Homework - Use the source material listed below to answer the questions on the assignment sheet. These sources will be the focus of class discussion in the next class - the question sheet is available here.
Over the Top - A simulation of a soldier fighting in the trenches. - click here (Note: the low-graphics version is the same game only has no narration or animation)
Trench Warfare - A Simulation of a commander - click here
(Note - this program uses Flash and will not work on your ipad)
Mid Year Exam Essay Questions: On the exam you will be answering both of the following questions:
These are open essay questions. There is no one correct answer for these essays. Instead, you will be graded based on what you put in your answer – the more specific and detailed your essay the better.
These questions are designed to help you think about how the events and people covered in the course are connected to the larger ideas of the "modern world" - the general theme of the class. At the start of the year, the class discussed the question, “What does the term ‘modern’ mean in the phrase ‘modern world’?" The course is now at the start of twentieth century which was when many of the core ideas of the modern world had been developed. The class has studied many of the people and events that led to the formation of "modern world". The two questions you will answer for the exam will have you reflect on this history and evaluate it through the perspective of the idea of the term "modern world".
1. Considering the whole period of history the class has covered this year, from the period prior to the French Revolution to the start of World War One, what do you consider to be the three most important specific events (for example the Tennis Court Oath, invention of steam engine or Frano-Prussian War) in the development of the "modern world"?
2. Considering the whole period of history the class has covered this year, from the prior to the French Revolution to the start of World War One, who do you consider to be the three most important people in the development of the "modern world?
In your essay, you will need to make clear the characteristics that you associate with the "modern world".
Essay Format
Your exam essays should be clearly structured and written in a very direct style. Specifically:
•The first paragraph should be only one sentence – your thesis.
•You should have three supporting paragraphs that start with a topic sentence that clearly ties them to the thesis.
•You should not have a conclusion – it is unnecessary.
How to Study for Mid Year
Read through notes to refresh memory – if you do not have the notes, you can find them on the web page.
Review quizzes – the exam will have different questions, but names, events and ideas are the same.
Look back at Source or DBQ questions and tests.
Big Point – Review a little at a time. Put in 20 minutes each day over the course of two weeks. Think about reviewing a packet a day. Make note of what you have the most trouble with – review that again the night before the exam. Do not plan on one cram session the night before the exam.
Homework - Use the source material listed below to answer the questions on the assignment sheet. These sources will be the focus of class discussion in the next class - the question sheet is available here.
Source # 1 - Interactive Diagram of a World War One Trench - click here
Biography - Eric Maria Remarque
Erich Maria Remarque was born in Germany in 1898 to a working class family. His father worked as an independent printer and bookbinder. Remarque was studying to be a teacher when he was drafted into the German Army in 1916. Remarque served in a military engineering unit building and repairing fortification on the frontline. He was wounded in an artillery attack in July 1917 and spent most of the rest of the war in a military hospital recovering from his wounds. The war ended a few days before Remarque returned to active service in 1918.
Following the war, like many soldiers, Remarque tried to return to society and build a life for himself. And like many former soldiers, Remarque had difficulty with this readjustment. During this time, he worked as a teacher, accountant, and even a tombstone salesman, before he settled on being a writer. His personal life was also chaotic with his first marriage ending in divorce.
In 1928, Remarque wrote All Quiet on the Western Front based on his own wartime experiences. The simple and blunt language underlined the horrific reality of war described in the book. In the introduction to the book, Remarque wrote, “I will try simply to tell of a generation of men who, even though they may have survived shells, were destroyed by the war.” The describes a group of school friends who all enlist in the army at the start of the war and how over the course of the war they are all either killed or wounded in the fighting. All Quiet was first published in 1929 and became an instant best-seller, selling more than 1 million copies in Germany alone and being translated into 23 languages. The next year, Hollywood produced a film version of the novel that was released to an international audience.
The success of All Quiet made Remarque an international figure and a wealthy man. The book also brought Remarque into conflict with the emerging Nazi Party. The anti-war theme of novel went against the Nazis attempts to rewrite and glorify the history of the German army in First World War. Nazis invented a story that Remarque was a Jew, interrupted the screening of the film in Berlin and publicly burned Remarque’s books because, in the eyes of the Nazis, the books “betrayed the soldiers of World War One”. When Hitler took over Germany, the Nazis attempted to have Remarque arrested. Remarque fled to Switzerland and eventually to the United States – where he became a citizen in 1947. Over the course of the rest of his life, he only returned to Germany for short visits. He died in Switzerland in 1970.
