Fushimi Sadanaru

Prince Fushimi Sadanaru

Prince Fushimi Sadanaru ( Japanese 伏 見 宮 貞 愛 親王 Fushimi-no-miya Sadanaru-shinnō ); (Born June 9, 1858 in Kyōto , Japan ; † February 4, 1923 in Takagami, Strom Chōshi ) was the 22nd head of Fushimi-no-miya , one of the four prince houses ( Seshū Shinnōke ) of the Japanese imperial family and a field marshal ( Gensui ) of the Imperial Japanese Army .

Early life

Prince Sadanaru was born in 1858 as the 14th son of Prince Fushimi Kunie and succeeded him after his death in 1875 as head of the Fushimi-no-miya branch of the Japanese imperial family. In 1872 he was married to Princess Arisugawa Toshiko, a daughter of Prince Arisugawa Taruhito , with whom he had four children, a daughter and three sons.

Military career

Since a military career was intended for him, he was sent to the Saint-Cyr military school in France after basic training in the 1870s and then to various military colleges in the German Empire . After his return to Japan, he worked hard to introduce a general staff based on the Prussian model in the army . In 1889 he was promoted to major general.

In the First Sino-Japanese War , Prince Sadanaru commanded the 4th Division, with which he landed on the Liaodong Peninsula at the beginning of the war . He later took part in the Japanese invasion of Taiwan .

He represented the Meiji - Tennō at the coronation of Tsar Nicholas II on May 26, 1896. In 1898 he was promoted to lieutenant general and was given command of the 10th Division stationed in Himeji . In 1901 he moved to the 1st Division.

After the beginning of the Russo-Japanese War , he landed with his troops again on the Liaodong peninsula, which at that time was a Russian lease territory. In June of that year, Prince Sadanarus was promoted to full general and moved back to Japan, where he briefly served on the Supreme War Council before Meiji-Tennō sent him on a diplomatic mission to the United States . After the signing of the Treaty of Portsmouth , he was sent on to Great Britain to express official thanks to the government there for every form of support in the Russo-Japanese War. His next diplomatic assignment was in 1909 when he led a delegation to China . He came back to the United Kingdom when he attended the state funeral of King Edward VII on May 20, 1910 and subsequently met the new King George V at Buckingham Palace .

Prince Sadanaru was considered a close advisor to Crown Prince Yoshihito, who later became Taishō-Tennō. After his accession to the throne, he received the title of Naidaijin for the period from 1912 to 1915. In 1914 he received the title of gensui (field marshal), which was mainly ceremonial at that time, and in 1916 he was awarded the order of chrysanthemum .

Prince Sadanaru died on February 5, 1923 of complications from the flu and was buried with honor at a state funeral. His son Fushimi Hiroyasu succeeded him as head of Fushimi-no-miya.

literature

• Trevor N. Dupuy : Encyclopedia of Military Biography , IB Tauris & Co. Ltd., 1992, ISBN 1-85043-569-3 .
• Marius B. Jansen, Gilbert Rozman: Japan in Transition: From Tokugawa to Meiji , Princeton University Press, 1988, ISBN 0-691-10245-7 .
• Marius B. Jansen: The Making of Modern Japan , Belknap Press, 2000, ISBN 0-674-00991-6 .
• Noboru Koyama: Japanese Students at Cambridge University in the Meiji Era, 1868-1912: Pioneers for the Modernization of Japan , Lulu.com, 2004, ISBN 1-4116-1256-6 .

Japanese name: As is common in Japan, the family name comes before the first name in this article . Thus Fushimi is the family name, Sadanaru the first name.