Battle of Hakodate
| Battle of Hakodate | |||||||
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| Part of Boshin War | |||||||
| Soldiers of the battle of Hakodate French and Japanese soldiers of the Ezo Republic in 1869. Front row, second from left: Jules Brunet, besides Matsudaira Taro, vice-president of the Ezo Republic. | |||||||
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| Empire of Japan | Ezo Republic | ||||||
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Ruler: Meiji Emperor Army: Kuroda Kiyotaka |
President: Enomoto Takeaki Army: Otori Keisuke Navy: Arai Ikunosuke | ||||||
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The Battle of Hakodate (函館戦争, Hakodate Sensō) was fought in Japan from 20 October 1868 to 17 May 1869, between the remnants of the Shogun's army, consolidated into the armed forces of the rebel Ezo Republic, and the armies of the newly formed Imperial government (composed mainly of forces of the Chōshū and the Satsuma fiefs). It was the last stage of the Boshin War, and occurred around Hakodate in the northern Japanese island of Hokkaidō.
The troops of the former Bakufu fought side-by-side with a group of French military advisers, members of the 1st French Military Mission to Japan who had trained them during 1867–1868, headed by Jules Brunet.
Background
The Boshin War erupted in 1868 between troops favourable to the restoration of the Emperor and the government of the Bakufu. The Meiji government defeated the forces of the Shogun at Toba-Fushimi and occupied Edo.
Enomoto Takeaki, vice-commander of the Navy, refused to remit his fleet to the new government and left Shinagawa on August 20th, 1868, with four steam warships (Kaiyō, Kaiten, Banryū, Chiyodagata) and four steam transports (Kanrin, Mikaho, Shinsoku, Chōgei) as well as 2,000 members of the Navy, 36 members of the "Yugekitai" (Guerilla corps) headed by Iba Hachiro, several officials of the former Bakufu government such as the vice-commander in chief of the Army Matsudaira Taro, Nakajima Saburozuke, and members of the French Military Mission to Japan, headed by Jules Brunet.
On August 21, the fleet encountered a typhoon off Choshi, in which the Mikaho was lost and the Kanrin, heavily damaged, forced to rally the coast, where she was captured in Shimizu.
The rest of the fleet reached Sendai harbour on August 26, one of the centers of the Northern Coalition (奥羽越列藩同盟) against the new government, composed of the fiefs of Sendai, Yonezawa, Aizu, Shonai and Nagaoka.
Imperial troops continued to progress north, taking the castle of Wakamatsu, and making the position in Sendai untenable. On October 12th, 1868, the fleet left Sendai, after having acquired two more ships (the Oe-大江 and the Hou-Ou, previously borrowed by the Sendai fief from the Bakufu), and about 1,000 more troops: Bakufu troops under Otori Keisuke, Shinsengumi troops under Hijikata Toshizo, Yugekitai under Katsutaro Hitomi, as well as several more French advisors (Fortant, Marlin, Bouffier, Garde), who had reached Sendai onland.
Battle of Hakodate
Occupation of southern Hokkaidō
The rebels, numbering around 3,000 and travelling by ship under Admiral Enomoto Takeaki reached Hokkaidō in October 1868. They landed on Takanoki Bay, behind Hakodate on October 20th. Hijikata Toshizo and Otori Keisuke each led a column in the direction of Hakodate. They eliminated local resistance by the Governmental army, until they reached and occupied the fortress of Goryokaku on October 26th, which became the command center for the rebel army.
Various expeditions were organized to take full control of the southern peninsula of Hokkaidō. On November 5th, Hijikata, commanding 800 troops and supported by the warships Kaiten and Banryo occupied the castle of Fukuyama. On November 14th, Hijikata and Matsudaira converge on the city of Esashi, with the added support of the flagship Kaiyo, and the transport ship Shinsoku. Unfortunately, the Kaiyo was shipwrecked and lost in a tempest near Esashi, and the Shinsoku also was lost as it came to its rescue, dealing a terrible blow to the Bakufu forces.
After eliminating all local resistance, on December 25, they founded on the American model the Ezo Republic, with Enomoto Takeaki, as the President (総裁), Japan's only President ever.
A defense was established around Hakodate in anticipation of the attack by the troops of the new Imperial government. The troops were structured under a hybrid Franco-Japanese leadership, with the Commander in chief Otori Keisuke seconded by Jules Brunet, and each of the four brigades commanded by a French officer (Fortant, Marlin, Cazeneuve, Bouffier), seconded by eight half-brigade Japanese commanders. Two French Navy officers, Eugène Collache and Henri Nicol further joined the rebels, and Collache was put in charge of building fortified defenses along the volcanic mountains around Hakodate, while Nicol was in charge of re-organizing the Navy.
In the meantime, an Imperial fleet had been rapidly constituted around the French-built ironclad Kōtetsu, which had been purchased from the United States. Other Imperial ships were Kasuga, Hiryu, Teibo, Yoshun, Moshun, which had been supplied by the fiefs of Saga, Chōshū and Satsuma to the newly formed government in 1868. The fleet left Tokyo on March 9th, 1869, and headed north.