Source # 2 - Video Clip of the opening scene to the movie All Quiet On the Western Front that shows German and French soldiers fighting in the trenches - click here Note - You need to be logged into you Bedford Google Account to watch the video
Biography - Otto Dix
Otto Dix was born in Germany in 1891 to a working class family. His father was an iron worker and his mother was a seamstress. As a child he was introduced to art by his cousin who was a painter, who helped him get an apprenticeship to be a painter. In 1910, Dix went to the city of Dresden to attend art school.
When the war began in 1914, Dix was caught up in the excitement of the war and volunteered to serve in the German army. Dix commanded a machine gun unit on the Western Front and fought against the British in the Battle of the Somme. Dix was wounded several times in the war; the last time was in August 1918 when he was nearly killed from being shot in the neck. A medic was able to stop the bleeding and saved his life. The war ended while Dix was recovering in the hospital.
During the war, Dix kept a diary and a sketchbook with which he chronicled his experience. They would provide material for a major work of fifty prints called simply, The War. Dix was profoundly affected by the war. He described a recurring nightmare in which he crawled through bombed out houses. His experience with war and its aftermath became a dominant theme in the art he produced after 1914.
Dix returned to Dresden after the war and tried to go back to studying art, the memories of the war soon crept into his work. Dix was haunted by the brutality of war and he tried to capture this in his painting. He painted desolate battle fields that were carved with military trenches and strewn with bodies. Dix’s painting showed soldiers as mutilated, wounded, suffering or mad. In 1924, Dix published fifty of his pictures in a book called simply “The War”. Two years later, in 1926, he became a professor of art in Dresden.
When Adolf Hitler and the Nazis hated Dix’s art which they considered “Degenerate” and because it did not glorify German soldiers. When Hitler came to power in Germany in 1933, Dix lost his job as a professor and many of his painting were destroyed. However, at the end of World War Two, Dix was forced to join the Nazi army. He was captured by the French and spent the end of the war as a prisoner. After the war, he returned to Germany and worked as painter until he died in 1969.
Source # 3 - Drawing by Otto Dix
Drawing of Battlefield
Drawing of Machine Gun Team Advancing
Drawing of Soldiers During an Attack
Drawing of Soldiers In a Trench
Drawing of Soldiers Carrying a Wounded Soldier
Drawing of Soldiers During Role Call After a Battle
Source # 4 - Excerpt from the graphic novel It was the War of the Trenches by Jacques Tardi - click here Note - You need to be logged into you Bedford Google Account to access the excerpt
Biography - Wilfred Owen
Wilfred Owen was born in 1893 in England to a working class family. His father was a railroad station master. Owen became interested in poetry as a child and passed the exams to attend university. However, he was unable to get a scholarship and his family was too poor to pay for his studies. Instead, Owen worked as a teacher in both England and France before the war. It was during this time that he worked on developing his poetry.
In 1915, Owen enlisted in the British Army. After military training, he was sent to fight on the Western Front as an officer. In the fighting, Owen suffered several traumatic brain injuries from falling into a shell hole and by being blown high in the air by an explosion. He was diagnosed with “shell-shock” (the term used at the time for post-traumatic stress disorder or PTSD) and was sent back to Britain to recover at the Craiglockhart War Hospital. It was here that met Siegfried Sassoon, another British soldier who was a well-known poet. During their treatment, Sassoon gave Owen guidance and encouragement to bring his war experiences into his poetry. It was during this time that Owen found his true poetic voice. Most the poems for which he is now remembered were written during this time period. The poem, Dulce et Decorum est is one of Owen’s most famous poems. The title is in Latin and means, “It is sweet and honorable” and it refers to a poem by famous Roman poet Horace, who said it was “to die for one’s country”. Many people in England who supported the war used this saying to describe the young men killed in the war. Owen said that this view of the war was a lie. In the poem he described how dying in war was horrific and meaningless.
In October 1918, Owen returned to military service on the Western Front to be part of the British attack to break the final German defenses, called the Hindenburg Line. He bravely led his soldiers in the attacks and was awarded the Military Cross. He was killed in battle on November 4, 1918 –exactly one week before the Armistice ended the fighting.
