Notes on Sketch 301, dated November 26, 1917: Ishii Kikujirō Returns

On November 2, 1917, U.S. Secretary of State Robert Lansing and Viscount Ishii Kikujirō, Japan’s Special Envoy ("Ambassador Extraordinary and Plenipotentiary of Japan on Special Mission"), signed the Lansing–Ishii Agreement, a public exchange of notes in which the United States and Japan affirmed shared intentions toward China. The agreement reaffirmed Chinese sovereignty, endorsed the principle of equal commercial rights (reflecting President Wilson’s "Open Door" policy), and recognized Japan’s "special interests" in China—a vague phrase that the two nations would interpret quite differently in the years to follow.

In accompanying statements, both diplomats exchanged personal praise. Lansing declared, "Viscount Ishii will be remembered in this country as a statesman of high attainments, as a diplomat with a true vision of international affairs, and as a genuine and outspoken friend of America." Ishii responded warmly: "I cannot pay too high a tribute to the sincerity and farsightedness of Secretary Lansing, with whom it was my privilege to associate in so pleasurable a way." The agreement was widely hailed in both the United States and Japan as a contribution to world peace and "as defining permanently the relations of Japan and the United States in regard to China."

Itō Chūta completed his satirical sketch on November 26, the day of Ishii’s departure from the United States. Ishii would return to Japan on December 17, where he received a hero’s welcome.

Despite Ishii’s apparent diplomatic success, Itō’s sketch is far from celebratory. He portrays Ishii as a child in Western dress, including a U.S. military cap—a visual suggestion of naïveté or subservience, possibly alluding to his known admiration for Western customs. The cloth sack he carries evokes Hotei, the laughing monk whose bag is filled with gifts and treasures for the needy—a symbolic gesture implying Ishii is bringing offerings from abroad. Awaiting him is a grinning Prime Minister Terauchi Masatake, Ishii’s superior, shown with his famously caricatured Billiken-like head. The sickle tucked into Terauchi’s belt hints at opportunism—suggesting he is poised to reap political capital from the agreement.

In his commentary on the sketch, Shunsuke Kurakata observes: “The sketch suggests that even at the time... politicians sought to exploit the Ishii–Lansing Agreement for their own purposes." The satirical tone contrasts sharply with the official fanfare surrounding the conclusion of the agreement and Ishii’s return.

Just two days later, on November 28, Emperor Taishō sent a formal message of thanks to President Wilson:
“I have just been extremely pleased to hear from Viscount Ishii a personal account of the hearty welcome accorded my special mission to the United States, and once more tender to Your Excellency, and through Your Excellency to the American people, my profound thanks for and my deep appreciation of that warm display of sincere international friendship, which is of all good augury for the future of the two nations and which will be held in grateful memory in my country."

References:

The Imperial Japanese Mission to the United States, 1917, Appendix B, "The Lansing-Ishii Exchange of Notes, 1917," https://books.google.com/books?id=OvmSwku4wtwC&pg=PA121. 

The Imperial Japanese Mission to the United States, 1917, Carnegie Endowment for International Peace, "XII. Viscount Ishii’s Tribute to America, The Emperor’s Message of Thanks to President Wilson," https://archive.org/details/imperialjapanese00carnuoft/page/114/mode/2up. 

Kurakata Shunsuke 倉方俊輔, commentary on Itō Chūta’s sketch “301,” in Itō Chūta 伊東忠太 and Sugimura Kōtarō 杉村廣太郎, 阿修羅帖 [Ashura-chō], 5 vols. (Tokyo: Yumani Shobō ゆまに書房, 2013), vol. 4.

Notes on Sketch 302, dated November 29, 1917: Kokugikan Burns

Pinang Gazette

AND STRAITS CHRONICLE

No. 299. VOL. LXXV.

TUESDAY, 18th DECEMBER, 1917 (p. 9)

FAR EAST

WRESTLING HEADQUARTERS IN TOKIO DESTROYED.

Tokio, November 29.—The Kokugikan was destroyed by fire, early this morning. The steel frame of the amphitheater was 200 feet in diameter and the place was the center of attraction in the city for wrestling matches. The damage is estimated at Yen 1,500,000.

In the pre‑dawn hours of November 29, 1917, an accidental fire broke out and quickly engulfed the Tokyo Ryōgoku Kokugikan (Ryōgoku National Sports Hall), Japan’s first permanent indoor sumo arena completed in 1909.

