War of Boshin

Is a Civil war Japan ease which began in January 1868 under the reign from the emperor Meiji, a few months after the restitution of the supreme capacity to the emperor, and who continued until May 1869. She mainly saw clashing, on the one hand, the armies of the Clan S of Satsuma, Chōshū, Tosa and their allies and, on the other hand, the troops belonging to the government Shogun Al of Edo and the clans which remained to him faithful. The clans Satsuma de Satsuma, of Chōshū and Tosa sought to supplant by the force the opposing party and to prevent that the imperial authority from now on was not exerted in a federal form by the whole of the clans. It marks a emblematic cut between the Period Edo and the period Meiji.

Approximately a hundred and twenty thousand men were mobilized during the conflict and three thousand five hundreds of them were killed. At the end of the conflict, the victorious troops imperial gave up the policy of expulsion from abroad and launched out in a policy of continuous Modernization what started the Rébellion of Satsuma.

This war is an often forgotten episode of the history of Japan since it is considered that the Meiji revolution was a revolution without blood. However this war is now more known since certain aspects of the conflict and in particular its consequences (rebellions) were illustrated of the film The Last Samurai .

Battles

Battle of Toba - Fushimi
Battle of Awa
Battle of Kōshū - Katsunuma
Battle of the castle of Utsunomiya
Battle of Ueno
Battle of Hokuetsu
Battle of the master key of Bonari
Battle of Aizu
Battle of bay of Miyako
Battle of Hakodate
Battle of bay of Hakodate

Course of the conflict

First confrontations

The January 27th 1868, the forces shogunales tackled the forces of the clans Chōshū and Satsuma. The combat take place close to Kyōto. Part of the fifteen thousand men of the shogun had been involved by the soldiers French but the great majority of its troops remained Samurai S. the forces of Satsuma and Chōshū, although three times fewer were they completely modernized.

Rendering of Edo

At the beginning of February, with the assistance of the French ambassador Leon Rocks, a plan was established to stop the projection of the imperial troops with Odawara, the last not strategic before Edo. However Yoshinobu Tokugawa decided to cancel this plan. Shocked, Leon Roches left his station near the shogun. Under the influence of the British minister Harry Parkes, the foreign nations signed a treaty of Neutralité, beginning not to intervene and to send of weapons and ammunition to none of the two camps.

Takamori Saigō led the imperial troops through the south of Honshū gaining the battle of Kōshū-Katsunuma. Edo went in May 1868. Certain groups of the surroundings of the capital continued to resist but were demolished with the battle of Ueno. The commander of the marine shogunale, Takeaki Enomoto refused to go and left with his fleet (eight warships and two thousand men) towards north in the hope to be able to try a counter-attack later. He was accompanied by a handle by French soldiers of which Jules Brunet which had just left the French Army to fight at the sides of the rebels.

Resistance in north

After the defeat of the troops of Yoshinobu Tokugawa, the setting in prison of this one and the confiscation of its grounds, most of Japan accepts the capacity of the emperor. But in the north of the island of Honshū, several Daimyo S with at their head that of the clan Aizu form a coalition to fight the imperial troops. This coalition had an army of fifty thousand soldiers. Officially the head of the coalition was Yoshihasa Kitashirakawa which was called “Tobu emperor”.

The fleet of Takeaki Enomoto arrived at Sendai, the stronghold of the clan Aizu, the August 26th. The troops of the coalition although many were very badly equipped. The modern armament was very rare there so that one went until building guns of wood and reinforced by cords to draw from the large stones. These guns could draw only four or five projectiles before being flarings. On its side, the daimyo of Nagaoka got French firearms (2000) and German.

In May 1868, the daimyo of Nagaoka inflicted heavy losses with the imperial troops at the time of the battle of Hokuetsu but its castle was destroyed and the progression of the imperial troops towards north continued by inflicting with the passage a defeat with the Shinsengumi with the battle of the master key of Bonari. After this victory, the imperial troops launched out to the attack of the castle of Aizuwakamatsu (battles of Aizu). The imperial troops were once again victorious and in 1868, Sendai became intolerable for the troops shogunales. The fleet of Enomoto thus left Sendai for Hokkaidō. The October 26th all the island of Honshū was controlled by the emperor. The Meiji era started.

Countryside of Hokkaidō

Sources

Japan: Dictionary and civilization , Louis Frederic, Editions Robert Laffont, Collection Books, 1470 p, (1999) historical ISBN 2-221-06764-9
Dictionary of Japan , Collective, Maisonneuve Editions and Larose, Asian Collection World, 2993 p. (2002) ISBN 2-7068-1633-3
Wikipédia anglophone

See too

Harry Smith Parkes, British ambassador
Keisuke Otori, important character of the forces shogunales

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