Source # 5 - Video about the use of poison gas and Wilfred Owen's Poem Dulce et Decorum Est - click here
Source # 6 - Dulce et Decorum Est by Wilfred Owen - the name of the poem translates as "It is sweet and honorable" which is use in the phase at the end of the poem and concludes with the Latin for "to die for one’s country”
Bent double, like old beggars under sacks, Knock-kneed, coughing like hags, we cursed through sludge, Till on the haunting flares (2) we turned our backs And towards our distant rest(3) began to trudge.
Men marched asleep. Many had lost their boots But limped on, blood-shod. All went lame; all blind; Drunk with fatigue; deaf even to the hoots (4) Of tired, outstripped (5) Five-Nines (6) that dropped behind.
Gas! (7) Gas! Quick, boys! – An ecstasy of fumbling, Fitting the clumsy helmets (8) just in time; But someone still was yelling out and stumbling, And flound'ring like a man in fire or lime (9) . . .
Dim, through the misty panes (10) and thick green light, As under a green sea, I saw him drowning. In all my dreams, before my helpless sight, He plunges at me, guttering, (11) choking, drowning.
If in some smothering dreams you too could pace Behind the wagon that we flung him in, And watch the white eyes writhing in his face, His hanging face, like a devil's sick of sin; If you could hear, at every jolt, the blood
Come gargling from the froth-corrupted lungs, Obscene as cancer, bitter as the cud (12) Of vile, incurable sores on innocent tongues, My friend, you would not tell with such high zest (13) To children ardent (14) for some desperate glory, The old Lie; Dulce et Decorum est Pro patria mori.
2. Flares - rockets which were sent up to burn with a brilliant glare to light up men and other targets in the area between the front lines
3. Distant rest - a camp away from the front line where exhausted soldiers might rest for a few days, or longer
4. Hoots - the noise made by the shells rushing through the air
5. Outstripped - outpaced, the soldiers have struggled beyond the reach of these shells which are now falling behind them as they struggle away from the scene of battle
6. Five-Nines - 5.9 caliber explosive shells
7. Gas! - poison gas. From the symptoms it would appear to be chlorine or phosgene gas. The filling of the lungs with fluid had the same effects as when a person drowned
8. Helmets - the early name for gas masks
9. Lime - a white chalky substance which can burn live tissue
10. Panes - the glass in the eyepieces of the gas masks
11. Guttering - Owen probably meant flickering out like a candle or gurgling like water draining down a gutter, referring to the sounds in the throat of the choking man
12. Cud - normally the regurgitated grass that cows chew usually green and bubbling. Here a similar looking material was coming from the soldier's mouth
Homework - Read Overview of World War One and answer the questions for Monday. On Tuesday there will be a quiz on the World War One Notes up to the section "Treaty of Versailles".
Homework - Read "Boxers" and answer the reading questions for Monday's class.
Test - The class will have a test on Thursday (December 17th) on European Imperialism. The test will focus on the general forces driving European Imperialism and its impact on Asia (India, China & Japan).
The test will have the same format at the previous two test in which you had to draw a basic reasoning diagram and write a topic sentence for both questions and then write a complete answer for one of the questions.
These are practice questions take from older tests:
1. How do rebellions by indigenous people in India and China show that these peoples were opposed to European domination and the idea of the “civilizing mission”?
2. How was Japanese imperialism after the Meiji Restoration similar to European imperialism and, at the same time, how did it cause conflicts between Japan and European Powers over in China?
3. How did the Industrial Revolution give the Europeans a military advantage in establishing overseas empires?
4. How did the Industrial Revolution give the Europeans an economic drive to take over other parts of the world?
5. How did British rule of India result in first Opium War in China?
6. How did the difference in the Chinese and Japanese reaction to European Imperialism mean that European Imperialism’s impact in Asia resulted in the domination of China and Japanese Imperialism?
7. After signing the Treaty of Nanking, which ended the First Opium War, a Chinese official explained that the view of the Qing (or Manchu) emperor was that the treaty would, “permanently prevent further troubles from happening.” Why was this perspective wrong and how did it ultimately result in European domination of China?
Homework - Use the source material listed below to answer the questions on the assignment sheet. These sources will be the focus of class discussion in the next class - the question sheet is available here.
Source # 1 - Map showing the areas of China controlled by foreign powers.
Source # 2 - Cartoon showing European powers dividing China.
Source # 3 - Cartoon showing how the foreign powers controlled China.
