Tsushima, national memory, and treaty politics

Hakodate marked the Imperial Japanese Navy's difficult beginnings, while Tsushima became its more powerful foundation myth. Tsushima demonstrated that Japan could defeat a major foreign fleet after decades spent building the ability to resist outside coercion. The Royal Navy's use of Trafalgar as a foundation story provides a parallel for this treatment of naval memory. Memories of the unequal treaties and rapid national transformation gave a fleet capable of self-defence cultural as well as military meaning. Asking Britain to discard HMS Hood would likewise have threatened its participation in the Washington Naval Conference because the ship and fleet were bound to national identity. American diplomacy treated Japan as both a major threat and a minor power that could still be dictated to, an approach presented here as internally inconsistent. Many people involved in Japanese government in the 1920s could remember the coercion of the 1850s directly or through their parents. Naval limits could therefore touch status, identity, and security as well as ship numbers.