Human Bullets: Images of the Wounded Soldiers in the Russo Japanese War

Transcription

1 Eriko KOGO WASEDA University Human Bullets: Images of the Wounded Soldiers in the Russo Japanese War Abstract After the Russo Japanese war ( ), Tadayoshi Sakurai ( ), an army lieutenant, wrote a war literature Nikudan (Human Bullets): the record of the battle of Port Arther (1906) on the basis of his experience. This book became a bestseller, and the word Human Bullets immediately spread and was understood as a pronoun for the heroic and brave soldier and his body. In the background of this empathy, there existed the battle s reality of massive casualties and real-time images of the great and tragic deaths, with crushed bodies. For example, we can see the first official Gun-Shin (the war god) Takeo Hirose, a Lieutenant Colonel, as a first sample of Human Bullets. His honorable death report gradually converged on one story: he performed a brave act, took a direct hit from a bomb, and vanished leaving behind his flesh pieces. These death descriptions come from two sources: One is the vision of the battle of the Bushi or Samurai (a feudal warrior); they were excited about its narrative. Another is the representation of modern arms and their power. They would like to depict themselves as being able to manage new modern energy. The crushed bodies lie at the intersection of these two sources. These images show us why and how they dreamed the death to be so beautiful and heroic. Key words Image Studies, Visual Culture, Aesthetics, Representation of the honorable death for the country, Cultural history of the Russo-Japanese war, Human Bullets KOGO 1

2 1. Introduction The Russo-Japanese War ( ) changed many aspects of war and the nation at the beginning of the twentieth century. This conflict was between Japan and the Russian empire for supremacy in the area of the Korean Peninsula and Manchuria, but observed from all the Western powers which were allied to each country. Therefore the war has been pointed out the Zeroth world war. In this war, Japanese people experienced many new situations of war; the increasing burden of the war costs and the growing number of mobilized strength and massive casualties. The total number of wounded Japanese soldiers was estimated to reach into around 143,000, and the number killed was around 84,000. At the same time, broadening mass media declared the conditions of our soldiers death. In the cries echoing for national unity, citizens were gradually organized into the Japanese nation. With the word Human Bullets as a keyword, this presentation takes up the images of wounded Japanese soldiers and their death in this war. Japanese people modeled the dying scene with the crushed bodies of torn flesh and flowing blood. This sight would be called Niku-Dan [Human Bullets] after Tadayoshi Sakurai s war literature of the same title. These images had two sources; early-modern heroic narratives of Bushi or Samurai from the late Edo period and modern discourses of arms or energy from the Meiji era. This imagery shows us why and how they dreamed death on the battlefield to be so beautiful and heroic. 2. Crushed Soldiers Niku-Dan [Human bullets] is a word that means to assault the enemy like a shot, and refers to that body itself. The word storming with human bullets is used as a metaphor for hard-fighting. The term Human bullets was spread after publication of a book about the war Niku-Dan: the soldier s story of Port Arthur (1906) by Tadayoshi Sakurai ( ), an army lieutenant. However, magazines and newspapers had published similar images of officers and men being rushed into the enemy position. In those descriptions, many scenes of fierce assault with flesh and blood were honored as loyal and brave activities Dying Gun-Shin [war god] The last moment of Hirose Takeo drove many descriptions of death in the Russo-Japanese war as a Gun-shin [war god] model case. Gun-shin was an honorific title for soldiers in the Japanese modern era, given to selected people who were recognized by their honorable death. Takeo Hirose was the first Gun-shin. KOGO 2

