dissent.
The first thing they lacked was a national culture that was willing hold the military accountable for its actions. Violent actions, and rogue behavior, were highly regarded as they showed the offender’s “purity of heart” in support of Japan’s interests. Thus few of those of those in power were willing or able to actually punish such offenders.
The second thing they lacked were the tools. There was no other organization that could act as a counterpoint to check the military. Police had no jurisdiction over military offenders and no other militia or paramilitary force existed. Even those within the military who opposed rogue actions were afraid to speak out for fear of embarrassing the country and/or the military.
Several crucial foreign operations carried out by the Imperial military were actually totally unauthorized by the Emperor, Civilian Cabinet, and even the General Staff including; Japan’s invasion of Taiwan in 1874, the assassination of Korea’s Queen Min in 1895, the assassination of the Chinese Warlord Zhang Zuolin in 1928, and the invasion of Manchuria in 1931.
In the case of the death of Zhang Zuolin. Emperor Hirohito demanded the court martial of the lead plotter but was ignored by his Cabinet, military, and even the Diet.
Early in the book, Orbach notes that “the Emperor is revered, not obeyed”. It seems more likely that only the idea of the Emperor is revered.
I would highly recommend this book for those seeking to understand the Japanese military beyond a mere surface level, especially those who are exploring Emperor Hirohito’s accountability regarding World War II.
It was not that senior civilian officials or even the Emperor himself were unaware of the culture of insubordination within the military. It’s just that they lacked two essential elements for suppressing military dissent.
The first thing they lacked was a national culture that was willing hold the military accountable for its actions. Violent actions, and rogue behavior, were highly regarded as they showed the offender’s “purity of heart” in support of Japan’s interests. Thus few of those of those in power were willing or able to actually punish such offenders.
The second thing they lacked were the tools. There was no other organization that could act as a counterpoint to check the military. Police had no jurisdiction over military offenders and no other militia or paramilitary force existed. Even those within the military who opposed rogue actions were afraid to speak out for fear of embarrassing the country and/or the military.
Several crucial foreign operations carried out by the Imperial military were actually totally unauthorized by the Emperor, Civilian Cabinet, and even the General Staff including; Japan’s invasion of Taiwan in 1874, the assassination of Korea’s Queen Min in 1895, the assassination of the Chinese Warlord Zhang Zuolin in 1928, and the invasion of Manchuria in 1931.
In the case of the death of Zhang Zuolin. Emperor Hirohito demanded the court martial of the lead plotter but was ignored by his Cabinet, military, and even the Diet.
Early in the book, Orbach notes that “the Emperor is revered, not obeyed”. It seems more likely that only the idea of the Emperor is revered.
I would highly recommend this book for those seeking to understand the Japanese military beyond a mere surface level, especially those who are exploring Emperor Hirohito’s accountability regarding World War II.
September 13, 2019
Read only the part related to the Manchurian crisis for my essay and initially planned to only pick up some dates and the reactions from the cabinet, but heck the book got me completely hooked. If anyone ever makes a movie based on the stuffs that the army did during the 20s and 30s, it will be on the same level of ridiculousness as those by Quentin Tarantino. A whole new level of governmental dysfunctionality and lawlessness. "Reality is more bizarre than fiction", indeed.
October 30, 2017
This is one of the finest works of history I have ever read.
April 4, 2024
This is a great book, and anyone interested in the history of Japan should put it on their reading list. This is a serious academic work, but it is far from boring. Indeed, the amount of cloak-and-dagger material in here is rather shocking, for the government of a modern country.
Orbach explores the role of the Japanese army in politics and the instability of the Japanese government in the years between the Meiji restoration and the start of WWII, ending this account briefly after the coup attempt of 1936. He identifies a number of “bugs” in the Japanese polity both as it was formally defined in its constitution, and as it worked in practice. The Meiji Constitution was an audacious blend of Japanese tradition and Western constitutional ideas. Japanese politicians in particular took inspiration from Germany, newly unified after the Prusso-French war of 1870 and a power in the ascendance. But it has been said that the constitution that Bismarck created for his new fatherland was one that he alone could make work. Maybe the Japanese made a poor choice in following his lead.