The Kokugikan was designed by Tatsuno Kingo (辰野金吾, 1854–1919), one of Japan’s foremost architects and a mentor to Itō Chūta during his student years. The structural engineering, including the large steel-framed dome, was overseen by his junior, Sano Riki (佐野利器, 1880–1956). 

On the eve of its opening ceremony, the June 1, 1909 issue of the Asahi Shimbun ran an article titled "Viewing the Kokugikan," which extolled the grandeur of the structure: "A permanent sumo hall accommodating 13,000 people… Dazzling to the eyes as one enters the spacious interior through a corridor ten shaku wide."

The article also noted controversy surrounding the roof: "There is considerable public debate about how this roof does not harmonize with the rest of the building."

In his sketch, Itō depicts the building's destruction as the work of a blue demon visiting a firestorm on the Kokugikan, crushing it beneath its feet.

Following the destruction, sumo tournaments were relocated to a temporary structure on the grounds of Yasukuni Shrine, until the new Kokugikan, its roof fortified with zinc, was completed in January 1920 (see Sketch 315). 

References:

"Wrestling Headquarters in Tokio Destroyed," Pinang Gazette and Straits Chronicle, 18 December 1917, Page 9 https://eresources.nlb.gov.sg/newspapers/digitised/article/pinangazette19171218-1.2.54.5.

"第26回　国技館―伝統と技術が融合した相撲の殿堂" ["The 26th Kokugikan - A Hall of Fame of Sumo Wrestling Where Tradition and Technology Merge], Kajima Corporation https://www.kajima.co.jp/gallery/kiseki/kiseki26/index-j.html.

Kurakata Shunsuke 倉方俊輔, commentary on Itō Chūta’s sketch “302,” in Itō Chūta 伊東忠太 and Sugimura Kōtarō 杉村廣太郎, 阿修羅帖 [Ashura-chō], 5 vols. (Tokyo: Yumani Shobō ゆまに書房, 2013), vol. 4.

Transcription of Rollin Kirby's commentary and notes on Sketch 303, dated December 1, 1917: German–Russian Armistice

New York – Nov. 23rd, 1920

K. Sugimura Esq. Tokyo, Japan

Dear Sir:

The culture which produced Dr. Chuta Ito’s cartoons is so different from that of my own country that a complete understanding is, at times, difficult. A cartoonist can only incorporate his own people. The fact that Dr. Ito’s drawings met with success in Japan stamps him, I am sure, as a true understander of his own race. For us Westerners, we can chiefly see a vigorous draughtsmanship and a wonderful simplification such as we cannot achieve.

Sincerely yours,
Rollin Kirby

In a telegram received on November 30, 1917, U.S. Secretary of State Robert Lansing was informed by Ambassador David Francis in Petrograd that the German Supreme Command had accepted the formal proposal from the Russian Council of People’s Commissars to open negotiations for an immediate armistice on all fronts. Francis added: "Military operations on the Russian front have been brought to a standstill. The preliminary negotiations will begin on December 2."

Although rumors had circulated for weeks that the Bolsheviks, who had seized power on November 7-8, would quickly sue for peace, the first concrete press reports of an impending Russo‑German armistice appeared during the third week in November. On November 24, the New York Times ran the headline "Trotzky Tells Allies of Armistice Offer", reporting that Leon Trotsky, the new Commissar for Foreign Affairs, had conveyed to the Allied Embassies "the announcement of the proposal for an armistice."

Although the Allied powers were invited to participate in the armistice negotiations, they declined, hoping instead that Bolshevik rule would soon collapse. Rather than engage, they issued warnings to the Bolsheviks against concluding a separate peace. Undeterred by the lack of Allied cooperation, the Bolshevik government moved forward with negotiations. On December 15, 1917, Russia and the Central Powers signed a formal bilateral armistice, clearing the way for the Treaty of Brest-Litovsk, signed on March 3, 1918, which ended Russia’s involvement in the war on terms highly favorable to Germany.  

In Itō’s sketch, two battered and weary figures—Germany (獨) on the left and Russia (露) on the right—trudge away from one another, each carrying their bundled weapons. Russia appears gaunt and utterly depleted, visually echoing the collapse of the Eastern Front, while a more muscular Germany, wounded and winded, appears hopeful as he watches his enemy on the Eastern Front walk away, recognizing that Russia’s withdrawal will allow it to redeploy significant forces to the Western Front.

