JAPAN AND THE AXIS, 1937-8:
Recognition of the Franco Regime and Manchukuo
Florentino Rodao
Journal of Contemporary
History. ISSN 0022-0094.
SAGE Publications, Los Angeles, London, New Delhi, Singapore and Washington DC. Vol 44 (3), 431-447.
http://dx.doi.org/10.1177/0022009409104117
After just one year of the Spanish Civil War, the
Marco Polo Bridge Incident led to the Sino-Japanese War, both conflicts
remaining for two years as daily reminders of the world conflicts of the time.
This article attempts to emphasize the importance of the coincidence in time of
those conflicts in delimiting each bloc, especially through a decision that was
particularly divisive for the Japanese government, such as recognition of
Franco’s rebel government after the outbreak of the war in China. Efforts by Japanese Foreign Minister Hirota
Kōki (広田弘毅)
to avoid a decision that would further Japan’s pro-Axis drift show the
lines of division in the government. His maneuvers progressively failed,
including the November 1937 proposal for negotiations to include the
recognition of Manchukuo, accepted first by Franco’s Spain, later by Italy and
finally by the Germans. The article emphasizes the role of Italy in Asia, the
reasons for Spanish actions, and the aims of other key persons in this period,
such as Prime Minister Konoe Fumimaro
(近衛文麿), the postwar leader Yoshida Shigeru, or Ishihara
Kanji, the officer who masterminded the 1931 invasion of Manchuria.
Keywords:
Anti-Comintern Pact, Axis countries, diplomacy, fascism,
Sino-Japanese War, Spanish Civil War
Japan’s invasion of China in 1937, like the invasion of Ethiopia two
years earlier and the ongoing civil war in Spain, quickly provoked a
response from the major powers. It also created special problems for the
principal European dictators. Germany and Italy had taken a clear position on
behalf of intervention in Spain, but initially continued good relations with
the governments of both China and Japan, whereas the Soviet Union, which was
intervening on the opposite side in Spain, was also an East Asian power and
faced the question of equivalent [432] intervention in China against the
Japanese invasion. When Franco’s new Spanish Nationalist regime later requested
recognition from Japan, its initiative both pointed up the potential
contradictions in the East Asian policies of Berlin and Rome and posed a new
quandary for Tokyo. For the latter, this also involved the lingering problem of
the international recognition of Japan’s puppet state of Manchukuo, so far
recognized only by El Salvador, the Vatican and Japan itself. The way in which
these dilemmas were resolved would play a role in the eventual alignment of
Germany, Italy, and Japan.
The twin issues of
the recognition of Manchukuo and the mutual interaction of the contemporary
struggles in China and Spain have largely been overlooked by historians, who
tend to focus on the direct relations of the great powers. Italian policy in
East Asia has been generally ignored, and along with it the limited impact of
the Spanish war in that region, together with Franco’s request for recognition
by Japan and Germany’s eventual abandonment of the Chinese Nationalist regime.[1]
The Japanese government followed the war in Spain with some interest,
though it was a very secondary issue. Relations with the Spanish Republic had
generally been poor, since the latter’s representative in Geneva, Salvador de Madariaga, had led the struggle for sanctions by the League
in condemnation of the Japanese invasion of Manchuria, to the extent of earning
the nickname ‘Don Quijote of Manchuria’.
