was a Japanese general in the Imperial Japanese Army and the commander of the expeditionary force sent to China in 1937. He was convicted of war crimes and executed by the Allies for his involvement in the Nanjing Massacre.
Born in Nagoya, Matsui chose a military career and served in combat during the Russo-Japanese War (1904–05). He volunteered for an overseas assignment there shortly after graduating from the Army War College in 1906. As Matsui rose through the ranks, he earned a reputation as the Japanese Army's foremost expert on China, and he was an ardent advocate of pan-Asianism. He played a key role in founding the influential Greater Asia Association.
Matsui retired from active duty in 1935 but was called back into service in August 1937 at the start of the Second Sino-Japanese War to lead the Japanese forces engaged in the Battle of Shanghai. After winning the battle Matsui succeeded in convincing Japan's high command to advance on the Chinese capital city of Nanjing. The troops under his command who captured Nanjing on December 13 were responsible for the notorious Nanjing Massacre.
Matsui finally retired from the army in 1938. Following Japan's defeat in World War II he was convicted of war crimes at the International Military Tribunal for the Far East (IMTFE) and executed by hanging. He and other convicted war criminals were enshrined at Yasukuni Shrine in 1978, an act that has stirred controversy.
Early life and military career, 1878–1906 Iwane Matsui was born in NagoyaTorsten Weber, "The Greater Asia Association and Matsui Iwane," in Pan-Asianism: A Documentary History, Volume 2, eds. Sven Saaler and Christopher Szpilman (Lanham: Rowman & Littlefield, 2011), 140 on July 27, 1878.Kazutoshi Hando et al., 歴代陸軍大将全覧: 昭和篇(1) (Tokyo: Chūō Kōron Shinsha, 2010), 21. He was the sixth son of Takekuni Matsui, an impoverished samurai and former retainer to the daimyō of Owari during the Tokugawa shogunate. After completing elementary school, his parents insisted that he continue his education, but Matsui worried about his father's debts and did not want to burden him financially. Though he was a short, thin, and sickly young man, Matsui opted for a career in the Army, because in Japan at that time military schools charged the lowest tuition fees.Masataka Matsuura, 「大東亜戦争」はなぜ起きたのか (Nagoya: Nagoya Daigaku Shuppankai, 2010), 504–505.
Matsui enrolled in the Central Military Preparatory School in 1893 and in 1896 was accepted into the Imperial Japanese Army Academy. Matsui was an excellent student and graduated second in his class in November 1897. His classmates included the future generals Jinzaburō Masaki, Nobuyuki Abe, Shigeru Honjō, and Sadao Araki.
In 1901, Matsui was admitted into the Army War College, an elite institution which accepted only about ten percent of annual applicants.Takashi Hayasaka, 松井石根と南京事件の真実 (Tokyo: Bungei Shunjū, 2011), 29. Matsui was still taking classes there in February 1904, when the college closed due to the outbreak of the Russo-Japanese War. He was immediately sent overseas where he served in Manchuria as a company commander in a combat unit of the 6th Regiment.Kazutoshi Hando et al., 歴代陸軍大将全覧: 昭和篇(1) (Tokyo: Chūō Kōron Shinsha, 2010), 133. During the Battle of Shoushanpu, he was wounded in action and most in his company were killed. At war's end, Matsui resumed his studies at the Army War College, and graduated at the top of his class in November 1906.
The "China expert", 1906–31 Matsui had a lifelong interest in Chinese civilization.Takashi Hayasaka, 松井石根と南京事件の真実 (Tokyo: Bungei Shunjū, 2011), 23–24. His father was a scholar of Chinese classics and Matsui studied the Chinese language during his military education. Matsui was a fervent admirer of the recently deceased Sei Arao (1858–1896), a continental adventurer and pan-Asianist army officer from his hometown who had served in China.Takashi Hayasaka, 松井石根と南京事件の真実 (Tokyo: Bungei Shunjū, 2011), 31–32. Arao believed that China and Japan, as the two strongest powers in Asia, had to forge a close trading and commercial partnership under Japanese hegemony to resist Western imperialism, an idea which Matsui incorporated into his own worldview. After graduating from the Army War College, Matsui immediately requested to be stationed in China. Only one other officer had made this request, since a posting in China was considered undesirable at the time.Masataka Matsuura, 「大東亜戦争」はなぜ起きたのか (Nagoya: Nagoya Daigaku Shuppankai, 2010), 508–509. Kitaoka Shinichi, "China Experts in the Army," in The Japanese Informal Empire in China, 1895–1937, eds. Peter Duus, et al. (Princeton, New Jersey: Princeton University Press, 1989), 342. Matsui's stated ambition was to become "a second Sei Arao".
At first the Army General Staff gave Matsui an assignment in France, but in 1907 he got his wish to go to China, where he worked as an aide to the military attaché and did intelligence work.Takashi Hayasaka, 松井石根と南京事件の真実 (Tokyo: Bungei Shunjū, 2011), 32–33, 36–37, 40–41. Matsui worked in China between 1907 and 1911, and then again as resident officer in Shanghai between 1915 and 1919. In 1921 Matsui was posted to Siberia as a staff officer, but returned in 1922 to China where he served until 1924 as an advisor to Zhang Zuolin in the Chinese city of Harbin and did intelligence work for Japan's Kwantung Army.
