The First French Military Mission to Japan - Literature and sources
The main topic of my master's dissertation is the relations between France and Japan during the Bakumatsu period (1853-1868). I am basically researching everything that touches diplomacy, personal experience, the civil war (Boshin Senso 1868-1869), French deserters, Tokugawa foreign policy etc. in order to develop a narrative that both encompass the history of foreign relations in Japan and among Western powers in Japan, but also the inner and personal understanding of individuals who were not involved in the grand political and economic lines. (*´▽｀*)
A crucial part of this period was the involvement of France in the development of the maritime arsenal and the training of Japanese troops in modern warfare. The creation of the Yokosuka naval base in 1866 and the subsequent arrival of the First French Military Mission in 1867 both played key roles in the involvement of French soldiers involved in the Boshin war.
The story of Jules Brunet, who had arrived with the Mission as a artillery instructor and 'deserted' to join the rebels following the Restoration of Imperial Rule and the end of the Tokugawa shogunate, has entered public knowledge in France, and perhaps abroad following the The Last Samurai movie. The protagonist of the movie is loosely based on Brunet, though the war depicted in the movie is not the Boshin war but the Satsuma Rebellion of 1877 (but that's a story for another time). Brunet, while being the leader, was not the only French soldier who left the mission to move up north with the rest of the Tokugawa loyalists who had survived the first battles of 1868.
There is (fortunately for me I guess) few secondary literature discussing the First Military Mission to Japan (1867-68) in details and the implications it had for both France and Japan (and most of it is oooooold).
Secondary Literature related to the French Mission in Japan between 1867 and 1869:
- Ernst L. Presseisen (1965), Before Aggression: Europeans Prepare the Japanese Army.
- Meron Medzini (1971), French Policy in Japan during the Closing Years of the Tokugawa Regime.
- Richard Sims (1968), French Policy Towards the Bakufu and Meiji Japan 1854-95.
- Christian Polak (2002), 絹と光: 知られざる日仏交流 100 年の歴史 (江戸時代 ~1950 年代) = Soie et lumières : l’âge d’or des échanges franco-japonais (des origines aux années 1950).
- Nakatsu Masaya (2018), Les missions militaires françaises au Japon entre 1867 et 1889.
- Paul Mousset, 'Soldats perdus d'il y a cent ans', in: Revue des Deux Mondes (1965).
- Takahashi Kunitaro, 'Jules Brunet, français qui combattit à Goryokaku', in: Acta Asatica (17, 1969)
- Centre Historique des Archives, Service Historique de la Défense in Vincenne
- Archives Directorate of the Ministry for Europe and Foreign Affairs in La Courneuve
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