References:

George F. Kennan, Russia Leaves the War, Princeton University Press, 1956, p. 85-98.

"Trotzky Tells Allies of Armistice Offer," New York Times, November 24, 1917, p. 1, TimesMachine, https://timesmachine.nytimes.com/timesmachine/1917/11/24/102377809.html?pageNumber=1.

Translation of Dohi Keizō's commentary and notes on Sketch 304, dated December 3, 1917: Various Regions of Russian Territory Declare Independence

The four bears struggle to break out of their cages

Shaking the earth, their howls give rise to winds

If they turn to bite back, they will in the end be hard to control

I know not whether they are merely troublesome, or truly mighty

The intent of the image is profound and not easily guessed;

I jot down these twenty characters for now to fulfill my duty. 

— Gakken kei

In this sketch, Itō portrays Finland (フィンランド), Siberia (西ベリア), the Caucasus (高加索), and Turkestan (トルキスタン) as bears bursting out of their cages, while a bewildered figure in red, representing the fledgling Bolshevik government, looks on helplessly. The image reflects the volatile, long-brewing independence movements that erupted across the former Russian Empire in the immediate aftermath of the October Revolution. 

Although the Bolsheviks proclaimed a sweeping "right of peoples to self‑determination up to and including secession," only Finland received formal recognition as a sovereign state at this early stage, when the Bolshevik government granted independence on December 31, 1917.

The trajectories of the other regions depicted were far more complex.

• Turkestan declared autonomy on November 27, 1917, forming the short‑lived Kokand Autonomy, which was crushed by Bolshevik forces in early 1918, leading to a six-year civil war in its southern region.

• In the Caucasus, political fragmentation culminated in the formation of the Transcaucasian Democratic Federative Republic in spring 1918, which soon split into the independent republics of Georgia, Armenia, and Azerbaijan.

• Siberia, meanwhile, rejected Bolshevik authority during the Extraordinary All‑Siberian Congress in early December 1917, setting the stage for a major counterrevolutionary stronghold. It soon became a key theater of the White movement, supported by foreign intervention forces from Japan, the United States, Britain, France, and the Czechoslovak Legion.
  
  

By late 1917, more than eight regions across the former empire harbored active independence or autonomy movements, capturing the profound political disintegration of a vast state now only nominally controlled by the Bolsheviks in Petrograd and Moscow.

References:

Cem Kumuk, "Abkhazia and Georgia on the Verge of Independence (1917–1921)," Abkhazia.co.uk, independent researcher article, published August 14, 2022, https://abkhazia.co.uk/articles/129-cem-kumuk.

Janet M. Hartley, Siberia: A History of the People, Yale University Press, 2014, p. 187–200.

Elin Hofverberg, "Finland: 100 Years of Independence – Global Legal Collection Highlights," In Custodia Legis: Law Librarians of Congress (blog), January 11, 2018, https://blogs.loc.gov/law/2018/01/finland-100-years-of-independence-global-legal-collection-highlights/.

Robin Wright, "Report from Turkestan," The New Yorker, April 6, 1992, p. 53–75.

Translation of Tokutomi Kenjirō's commentary and notes on Sketch 305, dated December 10, 1917: Fall of Jerusalem

About forty years after Jesus was crucified, Jerusalem was destroyed by the Roman emperor Titus. In the year 70 of the Christian era, Judea perished as a nation.

And now, 1,847 years later, Jerusalem has fallen into the hands of England—who proudly calls herself the “modern Romans.” Thus, it is said that the prospects for the Zionist Scheme, which advocates the restoration of the Jewish nation, have brightened.

That the first Rome fell, and a second Rome should rise—this too must be fate.
Now is a day of restoration and return.
Jesus has, in truth, risen again.

The resurrection of the Jewish nation, with Jerusalem as its capital, must likewise be in accordance with Heaven’s revelation and decree.

Having twice come to this sacred place in my lifetime, I now address you with a single phrase from your ancient prophet Isaiah:

“Arise, shine; for your light has come,
and the glory of Jehovah has risen upon you.”

June 21, Taishō 10 (1921), in early summer

— noted by Tokutomi Kenjirō

On December 9, British forces occupied Jerusalem, as reported in the front-page New York Times headline reproduced below. 