Due to his extensive experience in China Matsui became recognized as one of the most important of the Japanese Army's "China experts", and he was well known in the Army for his love of things Chinese and his hobby of writing Chinese poetry.Kazutoshi Hando et al., 歴代陸軍大将全覧: 昭和篇(1) (Tokyo: Chūō Kōron Shinsha, 2010), 132. Toshiyuki Hayase, 将軍の真実 : 松井石根人物伝 (Tokyo: Kōjinsha, 1999), 31. His work took him throughout China, and he came to know many prominent Chinese soldiers and politicians. Matsui formed an especially warm friendship with Sun Yat-sen, the first president of the Republic of China. In 1907 when a young Chiang Kai-shek (then a Chinese soldier) wanted to study abroad, Matsui helped him find a place to stay in Japan.Takashi Hayasaka, 松井石根と南京事件の真実 (Tokyo: Bungei Shunjū, 2011), 35.
Head of intelligence Matsui quickly rose through the ranks and in 1923 was promoted to the rank of major general. Between 1925 and 1928 he would serve in the influential post of Chief of the Intelligence Division of the Army General Staff. He was the first "China expert" to be appointed to that position and would have a major influence determining Japan's foreign policies toward China.Takashi Hayasaka, 松井石根と南京事件の真実 (Tokyo: Bungei Shunjū, 2011), 42, 44, 46–52.
As Chief of the Intelligence Division, Matsui was a strong supporter of Chiang Kai-shek, who was attempting to end the civil war in China and unify the country under his leadership. Matsui hoped that Chiang would succeed and form a strong partnership with Japan to resist both Western influence in Asia and communism. However, Matsui's tenure in office was punctuated by a series of crises. Against Matsui's advice the Japanese government sent troops to the Chinese city of Jinan in 1928 to protect Japanese property and civilians, but they ended up clashing with the Chinese Army. Matsui headed to Jinan to help settle the affair, but while he was still there Japanese army officers assassinated Zhang Zuolin, the warlord leader of Manchuria. Matsui, who had been a supporter of Zhang, immediately left for Manchuria to find out what had happened. He demanded that the officers responsible for the assassination be punished.Leonard Humphreys, The Way of the Heavenly Sword: The Japanese Army in the 1920s (Stanford, California: Stanford University Press, 1995), 148, 215–216.
In December 1928 Matsui left his post as Chief of the Intelligence Division in order to make an official, year-long trip to Europe. Matsui was interested in France as well as China;Carrington Williams, "The Tokyo War Crimes Trial Before the International Military Tribunal for the Far East", in International Humanitarian Law: Origins, Challenges, Prospects, Volume 1, eds. Peter Duus, et al. (Leiden, the Netherlands: Martinus Nijhoff Publishers, 2006), 154. he spoke fluent French and had already done work for the Japanese Army in both France and French Indochina.Toshiyuki Hayase, 将軍の真実 : 松井石根人物伝 (Tokyo: Kōjinsha, 1999), 80.
Matsui's pan-Asian vision, 1931–37 Sino-Japanese relations plummeted in September 1931 when the Kwantung Army invaded Manchuria.Takashi Hayasaka, 松井石根と南京事件の真実 (Tokyo: Bungei Shunjū, 2011), 52–55, 62. At the time Matsui was back in Japan commanding the 11th Division, but at the end of the year he was sent to Geneva, Switzerland, to attend the World Disarmament Conference as an army plenipotentiary.
At first Matsui condemned the invasion as the work of renegade army officers, but he was equally stung by what he believed were unfair denunciations of Japan itself by Chinese delegates to the League of Nations. Matsui suspected that the Western powers and the League of Nations were deliberately attempting to provoke conflict between Japan and China. Matsui believed that the 30 million Manchurians had been relieved by the Japanese invasion and conquest, which he called 'the Empire's sympathy and good faith' and that the solution to the larger regional problem was for the nations of Asia to create their own "Asian League", which would "extend to the 400 million people of China the same help and deep sympathy that we have given Manchuria".Torsten Weber, "The Greater Asia Association and Matsui Iwane," in Pan-Asianism: A Documentary History, Volume 2, eds. Sven Saaler and Christopher Szpilman (Lanham: Rowman & Littlefield, 2011), p.137.pp.140ff.
After returning to Japan in late 1932, Matsui abruptly appeared at the office of the Pan-Asia Study Group, a Tokyo-based think tank, and presented its members with a bold plan to expand their small organization into an international mass movement.Takashi Hayasaka, 松井石根と南京事件の真実 (Tokyo: Bungei Shunjū, 2011), 58–61, 63. Matsui persuaded them to adopt his ideas, and in March 1933 the study group was rechristened the Greater Asia Association (大亜細亜協会 Dai-Ajia Kyōkai), described by the historian Torsten Weber as "the single most influential organization to propagate pan-Asianism between 1933 and 1945."Torsten Weber, "The Greater Asia Association and Matsui Iwane," in Pan-Asianism: A Documentary History, Volume 2, eds. Sven Saaler and Christopher Szpilman (Lanham: Rowman & Littlefield, 2011), 137. The goal of the Greater Asia Association was to promote "the unification, liberation, and independence of the Asian peoples", and Matsui would use the organization as a powerful vehicle to promote his "Asian League" concept both in Japan and abroad. The writings he published with the Association were widely read by Japan's political and military elites.Toshiyuki Hayase, 将軍の真実 : 松井石根人物伝 (Tokyo: Kōjinsha, 1999), 208.
In August 1933 Matsui was dispatched to Taiwan to command the Taiwan Army, and then on October 20 was promoted to the rank of general, the highest rank in the Japanese Army.Takashi Hayasaka, 松井石根と南京事件の真実 (Tokyo: Bungei Shunjū, 2011), 67. In the Imperial Japanese Army generals were only outranked by those with the ceremonial title of field marshal. While in Taiwan, he took the opportunity to set up a branch of the Greater Asia Association, which declared Matsui its "honorary advisor". He then returned to Japan in August 1934 to take a seat on Japan's Supreme War Council.