Subsequently, the victories of the new Popular Fronts in Spain and France had
raised the specter of a possible popular front in China, as well, which would
unite major forces against the Japanese. In 1936, the military insurrection in Spain
took place in the immediate aftermath of the abortive Japanese military coup of
February 1936, raising a certain note of apprehension in Tokyo. Japan at first
simply tried to gather information about the situation in the Iberian
peninsula. An American diplomat judged the attitude of the Japanese press to
the Spanish conflict as ‘studiously neutral in tone’. When the magazine KaizÄ (‘Reconstruction’)
organized a debate about the issue, most participants analyzed the limited data
available and tended to focus on Great Britain’s concern to maintain control of
Gibraltar, which was frequently the only name to appear on Japanese maps of
Europe covering the Iberian peninsula. The only
participant to offer a personal opinion sided with the Republican government,
on the grounds of its legitimacy, and speculated about the difficulties for the
British empire if the ‘revolutionaries’ (in this case [433] referring not to
the leftist revolutionaries but to the counter-revolutionary rebels) won.[2]
The
increasing internationalization of the Spanish war was helpful to Japanese
policy in several ways: it focused attention on Western Europe, diverted
potential arms exports from China and diverted British attention from
Asia. Similarly, Soviet involvement in
Spain combined with the effort to come to terms with France, also diverted
Soviet attention from Asia. Within the
Japanese government, however, various ministries revealed somewhat divergent
interests. [3]
For the Japanese foreign ministry, the Spanish war long remained
remote, the only pressing problem at first being the fact that the head of the
Spanish legation in Tokyo, Santiago Méndez de Vigo, swore allegiance to the
insurgent cause, raising problems of protocol. “What should be done with Méndez de Vigo if a
garden-party is organized?,” mused a French diplomat
in Tokyo. The possibility of Japanese
recognition of Franco was raised, however, by Tokyo’s signature of Hitler’s
Anti-Comintern Pact in November 1936. At that time Foreign Minister Arita Hachirō (following
Japanese usage, the family name comes first) informed the Privy Council (枢密院) that
the Spanish war provided further evidence of the Soviet Union’s efforts to
subvert other countries, but the Japanese government nonetheless did not
seriously consider recognition of Franco and the foreign ministry limited its
response to canvassing other governments about their own views. [4]
Ambassador Santiago Méndez de
Vigo
The
interest of Japanese army leaders in Spain was more noteworthy. The semi-autonomous Kwantung Army in
Manchukuo, facing the Soviet Union, was concerned to collect information,
especially after the extent of Soviet intervention became clear. The embassy in
Paris dispatched Captain Nishiura Susumu (西浦進) ostensibly
to learn about German tactics, but in fact he concentrated on studying Soviet
and anti-Soviet weapons, visiting several fronts with particular interest in
gathering data on the T-26 tank, the basic Red Army tank [434] (some of which
were also being sent to China), and also of the improvised anti-tank device
created by the Spanish Nationalists, which several years later, after the
Finnish war, would become internationally known as the “Molotov cocktail.” A
second mission by two Japanese officers assigned to the embassy in Rome also
visited Spain and focused on Soviet weapons, but went well beyond their mission
by expressing their support of the Nationalists and their hope that Japan would
soon recognize the Franco government. [5]
These
divergent attitudes reflected differences within the Japanese government and
underlined the weak position of the foreign ministry. The “Shidehara policy,” which emphasized
cooperation with western powers and conciliation with China, was increasingly
challenged by the military. The
perennial criticism of the foreign ministry as representative of the “old
politics” became stronger after the Japanese military successes in Manchuria
after September 1931. Diplomats were
accused of undermining Japan’s true interests, of being reluctant to cooperate
with other institutions, of returning from long stays abroad as semi-foreigners
and, finally, of not focusing on China, the key strategic zone. Criticism mounted further after the
ministry’s chief spokesman, Shiratori Toshio, spoke
publicly in favor of military attacks of Manchuria, while opposing to the
official stance of his ministry. As a result, the government began to give some
international tasks to other ministries, while independent offices outside the
foreign ministry were set up in China and elsewhere. By the time that the war broke out in Spain,
military initiatives had begun to infringe more and more on Japanese diplomacy,
leading among other things to the signing of Hitler’s Anti-Comintern
Pact, as well as to the independent military missions to Spain. Such interests also promoted the visit to
Germany in September 1936 of Prince Chichibu, younger brother of Emperor
Hirohito. [6]
During
1937, however, a new government headed by General Hayashi Senjūrō
seemed to pull back from closer relations with Germany and steered policy
toward the Spanish war firmly in line with the objectives of the
Non-Intervention Committee of the League of Nations. Moreover, in March 1937 a
sometime language instructor in Tokyo,
Asahi Shimbun reports
When the
fighting flared in north China in July, the militant Chinese response surprised
the Japanese. The Chinese government’s
abandonment of its long-standing slogan, “First internal pacification, then
external resistance,” to concentrate on national resistance rendered obsolete
the initial Japanese intention of limiting the zone of conflict to north of the
Yellow River.
