What if Japan had surrendered conditionally?

[A Piece of History]

By Summer 1945, the Japanese government was in chaos, with several officials and military officers fearing what could happen if they surrendered to the Americans. Above all, they feared what could happen to the Emperor in an American-occupied Japan.

The United States, in accordance with the Potsdam Declaration, demanded unconditional surrender, but Japan, through it's Moscow embassy, tried to negotiate surrender on it's terms.

Several of it's terms were as follows:

The position of the Emperor was to remain untouched

War crimes trials for Japanese war crimes were to be conducted by Japan.

Japanese troops would pull out of their conquests

A small American occupation force would be based in Tokyo.

Of course, the US rejected these terms and when the Japanese wouldn't surrender, Hiroshima and Nagasaki were vaporized by Fat Man and Little Boy, respectively. This, combined with a Soviet invasion of Manchuria on August 9th, convinced the Japanese to surrender unconditionally.

What if the Americans had accepted Japanese conditional surrender before the atomic bombs were dropped?

 

[Sceonn]

What if the Americans had accepted Japanese conditional surrender before the atomic bombs were dropped?

Removal of the Government that accepted the Conditional Surrender from the White House and Congress. Crippling and Revanchist War Reparations imposed on Japan and US markets remain closed to them. Korea becomes American.

 

[Derek Jackson]

Well you avoid North Korea.

What happens about the Atom bomb?

It still becomes available. The USSR still knows about it

 

[Clandango]

The Japanese weren't happy about the end of the Russo-Japanese War due to not knowing just how close they had come to losing. This war would simply be used by the Army to discredit the Navy for attacking the Americans and not being able to finish the job. And I imagine this ends with the Japanese keeping Korea and Taiwain, with Manchuria staying a puppet?

 

[Deleted member 94680]

The United States, in accordance with the Potsdam Declaration, demanded unconditional surrender

What if the Americans had accepted Japanese conditional surrender before the atomic bombs were dropped?

You don't demand unconditional surrender and then accept conditions from the surrendering side.

To get this anywhere close to happening (ASB, IMO) you'd need to remove the original Declaration.

 

[edvardas]

From what I read, the American position was this: "Unconditional surrender" does not mean that there will be no conditions, it just means that we will not state the conditions in advance. Japanese: Can we keep the emperor? American: bingo. If the Japanese knew that they could keep the emperor, as in OTL, would they have surrendered?

 

[Aelita]

From what I read, the American position was this: "Unconditional surrender" does not mean that there will be no conditions, it just means that we will not state the conditions in advance. Japanese: Can we keep the emperor? American: bingo. If the Japanese knew that they could keep the emperor, as in OTL, would they have surrendered?

No, unconditional surrender meant the terms of peace would be at the discretion of the Allies. There is a pervasive misunderstanding that the Japanese continued resistance to secure the Emperor. This is simply false

 

[David T]

A case can be made, and has been made by Robert P. Newman in *Truman and the Hiroshima Cult* (Michigan State Univeristy Press 1995, pp. 69-73), https://books.google.com/books?id=Haf2g1mbsH8C&pg=PA69 that the Japanese surrender was not really unconditional in the same sense as the German. Paragraph 5 of the Potsdam Declaration stated "Following are our terms. We will not deviate from them. There are no alternatives. We shall brook no delay." According to Newman (p. 69), Japan's experienced diplomats immediately saw that "if there were terms, this was not really an unconditional surrender." The word "unconditional" was still there, but it was accompanied by promises to Japan. Newman cites (p. 70) the following memo issued by someone in Assistant Secretary of War John McCloy's office on September 4, 1945, entitled "Rights and Powers over Japan." The first paragraph observed that although MacArthur had full power to "take such steps as he deems proper to effectuate the surrender terms" he was still bound by the Potsdam Declaration. Then:

"2. In the sense in which 'Unconditional Surrender' has been used in
relation to Germany, the Japanese surrender is not an unconditional
surrender. On the contrary, it is based on the terms of the Potsdam
Declaration, the exchange of notes resulting in the acceptance of those
terms, and the surrender instrument, which itself constitutes an acceptance
of those terms.