The Imperial navy reached the harbour of Miyako on March 20th. Anticipating the arrival of the Imperial ships, the rebels organized a daring plan to seize the powerful new warship Kotetsu.
Three warships were dispatched for a surprise attack, in what is known as the Naval Battle of Miyako: the Kaiten, on which were riding the elite Shinsengumi as well as the French Navy officer Henri Nicol, the warship Banryu, with the French officer Clateau, and the warship Takao, with the French Navy officer Eugène Collache onboard. To create surprise, the Kaiten entered Miyako harbour with an American flag. They raised the Bakufu flag seconds before boarding the Kotetsu. The Kotetsu managed to repel the attack with a Gatling gun, with huge loss on the attacking side. The two rebel warships escaped back to Hokkaidō, but the Takao was pursued and self-wrecked.
Landing of Imperial forces
The Imperial troops, numbering 7,000, finally landed on Hokkaidō on April 9, 1869. They progressively took over various defensive positions, until the final stand occurred around the fortress of Goryokaku and Benten Daiba around the city of Hakodate.
Japan's first major naval engagement between two modern navies, the Naval Battle of Hakodate, occurred towards the end of the conflict, during the month of May 1869.
Before the final surrender, in May 1869, the French escaped to a French ship stationed in Hakodate Bay, the Coëtlogon, from where they were shipped back to Yokohama and then France.
After having lost close to half their numbers and most of their ships, the shogunate forces finally surrendered on May 17, 1869.
Epilogue
The battle marked the end of the old Bakufu regime, and the elimination of armed resistance to the establishment of the Meiji restoration and the rule of the Meiji emperor. After a few years in prison, several of the leaders of the rebellion were rehabilitated, and continued with brilliant political careers in the new unified Japan: Enomoto Takeaki in particular took various ministry functions during the Meiji era.
The new Imperial government, finally secure, established numerous new institutions soon after the end of the conflict. The Imperial Japanese Navy in particular was formally established in July 1869, and incorporated many of the combatants and ships which had participated in the Battle of Hakodate.
The future admiral Togo Heihachiro, hero of the 1905 Battle of Tsushima, participated to the battle as a gunner onboard the paddle steam warship Kasuga.
Later depictions of the battle
Although the Battle of Hakodate involved some of the most modern armament of the era (steam warships, and even an ironclad warship, barely invented 10 years earlier with the world's first seagoing ironclad, the French La Gloire), Gatling guns, Armstrong cannons, modern uniforms and fighting methods, most of the later Japanese depictions of the battle during the few years after the Meiji restoration offer an anachronistic representation of traditional samurai fighting with their swords, possibly in an attempt to romanticize the conflict, or to minimize the amount of modernization already achieved during the Bakumatsu period (1853-1868).
Significance
East-West rivalry in Japan
Although the Meiji restoration is generally described as bloodless, the events of the Boshin War, culminating with the Battle Hakodate, indicate a far from negligible element of military resistance to the installation of Imperial power. In fact, the Imperial restoration was perceived by the Bakufu more as a Coup d'Etat orchestrated by the Western fiefs of Satsuma, Chōshū and Tosa. The members of these fiefs in effect took all the key positions in the government (such as Okubo Toshimichi), in the Army (such as Saigō Takamori), and in the Navy (such as Togo Heihachiro) until the beginning of the 20th century, when Imperial rule became more independent and the government was opened more broadly to other regions.
French involvement
The Battle of Hakodate also reveals a peculiar period of Japanese history when France was strongly involved with Japanese affairs. Similarly, British and American interests and actions in Japan were quite significant, but probably less visible than the French involvement. This French involvement is part of the broader, and often disastrous, foreign activity of the French Empire under Napoleon III, and followed the Campaign of Mexico. The members of the French Mission who followed their Japanese allies to the North all resigned or deserted from the French Army before accompanying them. Although they were speedily rehabilitated upon their return to France, and some, such as Jules Brunet followed brilliant careers, it seems that their involvement was not premeditated or politically guided, but rather a matter of personal choice and conviction. Although defeated in this conflict, and again defeated in the Franco-Prussian War, France continued to play an important role in Japan's modernization: a second Military Mission was invited in 1872, and the first true modern fleet of the Imperial Japanese Navy was built under the supervision of the French engineer Emile Bertin in the 1880s.
Modernization
Although the modernization of Japan is generally explained as starting with the Meiji period (1868), it actually started significantly earlier from around 1853 during the final years of the Bakufu (the Bakumatsu period). The 1869 Battle of Hakodate shows two sophisticated adversaries in an essentially modern conflict, where steam power and guns play the key role, although some elements of traditional combat clearly remained. A great deal of Western scientific and technological knowledge has already been penetrating in Japan since around 1720 through Rangaku, the study of Western sciences, and since 1853 the Bakufu had been extremely active at modernizing the country and opening it to foreign influence. In a sense, the Restoration movement, based on the Sonno Joi ideology was a reaction to this modernization and internationalization, although, in the end, the Meiji Emperor chose to follow a similar policy under the Fukoku Kyohei (Rich country, strong army) principle. Some of his former supporters from Satsuma, such as Saigō Takamori would revolt against this situation, leading to the Satsuma Rebellion in 1877.