Terauchi becomes prime minister of Japan

On 9 October 1916 Emperor Yoshihito appointed a new government of Japan. At its head was Marshal Count Masatake Terauchi, Governor-General of Korea since 1910. He replaced the 78-year-old Marquis Shigenobu Ōkuma, who had resigned on 4 October. Terauchi himself temporarily took over the foreign ministry and the finance ministry. The British chronology of the war states that Viscount Ishii became acting foreign minister, but according to Japanese lists of cabinet members Kikujirō Ishii left together with the Ōkuma cabinet. The ministry was run by the prime minister himself until 21 November, and was then taken over by the ambassador in Petrograd, Viscount Ichirō Motono, who in July had signed the agreement with Russia.

Ōkuma’s fall had been a foregone conclusion for months. His government had been formed in 1914 as an alliance of the Rikken Dōshikai party with military and bureaucratic circles united by their dislike of the Rikken Seiyūkai party. Over time, however, it alienated the genrō, the elder statesmen led by Marshal Aritomo Yamagata, who from the beginning of 1916 had been pressing for his resignation. Ōkuma put off resigning, citing among other things the negotiations with Russia. On leaving, Ōkuma recommended as his successor the leader of the Dōshikai, the former foreign minister Takaaki Katō. The genrō passed over this recommendation and named Terauchi, a protégé of Yamagata.

The new prime minister was 64. He was born in 1852 in the domain of Chōshū, from which most of the leaders of the Japanese army came. As a young soldier he fought in the Boshin War, and in 1877, during the suppression of the Satsuma Rebellion, he was badly wounded and lost the use of his right hand. From then on he no longer commanded in the field, but made his career in military administration and education. He studied in France, was Army Minister during the war with Russia, and in 1910 carried out the annexation of Korea and ruled it with a firm hand, relying on the army and the gendarmerie. In June 1916 he was made a marshal.

Terauchi’s cabinet was a so-called transcendental cabinet (chōzen naikaku), standing above the parties. It was made up of bureaucrats and soldiers from Yamagata’s circle, including the Home Minister Shinpei Gotō, while the Army Minister, General Ken’ichi Ōshima, kept his post. The Japanese soon dubbed it the “Billiken cabinet”: the prime minister’s bald head resembled the Billiken doll then in fashion, and the name sounded like “hirikken”, meaning “unconstitutional”. The day after the appointment the Dōshikai and smaller groups merged into the Kenseikai party under Katō, which held 198 seats in the lower house of the Diet and became the main opposition. The government therefore had to seek support from the Seiyūkai of Takashi Hara.

In war policy the change of prime minister did not mean a change of course. Terauchi kept Japan’s commitments to Britain, and in 1917 Japanese warships sailed as far as the Mediterranean. The methods used towards China, however, did change. Instead of open pressure, as with the Twenty-One Demands of 1915, Terauchi’s government relied on loans, with which from 1917 it supported Premier Duan Qirui in Peking in return for recognition of Japanese interests in Shantung and Manchuria. Terauchi governed until September 1918. In his last months he decided on Japan’s participation in the Siberian intervention, and he was forced to resign by the rice riots that swept the whole country.