Morimasa Prince Nashimoto: Encyclopedia II - Morimasa Prince Nashimoto - Military Career

Morimasa Prince Nashimoto - Military Career

Like the other princes of the imperial blood at the time, Prince Nashimoto pursued a military career. Educated at the Central Military Preparatory School and the Imperial Military Academy, he received a commission as a second lieutenant in the Thirty-Ninth Infantry Regiment in 1899. In 1903, he went to the French Military Staff College at St. Cyr, but returned to Japan the following year and served with his regiment in the Russo-Japanese War. He returned to France in August 1906 and remained until July 1909. He was promoted to lieutenant general and commander of the Sixteenth Infantry Division in August 1917. Prince Nashimoto became a member of the Supreme Military Council in November 1919 and was promoted to the rank of general in August 1922. On 8 August 1932, he was given the largely honorary rank of field marshal and became a member of the Board of Marshals and Fleet Admirals. However, the prince held no major military commands during the Pacific War (1931- 1945). Unlike Prince Asaka and Prince Higashikuni, he remained largely removed from the mounting radicalism within the army, which culminated in the February 26 Incident of 1936. In October 1937, he became chief priest (sasu) of the Ise Shrine, the ancestral shrine of the imperial dynasty, upon the death of his half-brother, Prince Kuni Taka.

On 28 November 1900, Prince Nashimoto married Nabeshima Itsuko (2 February 1882 - 18 August 1976), the second daughter of Marquis Nabeshima Naohiro, a one-time Japanese ambassador to Italy and the son of the last feudal lord (daimyo) of Saga. The couple had two daughters. At the instigation of the Japanese government and the Imperial Household Ministry, the couple's elder daughter, Princess Masako (4 November 1901 - 30 April 1989), married the half-brother and heir of Korea's last monarch, Crown Prince Yi Eun (20 October 1897 - 1 May 1970) in 1920. Prince Nashimoto's second daughter, Princess Noriko (27 April 1907 - 1992), married Count Hirohashi Tadamitsu in 1926.

Adapted from the Wikipedia article "Military Career", under the G.N U Free Docmentation License. Please also see http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki