Episode 66 - An Unnatural Intimacy, Part 4
History of Japan
Isaac Meyer
4.7 • 790 Ratings
🗓️ 29 August 2014
⏱️ 27 minutes
🧾️ Download transcript
Summary
This week, we'll discuss the Second Konoe Cabinet, which was torn by indecision and plagued by bad leadership. The Japanese leadership will alienate the US by signing the Tripartite Pact, and their attempts to bridge the gap with the US will be plagued by bad management and failure.
Transcript
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| 0:00.0 | Hello and welcome to the History of Japan podcast, episode 66, and Unnatural Intimacy, Part 4. |
| 0:24.2 | Last week, we left off with the return of Konoa Fumi Maro to the position of Prime |
| 0:29.5 | Minister in July 1940. This week, we'll cover the next steps to Pearl Harbor, but first we're |
| 0:36.4 | going to have to take a few steps |
| 0:37.7 | backwards to get an idea of the situation facing Japan at this critical juncture. |
| 0:43.4 | Specifically, we're going back to Europe on September 1st, 1939. On that day, Adolf Hitler struck |
| 0:50.9 | Poland, seemingly out of the belief that Britain and France, which had promised |
| 0:55.2 | to defend Poland, were not truly willing to go to war for the sake of Eastern Europe. |
| 1:00.9 | If that was his thinking, he was wrong. Two days later, France and the United Kingdom declared war |
| 1:06.9 | on Germany. Despite Hitler's miscalculation, things still turned out well at the beginning. |
| 1:13.4 | Poland collapsed in the face of a German assault, particularly once the Soviet Union attacked it in |
| 1:18.8 | the rear. The Soviets, you see, had made a deal with the devil. Though they had originally |
| 1:24.8 | discussed plans to work with the Polish, the French, and the British to stop the Germans, since they, being communists, were ideologically opposed to the Nazis, |
| 1:34.3 | Joseph Stalin, the leader of the Soviet Union, felt that these overtures were either not serious or unlikely to succeed. |
| 1:42.3 | Still, he would have to do something to adjust to the change in the |
| 1:45.9 | strategic situation in Eastern Europe, and signing a deal with Hitler would give him a chance |
| 1:50.6 | to use the chaos to gobble up more territory while drawing a minimal amount of heat onto |
| 1:55.3 | himself. The deal was for the two sides to split Poland, and for Germany to acknowledge Soviet influence in Eastern Europe. |
| 2:04.7 | Stalin could be assured that, at least for now, he would not have to deal with the Germans, |
| 2:09.0 | and Hitler would have his eastern flank secure while he turned west. |
| 2:13.6 | In Japan, the treaty between the two powers, the Soviets and the Germans, referred to as the |
| 2:18.3 | Molotov-Ribbentrop Pact, after the foreign ministers of each country, was viewed as a disaster. |
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