To
Francisco
The situation in Tokyo improved rapidly for
Del Castillo, who was successful in obtaining a loan from the Augustinian order
in China. He soon received assistance
from Eduardo Herrera de la Rosa, a former Spanish military attaché who had
remained in Tokyo and enjoyed numerous contacts. These informed him of the “renewed interest
in the Spanish conflict from the /Japanese/ Army and Navy,” as well as among
“young personnel” in the foreign ministry.
Herrera was therefore able to help Del Castillo establish links with
high officials, as well as to avoid disapproval of Del Castillo’s public
declaration that the earlier proposal to negotiate with Spanish Republicans had
been no more than a delaying tactic.
When the Republican chargé Alvarez Taladriz
offered him the previously requested amount to hand over the legation compound,
Del [436] Castillo refused, while the foreign ministry declared that it would
not require him to do so.[9]
Meanwhile,
Franco’s representative in Rome, Pedro García Conde,
discussed the issue of Japan’s recognition of his government with the Japanese
ambassador there. When the latter told him that a majority of Japanese now
favored this, García Conde asserted inaccurately that
he had received instructions to press the matter, a conversation which,
combined with the recent agreement between Nanjing and Moscow and the
insistence of Giacinto Auriti,
the Italian ambassador in Tokyo, had some effect on the Japanese
government. Soon afterward, it indicated
that the Spanish Nationalists would officially be granted belligerent status,
giving them virtual equality with the Republican regime, but Franco’s
representatives then began to press for full recognition. [10]
This was a bold move, for the chances of
gaining such favor from the Japanese government were hard to gauge. The demand was supported by most of the small
number of Spaniards resident in Japan, most of them members of the Catholic
missionary community, many of these in turn Jesuits in Japan’s Pacific
islands. In
The opinion of Foreign Minister Hirota
is the hardest to evaluate. After the
Japanese defeat in 1945, the International Military Tribunal would sentence
[437] him to death for actions taken in 1937-38, charging him with “overall
conspiracy,” “failure to prevent atrocities in China,” and for having been
“derelict in his duty in not insisting before the Cabinet that immediate action
be taken to end the atrocities.” Hirota is known to have had close links with the Black
Ocean Society (玄洋社), a pioneer ultra-nationalist association, and to have
believed strongly in Japan’s need for a “special position” in China. He had earlier headed the foreign ministry from
1933 to 1935, when western nations were warned not to interfere with Japanese
policy in China, a declaration considered an East Asian parallel to the Monroe
Doctrine. After the abortive military
coup of
Though Konoye personally favored
recognition of Franco and enjoyed a long friendship with Herrera de la Rosa,
even to the extent of providing him with special items to improve his health
during the Pacific war, the prime minister’s contribution to the recognition
process was only marginal. He altogether
failed to live up to hopes that he would control the military, spending his
first weeks in office in futile internal disputes, most of which he lost. Military leaders soon ignored him, providing
no information about their own plans and boycotting his efforts to mediate with
On the Spanish issue, the Konoye
government valued the opinion of
German policy was also subject to internal
conflict, since the role of the Foreign Ministry was increasingly challenged in
various ways by the Nazi Party’s Aussenpolitisches Amt (Foreign Affairs Office) and its
Auslandsorganisation, the party organization abroad. For example, the leading Nazi diplomat and
German ambassador to
The Italian regime had less
influence in
After outbreak of the Sino-Japanese War,
Meanwhile,
Del Castillo, supported by zealous Italians policy, by the spread of the war
and the signing of the new Sino-Soviet Pact, presented his first request for
official recognition to the Japanese foreign ministry near the close of August
1937. It referred specifically to the
legal difficulties encountered by Spanish residents in
Del Castillo then turned to the General
Staff, which favored full recognition, while Herrera de la Rosa pressed the
issue in an interview with Konoye on 8 September. These moves brought a change in attitude in
the foreign ministry, which then became “outspokenly favorable” to recognition,
according to a later report by Del Castillo.