Source # 4 - Map showing the region of China affected by the Boxer Rebellion.
Biography - Empress Dowager Tsu Hsi
Tsu Hsi was born to a noble family in China in 1835. Very little is known about her childhood because the Imperial Chinese policy forbade the publication of personal details of the Imperial family. When she was fourteen she was chosen to be the emperor Xianfeng’s concubine (she was the emperor’s official mistress). Xianfeng had one empress (Niuhuru), two consorts, and eleven concubines. In 1856, Tsu Hsi gave birth to a birth to a boy named Zaichun. Zaichun was the emperor’s only son. The emperor died shortly after European soldiers looted and burned the Summer Palace during the Second War without naming an heir. Tsu Hsi made sure that her 5-year-old son was named the new emperor. At this point, Tsu Hsi became the Empress Dowager (which means that she inherited power by being the widow of the emperor) because she was given power to assist the child emperor. However, she shared this power with several government ministers. Several of these ministers opposed Tsu Hsi and tried to take away her power. Tsu Hsi turned the imperial family against these ministers and had them beheaded.
At this point, Tsu Hsi effectively became the leader of China by ruling in the name of her son. This was a hard time for China because it was forced to pay the Europeans for the cost of the Second Opium War (which it had lost) and putting down the Taiping Rebellion, which was being fought in southern China. Tsu Hsi lead the Chinese government through these problems. Then in 1875, the 18-year-old emperor died without an heir. Tsu Hsi chose her sister’s 4-year-old son to be the emperor Guangxu and she continued to rule in his name.
In 1887, Guangxu took power as emperor, but he ruled under Tsu Hsi’s supervision. Guangxu wanted to reform the Chinese government and modernize it following the model of how Japan modernized during the Meiji Restoration. After China lost to Japan in the Sino-Japanese War in 1894, Guangxu began to enact his planned reforms. These reforms resulted in many government officials losing their jobs. These officials turned to Tsu Hsi to help in blocking the reforms. In 1898, Tsu Hsi, with the support of these officials and the army, removed Guangxu from power, but kept him as emperor. Tsu Hsi again ruled China.
In 1900, the Chinese people rose in the Boxer Rebellion against the Europeans who had take control across many parts of China. The Boxers attacked Europeans across China and any Chinese person who had become Christian. Tsu Hsi supported the rebellion when they attacked Europeans living in the capital of Beijing. In response to the rebellion, the Europeans invaded China with an army which captured Beijing. Tsu Hsi fled Beijing dressed as a peasant. However, she quickly made peace with the Europeans and returned to rule in Beijing in 1902. After this she tried to start the process of reforming China following the Japanese model. This was a case of too little too late. In 1908, Tsu Hsi died one day after Guangxu died and the two-year-old Puyi became emperor. Three years later, in 1912, the Chinese imperial government was overthrown in the Xinhai Revolution.
Source # 5 - Empress Dowager Tsu Hsi statement in support of the Boxers:
The present situation is becoming daily more difficult. The various Powers cast upon us looks of tiger-like voracity, hustling each other to be first to seize our innermost territories. . . . Should the strong enemies become aggressive and press us to consent to things we can never accept, we have no alternative but to rely upon the justice of our cause. . . . If our . . . hundreds of millions of inhabitants . . . would prove their loyalty to their emperor and love of their country, what is there to fear from any invader? Let us not think about making peace.
Source # 6 - Photograph of the Boxers.
Source # 7 - Photograph of Boxer women.
Source # 8 - Boxer song:
Divinely aided Boxers, United-in-Righteousness Corps Arose because the Devils Messed up the Empire of yore. They proselytize their sect, And believe in only one God, The spirits and their own ancestors Are not even given a nod. Their men are all immoral, Their women are truly vile. And if you don’t believe me, Then have a careful view: You’ll see the Devil’s eyes Are all a shining blue. No rain comes from Heaven. The earth is parched and dry. And all because the churches Have bottled up the sky. The gods are very angry. The spirits seek revenge... En masse they come from Heaven To teach the Way to men. Gods come down from the hills, Possessing the bodies of men, Transmitting their boxing skills. When their marital and magic techniques Are all learned by each one of you, Suppressing the Foreign Devils Will not be a tough thing to do. Rip up the railroad tracks! Pull down the telegraph lines! Quickly! Hurry up! Smash them— The boats and the steamship combines. The mighty nation of France Quivers in abject fear, While from England, America, Russia And from Germany naught do we hear. When at last all the Foreign Devils Are expelled to the very last man, The Great Qing, united, together, Will bring peace to this our land
Source # 9 - Fei Ch'i-hao was a Chinese Christian. This is part of his description of the events he saw during the Boxer Rebellion of 1900. The people of Shansi are naturally timid and gentle, not given to making disturbances, being the most peaceable people in China. So our Shansi Christians were hopeful for themselves, even when the reports from the coast grew more alarming. But there was one thing which caused us deep apprehension, and that was the fact that the wicked, cruel YU Hsien, the hater of foreigners, was the newly appointed Governor of Shansi. He had previously promoted the Boxer movement in Shantung, and had persuaded the Empress Dowager that the Boxers had supernatural powers and were true patriots...