The New York Times

TUESDAY, DECEMBER 11, 1917

JERUSALEM FALLS TO BRITISH ARMY 

Turks Surrender City After it is Surrounded by Besiegers

HOLY PLACES SAFEGUARDED

Allenby to Enter with French, Italian, and Moslem Missions —Delivered After 673 Years.

JEWS HERE JUBILANT.

Capture  of Jerusalem Raises Hopes of the Zionists

In his notes on this sketch, architectural historian Kurakata Shinsuke writes: "In the drawing, the figure labeled England (英) is trying to paste a poster onto the city wall with glue. On it are depicted the Union Jack and a date. The wall conveys a sense of great age—and understandably so, for Jerusalem, as written even in the Old Testament, has long been known as a city enclosed by sturdy fortifications.

"Old posters are layered upon the wall. On the right, an Egyptian vulture can be seen, symbolizing the age of ancient Egyptian civilization through its hieroglyphs. To its left peeks out the figure of a man with a sword, presumably representing the Kingdom of Israel around 1000 BCE, during the reigns of King David and King Solomon. Higher is an image of a Roman temple, thought to signify Roman rule from the founding of the Herodian dynasty in 37 BCE. The Arabic script beside it symbolizes Islamic rule from 638 onward, while the cross alludes to the Crusaders’ recapture of Jerusalem in the 11th century and their establishment of the Kingdom of Jerusalem.

"In this way, Itō conveys the succession of rulers who have governed Jerusalem, a city encircled by walls, and situates the British occupation as just one additional historical stratum. The contrast between the weathered depiction of the wall and old posters and the bright whiteness of the new poster is striking. In time, this paper, too, will surely turn brown.

"The drawing also includes the names of individuals who visited Jerusalem: Nakajima Tatsuyuki (中島裁之), President of the International Goodwill Association; the novelist Tokutomi Roka [who authored the commentary above Itō’s sketch]; and Itō Chūta himself. As the note "October, Meiji 37" indicates, Itō visited Jerusalem in October 1904 while on his round-the-world study tour."

References:

"Jerusalem Falls to British Army," New York Times, December 11, 1917, p. 1, TimesMachine, https://timesmachine.nytimes.com/timesmachine/1917/12/11/102384598.html?pageNumber=1.

Kurakata Shunsuke 倉方俊輔, commentary on Itō Chūta’s sketch “305,” in Itō Chūta 伊東忠太 and Sugimura Kōtarō 杉村廣太郎, 阿修羅帖 [Ashura-chō], 5 vols. (Tokyo: Yumani Shobō ゆまに書房, 2013), vol. 4.

Notes on Sketch 306, dated December 17, 1917: The Situation at the End of Taishō 6 (1917)

Itō Chūta’s sketch presents three vignettes capturing the contrasting economic conditions at the end of Taishō 6 (1917) in Russia (露), the United States (米), and Japan (日). By this time, the general cost of living in Tokyo had risen by more than 20 percent; Russia was entering a near-hyperinflationary spiral; and in the United States rapidly rising wartime wages offset inflation running at roughly 18 percent.

In the upper right vignette, Itō depicts a Russian bread shop (麺包屋) where customers wave banknotes at a baker weighing out loaves, an allusion to the chaos caused by soaring prices. To the baker’s right appears a price list in rubles (留): 1 kin (about 1.3 lbs.) of beef for 10 rubles; one steamed bun (manjū) for 2 rubles; one loaf of bread for 50 rubles; an overcoat for 1,000 rubles; and a pair of shoes for 50 rubles.

In the upper left vignette, an American taxi driver and passenger illustrate Itō’s notation "a laborer earning 1,000 yen per month" (月収千円の労働者), a pointed reference to rapidly rising U.S. wartime wages.

The lower vignette turns to Japan, highlighting the widening divide between the narikin (成金, nouveau riche) and the seihin (成貧, newly poor). On the right, a narikin counts his thousand-yen notes; on the left, a mother with crying children contemplates empty bowls. Above them, a price table lists: one shō of rice (≈1.4–1.5 kg or ≈3.1–3.3 lbs.) at 30 sen; one shō of taro root (里芋) at 20 sen; one egg at 5 sen; one shō of beef at 80 sen; and one stick of pickled daikon at 6 sen.