This, however, proved an exaggeration, as Del Castillo soon changed his
description to one of merely a “favorable reception” by the foreign ministry
and consequently urged his superiors to gain the backing of
The Italian ambassador tried to assist
by requesting his two military attachés to take a hand with the Japanese
military, but
Developments elsewhere favored Franco’s
suit. In
The
Japanese government’s international position then grew even more adversarial
vis-à-vis the western powers in November, when it decided to boycott the
Brussels conference, convened by the League of Nations at the petition of China
to investigate the Japanese aggression and to seek means of ending it. Tokyo had already withdrawn from the League
in 1933 and now severed all remaining links with it.
The Japanese government declared that it would only
agree to direct negotiations with China, brokered either by Berlin or by Rome,
which would lead to a “New Order” in East Asia but with different focus in the
region. At the recent Nazi rally in
Munich Hitler had stressed the importance of the Spanish conflict as a function
of the Anti-Comintern Pact for the defense of world
culture, but failed to refer to the war in China. Italy signed the Anti-Comintern Pact on 5
November, an actiexampleon which, because of the
tension between Rome and London, had the effect of turning it in an
anti-British direction. The Italian goal was now to maintain areas of tension
in both the Mediterranean and East Asia which even the Royal Navy could not
possibly cover.[23]
The most immediate goal for Japan was expressed by Hirota
at the ensuing banquet in Tokyo. He spoke with the German and Italian
ambassadors about recognizing Franco, declaring that “in his view” this should
also involve recognition of Manchukuo by the Axis. [24]
The diplomatic recognition of the Japanese puppet
state was totally new. It could be received favorably in Franco’s Spain, since
the Manchurian issue was perceived as part of the communist vs. anti-communist
confrontation. Since 1931, Spanish Republicans had been aware of its damage to
the League of Nations, as the role played by Salvador de Madariaga
in Geneva showed, while a small booklet on it by the most prominent Trotskyite
leader, Andrés Nin, points to its importance in the formulation of communist
opinion in Spain. The reaction against this predominant negative perception of
Japan explains partly the opposite pro-Japanese view in the pro-Francoist side, and the Falange
newspaper ¡Arriba! portrayed Japanese actions in
China as actions against communism even
before the outbreak of the Spanish War. The Japanese government, which had
opened a new legation in Lisbon, promoted the alternative view through intense
propaganda efforts, such as publications or invitations to journalists, and,
amidst the radicalized political atmosphere of the war, the pro-Japanese
perception was predominant.
[25]
[443]
In international society, however, Manchukuo remained
a pariah, since it was created by Japanese conquest and had previously been
acknowledged only by Japan, the Vatican, and El Salvador, whose extreme-right
ruler, General Maximiliano Hernández Martínez, took this step in order to bargain for
recognition from Washington, after violently suppressing a peasant rebellion.
Since 1934, its government of Changchun (Hsinking) had received no further
recognition from foreign powers. Germany had merely signed a commercial
agreement in April 1936, while Italy had opened a consulate rather than a
formal legation. Then, although Francoists were
disposed to contemplate the Japanese adventure in China in a more favorable
way, Hirota was proposing a major quid pro quo, which
hardly facilitated immediate recognition of the Spanish Nationalists.
Del
Castillo was immediately informed of Hirota’s ploy,
and sent word to his superiors by telegram.