...The wicked Governor, Yü Hsien, scattered proclamations broadcast. These stated that the foreign religions overthrew morality and inflamed men to do evil, so now gods and men were stirred up against them, and Heaven's legions had been sent to exterminate the foreign devils. Moreover there were the Boxers, faithful to their sovereign, loyal to their country, determined to unite in wiping out the foreign religion. He also offered a reward to all who killed foreigners, either titles or office or money. When the highest official in the province took such a stand in favor of the Boxers, what could inferior officials do? People and officials bowed to his will, and all who enlisted as Boxers were in high favor. It was a time of license and anarchy, when not only Christians were killed, but hundreds of others against whom individual Boxers had a grudge.
Crowds of people kept passing our mission gate to see what might be happening, for the city was full of rumors. "The foreigners have all fled."
"Many foreigners from other places have gathered here."
"A great cannon has been mounted at the mission gate."
"The foreigners have hired men to poison wells, and to smear gates with blood."
I was staying in the compound with the Prices, inside the west gate of the city, and Mr. and Mrs. Atwater, with their children, Bertha and Celia, lived near the east gate. On the 28th of June all day long a mob of one or two hundred roughs, with crowds of boys, stood at the gate of the Atwater place, shouting:
"Kill the foreigners, loot the houses."
Fei Ch'i-hao described how the Governor Yü Hsien allowed the foreign Christian missionary families to leave the city escorted by soldiers. He then reported on the fate of the foreign missionary families:
The sun had risen when I opened my eyes in the morning. I forced myself to rise, washed my face, and asked for a little food, but could not get it down. Sitting down I heard loud talking and laughter among the guests. The topic of conversation was the massacre of foreigners the day before! One said:
"There were ten ocean men killed, three men, four women, and three little devils." Another added, "Lij Cheng San yesterday morning came ahead with twenty soldiers and waited in the village. When the foreigners with their soldier escort arrived a gun was fired for a signal, and all the soldiers set to work at once."
Then one after another added gruesome details, how the cruel swords had slashed, how the baggage had been stolen, how the very clothing had been stripped from the poor bodies, and how they had then been flung into a wayside pit.
"Are there still foreigners in Fen Chou FuT' I asked.
"No, they were all killed yesterday."
"Where were they killed?"
"In that village ahead-less than two miles from here," he said, pointing as he spoke. "Yesterday about this time they were all killed."
"How many were there?" I asked.
He stretched out the fingers of his two hands for an answer.
"Were there none of our people?"
"No, they were all foreigners."
My heart was leaden as I rode on the cart, with my face turned toward Fen Chou Fu. It was eight when the carter drove up to an inn in the east suburb of Fen Chou Fu, and I walked on into the city. Fortunately it was growing dark, and no one saw my face plainly, as, avoiding the main street, I made my way through alleys to the home of a Mr. Shih, a Christian who lived near the mission. When I knocked and entered Mr. Shih and his brother started up in terror and amazement, saying:
"How could you get here?"
We three went in quickly, barring the gate, and when we were seated in the house I told my sad story. Sighing, Mr. Shih said:
"We knew when the foreigners left yesterday that death awaited them on the road. Not long after you had gone the Prefect and the Magistrate rode in their chairs to the gate of the mission, took a look inside without entering, and then sealed up the gate."
Source # 10 - Photograph of Imperial Chinese soldiers.
Source # 11 - Photograph of one soldier from each of the foreign Allied Armies that were sent to China to put down the Boxer rebellion.