Translation of Itō Chūta's commentary and notes on Sketch 307, dated December 21, 1917: Russians Flee to Japan

— Chūta

Jirō:

“Isn’t that the deposed emperor?”

Tarō:

“And that must be Princess Tatiana, right?”

In his accompanying dialogue, Itō Chūta playfully invokes the comic servants Jirō and Tarō, familiar stock characters from kyōgen farce, to lampoon the rumor circulating in late 1917 that the deposed Russian Tsar Nicholas II and one of his daughters, Grand Duchess Tatiana Nikolaevna, might be among the small number of Russians fleeing to Japan in the immediate aftermath of the October Bolshevik Revolution.

In the sketch, Itō depicts a small, diverse group of Russian refugees trudging along, bundled in winter clothing, while two Russian girls point toward them—perhaps suggesting the possibility of royalty hidden among the displaced. 

Although only a limited number of Russians reached Japan in the final months of 1917, estimates indicate that by 1918 the Russian population in Japan had grown to several thousand. Many avoided formal registration and regarded Japan as a temporary refuge before moving on to other destinations in East Asia or beyond.

References:

Alexander Kulanov, "100 Years After the Bolshevik Revolution: How Russians Fled to Japan," Russia Beyond, February 6, 2017, https://www.rbth.com/multimedia/history/2017/02/06/100-years-after-the-bolshevik-revolution-how-russians-fled-to-japan_696456 

Notes on Sketch 308, dated December 30, 1917: Russia Ordered About by Germany and Treated with Contempt by China

In Itō’s sketch, a soldier in brown military uniform wearing the characteristic Prussian spiked helmet, the Pickelhaube, drives a harnessed polar bear representing Russia’s enfeebled army. At the same time, a pig, Itō’s recurring symbol for China, disdainfully prods the bear’s head and snout, forcing it to bow.

Russia and the Central Powers concluded a formal armistice on December 15, 1917 (see Sketch 303), clearing the way for peace negotiations that opened on December 22 at the German High Command’s Eastern headquarters in the fortress city of Brest-Litovsk (modern Brest in southwestern Belarus).

Within days, Germany, fully aware of its military advantage over a Russia destabilized by revolution and fielding a demoralized, disintegrating army, presented exceedingly harsh terms. These demands included major territorial concessions, recognition of an independent Ukraine, and acceptance of German occupation zones deep within Russia’s western borderlands.

The Bolshevik delegation attempted to delay proceedings with counter-proposals, hoping that socialist revolution might spread to Germany or Austria-Hungary and strengthen their bargaining position. On December 25, however, Germany broke off the talks and threatened to resume military operations unless its terms were accepted. When German forces launched a major offensive in mid-February 1918, advancing virtually unopposed toward Petrograd, Lenin concluded that Russia had no choice but to submit. The Treaty of Brest-Litovsk was signed on March 3, 1918.

In the wake of the Bolshevik Revolution, relations between Russia and China were marked by tension and mistrust. China, like most governments, refused to recognize the new Soviet regime. Nowhere were frictions sharper than along the Chinese Eastern Railway in Manchuria, a Russian-built and Russian-administered concession on Chinese sovereign territory, where China deployed troops to key points to prevent Bolshevik committees from asserting control over the line.

References:

Kurakata Shunsuke 倉方俊輔, commentary on Itō Chūta’s sketch “308,” in Itō Chūta 伊東忠太 and Sugimura Kōtarō 杉村廣太郎, 阿修羅帖 [Ashura-chō], 5 vols. (Tokyo: Yumani Shobō ゆまに書房, 2013), vol. 4.

Susanne Schattenberg, "Brest-Litovsk, Treaty of," International Encyclopedia of the First World War, ed. Ute Daniel et al., issued by Freie Universität Berlin, https://encyclopedia.1914-1918-online.net/article/brest-litovsk-treaty-of/.

For related diplomatic correspondence see, Foreign Relations of the United States, 1918, Russia, Volume II, United States Department of State, Office of the Historian https://history.state.gov/historicaldocuments/frus1918Russiav02/ch1subch1.

Notes on Sketch 309, dated December 30, 1917: Great Guatemala Earthquake, Great Vesuvius Eruption

The New York Times

MONDAY, DECEMBER 31, 1917

GUATEMALA CITY IS WIPED OUT BY EARTHQUAKES 

Final Shock Levels All Buildings, Including United States Legation.

