SNA (Tokyo) — When Fumimaro Konoe returned to the premiership in mid-1940, he launched a bolder package of policy initiatives, including the declaration of the Greater East Asia Co-Prosperity Sphere and the creation of a one-party state. However, Nazi Germany’s unexpected attack on the Soviet Union once again exposed the regime’s continuing diplomatic miscalculations. When the Imperial Army turned its attention south, it brought Japan to the brink of war.

Transcript

On July 22, 1940, Fumimaro Konoe returned as prime minister of Japan.

Although there had been three premiers since his first term, they were all short-lived administrations. He had only been out of office for about a year and a half.

Among the most notable members of his new Cabinet was Foreign Minister Yosuke Matsuoka, who had years earlier led Japan out of the League of Nations and was a strong advocate for establishing an alliance with Nazi Germany and Fascist Italy.

Barely a week after the formation of the new Cabinet, Matsuoka declared to the media the establishment of the Greater East Asia Co-Prosperity Sphere, which was meant to become a self-sufficient bloc of Asian peoples that would be led by Japan in opposition to the colonial rule of the Western Powers.

Konoe also moved forward with the idea of transforming Japan into a one-party state. This resulted in October of the merger of all of the mainstream political parties into the Imperial Rule Assistance Association. However, Konoe declined to provide this new party a clear ideological direction or to create powerful new institutions based upon it.

Meanwhile, international confrontation was rapidly hardening.

In September, the Imperial Japanese Army invaded and occupied northern Indochina, then under the rule of the French government which had been defeated by Nazi Germany in Europe. The purpose of this occupation was to cut off supplies to Nationalist Chinese forces still resisting Japanese rule.

At about the same time, the Konoe administration committed Japan to the Tripartite Pact, a defensive alliance with Nazi Germany and Fascist Italy. While this agreement did once again relieve Japan of its diplomatic isolation from all of the other Great Powers, it further antagonized the United States and Great Britain, deepening their feelings of ill will.

The United States responded by dialing up economic sanctions, limiting US exports of scrap iron, aviation fuel, aircraft parts, chemicals, and minerals to Japan. Since the Japanese economy was deeply dependent on the United States—especially for its oil supplies—the warning was an ominous one.

Also alarming was the decision by the Franklin D. Roosevelt administration to massively build up the size and capabilities of the US Navy. Month by month, the American navy was widening its power gap with the Japanese Imperial Navy.

The British too were becoming a major irritant. They reopened the Burma Road and stepped up supplies and support to the Nationalist Chinese forces resisting Japan.

While such foreign policy issues dominated Cabinet attention, a major event also occurred at home in November. Kinmochi Saionji, the last of the Genro, passed away at age 92. Until the very end he had remained mentally alert and a political force to reckon with. He always counseled the government to avoid unnecessary confrontations with the Anglo-American Powers. The Meiji Era had truly passed.

In the spring of 1941, the Konoe government finally seemed to make substantial progress. A Soviet–Japanese Neutrality Pact was signed with Stalin. This mutual nonaggression treaty appeared to guarantee that the Soviet Union would not join forces with the Anglo-American Powers in any combined attack on Japan.

Moreover, Admiral Kichisaburo Nomura, the new Japanese ambassador to Washington, made major progress toward coming to a bilateral settlement with the Americans over their disparate interests in China.

But this fragile moment of promise was irretrievably shattered on June 22, 1941, when Nazi Germany violated its international treaties and launched a surprise invasion of the Soviet Union.

Konoe was appalled, feeling that Japan had been betrayed by its new ally, and he became distrustful of the Nazi regime. After all, this had actually been the second time that Japan had been betrayed by Hitler’s Germany; the first had been the Molotov–Ribbentrop Pact less than two years earlier which had helped bring down the government of Kiichiro Hiranuma.

One prominent member of the Cabinet, however, saw the issue entirely differently—Foreign Minister Yosuke Matsuoka.

Matsuoka was convinced that Nazi Germany would quickly defeat the Soviet Union, and he argued strongly and insistently that Japan should immediately attack the Soviet Union itself and share in the benefits of its dismemberment. Among the senior officials of the government, Matsuoka was alone in this opinion. Konoe himself grew annoyed at the pro-German militancy of his foreign minister.

Konoe’s solution was to have his entire Cabinet resign, and then he reformed it with Matsuoka left out of the new lineup.

Within days, however, the Konoe administration blundered into an even deeper predicament. Deciding against an attack on the Soviet Union in the north, the Imperial Army was instead authorized to move into the southern half of French Indochina, occupying Saigon.

The Roosevelt administration reacted more sharply than Tokyo had anticipated—it froze all Japanese assets under its control and imposed a complete ban on the export of oil. This represented an existential crisis for Japan. In order for its ships to sail, and for the Imperial Army to effectively fight the ongoing war in China, oil supplies were an absolute necessity.

Konoe believed that his only way out of the trap was to hold a direct summit meeting with President Roosevelt in order to discuss and resolve through diplomacy his government’s major outstanding disagreements with the United States. Behind Konoe’s push for a peaceful settlement was Emperor Hirohito, who distrusted the Imperial Army’s upbeat assessments about the prospects for a war—they had already been proven overly optimistic so many times in recent years.

However, Washington firmly rejected the summit idea. Secretary of State Cordell Hull believed at this juncture that Japan needed to be met more with force than with political compromise.

With his diplomatic strategy reaching a dead end, Konoe was strongly pressed by Army Minister Hideki Tojo to make the decision to go to war with the United States, Great Britain, and the Netherlands. Crucial oil supplies were diminishing under the impact of the US oil embargo. Only the oil fields of the Dutch East Indies were possibly within the grasp of Japanese military forces.

By mid-October, time had run out: Tojo demanded that Konoe authorize war.

Refusing to do so, on October 18, 1941, Fumimaro Konoe instead resigned as prime minister of Japan. He just couldn’t believe the Imperial Army’s assurances that it could win a war against the United States, and he wanted avoid responsibility for agreeing to it. His second administration had lasted for 1 year and 89 days.

Konoe never returned as prime minister. Throughout the war years he remained pessimistic, viewing the fight as a doomed effort, and he was also concerned about his successor’s domestic policies. He returned briefly to government in late 1945, and he was initially cooperative with the US occupation forces.

However, when orders came down for his arrest as a suspected Class A War Criminal, Konoe decided to commit suicide, taking cyanide on December 16, 1945. He was only 54 years old.

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