3 Hirose took a direct hit from a bomb and sank under the water, after searching for his comrade three times in the early hours of March 27 th. First engineer Kurita, who was present at that time, reported that, no one was able to clearly see the scene of lieutenant Hirose's death. But, we guessed that he had been shot in the head based on the brains, flesh, and blood that spurted out on the soldiers around there. 1 This report was very suggestive; no one could witness the moment of Hirose s death. Only his brains, flesh, and blood index his sudden absence. The mass media had influenced the molding of his image as Gun-shin. An official Navy report announced his death and the magazines and newspapers celebrated him. For example, a an extra edition of the war magazine having Gun-shin described it as follows: When I looked myself, I found the fluid on my body was not brine but the loyal blood of superhuman Lieutenant Colonel Hirose. The tokens were only coin-sized pieces of his flesh and maps of his blood. The Lieutenant Colonel gave his life because he searched around the vessel for the wounded and died such a heroic death. It is truly natural that all brave marines on the ship sobbed for a long time. 2 Hirose left only coin-sized pieces of his flesh and maps of his blood and died a heroic death. All the soldiers sobbed for him. The index of his flesh and blood told them of his extremely fierce death. And this death story was supported by the fact that the index only existed. The shock to one s body induces shocking narratives, and those narratives give rise to fierce descriptions. Those shocking narrative styles were adopted to many soldiers loyal death. For instance, a first lieutenant Katao Miura got a single shot and crushed into pieces all around, leaving only his bloody leather belt Human Bullets and Battlefield with bloody river and heaps of corpses Paradoxically, those idealized narratives gave Japanese soldiers the equality of death. The death like Gun-shin came to everyone -- whether famous or anonymous -- in the battlefield. 1 First engineer Kurita, 'Letter reports of the death of lieutenant Colonel Hirose, from first engineer Kurita,' Tokyo Asahi Shimbun, 15 April Gunshin Hirose Chusa: Nichiro-Senso Jikki [War God Lieutenant Colonel Hirose: Report of the Russo-Japanese War] extra edition, Tokyo: hakubun-kwan, April 1904, p Jicchi-Tsuzoku Nichiro-Kassen-ki[True and popular report of the Russo-Japanese war] 46 a tragic death of a first lieutenant, Nichiro-Kassen-ki[True and popular report of the Russo-Japanese war], Osaka: Osaka shimpo-sha, May 1904, p.42. KOGO 3

4 The flesh and blood, crushed bodies were the huge indexes of soldiers who spent their life in battle. Those scenes of the battlefields were observed by war correspondents. They walked there after the battle, and depicted the index of death as miserable and sublime with romanticism. War correspondent and novelist Katai Tayama and an artist Kogyo Terasaki praised a moving sight of a dead body with blood beside on iris flower. In the same way, the geographer Shigetaka Shiga walked around a battlefield scattered with heads, abdomens or legs, all parts of the body that had become burnt flesh and bones by the attack of the bombing. He could not help lamenting when he stood in the front of bodies heaped like piles of bags. 4 Their reports gave readers the impression that it was definitely real, even if idealized. Who could come close to this miserable and sublime reality of the battlefield? Soldiers; Tadayoshi Sakurai, a first lieutenant of the army, who was involved in siege warfare at Port Arthur, now Lüshun, and was badly wounded. He wrote a book about the war Niku-Dan [Human Bullets]: the soldier s story of Port Arthur based on battlefield experience. This novel had won many readers for long time, as a best seller with some publishers and was translated into several languages. 5 Readers wanted realistic descriptions of the true and actual battlefield. Sakurai, for instance, described the sight of his comrades bodies piled on a narrow path, trampled and shredded by the wheels of gun carriages: Black arms, big legs, white teeth biting his lip, eyes not closing even in death, bodies half buried in the ground, shattered bones, torn flesh, flowing blood, all those were scatted together with broken swords and split rifles. What could be more savage and more horrible than this scene! 6 Here, he represents real and cruel death on the battlefront and expresses a poetic sentiment at the same time. 4 Shigetaka Shiga, Tai-eki-sho-shi[a Little record of the Great War], Tokyo: Tokyo-do, 1909, pp Niku-Dan has been translated at least into six languages: English, Russian, German, Swedish, French, and Italian. Russian edition is below: O? >=A: 8<? >@CG8: ><! 0: C@08 " 0409>A8, Blonsk+-, Kapitan, ʺ! B0; LN 8 (=8: C-40=J ) : >G5@: 8 O?>=A: >-@CAA: >9 2>9=K, С.- 5 C@3 J : " 8? -; 8 B... K@: 8=0, Tadayoshi Sakurai, Niku-Dan: Ryo-jun Jissen-ki[Human Ballets: A Soldier s Story of Port Arther], Tokyo: Eibun-Shinshisha, In translated edition, Human Ballets: A Soldier s Story of Port Arther(translated by Masujiro Honda, edited by Alice Mabel Bacon, Boston and New York: Houghton, Mifflin and company, 1907), the same parts was expressed as below: Shatterd bones, torn flesh, flowing blood, were mingled with broken swords and split rifles. What could be more shocking than this scene? (p.224) KOGO 4