Meanwhile
the foreign ministry took soundings concerning the possible effect on Japanese
interests in southern Europe and the western hemisphere. Hirota also
suggested on the 10th that the recognition should be announced in
Berlin, to which a Nationalist representative was properly accredited. On 12
November the Japanese cabinet approved recognition for the third time, and this
time announced it publicly. Franco’s
government confirmed the validity of Del Castillo’s powers, further reinforced
by a statement from Rome by minister Ciano, as
well. Berlin, however, rejected the idea
of a joint recognition of the Franco regime and of the Manchukuo government
that would take place in Berlin, as the German foreign ministry sought to avoid
complications with Britain and to pursue peace negotiations in China.[27]
The
Japanese foreign ministry then presented two further complications to Del
Castillo. One was a report by its legal
department, which concluded that recognition of Franco’s regime would be
contrary to international law since it did not occupy all Spanish
territory. The second raised once more
[444] the issue of Manchukuo, linking it to negotiations with Rome and Berlin. On the 12th, Hirota took up with
the latter issue with Auriti, followed by a
discussion between Ciano and the Japanese ambassador in Rome, and a second talk
between Hirota and Auriti. The Japanese also tested German opinion,
since in a speech in Munich on the 9th Hitler had indicated willingness
to recognize Manchukuo.[28]
Then,
the issue of Manchukuo once more receded.
The international contest was simplified by the partial conclusion of
the Brussels conference without any clear recommendation and the recognition of
the Nationalists advanced further. On
the 19th, Del Castillo and the vice-premier discussed further
issues, such as whether the recognition should be associated with previously
existing treaties between the two states, a procedure that would gain the
emperor’s approval, while other ministries were informed of the government’s
decision, and news of the diplomatic process appeared in the Spanish
Nationalist press. Del Castillo reported that negotiations regarding the
Manchukuo should begin as a matter of reciprocity once the Spanish regime had
been recognized. Berlin remained opposed
to the idea of joint recognition and still expressed hope for a negotiated
peace in China that might bring the latter’s accession to the Anti-Comintern Pact, together with a Japanese pledge to respect
foreign interests in China, while demonstrating skepticism to the
Italians. Hitler expressed to the
Italian ambassador a willingness to recognize Manchukuo but did nothing to
expedite the issue, while Italian policy preferred to wait for Germany.[29]
Finally, toward the end of November, Rome decided to recognize Manchukuo.
Encouraged by its success in defending Japan’s affairs at the Brussels
conference, which concluded leaving China isolated and the western democracies
voicing weak responses, the Italian government showed more interest in acting
on its own. Foreign Minister Ciano’s Diary shows how this
accomplishment had an impact in self-perception. While on 15 November the
minister expressed to the Chinese representative, as a hypothesis, that Japan
was to overwhelm China, only 12 days later he went one step further and thought
how decisive the presumed Japanese victory was to be, wondering whether ‘China
will soon cease to exist’. The first plan by Spaniards, to make the recognition
coincide with the anniversary of the Anti-Comintern
Pact, was set aside, acknowledging the German preference not to mix ceremonies,
but Ciano privately congratulated himself on the wisdom and effectiveness of
Italian policy.
Writing in his Diary on 27 November, Ciano
went as far as considering [445] Mussolini’s ‘policy of realism’ not only as
‘always right’ but even as leading to the end of the Sino-Japanese war, where
the Japanese triumph was to be beneficial also to the Chinese: ‘They are in
such distress that they won’t be able to react’. The next day, when he reported
the recognition to the Japanese ambassador, instead of analyzing his reaction,
Ciano envisioned an increase of Italian influence in East Asia: ‘We are gaining
ground . . . Our conduct at Brussels won the day with Japan.’[30]
The ensuing acts of
recognition proceeded at great speed. The ceremony in Rome to recognize
Manchukuo was held on Monday 29 November, followed on successive days first by
the ceremony in Tokyo and the official Japanese recognition of the Franco
regime on 1 December, and then by the mutual recognition between Manchukuo and
the Franco regime on 2 December. The acceleration of negotiations during those
final days provoked skepticism in Tokyo, whereas The Times speculated that Mussolini’s
decisiveness was hastened by his signature of the Anti-Comintern
Pact and the continuing Japanese military advance in China.[31]
Events
at the ceremony in Tokyo for the recognition of the Franco regime proved more problematic
than anticipated, for the text read by Hirota on 1 December sought to avoid a
clear-cut definition on the Spanish war, referring to the common struggle
against Communism, collaboration with Germany and Italy and the long friendship
between Spain and Japan. Since it also
permitted Japan to limit recognition to mere rights of belligerence and even
possibly maintain relations with the Republican regime, Del Castillo refused to
sign the agreement. The Spanish chargé
countered with an imaginative solution, which consisted of adding his own
language to the text affirming that Franco’s was the “sole and legitimate
government of Spain.” Since he read this
statement to the press after Hirota had already given the latter a copy of his
own declaration, Del Castillo assumed that the recognition already held full
legal authority, and this was undoubtedly so.[32]
The
ceremony took place in the Spain legation, and included a Catholic mass, the
raising of the Falangist banner (while approximately simultaneously a Japanese
flag was being raised in Salamanca) and speeches by Auriti
and Del Castillo. The Falangist party still had no members in Japan (though
Herrera de la Rosa was soon to be appointed its leader), but the act was
attended by members of the Italian Fascist Party and the Hitler Jugend, as well as by the press. Franco’s recognition of Manchukuo was effected in a Japanese government office, not in the embassy
of Manchukuo, as the Japanese had proposed.