Source # 12 - Colliers was a popular American magazine at the time of the Boxer Rebellion. This is the cover of the magazine reporting on the Rebellion.
Source # 13 - Yao Chen-Yuan was a Chinese Christian. This is an excerpt from his book My Adventures During the Boxer War (1900)
During the night, a crowd passed by, led by a woman Boxer---a member of the Society of the Red Lantern---who asked me my name, my business, and where I was going. As I seemed to satisfy them with my answer, they went about their business, which was the destruction of a Catholic village, and the murder of the Christians. The next morning I continued on my way, being early joined by a Boxer who invited me to dine with him, after which we separated. That night I heard the keeper of the inn at which I stopped say to a Boxer, "We have no Christians here," and I spent the night in peace. The following day a child warned me not to go through a certain village, saying that the Boxers were taking every one they suspected, and I saw the fire kindled at which they burnt twenty Christians, while I at the same time thanked the Lord for putting it into the mind of a child to warn me, and thus save me, and perhaps the people of the Legation, from a like horrible fate. The country was flooded. I was compelled to wade through water the depth of which I knew nothing about, and I was wet and discouraged. I had just emerged from the water when a man with a gun on his shoulder called out to me in a loud voice "Where are you going?"
"I am going to Tientsin," I answered. "What for?"
"To find the head of a flower establishment in which I was employed before this trouble broke out." The readiness of my answer seemed to satisfy him, and he allowed me to continue on my way. At the next village a shoemaker informed me that the road was dangerous, being crowded with Chinese troops; a thing which I soon found to be true by being made prisoner and having my money taken from me. My money being all they wanted, the soldiers at once set me free, and I in turn complained to the officer that I had been robbed by his troops. "Wait," said he, "until I see who did it." "No, no," said I, "do not let me trouble you to that extent; the day is far spent, and I should like to spend the night in your camp." "With pleasure," said he. So I spent the night in the protection of my enemies.
"Please search me," said I in the morning, "to see that I have taken nothing, and I will proceed on my way." He returned my money, warning me not to go on the Great Road lest I fall into the hands of the foreign troops and suffer at their hands. "I understand," said I, with a meaning which he did not comprehend, and I left. When I came to the river, I noticed a boatman and accosted him as follows "Will you take me to the Red Bridge in Tientsin?" "We do not dare to go as far as the Red Bridge," he answered, "the Japanese soldiers are there, and they will shoot us." "You need not be afraid," said I, "I can protect you from Japanese soldiers."
On hearing this he readily consented, but he put me off some distance from the bridge. I saw the soldiers in the distance, but waved my handkerchief as a token that I was a messenger, and thus encountered no danger. They escorted me to the Foreign Settlement and then left me to go alone, but the Russians refused to allow me to pass and I was compelled to return to the Red Bridge. I took one of the letters out of the hat and showed it to three Japanese officers who happened to be passing. "Where do you come from?" they asked.
"From Peking."
"Were you not afraid of the Boxers?"
"No."
"You are a good man; wait till I give you a pass." While he was writing, it began to rain, and they took me to their headquarters, where I saw a high official, dined with him, and related all my adventures by the way as well as the condition of affairs in Peking; all of which he wrote down, and then sent four of his soldiers to accompany me to the British and American Consulates. When I saw the American Consul, I burst into tears and told him of all that the people in Peking were suffering; how the Boxers were firing on them from all sides and trying to burn them out; how each man was limited to a small cup of grain a day, while at the same time they were compelled to labor like coolies, under a burning sun, in employments to which they were not accustomed, and I urged him to send soldiers at once to relieve them.
Source # 14 - Boxer who has been take prisoner by Japanese soldiers.
Homework - Use the source material listed below to answer the questions on the assignment sheet. These sources will be the focus of class discussion in the next class - the question sheet is available here.
Source # 1 - Map showing Japanese expansionism and natural resources.
Biography - Saigo Takamori
Saigo Takamori was born to a poor samurai family in Japan in 1828. When he was six, Siago began his samurai training. He excelled more as a scholar than a warrior, reading extensively.~ After completing his education, he began to work for the local samurai lord or daimyo as an agricultural adviser.