5 3. Two discourses: Bushi and Modern power This imagery of Human Bullets was supported by two discourses: a Bushi (Japanese feudal warrior) s combat and a modern warfare. Human Bullets appear where the two discourses meet The visions of the heroic combat of Bushi Bushi is a feudal warrior in the Japanese pre-modern age. In the Meiji era, people considered Bushi as their spiritual ancestor, especially soldiers. In particular, Bushi-do was regarded as an attitude for fighting. However, this Bushi-do was formed in the Meiji period as the invented tradition as argued by Hobsbawm 7. Inazo Nitobe published his Bushido, The Soul of Japan in Philadelphia in 1899, and in 1908, after the war, it was translated in Japanese. Moreover, Nitobe considered Bushi-do as an emotional support for Japanese people. Bushi-do was accepted through narratives of war tales like the Tale of the Heike or the Record of Great Peace. These narratives were represented to audiences by Ko-Dan, traditional Japanese storytelling on stage and Musha-e, pictures of warriors by colored woodblock print. Literature from Ko-Dan and pictures like Musha-e appeared in many magazines and newspapers reflecting the tastes of the growing audiences. In fact, some Ko-Dan storytellers joined the army. Narratives of Ko-Dan storytelling had a tendency to emphasize vividness and heroism of the story. For example, cadet Kajimura expressed his anger to his fellow soldiers, when he took a direct hit that scatted his flesh and blood. 8 Bloody bodies were found in Musha-e pictures in some magazines. Audiences appreciated the superhuman fighting and hara-kiri, suicide by disembowelment, for the tale-like Bushi world The representations of modern warfare and their power and energy On the other hand, this fighting attitude of dedicating one s life imparts overwhelming destructive power to the bodies crushed on both sides by modern arms. As noted previously, the war correspondents observed such disastrous scenes. Bushi s fighting without fearing death could not escape the power of modern arms. 7 Eric Hobsbaum and Terence Ranger ed., The Invention of Tradition, England: the Press of University of Cambridge, 1983 (Trans. Keiji Maekawa, et. al., Tokyo: Kinokuni-ya shoten, 1992). 8 Jicchi-Tsuzoku Nichiro-Kassen-ki[True and popular report of the Russo-Japanese war] 39 a miserable death, Nichiro-Kassen-ki[True and popular report of the Russo-Japanese war], Osaka: Osaka shimpo-sha, May 1904, p.19. KOGO 5

6 The more modern arms had great power of motion and destruction, the more they distinguished war modernity. Tadayoshi Sakurai introduced the word Kisha-Dama, Train Bullets 9. Train bullets shake the battleground with a growl like a train leaving the station. All soldiers, horses, rocks and sand are smashed in collision with that train. Their life could be cut down immediately by such bullets called Train, like many people run over and killed by a train. Historian Wolfgang Schivelbusch has pointed out the modern shock of this train collision. This sudden shock with bodies is a clear indication of war modernity. These modern arms were also used by the Japanese army. The fact that they could use the same modern arms was important for the Japanese people at that time. They considered that sameness as a symbol of modern and victorious Japan fighting with western and civilized country. 4. Conclusion: sweet death for the country The crushed bodies of soldiers lie at the intersection of these Bushi and two modern discourses. Descriptions of flesh and blood celebrated heroic death on the battlefield equally, and made wounded bodies a modern outcome. Human Bullets were a strong imagery of the body and death in the Russo-Japanese war. This imagery provided soldiers with mortality on the battlefield and led Japanese citizens to accepting soldiers mortality with beautiful and heroic discourses. Enjoying this imagery of sweet death for the country, organized into a Japanese nation, Japanese citizens dreamed of old traditions, accomplishing modern war, and winning. 9 Tadayoshi Sakurai, op.cit., p KOGO 6