I won’t repeat Orbach’s enumeration here. But the winners of the Boshin War, after overthrowing the Tokugawa shogunate, made some decisions that would haunt Japan. One of these decisions was to unify Japan behind the Emperor, an institution which was given a thorough make-over and modernisation to achieve this goal. But this was not done by imposing the will of the emperor on everyone; instead everyone was allowed to state that they followed the will of the emperor, no matter how fiercely they might argue among themselves. While this provided an effective formal focus for national unity, this reverential “agreement to disagree” also offered a built-in justification for rebellion. This was worsened by a second decision that the new leaders made, their refusal to give up power. This was understandable, if only for their own safety, but it set a precedent for rebellion being necessary, successful, and rewarded.
Personally I suspect that the biggest flaw in the system was rooted deeply in Japanese culture. Going back at least to the Heian period, from the 8th to the 12th century, a separation between the theoretical and actual holders of power was a known pattern in Japanese history. A pattern in which the formal holders of office lived sheltered, ritual and comfortable lives, but real power was wielded by practical men (nearly always men) in back offices. In the early 20th century this had evolved in the devolution of considerable power to relatively junior army officers, whose superiors proved unable to stop them. In a bizarre reversal of military logic, their relatively low position in the army hierarchy had the effect of making them less accountable. In one instance described by Orbach, a prime minister balked at the idea of negotiating with a mere bureau chief in the Army Ministry, but the main effect of this was that the government was unable to control the situation.
Orbach recounts the story of a long series of rebellious events both at home and abroad, including the Satsuma rebellion, the murder of queen Min of Korea, the murder of the Chinese warlord Zhang Zuolin, the invasion of Manchuria, the attempted coup of the Sakura-Kai in 1931, and the attempted coup of 1936. He recognises that after this, power dynamics changed. Radical nationalism was no longer the province of young officers, whose political activism had been effectively repressed in the aftermath of their failure to grab power. Instead, it was incorporated in the power structures at the top of the army, whose leaders were not ashamed to hint that their subordinates might rebel again if the wishes of the army were not granted. It’s a natural end of the book, but you’d wish that Orbach had continued his story right up to December 1941 and beyond.
Orbach explores the role of the Japanese army in politics and the instability of the Japanese government in the years between the Meiji restoration and the start of WWII, ending this account briefly after the coup attempt of 1936. He identifies a number of “bugs” in the Japanese polity both as it was formally defined in its constitution, and as it worked in practice. The Meiji Constitution was an audacious blend of Japanese tradition and Western constitutional ideas. Japanese politicians in particular took inspiration from Germany, newly unified after the Prusso-French war of 1870 and a power in the ascendance. But it has been said that the constitution that Bismarck created for his new fatherland was one that he alone could make work. Maybe the Japanese made a poor choice in following his lead.
I won’t repeat Orbach’s enumeration here. But the winners of the Boshin War, after overthrowing the Tokugawa shogunate, made some decisions that would haunt Japan. One of these decisions was to unify Japan behind the Emperor, an institution which was given a thorough make-over and modernisation to achieve this goal. But this was not done by imposing the will of the emperor on everyone; instead everyone was allowed to state that they followed the will of the emperor, no matter how fiercely they might argue among themselves. While this provided an effective formal focus for national unity, this reverential “agreement to disagree” also offered a built-in justification for rebellion. This was worsened by a second decision that the new leaders made, their refusal to give up power. This was understandable, if only for their own safety, but it set a precedent for rebellion being necessary, successful, and rewarded.
Personally I suspect that the biggest flaw in the system was rooted deeply in Japanese culture. Going back at least to the Heian period, from the 8th to the 12th century, a separation between the theoretical and actual holders of power was a known pattern in Japanese history. A pattern in which the formal holders of office lived sheltered, ritual and comfortable lives, but real power was wielded by practical men (nearly always men) in back offices. In the early 20th century this had evolved in the devolution of considerable power to relatively junior army officers, whose superiors proved unable to stop them. In a bizarre reversal of military logic, their relatively low position in the army hierarchy had the effect of making them less accountable. In one instance described by Orbach, a prime minister balked at the idea of negotiating with a mere bureau chief in the Army Ministry, but the main effect of this was that the government was unable to control the situation.