THOUSANDS ARE HOMELESS

Call Sent Out for Aid — Red Cross Loading Relief Ship to Start at Once.

A series of earthquakes that occurred from late December 1917 into early January 1918 caused severe damage to northern Central America, particularly to Guatemala City. In 79 CE, Mount Vesuvius near Naples, Italy, had its most devastating and well-known eruption, followed by pyroclastic flows that buried the ancient Roman city of Pompeii.

Combining these two natural disasters, Itō gives free rein to his imagination. Two subterranean demons have emptied numerous bottles of wine and are completely intoxicated. The breath blown upward by the demon on the left triggers a volcanic eruption representing the Vesuvius event, while the crossed legs of the demon on the right shake the earth, destroying the town built upon it, symbolic of the magnitude 6 plus quake that destroyed Guatemala City.

References:

"Guatemala City Is Wiped Out By Earthquakes," New York Times, December 31, 1917, p. 1, TimesMachine, https://timesmachine.nytimes.com/timesmachine/1917/12/31/issue.html.

National Centers for Environmental Information (NCEI), "Hazard Event Detail for Earthquake Event 3101," HazEL – Natural Hazards Event Database, National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration https://www.ngdc.noaa.gov/hazel/view/hazards/earthquake/event-more-info/3101.

Kurakata Shunsuke 倉方俊輔, commentary on Itō Chūta’s sketch “309,” in Itō Chūta 伊東忠太 and Sugimura Kōtarō 杉村廣太郎, 阿修羅帖 [Ashura-chō], 5 vols. (Tokyo: Yumani Shobō ゆまに書房, 2013), vol. 4.

Translation of Masuda Giichi's commentary and notes on Sketch 310, dated January 1, 1918: Situation as of New Year’s Day, Taishō 7

Reflecting on the rise and fall of fortune in this world,
I find myself recalling the lines of the ancients.
— Masuda Giichi

Human wealth is like dew upon the grass—
a fleeting gleam that lasts only while it waits
for the wind that will sweep it away.

Beyond the snail’s petty struggle of winning and losing empty fame,
the ebb and flow of this floating world
is but a dream fit for ants.

On New Year’s Day 1918, the Western Front remained locked in stalemate, while Russia, disintegrating after the Bolshevik Revolution, pursued peace negotiations with the Germans at Brest-Litovsk. Germany occupied large areas of Eastern Europe but faced mounting shortages, unrest, and the tightening Allied blockade. The Allies, increasingly reinforced by the United States, prepared for renewed offensives as all major belligerents strained under the cumulative exhaustion of four years of war.

Itō’s map depicts the territorial alignments in Europe at the start of 1918, with the Allied and neutral nations shaded in off-white and the Central Powers, together with the regions under their occupation, shaded in light ochre. The map is rotated ninety degrees, placing north to the left.

Beginning at the lower left and moving clockwise, the Allied and neutral countries are: England (英), neutral Denmark (丁), neutral Sweden (瑞), Russia (露), Greece (希), Italy (伊), neutral Switzerland (瑞), and France (仏).

The Central Powers and the territories under their control, again proceeding clockwise from the lower left, include: Belgium (白), largely occupied by Germany; the Netherlands (和), neutral but shown as within the German sphere of influence; Germany (独), with its capital Berlin marked 伯林; the German-occupied Baltic cities Kurlschau (クルシャウ, the German name for Courland) and Riga (りガ); Austria–Hungary (墺), with its dual capitals Vienna (ウィーン) and Budapest (ブダペスト); Romania (羅); Bulgaria (勃) with its capital Sofia (ソフィア); Serbia (塞) and its capital Belgrade (ベルグラード); Montenegro (黒); Albania (ア); and Turkey/the Ottoman Empire (土).

Notes on Sketch 311, dated January 9, 1918: Lowest Temperature Since Meiji 13 (1880)

Itō’s winter landscape captures the bitter start to 1918, when the Japan Meteorological Agency recorded an exceptionally low temperature of –8.2°C in Tokyo at 6:00 a.m. on January 9. Along the right edge, Itō remarks that a bale of charcoal was selling for one yen forty-two sen—a price likely driven upward by the inflationary pressures of the wartime economy.

As Shunsuke Kurakata notes in his commentary on this sketch, "the severe cold was accompanied by heavy snowfall that contributed to one of the worst avalanche disasters in Japanese history. In Mitsumata Village in Niigata Prefecture, a massive snow slide claimed 155 lives."