"3. A moment's consideration of the effect of those documents will make
this clear: under the Potsdam Declaration we have bound ourselves to
continue Japanese sovereignty in the home islands (par 8); to permit
Japanese military forces 'to return to their homes with the opportunity to
lead peaceful and productive lives' (par 9); not to enslave the Japanese
race, and to establish freedom of speech, of religion, and of thought..."

The rest of the Potsdam conditions were reviewed, and the memo concluded that all these were "expressly 'terms' which were offfered to Japan to induce her to surrender and which were accepted by Japan. No such situation arises in our relation to Germany."

Perhaps Newman is attaching too much importance to an anonymous memo produced in McCloy's office, but some Japanese like Foreign Minister Togo Shigenori also felt that the "Following are our terms" language indicated that there *were* terms and that the surrender was not truly unconditional; Togo also said he felt relief that the Declaration seemed to give some consideration to Japan's economic position at the same time the "pastoralization" of Germany was still being considered. Kase Toshikazu, officer for American Affairs in the Foreign Ministry, thought it significant that the Declaration referred to the unconditional surrender of the Japanese *military forces*, not of Japan. (Probably he was reading too much significance into this.) Shigemitsu Mamoru, a member of the "peace party" and foreign minister before Togo, told Samuel Eliot Morison that despite the absence of an explicit guarantee for the emperor, the provision in paragraph 7 about withdrawing occupation forces after a "peacefully inclined and responsible government" was set up indicated to the Japanese that they would be able to determine their own future government. (Newman, pp. 71-2)

 

[Asp]

Truman would be impeached by the House and removed by the Senate by the end of the day.

There was literally no chance of this happening. The Japanese terms would have left them in control of the French colonies in Indochina that they took over (their terms called for returning to status quo ante as of November 1941, which was after they annexed that area), given them a free hand in China, and removed sanctions. They would have *won the war* if those terms had been accepted!

Not going to happen, period and dot.

 

[TheSpectacledCloth]

If Truman was to allow Japan to surrender conditionally, they'd still impose serious terms.

Japan would have to leave all of China, Indochina and Korea. It would also have to give up certain officials to be tried for war crimes. And America would probably have possession of Japanese warships for a certain period of time. The only condition that the Americans will accept on the Japanese terms is the continued rule of the emperor, Hirohito. That being said, it depends on the attitude of the Allies after the defeat of Germany. If Japan only asks for Hirohito to be unharmed and agrees that it will abandon all lands that are not Japanese, the Allies MAY accept the surrender, but that surely is not a guarantee.

 

[Colonel Zoidberg]

I always understood that there was one condition - the Allies weren't allowed to prosecute the Emperor. I'm not sure if the Japanese asked for that or if the Allies decided that was for the best.

Given that the Americans were the driving force in Asia and America had continued to be really, really pissed off at Japan, the idea that the Japanese could ask for any conditions beyond the odd "pretty please don't prosecute the Emperor" is pretty much ASB. America was prepared to turn Japan into a parking lot before they were prepared to listen to terms. Operation Downfall would essentially have turned Japan into "a nation without cities," given that the Allies would have fire-bombed pretty much the entire country straight to hell and beyond.

The Americans pretty much didn't want the Japanese to do anything besides cry uncle.

 

[wcv215]

I always understood that there was one condition - the Allies weren't allowed to prosecute the Emperor. I'm not sure if the Japanese asked for that or if the Allies decided that was for the best.

I'm pretty sure the Emperor wasn't prosecuted or removed because the Allies chose to keep him, not because it was a concession.

 

[David T]

I'm pretty sure the Emperor wasn't prosecuted or removed because the Allies chose to keep him, not because it was a concession.