Orbach recounts the story of a long series of rebellious events both at home and abroad, including the Satsuma rebellion, the murder of queen Min of Korea, the murder of the Chinese warlord Zhang Zuolin, the invasion of Manchuria, the attempted coup of the Sakura-Kai in 1931, and the attempted coup of 1936. He recognises that after this, power dynamics changed. Radical nationalism was no longer the province of young officers, whose political activism had been effectively repressed in the aftermath of their failure to grab power. Instead, it was incorporated in the power structures at the top of the army, whose leaders were not ashamed to hint that their subordinates might rebel again if the wishes of the army were not granted. It’s a natural end of the book, but you’d wish that Orbach had continued his story right up to December 1941 and beyond.
December 4, 2020
Although this monograph is categorized as "military science," it could be just as easily slotted into political science or sociology, as Orbach examines how the congenital issues of the creation of Meiji Japan dogged that society until they helped to induced disaster. These flaws included how the Meiji oligarchs created a governing system where accountability depended on their predominance (and no one really replaced them), how the authority of the imperial throne was more a concept than an operationalized reality, and how a commitment to the expansion of empire as the solution to Japan's domestic issues could never be reexamined after it had ceased to be viable.
Woven through this is the story of the character of the so-called "warriors of high aspirations," young men on the make with high opinions of themselves looking to do well while doing what they considered good. These sorts of men successfully pulled off the Meiji restoration and the success of these rebels was a shining example to succeeding generations of marginalized junior officers, who were always a potential threat to disrupt affairs, up to the insurrection of 1936, when Hirohito threatened to personally lead the counter-coup if his generals would not suppress their dangerous pets. The revolt was slapped down but by that point the damage was done to normal politics in Japan; not that anyone was really reconsidering the viability of the war with China.
Orbach writes well about these issues and goes to some lengths to illustrate how personal ties in Japan could almost always undermine the links of the formal organization of authority.
Woven through this is the story of the character of the so-called "warriors of high aspirations," young men on the make with high opinions of themselves looking to do well while doing what they considered good. These sorts of men successfully pulled off the Meiji restoration and the success of these rebels was a shining example to succeeding generations of marginalized junior officers, who were always a potential threat to disrupt affairs, up to the insurrection of 1936, when Hirohito threatened to personally lead the counter-coup if his generals would not suppress their dangerous pets. The revolt was slapped down but by that point the damage was done to normal politics in Japan; not that anyone was really reconsidering the viability of the war with China.
Orbach writes well about these issues and goes to some lengths to illustrate how personal ties in Japan could almost always undermine the links of the formal organization of authority.
January 29, 2025
A really good work on the Imperial Japanese Army’s insubordination, its origins and the consequences of it. Fascinating and well worth a read, my only real criticism I would have liked for there to be a touch more on the political side. I think that this is a fair criticism because while certain army figures are brought up time and again, there is little introduction for some of the important civilian figures that members of the army were going up against (for instance, mention is made of Kido Kōichi circumventing the palace blockade on the 226 incident, but there is no talk about who he is, and not much on why this was a sign (there was a bit in generalist terms)).
That however is minor criticism for a well written and well researched book, that informs the reader on a lot more than just the ‘rebellious army’. Rather, it allows us to see why perhaps the Japanese government made the decisions that it did throughout the late 19th/early 20th century.
I wish Goodreads allowed half stars/numerical ratings because I’d give this 4 1/2 if I could, but I have to round down sadly. Still definitely recommend!
That however is minor criticism for a well written and well researched book, that informs the reader on a lot more than just the ‘rebellious army’. Rather, it allows us to see why perhaps the Japanese government made the decisions that it did throughout the late 19th/early 20th century.
I wish Goodreads allowed half stars/numerical ratings because I’d give this 4 1/2 if I could, but I have to round down sadly. Still definitely recommend!
Displaying 1 - 8 of 8 reviews