Ernest Satow

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Ernest Satow

Sir Ernest Mason Satow (born June 30, 1843 in Clapton (North London ), † August 26, 1929 in Ottery St Mary near Exeter , Devon ) established the relationship between Great Britain and the emerging modern Japan as a British diplomat and scientist . He was Knight Grand Cross of the Order of St. Michael and St. George and a member of the Privy Council (secret council of state).

Satow was the son of a father of German descent (Hans David Christoph Satow, born in Wismar , British citizen from 1846) and an English mother (Margaret Satow, née Mason). He completed his education at Mill Hill School and University College London . He is particularly well known for his book A Diplomat in Japan , in which he describes the years 1862 to 1869, when Japan made the transition from the Tokugawa shogunate to the restoration of imperial power ( Meiji restoration ).

The 19-year-old had been working as an interpreter in Japan for barely a week when , on September 14, 1862, the British merchant Charles Lennox Richardson was killed on the road between Tōkyō and Kyoto because he was in the saddle in front of the passing daimyo of Satsuma , Shimazu Hisamitsu his horse remained seated ( Namamugi incident ). Satow was aboard one of the British ships that fired at Kagoshima in 1863 to punish Hisamitsu for killing Richardson and refusing to pay the required compensation . Immediately beforehand, he met Itō Hirobumi and Inoue Kaoru from Chōshū for the first time . He also maintained relationships with numerous other influential figures in Japan, including Saigō Takamori from Satsuma. In 1864 Satow belonged to the allied armed forces from Great Britain, France , the Netherlands and the United States , which forced through an attack on Shimonoseki the right of passage for foreign ships through the Kammon Strait between Honshū and Kyūshū . He also toured the Japanese hinterland with AB Mitford and the draftsman and illustrator Charles Wirgman .

Due to his excellent knowledge of the Japanese language Satow soon made himself indispensable for the intelligence work, as well as the negotiations of the British Minister Sir Henry Parkes with the weakening Tokugawa shogunate and the powerful clans of the fiefs Satsuma and Chōshū. He was promoted to chief interpreter and then secretary of the British legation to Japan. In addition, as early as 1864 he began to write translations and newspaper articles on topics related to Japan. In 1866, three articles by Satow appeared anonymously in the Japan Times , the Japanese translation of which under the title Eikoku Sakuron (for example "British Political Principles") apparently made an impression on many Japanese and probably contributed to accelerating the Meiji Restoration of 1868. Satow pointed out that the Shogun had concluded agreements with Great Britain and other states in the name of Japan, without even mentioning the existence of the Tennō , and therefore questioned its validity. He accused the Shogun of deceit and demanded clarification as to who the actual head of state of Japan was, as well as a revision of the treaties to reflect the political reality. In A Diplomat in Japan , he later admitted that the publication of these articles was "in stark contrast to the rules of (diplomatic) service," because a diplomat is not entitled to interfere in the internal affairs of the country in which he serves .

In 1869 he returned home to England for a longer vacation , but traveled again to Japan in 1870. Satow was a founding member of the Asiatic Society of Japan , founded in Yokohama in 1872 , which set itself the task of thoroughly studying Japanese culture, history and language ( i.e. Japanese studies ). During the 1870s he gave several lectures to the Society, some of his publications can be found in the reports of the Asiatic Society , which is still active today.

After years of service in Siam (1884–1887, during which time he was promoted from the consular to the diplomatic corps), Uruguay (1889–1893) and Morocco (1893–1895) Satow returned on July 28, 1895 as envoy extraordinary and plenipotentiary to Japan and spent five more years in Tōkyō, interrupted by his presence in London on the occasion of Queen Victoria's diamond coronation anniversary in 1897. In August of that year he met the Queen personally at Osborne House on the Isle of Wight .

The Shimonoseki peace treaty between Japan and China had been signed on April 17, 1895 , and Satow was able to closely follow the steady build-up of the Japanese land and naval forces which the humiliating defeat of April 23, 1895 against Russia , Germany and France ( " Triple Intervention ") should reward. In his position it was also possible for him to observe the end of the extraterritoriality of British citizens in Japan in 1899 , which was sealed by the Anglo-Japanese trade and shipping agreement, which came about on July 17, 1894 in London.

The honor of being appointed the first official British ambassador to Japan was not given to Satow, but to his successor, Sir Claude Maxwell MacDonald , in 1905 . Satow served as the British envoy in Beijing from 1900 to 1906 . He was involved in the negotiations that led to the final protocol on the compensation payments to the victorious allies after the Boxer Rebellion , and from Beijing he witnessed the Russian defeat in the war with Japan in 1904/05. In 1906 he was appointed to the Privy Council, the British secret council of state, and in 1907 he was Great Britain's second plenipotentiary at the 2nd Hague Peace Conference , which adopted the Hague Land Warfare Regulations .

According to his will, Satow's detailed diaries and correspondence (the Satow papers ) are kept in the Public Record Office in Kew (West London), and many of his rare Japanese books are now in the collection of Cambridge University Library . After he retired in 1906 in Ottery St Mary (Devon), he mainly devoted himself to topics of diplomacy and international law . He is less well known in Great Britain than in Japan, where he is recognized as perhaps the most important foreign observer of the Bakumatsu and Meiji periods .

Satow's wife Kane, 1870

As a diplomat serving in Japan, it was not possible for him to marry his Japanese partner, Takeda Kane ( 武田 兼 ), with whom he had two sons, Eitarō and Hisayoshi ( 久 吉 ). At the instigation of his granddaughters, the Takeda family's letters, including numerous correspondence between Satow and his family, were recorded in the Yokohama Historical Archives.

literature

  • A Diplomat in Japan by Sir E. Satow, first published by Seeley, Service & Co., London, 1921, reprint (paperback) Tuttle, 2002. ISBN 4-925080-28-8
  • Early Japanese books in Cambridge University Library: a catalog of the Aston, Satow, and von Siebold collections , Nozomu Hayashi & Peter Kornicki - Cambridge University Press, 1991. - (University of Cambridge Oriental publications; 40) ISBN 0-521- 36496-5
  • Korea and Manchuria between Russia and Japan 1895-1904: the observations of Sir Ernest Satow, British Minister Plenipotentiary to Japan (1895-1900) and China (1900-1906) , selected and introduced by George Alexander Lensen. - Sophia University in cooperation with Diplomatic Press, 1966
  • The Diaries and Letters of Sir Ernest Mason Satow (1843-1929), a Scholar-Diplomat in East Asia , ed. by Ian C. Ruxton (Edwin Mellen Press, 1998) ISBN 0-7734-8248-2

Individual evidence

  1. http://www.taiwandocuments.org/shimonoseki01.htm
  2. http://www.kaikou.city.yokohama.jp/

Web links

Commons : Ernest Satow  - Collection of pictures, videos and audio files