The foreign ministry appointed the diplomat Takaoka Teichirō,
long resident in Spain, as the new representative to Salamanca. [446]
As the
military strengthened their hold in Tokyo and continued the advance in China,
it became increasingly difficult for Germany to maintain a policy of equidistance.
Hitler’s own strategy became increasingly aggressive with his government
changes of February 1938, as he increased his control of the military and
appointed the pro-Japanese Ribbentrop foreign minister. Hitler’s speech to the Reichstag on 20
February surprised observers because of the attention devoted to East Asia and
its strongly pro-Japanese tone. The
resulting reorientation of German policy withdrew military advisers from China
and canceled further arms shipments, leading to the recognition of Manchukuo on
12 May and the breaking of relations with China the following month.[33]
The
coincidence of wars in China and Spain hastened a new international alignment.
As Italy pursued its policy of betting completely on Japan’s victory, its
position was later largely adopted by Germany. In Japan, its recognition of
Franco followed the same logic, reflecting the growing dominance of the
military with the consolidation of its position by the international
recognition of Manchukuo. These interests
then developed an interlocking momentum of their own, and the army’s decision
to conquer Nanjing itself came only a day after Italy’s recognition of
Manchukuo. By 1938 a series of radical
developments in Spain, Italy, Germany and Japan had converged to reinforce the
Japanese military, strengthen somewhat the position of the Franco regime and
decisively alter Italian and German policy in support of Japan.
The real significance of the events narrated in this
article can be better understood by tracing the relations between Manchukuo and
the Francoists. Bilateral recognition led to closer
relations, both regimes announcing the mutual setting up of permanent
representation. In October 1938, less than a year later, a Manchukuo Friendship
Mission visited Spain, and a Treaty of Friendship and
Trade was announced; the next year both regimes joined the Anti-Comintern Pact, and in 1940 a Spanish Economic Mission
visited Manchukuo. In addition, new books praising the Japanese puppet state
appeared in Spain, written not only by Gaspar Tato
Cumming but by another author, Juan Oller Piñol, who visited Manchukuo after having served as deputy
of the interior ministry.[34]
Yet, aside from propaganda and formal declarations,
relations between Spain and Manchukuo remained devoid of substance. There were
no Catholic missionaries or other Spaniards resident in the area, trade was
non-existent, and the initial plan of a permanent delegation was implemented
only by Manchukuo, mainly for purposes of military intelligence. The ultimate
course of relations was determined by factors beyond the reach of Changchun or
Salamanca, or sometimes, for that matter, of Rome and Tokyo, as Adolf Hitler
demonstrated three months after Spaniards and Chinese joined the Anti- Comintern Pact, when he rendered it useless by a signing a
Non-Aggression Pact with the Soviet Union. Relations between Manchukuo and
nationalist Spain were largely based on wishful thinking.
GSK-KT. Gaimushiryôkan. Kakkoku no Taid. Attitude
of foreign counties.
