Battle of Shimonoseki

Template:Battlebox The Battles of Shimonoseki were a series of little-known engagements fought from 1863-64 by naval forces of the United States,Great Britain,France, and the Netherlands against the powerful feudal Japanese warlord or daimyo Lord Mori Takachika of the Choshu clan based in Shimonoseki,Japan which threatened to involve America, by 1863 already torn by civil strife, in a foreign war.

Background

Since Commodore Matthew Perry of the U.S. Navy sailed into Edo (Tokyo) Bay on July 8,1853 with his threatening kurofone, the Black Ships, it ended two centuries of self-imposed isolation (''Sakoku'') demanding that Japan open trade with the West. On March 31, 1854 Japan signed the Treaty of Kanagawa with the U.S. and later with other major European powers, enabling them to impose a series of exorbitant rights and powers, which many intellectual Japanese widely regarded as unequal.

However, despite efforts of appeasement by the Tokugawa shogunate to establish an atmosphere of peaceful solidarity, many feudal daimyos remained bitterly resentful of the shogunate's open-door policy to the West.

Belligerent opposition to Western influence erupted into open conflict when the Shimonoseki-based Choshu clan under Lord Mori Takachika, began a private war to expel all foreigners. Openly defying the shogunate, Takachika orders his forces to fire, without warning, on all foreign ships traversing Shimonoseki Strait, the strategic but treacherous 112-meter waterway separating the islands of Honshu and Kyushu, which provides a passage connecting the Inland Sea with the Sea of Japan.

Even before tensions escalated in Shimonoseki Strait, foreign diplomats and military experts, notably U.S. Foreign Minister to Japan Robert Pruyn and Captain David McDougal of the U.S. Navy, were aware of the precarious state of affairs in Japan. A letter to the Secretary of the Navy Gideon Welles dated June 12, 1863 written by McDougal stated, "General opinion is that the government (of Japan) is on the eve of revolution, the principal object of which is the expulsion of foreigners.".

"Revere the Emperor and Drive Out the Barbarians!"

The first attack occurred on June 25, 1863. The U.S. merchant steamer Pembroke, under Captain Simon Cooper, was riding anchor outside Shimonoseki Strait, when intercepted and unsuspectingly and fired upon by two European-built warships belonging to the rebel forces. The crew of one enemy vessel taunted the frantic American seamen with the loud and unnerving cry, "Revere the Emperor and dirve out the barbarians!".Under incessant cannon fire, Pembroke managed to get underway, and miraculously escaped through the adjacent Bungo Strait with only slight damage and no casualties. Upon arrival in Shanghai, Cooper filed a report of the attack and dispatched it to the U.S. Consulate in Yokohama,Japan.

Next day, June 26, the French naval dispatch steamer Kienchang was also riding anchor outside the strait, when rebel Japanese artillery atop the bluffs surrounding Shimonoseki opened fire on her. Damaged in several places, the French vessel was lucky to get away with but one wounded sailor.

On July 11,despite warnings from the crew of the Kienchang, whom they had rendezvoused with earlier, the 16-gun Dutch warship Medusa cruised into Shimonoseki Strait, despite being warned by the crew of the Kienchang, whom they had rendezvoused with earlier. Her skipper, Captain de Cazembroot believed that Lord Mori would not dare fire on his vessel, due to the strength of his ship and longstanding relations between the Netherlands and Japan. But Takachika did just that, pounding Medusa with more than thirty shells and inflicting nine killed or wounded seamen. De Cazembroot returned fire and ran the rebel gauntlet at full speed, fearing of endangering the life of the Dutch Consul General, who was on board Medusa that time.

Within a short time, the Japanese warlord had managed to fire on most of the foreign flags of those nations with consulates in Japan.

Despite retaliatory action from the treaty powers, another attack occurred in July, 1864, when the rebel forces fired upon the U.S. steamer Monitor after she entered a harbor for coal and water. This provoked further outrage, even after a British squadron was returning to Yokohama after delivering a multi-national ultimatum to Takachika, threatening military force if the strait was not opened.

The First Battles

The coastal waters off Shimonoseki were no stranger to bloodshed. At the watershed naval Battle of Dan-no-ura on April 25,1185, a major engagement in the Genpei War which was fought in the strait, a fleet belonging to Minamoto Yoshitsune of the Genji clan wiped out the navy of rival Heike warlord Taira Kiyomori.