The Potsdam Declaration did not *explicitly* say that the Japanese would be allowed to keep their Emperor--though it is true that one can read "The occupying forces of the Allies shall be withdrawn from Japan as soon as these objectives have been accomplished and there has been established in accordance with the freely expressed will of the Japanese people a peacefully inclined and responsible government" http://en.wikisource.org/wiki/Potsdam_Declaration as implying that the Japanese would be allowed to choose their own form of government (it would be hard for the UK at least to insist that constitutional monarchy cannot be "responsible" government!).

It did not even explicitly say that the Emperor would not be tried--"stern justice shall be meted out to all war criminals"--though the blaming of "self-willed militaristic *advisers*"(emphasis added) does suggest that Hirohito himself was not being blamed.

 

[desmirelle]

Unconditional surrender basically is the wartime equivalent of throwing oneself on the mercy of the court.

 

[TRH]

I always interpreted the OTL surrender as a conditional one, just not conditions that were at Japan's discretion. Anyways, nothing coming out of their government regarding peace terms approached reasonable, so I can't see those being accepted.

 

[desmirelle]

There are ALWAYS conditions during a surrender. The difference is who determines them. A surrender in which the entire contribution of the loser is "I give up" is an unconditional surrender. If the losers get to contribute even "I give up and I'm keeping my cat" - and the winner allows the loser to keep the cat, it's a conditional surrender.

 

[Remitonov]

Complete betrayal of the Postdam Convention. Given what happened at Pearl Harbor, accepting anything less than unconditional surrender is tantamount to political suicide. Neither the public nor the government would accept it.

The only winning move for Japan at this point is unconditional surrender at an earlier date, and hope that the US is merciful enough not to throw half their country to Stalin.

 

[sloreck]

The key here is not what the USA/Truman would or would not accept, it is what the Japanese military, in particular the Army, would find acceptable. The "conditions" that the Japanese floated were very close to a return to status quo antebellum. They would be willing to give up some of their Pacific Islands (the ones they got post WWI) but the core of their Empire would remain intact. Limited demobilization, war crimes prosecuted by the Japanese (this means a few scapegoats commit seppuku, and the Japanese define crimes and since they were not a Geneva Convention signatory), and so on. This is barely an acknowledgement you lost the war. If the Japanese had said the only thing they were asking for was retaining the Emperor (or at least the Imperial Family/system), the USA would probably have taken it to prevent further Allied deaths. The military clique ruling Japan was never going to make this deal - remember the attempts to prevent the broadcast of the Emperor's surrender recording, and to kidnap the Emperor to keep the war going AFTER Hiroshima and Nagasaki and the Russians entering the war. To get the Japanese military to be willing to make this deal at any time before the Emperor's voice spoke publicly, you need not Skippy the ASb to be working but a whole bunch of his friends at relatives at work.

 

[edvardas]

How many civilians were killed at Pearl Harbor?. a thousand or so. How many Japanese civilians were killed in the meeting house and other firebombings? about a million. We are talking about a revenge ratio of civilians of nearly a thousend

 

[Colonel Zoidberg]

I'm pretty sure the Emperor wasn't prosecuted or removed because the Allies chose to keep him, not because it was a concession.

I wasn't sure who brought it up first. If it was the Allies, it probably went something like this:

Japan: "OK, we surrender."

Allies: "Unconditionally?"

Japan: **grumble** "Yes, unconditionally. This whole mess is yours."

Allies: "Wow, what a mess. Let's keep the Emperor just for continuity and stability and make him a figurehead, kind of like the Queen of England."

The way I had heard it, it worked out the same but went like this:

Japan: "OK, we surrender."

Allies: "Unconditionally?"

Japan: "Ummm, just one teensy-weensy thing."

Allies: "What part of 'unconditional' do you dipshits not understand?"

Japan: "We know, but it's just...it's the Emperor. He's revered here and it really wasn't his fault. Can he not be prosecuted and stay in power after the war?"

Allies: "Stay in power? Are you shitting us?"

Japan: "Umm, well we just want him safe from prosecution--"

Allies: "Tell you what. The Emperor can be a figurehead and we won't prosecute him or the royal family. But that's it. If we think you did anything illegal during the war, your ass is grass."

Japan: "Yessir."