GSK-NK,
Gaimushiryôkan . Nairan Kankei
(Civil War)
IMTFE.
International Military Tribunal of the Far East.
CUSDR.
Confidential United States Diplomatic Records. (microfilm)
BKT
Boeichô Kenkyû Toshokan. Library
of the Japanese Defense Agency.
AGA-AE:
Archivo General de la Administración. Asuntos Exteriores section.
AMAE-
R. Archivo del Ministerio de Asuntos Exteriores, Renovated
Section.
AMAE-P. Section Personnel.
PRO-FO. Public Record Office.
Foreign Office
NARA-457. NSA. National
Archives and Records Administration. Record Group 457.
National Security Agency.
AHM-CGG.
Archivo Histórico Militar. Cuartel General del
Generalísimo.
Florentino Rodao is a visiting
scholar at the Weatherhead Center for International Studies
at Harvard University (2008/09), teaches at the Universidad Complutense
in Madrid and has received PhDs from the Universidad Complutense
and the University of Tokyo. He has written Franco
and the Japanese Empire. Images and Propaganda in a time of a War (Barcelona,
2002) and is now preparing a monograph on the coincidence in time of the
Spanish Civil and the Sino-Japanese wars
I would like to
acknowledge with thanks the generous financial support from the Toyota
Foundation towards the research on which this article is based, as well as the
Research project award CCG06-UCM/HUM-1048 from the Spanish government (2006).
Some of the documentation derives from unpublished chapters of my PhD
dissertation, ‘Relations between Spain and Japan, 1937–1945’ (Madrid,
Universidad Complutense, 1993). Fukasawa
Yasuhiro’s comments and help in obtaining bibliography have been instrumental
to this work, as have the comments from anonymous reviewers. Responsibility for
any possible mistakes, however, remains the author’s.
[1] As for
neglecting the dynamics of the coincidence of the two wars, see Ernst L.
Presseisen, Germany
and Japan, A Study in Totalitarian Diplomacy (The Hague 1958), esp. 184-185; Herbert Bix, in his Hirohito and the Making of Modern Japan (New York 2000) only
mentions the Spanish-American War of 1898. On
[2] “Quijote”, Francisco Quintana, España en Europa,
1931-1936
(Oviedo 1993), 58-77;
[3] Fukasawa, Yasuhiro: "Supein naisen to nitchū sensō. Nissei-gaimusho monjo wo chushin ni" [The Spanish Civil War and the Sino-Japanese War. Focused on the documents of the Japanese and Spanish Foreign
Ministry Archives], in Rekishi Hyōron
[Historical Review]. Monographic issue: 50 anniversary of the
Sino-Japanese War, 44, 7 (July 1987), 42-3.
[4] “garden-party”, Albert Kammerer to Foreign Affairs Minister,
[5] Nishiura himself wrote about his experience, although briefly, Nishiura
Susumu: Shōwasensôshi no shōgen.
(Oral evidence of the Shōwa
Era Wars), Tokyo, 1980, 64‑66. Also, Yano to Arita, Saint Jean de
Luz, 26/I/1937 and Lisbon, 21 January 1937, Gaimushiryoukan.
Nairan Kankei. Archives of the Foreign
Ministry. Relative to internal conflicts.
[6] On problems inside the Japanese Foreign
Ministry, Barbara J. Brooks, Japan’s Imperial Diplomacy. Consuls, Treaty
Ports and War in China 1895-1938
(Honolulu 2000), 175.
On Prince Chichibu’s visit, Fox,
John P. Germany and the Far Eastern
Crisis 1931-
[7] In the
Japanese press, an example, “Tokyo ni “Supein nairan” boppatsu [Outbreak of the Spanish Civil War in Tokyo]”, Asahi Shimbun,
14
April 1937. Gómez de Molina to Asís
Serrat, Tokyo, 30 April
1937. Archivo General
de
[8] Shiozaki Hiroaki, "Furanko seiken no Nichi-Doku-I bōkyō
kyōtei" [フランコ政権の日独伊防共協定, The Franco Government and the German-Japanese-Italian Anti-Communist Pact], in Saitō Takashi (ed), Supein Nairan no Kenkyū [Studies on the Spanish
Civil War] (Tokyo 1979), p.