In 1854, Siago travelled with his daimyo lord to the Japanese capital of Edo and saw the American fleet under Commodore Perry, which was demanding that Japan open itself to foreign powers. As an adviser to his daimyo lord, Saigo worked to support the emperor, who wanted to open and modernize Japan, and the Shogun, or “general of the army”, who wanted to fight the Americans. In Japan at the time, the Shogun had the power and the emperor was a figurehead. After his daimyo lord died in 1858, Saigo had to flee Edo to escape the Shogun’s samurai. For several years he lived in different parts of Japan under threat from the Shogun. However, he remained in contact with the emperor’s advisers.
In 1865, the Emperor died and his young son became the new emperor. Siago was made a military commander of forces loyal to the emperor in civil war between the emperor and the Shogun. For several years, he battled the Shogun and finally defeated him in 1868. Siago gained fame and respect in this war because he allowed the Shogun to surrender with honor. Saigo’s victory made the emperor the unchallenged leader of Japan. After the war, Siago retired and took up a life of hunting, fishing and soaking in hot springs.
However, the Meiji government’s process of modernization begun with the defeat of the Shogun quickly caused problems across Japan as the government reduced the power and rights of the samurai and encouraged the development of modern industry. In 1871, Saigo was recalled from retirement by the emperor to form a new national army. Saigo oversaw the modernization of the army that was made up of average people without any special privilege for the samurai. In 1873, he resigned his position after a dispute with the emperor’s advisors over going to war with Korea. Saigo was opposed to the war.
In 1876, the emperor’s government banned samurai from carrying swords, which essentially ended their identity. This action caused small samurai rebellions across Japan. Saigo supported these, but refused to become involved in the rebellion because he still felt deep personal loyalty to the Emperor. Trying to resolve the conflict between the Emperor and the samurai, Saigo announced that he would go to Tokyo, the capital city, to "question" the government. As he travelled to the capital, about 12,000 young men joined him and the event became known as the Satsuma Rebellion. For over a year, Saigo’s army fought against the larger national army that was much better armed. In his final stand, Saigo and 300 of his followers were surrounded by 7000 soldiers of the national army. Saigo was killed in a final suicide charge against the emperor’s national army, the army that he had organized.
Biography - Toshimichi Okubo
Toshimichi Okubo was born to a samurai family in Japan in 1830. After his samurai education, Okubo began to work as an adviser to the leader of the region of Satsuma. In this position, Okubo argued for Japan to adopt European ways and that the government needed to bring together the power for the emperor and the shogun. In 1867, Okubo helped plan the surrender of the Shogun and full power being given to the Meiji emperor.
After the Meiji Restoration, Okubo was a leader in the new national government and he worked to end the power and special rights of the samurai. In 1871, as the Finance Minister, Okubo enacted a tax on land (which was held by the noble samurai) and then in 1876 he enacted the laws that banned the samurai from wearing their swords in public. This sparked rebellions by Samurai across Japan.
In 1873, Okubo participated in the Iwakuru Mission, where he traveled with a group of Japanese leaders on a two-year trip to the United States and Europe to gather ideas for the modernization of Japan and to negotiate treaties with these countries. After this, he used the government powers to promote the development of Japanese industry, based on the European model using modern technology, and the building of roads, bridges and sea ports. He also worked to develop a modern constitutional government for Japan and recruit bright and talented young men into the government, regardless of their background. This meant that any Japanese man could become a government official or military leader. These positions were traditionally held only by the samurai. This loss of prestige angered many samurai. For many Japanese people, especially the Samurai, Okubo was a symbol of the speed with which the new imperial government had moved as well as the willingness of the government to push aside traditional Japanese culture in its process of modernizing the country. In 1878, an angry samurai assassinated Okubo as he was walking to the imperial palace.
Source # 2 - Japanese painting of an one of the American ships that "Opened Japan" in 1853.
Source # 3 - Japanese print of foreigners trading silk with Japanese merchants.
Source # 4 - Photograph of the Japanese city of Nagoya in 1870.
Source # 5 - Photos of the Japanese Emperor Meiji. The picture on the left is him in 1872 and the one of the right is from 1873.
Source # 6 - Japanese print of a Japanese harbor with steam ship.
Source # 7 - Japanese print of a Japanese train on railroad.
Source # 8 - Video on Battle of Tsushima in the Russo-Japanese War (you have to be logged into your Bedford Google account to watch this video) - click here Source # 9 - Japanese print of victory in the Sino-Japanese War.
Source # 10 - Japanese print of victory in the Sino-Japanese War.
Source # 11 - Japanese print of victory in the Russo-Japanese War.