In the morning of July 16, 1863, under sanction by Minister Pruyn, in an apparent swift response to the attack on the Pembroke, the U.S. frigate USS Wyoming under Captain McDougal himself sailed into the strait and single-handedly engaged the European-built but poorly manned rebel fleet. For almost two hours before withdrawing, McDougal sank one enemy vessel and mortally damaging another, along with some forty Japanese casualties, while the Wyoming suffered extensive damage with fourteen crew dead or wounded.

On the heels of McDougal's engagement, a French landing force of two warships and 250 men under Rear Admiral Jaures swept into Shimonoseki and destroyed a small town, together with at least one artillery emplacement.

On August 14, 1863, a British naval squadron led by Vice Admiral Sir Augustus Kuper mimicked the French attack, sweeping into territory of the Satsuma clan,leaving behind the burning town of Kagoshima and three sunken enemy steamers in its wake, at a cost of sixty-three British killed.

Diplomacy Row

Meanwhile, the Americans, French, British and Dutch feverishly opened diplomatic channels in an effort to negotiate the reopening of the passage to the Inland Sea. Months dragged by with no end in sight to the delicately growing dilemma.

By May 1864, various bellicose Japanese factions had destroyed thousands of dollars in foreign property, including homes, churches and shipping. This wanton destruction included the U.S. Legation in Tokyo, which housed Minister Pruyn.

Throughout the first half of 1864, as Shimonoseki Strait remained closed to foreign shipping, threats and rumors of war hung in the air, while unsuccessful diplomatic maneuvering remained deadlocked. Then the British Minister to Japan Sir Rutherford Alcock discussed with his treaty counterparts, the feasibility of a joint military strike against Takachika and were soon making preparations for the combined movement. Under the wary eyes of the Japanese, fifteen British warships rode anchor alongside four Dutch vessels, while a British regiment from Hongkong augmented their display of military might. The French maintained a minimal naval presence, with the bulk of their forces in Mexico trying to bolster Maximilian's unstable regime.

In the meantime, the insurgent prince procrastinated with all peace negotiations by requesting additional time to respond to the allied demands; a course of action unacceptable to the treaty powers. The allies decided that the time for unified action had arrived.

Final Engagement and Outcome

On August 17, 1864, a squadron consisting of nine British, three French and five Dutch warships together with 2,000 soldiers steamed out of Yokohama to open Shimonoseki Strait. A U.S. chartered steamer, the Takiang accompanied the operation, in a token show of support. The two-day battle that followed on September 5 and 6 did what the previous operations could not: it destroyed the Prince of Nagato's ability to wage war.

Unable to match the firepower of the international fleet, and amid mounting casualties, the rebel Choshu forces finally surrendered two days later on September 9, 1864. Allied casualties included seventy-two killed or wounded and two severely damaged British ships. The stringent accord drawn up in the wake of the ceasefire, and negotiated by U.S. Minister Pruyn, included an indemnity of $3,000,000 from the Japanese.

1n 1883, twenty years after the first battle to reopen the strait, the United States quietly returned $750,000 to Japan, which represented its share of the reparation payment extracted under the rain of multi-national shells.

Historical Significance

With dire resemblance to the series of little conflicts fought by the Western powers in Asia,Africa and elsewhere during the Ninteenth Century, the troubles in Japan then seemed to exemplify their typical gunboat diplomacy, a prevalent tool in colonialism. The resentment against foreign influence, coupled with defiance against their own government, made it justifiable for the Choshiu clan to engage in acts of foolish attrition, but also made it compelling for the U.S. and its European allies to use military force in upholding the treaty with Japan. Later, the same nationalistic anger directed against foreigners, as then demonstrated by the Japanese, would again flare up in the Chinese Boxer Rebellion.

For the U.S., while July 1863 was a momentous month for Northern arms at Gettysburg and Vicksburg, it was bitterly embroiled in the Civil War, and the world was carefully watching President Abraham Lincoln's government for signs of weakness and indecision. While the actions of USS Wyoming made it the first foreign warship to offensively uphold treaty rights with Japan, the fact coupled with the possibility that events threatened to mire the U.S. in a foreign war made the battle of Shimonoseki, a significant engagement.

While the battles of Shimonoseki Strait were almost mere footnotes to the histories of the European powers, an interesting aspect to the affair was the resourcefulness in Japanese culture, something another generation of Westerners, eigthy years later would come to appreciate. The feudal Japanese did not set eyes on a steam-powered ship until Commodore Perry's arrival, and a decade before USS Wyoming's battle. Yet they learned the ways of the West rapidly within that brief time span, purchasing foreign vessels and arming them with foreign weaponry. The quality and abundance of these armaments in 1860s Japan shocked the world.