Boshin War (1868-1869): The Civil War of the Meiji Restoration

The Boshin War was the civil war of 1868-1869 in which forces of Japan’s new imperial government defeated supporters of the Tokugawa shogunate. Beginning at Toba-Fushimi near Kyoto in January 1868 and ending at Hakodate in Hokkaido in June 1869, it secured the Meiji Restoration and ended more than two and a half centuries of shogunal rule. The war was short, but it decided the shape of modern Japan.

Background

By the 1860s the Tokugawa shogunate was in deep crisis. Its decision to sign treaties with Western powers after the Perry Expedition of 1853-1854 provoked fierce opposition, and the powerful southwestern domains of Satsuma and Choshu formed a secret alliance in 1866 to overthrow it.

In November 1867 the shogun Tokugawa Yoshinobu offered to return his governing authority to the emperor, hoping to remain the leading figure in a new council of lords. His opponents had other plans. On 3 January 1868 Satsuma and its allies seized the imperial palace in Kyoto and had the court proclaim the restoration of imperial rule. Yoshinobu was ordered to give up his offices and much of his land. Provoked further by Satsuma-backed disturbances in Edo, he marched on Kyoto.

Toba-Fushimi and the surrender of Edo

On 27 January 1868 shogunate forces advancing from Osaka met Satsuma and Choshu troops at Toba and Fushimi, just south of Kyoto. The shogun’s army was larger, with around 15,000 men against about 5,000, but the government side had better rifles, artillery and leadership. On the second day the court gave the government army the imperial brocade banner, branding its opponents as enemies of the throne. Several domains, including Yodo and Tsu, switched sides, and after four days the shogunate army retreated. Yoshinobu left Osaka by warship for Edo.

The imperial army advanced on Edo under the command of Saigo Takamori. The shogunate’s army minister, Katsu Kaishu, negotiated a peaceful surrender, and Edo Castle was handed over in May 1868 without a fight, sparing the city of more than a million people. Yoshinobu retired to Mito and later Shizuoka. A die-hard unit, the Shogitai, was destroyed at the Battle of Ueno in Edo on 4 July 1868.

The northern war and Aizu

Resistance shifted to northern Honshu. In May 1868 some thirty domains formed the Ouetsu Reppan Domei, the Northern Alliance, partly to defend Aizu, whose lord Matsudaira Katamori had policed Kyoto for the shogun and was singled out for punishment. Fierce fighting took place at Nagaoka, where the commander Kawai Tsuginosuke used modern Gatling guns, and in the mountain passes leading to Aizu.

In October 1868 government forces besieged Tsuruga Castle at Aizu-Wakamatsu. During the fighting a group of teenage soldiers of the Byakkotai (White Tiger Force), seeing smoke over the town and believing the castle had fallen, killed themselves on Iimoriyama hill. The castle held out for about a month before Aizu surrendered on 6 November 1868. The other northern domains had already given up or did so soon after.

Hakodate and the Republic of Ezo

The shogunate’s navy, commanded by Enomoto Takeaki, refused to surrender its ships and sailed north in the autumn of 1868, joined by some French military advisers led by Captain Jules Brunet. Landing in Ezo (Hokkaido), Enomoto’s forces took the star-shaped fortress of Goryokaku at Hakodate in late 1868. In January 1869 they set up a regime known in the West as the Republic of Ezo, with Enomoto elected as its leader.

The government assembled a new fleet, including the ironclad Kotetsu, bought from the United States. An attempt by Enomoto’s forces to capture it at Miyako Bay in May 1869 failed. Government troops landed in Hokkaido in May 1869. The former Shinsengumi commander Hijikata Toshizo was killed in the fighting at Hakodate, and Enomoto surrendered Goryokaku in June 1869. Instead of being executed, he was pardoned in 1872 and later served the Meiji government as a minister.

Foreign powers and the war

The Western powers formally declared neutrality in February 1868, but both sides depended on foreign weapons. Satsuma and Choshu had bought rifles and ships through Western merchants such as the Scottish trader Thomas Glover in Nagasaki, while the shogunate had been advised by the French minister Leon Roches and trained by a French military mission that arrived in 1867. The British minister Harry Parkes and his staff, including the interpreter Ernest Satow, kept close contacts with the anti-shogunate leaders.

Neutrality had practical effects. The ironclad later named Kotetsu, ordered by the shogunate from the United States, was held back while the war continued and was handed over to the new government only after the foreign powers lifted their neutrality in early 1869. The French advisers who joined Enomoto acted on their own initiative and were sent home after the defeat.

Casualties and aftermath

The fighting was limited compared with contemporary wars in Europe and America. Estimates of the dead vary, but most put them in the several thousands on both sides combined, with many more wounded. Civilians suffered heavily in some places, above all at Aizu-Wakamatsu, where much of the castle town was burned during the siege.

Punishments were moderate by the standards of the time. Few leaders were executed, and the Tokugawa family was allowed to keep a domain at Shizuoka. Aizu, however, lost its lands, and many of its samurai and their families were resettled in the harsh climate of Tonami in far northern Honshu, an exile remembered bitterly in the region. Many former enemies, including Enomoto Takeaki, later served the Meiji state.

Key people

• Tokugawa Yoshinobu: the fifteenth and last shogun, who avoided a fight to the finish and lived quietly until 1913.
• Saigo Takamori: Satsuma leader who commanded the imperial army and accepted the surrender of Edo.
• Katsu Kaishu: shogunate naval official who negotiated the peaceful handover of Edo.
• Matsudaira Katamori: lord of Aizu and the most prominent leader of northern resistance.
• Enomoto Takeaki: shogunate admiral who led the last stand in Hokkaido.

Myths and facts

Myth: it was a war between traditional samurai and modern soldiers. Both sides used rifles, artillery and steam warships, and the shogunate’s best troops had been trained by French officers. The government side won mainly through better organisation, leadership and political legitimacy.

Myth: The Last Samurai tells the story of the Boshin War. The film is loosely inspired by Jules Brunet and by the later Satsuma Rebellion, but its plot and characters are fictional.

Timeline

• 1867, November: Tokugawa Yoshinobu offers to return his authority to the emperor.
• 1868, 3 January: The restoration of imperial rule is proclaimed in Kyoto.
• 1868, 27-30 January: The Battle of Toba-Fushimi.
• 1868, May: Edo Castle is surrendered peacefully; the Northern Alliance is formed.
• 1868, 4 July: The Shogitai are defeated at Ueno.
• 1868, 6 November: Aizu surrenders after a month-long siege.
• 1869, January: Enomoto’s officers set up the Ezo regime in Hokkaido.
• 1869, June: Goryokaku surrenders and the war ends.

Why it matters

The Boshin War destroyed the military power of the Tokugawa and their allies and gave the new Meiji leaders a free hand to abolish the domains and modernise Japan. The leniency shown to leaders such as Yoshinobu and Enomoto helped reconcile former enemies. In Aizu and the north, however, memories of defeat and harsh treatment lingered for generations.