263.
[9] “Renewed”, a
letter written by Herrera to his brother Juan and sister
Esperanza is a very helpful document in tracing the whereabouts of the
recognition.
[10] Conde to Sangróniz, Rome, 21, 25 August 1937. AMAE-R, 1466-14. Castillo note copied in Conde to
Secretario General Jefe Estado, Rome,
25 August 1937 and Conde to Castillo, Rome, 26 August 1937, AMAE-R,
1466-14. The telegrams and correspondence between the Francoist
General Headquarters and its representatives in
[11]
Castillo a
Sangróniz, Tokyo, 2
November 1937. AGA-AE, 5176; Herrera to Juan and Esperanza.
Yokohama, 25 November
1937. AMAE-P.
[12] Konoye and Hirota’s reform
ideas, Brooks, op. cit.,. 169 , 181, 196. On Hirota’s links, in Usui Katsumi, “The Role of the Foreign Ministry”, in
Dorothy Borg and Shumpei Okamoto, eds.,
[13] On Konoye and the military, see Yagami
Kazuo, Konoe Fumimaro and the failure
of peace in Japan 1937-1941 (Jefferson, NC and London 2006), 48-49;
Oka Yoshitake, Konoe Fumimaro. A political
biography (
[14] “antipathy”, Antony Best,
[15] Ambassador von Dirksen,
[16] “friendship”
Castillo to Sangróniz,
[17]
[18] V. Ferretti,
“Italia y el reconocimiento diplomático del gobierno Nacional español por parte
de Japón”, Revista Española del Pacífico,
5 (1995): 225-231;
G. Ciano, Ciano’s Diary 1937-38. Trans. Andreas Mayor. Introduction by Malcolm Muggeridge, (London 1952), entries from the year
1937, 23 August, p. 3;
30 August, p. 6;
6 September, pp. 9-10;
15 November, p. 33.
Popolo (not with Mussolini’s name) quoted in Presseisen,
op. cit., 179-180.
“Popularity”, Ferretti, Il Giappone, 144, “normal […] surprised” Ciano`s Diary 1937-38, 16 December 1937, p. 44.
[19] Conde to Sangróniz, Rome, 6,
7
September 1937, AMAE-R, 1466-14. Castillo telegram previous to the meeting
copied in Conde to Sangróniz,
[20] “outspokenly”,
Previous telegram to the meeting. Castillo note copied
in Conde to Sangróniz,
[21] On assistance. Del
Castillo to Sangróniz, Tokyo, 21
Septiembre 1937, AGA-AE, 5177; Conde to Castillo,
Rome, 4 October
1937.
AMAE-R, 1466-14. About the Incident, see Lee, op. cit., 40-43;
Shiroyama Saburo, War Criminal: The Life and Death of Hirota Koki (
[22] On Alvarez-Taladriz in
[23] Presseissen, op. cit., p. 132.
“Conversation with the Duce and Herr Von Ribbentrop”, Muggeridge, ed., 1948, p. 143.
[24] AGA-AE, 5177. Castillo to Sangróniz, Tokyo, 23
December 1937.
[25] A book by a Japanese
liberal internationalist turned pan-Asianist, Zumoto Motosada, The Origin and History
of the Anti-Japanese Movement in China, was translated, with some additions
(thereby appearing as collaborator), by José Muñoz Peñalver
as Contiendas Chino-japonesas:
Historia de las operaciones militares en
Manchuria y Shanghai en 1931 y 1932, y del movimiento
niponófobo chino (Tokyo 1932). In 1936, Gaspar Tato Cummings, a pro-Falange
journalist working in Faro, a small news agency, was invited to travel to Japan, China and Manchukuo
[26] Conde to Sangróniz, Rome, 6 November 1937. AMAE-R, 1466-14; Conde to Castillo,
[27] SIS-RM#. Hirota
to