The Tokyo Asahi Shimbun morning edition of January 11 reported: "Owing to the heavy snowstorm that began on the 3rd, snow depth reached twenty shaku (two jō, roughly six meters), and all passage had been completely cut off. The massive avalanche on the night of the 9th swept down from what is popularly known as Higashi-Konnoyama, burying more than twenty-seven houses centered around the local police substation in the middle of the hamlet."

The catastrophe came to be known as the Great Mitsumata Avalanche (三俣の大雪崩).

References:

Japan Meteorological Agency, Daily Weather Statistics for Tokyo, January 1918, https://www.data.jma.go.jp/stats/etrn/view/daily_s1.php?prec_no=44&block_no=47662&year=1918&month=1&day=&view=p1.

Kurakata Shunsuke 倉方俊輔, commentary on Itō Chūta’s sketch “311,” in Itō Chūta 伊東忠太 and Sugimura Kōtarō 杉村廣太郎, 阿修羅帖 [Ashura-chō], 5 vols. (Tokyo: Yumani Shobō ゆまに書房, 2013), vol. 4.

Arata Koike 小池新, "'雪崩の惨死者発掘　死屍累々　生存わずかに…' 史上ワースト級の雪崩事故が続発した‘1918年の大豪雪" ["'Avalanche Victims Exhumed: Corpses Piled High, Few Survived . . .': The 'Great Snowfall of 1918,' When Some of History’s Worst Avalanche Disasters Occurred in Succession"], 文春オンライン [Bunshun Online], January 16, 2022, https://bunshun.jp/articles/-/51408?page=2.

Translation of Tokonami Takejirō's commentary and notes on Sketch 312, dated January 10, 1918: Presentation and Receipt of the Honorary Field Marshal Titles Between the Japanese and British Emperors

Anglo-Japanese Alliance

— Tokonami

On January 1, 1918 the British government granted Emperor Taishō the honorary rank of Field Marshal in the British Army. A British mission later traveled to Japan to present him with the baton of office. (See sketch 350.) In return, after some months of diplomatic preparation, King George V was appointed gensui (Field Marshal) of the Imperial Japanese Army, with Prince Higashi-Fushimi Yorihito presenting the badge and sword at Buckingham Palace on October 29, 1918 on behalf of the Emperor Taishō.

The Royal Collections Trust, which holds the Japanese Imperial Field Marshal's sword and badge, notes, "The king described the investiture the following day in his diary: ‘At 10.0 Prince Yorihito presented me with the sword & badge of a Japanese Field Marshal in the throne room, a nice little ceremony, very well carried out.’ "

As described by Shunsuke Kurakata's comments on Itō's sketch "the Emperor appears in traditional court dress, wearing a ceremonial crown and holding a ritual scepter. Before the bowing Emperor, the British king—depicted in military uniform—has removed his hat and is shown kneeling with both hands on the floor. Between them lie the decorated marshal warrants, each turned toward the other, waiting to be exchanged. The kagami-mochi displayed in the alcove marks the New Year season." 

References:

Royal Collection Trust, Osaka Mint – Japanese Imperial Field Marshal’s Badge, collection object no. 441124, https://www.rct.uk/collection/441124.

Kurakata Shunsuke 倉方俊輔, commentary on Itō Chūta’s sketch “312,” in Itō Chūta 伊東忠太 and Sugimura Kōtarō 杉村廣太郎, 阿修羅帖 [Ashura-chō], 5 vols. (Tokyo: Yumani Shobō ゆまに書房, 2013), vol. 4.

Transcription of Sidney Webb's commentary and notes on Sketch 313, dated January 11, 1918: Germany Extends Its Poisonous Hand to the Far East

Many thanks for the handsome volume of Dr. Chuta Ito’s war cartoons. He expresses the horror of war, which I hope that Japan will join with Great Britain in preventing through a strong League of Nations.

— Sidney Webb

In this sketch, completed on January 11, 1918, Itō Chūta depicts an ominous orange demon stretching its taloned arm across the Ural (ウラル), Altai (アルタイ), and Hangayn (ハンガイ) mountain ranges into Manchuria. Only the Sea of Japan lies between this encroaching threat and a lone samurai poised to defend the Japanese homeland. The image captures Japan’s growing anxiety in the wake of the Russian Revolution and the ongoing Brest-Litovsk peace negotiations between the Bolsheviks and Germany, which raised the specter of German military expansion into Siberia and East Asia.

