“Hirohito: a demigod’s trip to Europe”, by Héctor López Aréstegui

The imperial prince of the Japan, Hirohito, was born in Tokyo on April 29, 1901, during the last decade of the reign of his grandfather, Emperor Meiji (1852 – 1912), whose long reign transformed Japan from an isolated feudal state to an economic and military power in the Far East based on the reinterpretation of the traditional divine status of the emperor, transforming it into the Kodo (Imperial Way), which, briefly, could be said to be similar to the Doctrine of Manifest Destiny that guided the expansion from the Atlantic to the Pacific of the United States in XIX century.

Hirohito’s father, the self-absorbed emperor Taisho (1879 – 1926), was the exact opposite of the brilliant figure of Meiji, which is why the hopes of many sectors of Japanese society fell on Hirohito regarding the restoration of the old customs and ancient beliefs to counteract the effects. of material progress and exposure to the culture of the West which, in the words of the Spanish journalist Fabián Vidal, from “La Vanguardia” in Barcelona, “I had weakened and dwarfed the heroic and artist Japan, get out of the world.”

The truth is that the Japan of a century ago could hardly be described as a weak and small nation. The Empire had benefited economically and territorially during World War I, but at a high cost to its people. Thus, Vidal stated: “The postwar period is cruel to these people, who have bought their power at the cost of immense sacrifices. Factories close. In ports, traffic decreases. Banks restrict their credits. The Treasury asks that the contributions be reinforced. It costs a lot to have a great army and a great squad, a skillful diplomacy, a constitutional facade worthy of the West. And the Japanese soil is poor and fragile. Earthquakes, typhoons, volcanic eruptions, periodically cover it with ruins. And every day the conquest of rice is more difficult”.

In this context, Prince Hirohito’s trip to Europe, the first by a member of the Japanese imperial family, was a crossroads between tradition and the obligations of a victorious state of the Great War, a member of the Security Council of the League of the Nations and rival of the United States throughout the Pacific Ocean. For this reason, Hirohito’s cultural training was comprehensive and included visiting the graves of his ancestors and Shinto shrines, the then official religion of Japan, where he prayed, fasted, and spent several nights in contemplation.

Even so, on the eve of his departure, on March 3, 1921, the traditionalists blocked the railway line between Tokyo and Osaka, willing to sacrifice their lives so that the crown prince did not embark on the battleship that, with his respective escort, would take him. to Europe, while in Osaka the workers went on strike demanding their rights and the police intervened the headquarters of the ultra-nationalist sect Omotokyo, which preached the need to declare war on the United States to achieve world domination.

Likewise, in journalistic circles it was said that the authorities had advanced the European tour of Prince Hirohito in order to quell rumors about the cancellation of his marriage commitment to Princess Nagako, daughter of Prince Kuni, a field marshal of the Japanese Army, due to a palace intrigue. For this reason, Vidal was not exaggerating when he pointed out in his note that the official visit of the Mikado’s son to England, France, Belgium, Holland and Italy had been on the verge of unleashing a revolution.

Hirohito’s European journey lasted six months, from March 3 to September 6, 1921 and was marked by the ups and downs of international politics of the time. In America, where the Republican Warren Harding had relieved the Democrat Woodrow Wilson in the White House, it was feared that Hirohito’s presence in England was the prelude to the renewal of the Anglo-Japanese alliance hostile to North American interests in the Pacific. In Australia, New Zealand and Canada, British dominions that had come of age as a result of the Great War, Japanese expansion was feared, the spearhead of which was the millions of Japanese immigrants who left their homeland to seek a better life in other “depopulated” countries compared to the crowded territory of Japan, a fact to which their Motherland seemed insensitive.

The naval arms race in which the United States and Japan were involved was another delicate aspect to deal with, to which was added the presence of Imperial Army forces from Siberia to Korea, in addition to the Japanese claims to assume the mandate of the former German possessions. in the Pacific and the control of the submarine cable installed by Germany in that ocean. We do not know what Hirohito thought about all these matters, what we can say with certainty is that the sum of the internal and external factors described led to the assassination of Prime Minister Takashi Hara on November 4, 1921.

Hirohito celebrated his 20th birthday in Gibraltar and, as he later recounted in numerous interviews, this anniversary was very important, as he was about to start his UK tour. Years later, recalling the interviews he had with King George V (1865 – 1936), he said that his advice on the line of conduct to be followed by a constitutional monarch remained in his mind.

This confession – whose practical effect became effective in the postwar years – was the objective of the trip that completed the political education of the young prince. For Hara, the first commoner and Christian to assume the political leadership of Japan, Prince Hirohito had to see for himself the consequences of war in Europe in order to learn to value peace between nations. He certainly did so by visiting the Verdun battlefield, during his visit to France, under the guidance of then-French President Alexandre Millerand (1859–1943).

On a personal level, the most important legacy of the trip was feeling free for the first time in life. Comparing himself to a bird in a golden cage, Hirohito had contact with the crowds in all the countries he visited; He was free to read newspapers instead of press excerpts and to move around without ties, his most precious souvenir being a Paris metro ticket, which he used during his stay in the French capital.

From all that has been said, there remains no doubt that after the defeat of Japan in World War II, the experiences and memories of this youth tour contributed to his relationship with General Douglas MacArthur (1880–1964), head of the allied occupation forces, were more fluid and empathetic allowing the rapid transformation and democratization of their country. The freedom he enjoyed at Oxford visiting his famed university and, in Paris, finally caught up with the average Japanese under the mantle of the 1947 Constitution, making Hirohito a figure close to his people, a full-fledged constitutional monarch.