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Prince Aritomo Yamagata (山縣 有朋, Yamagata Aritomo ^?) (14 June 1838–1 February 1922) was a field marshal in the Imperial Japanese Army and twice Prime Minister of Japan. He is considered one of the architects of the military and political foundations of Meiji era Japan.

Early career

Yamagata was born in a lower-ranked samurai family from Hagi, the capital of the feudal domain of Chōshū (present-day Yamaguchi prefecture. He went to Shokasonjuku, a private school run by Yoshida Shoin, where he devoted his energies to the growing underground movement to overthrow the Tokugawa shogunate. He was a commander in the Kiheitai, a paramilitary organization created on semi-western lines by the Chōshū domain, and during the Boshin War he was appointed a staff officer.

After the Meiji Restoration, he was selected together with Saigō Tsugumichi to visit Europe in 1869 under government orders to research European military systems. Yamagata was strongly influenced by Prussian military and political ideas, which favored military expansion abroad and authoritarian government at home. He became War Minister in 1873. Yamagata energetically modernized the fledgling Imperial Japanese Army, which he modeled after the Prussian army, and began a system of conscription in 1873.

Military career

As War Minister, Yamagata pushed through the foundation of the General Staff Office, which was the main source of Yamagata's political power and that of other military officers through the end of World War II. He was Commander of the General Staff Office in 1874-76, 1878-82, and 1884-85.

Yamagata led the newly modernized Imperial Army against the Satsuma Rebellion led by Saigō Takamori in 1877.

He also had Emperor Meiji write the Imperial Rescript to Soldiers and Sailors, in 1882. This document was considered the moral core of the Japanese military until its end in 1945.

Yamagata was awarded the rank of field marshal in 1898. He showed his leadership on military issues as acting War Minister and Commanding General during the First Sino-Japanese War as the Supreme Commander of the First Army Russo-Japanese War as the Chief Officer of the General Staff Office in Tokyo.

Read more at Wikipedia.org