These fears triggered intense debate within both the Japanese government and public over whether to intervene militarily in Siberia to prevent a German foothold. After Chinese forces suppressed a Bolshevik-aligned workers' and soldiers' uprising in December 1917 along the Chinese Eastern Railway in northern Manchuria, "speculation immediately began [within the government] about whether the Japanese should take similar actions" inside Russian territory. This possibility provoked strong reactions in the press. On December 28, 1917, the Tokyo Asahi Shimbun warned that intervening against the Bolsheviks would be tantamount to declaring war on Russia. On January 12, the day after Itō completed this sketch, the Jiji Shimpō editorialized: "To send troops into another country is a gravely serious matter… this sort of thing is something we absolutely should not do."

While these warnings, along with fears of high costs and unclear objectives, initially delayed action, Japan ultimately moved forward once U.S. resistance softened. In July 1918, it dispatched "72,000 troops to occupy the Trans-Baikal, Amur, and Maritime Provinces of the Russian Far East, taking control of the Trans-Siberian Railway between Irkutsk and Vladivostok, as well as the Chinese Eastern Railway through northern Manchuria."

References:

Paul E. Dunscomb, "A Great Disobedience Against the People: Popular Press Criticism of Japan’s Siberian Intervention, 1918–22," The Journal of Japanese Studies 32, no. 1 (Winter 2006):  p. 59-60, Stable URL: https://www.jstor.org/stable/25064608.

Kurakata Shunsuke 倉方俊輔, commentary on Itō Chūta’s sketch “313,” in Itō Chūta 伊東忠太 and Sugimura Kōtarō 杉村廣太郎, 阿修羅帖 [Ashura-chō], 5 vols. (Tokyo: Yumani Shobō ゆまに書房, 2013), vol. 4.

Translation of Alfred Harmsworth's commentary and notes on Sketch 314, dated January 19, 1918: The Russian Extremist (Bolshevik) Government Is Recognized

In particular, to take up the great upheaval of the world war as one’s subject, and through it to convey—even overseas—the distinctive art that Japan has cultivated since antiquity, is something that I find truly admirable beyond measure.

— Northcliffe

In Itō's sharply satirical sketch, he portrays a well-dressed gentleman, likely representing a foreign diplomat or, more broadly, foreign governments, tentatively raising his hand in greeting toward a group of disheveled figures seated inside a traditional Japanese-style room. A banner above the entrance reads "New Government Open for Business" (新政府開店), mimicking a shop’s grand opening sign. The seated men, slouching in ill-fitting robes and surrounded by scattered geta sandals, are caricatures of the newly installed Bolshevik leadership.

Next to the foreign envoy, Itō writes the line "What a startling lineup of faces" (驚いた顔振だ), a cutting remark aimed at the legitimacy and appearance of the Soviet leadership: Vladimir Lenin, Chairman of the Council of People’s Commissars (effectively head of government); Leon Trotsky, then People's Commissar for Foreign Affairs (and later for Military and Naval Affairs); and Joseph Stalin, People's Commissar for Nationalities.

Although no country had formally recognized the Bolshevik government by this date, Itō is likely responding to speculative or misleading reports in the international press such as an article that appeared in the New York Times on January 17, 1918, under the headline "De Facto Recognition of Lenine Is Claimed." Written by Arthur Ransome, a British correspondent sympathetic to the Bolsheviks, the dispatch from Petrograd opened with the assertion: "The Bolshevist Government has been recognized by the Allies and neutrals."

This satirical image reflects growing discomfort, both in Japan and elsewhere, with the pragmatic necessity of dealing with a regime widely perceived at the time as illegitimate, violent and ideologically extreme.

Notes on Sketch 315, dated January 20, 1918: Tochigiyama Wins the Championship

In 1918, the Spring Grand Sumo Tournament was held from January 11 through January 20, 1918 at Tokyo's Yasukuni Shrine. As the title of Itō's sketch states, the winner was Tochigiyama, who compiled a 10-0 record at the tournament and who would become the 27th yokozuna on February 5, 1918. Weighing in at about 227 lbs. (103kg), Tochigiyama was the lightest yokozuna in history. 

As in Itō's other sumo sketches (Sketches 190, 202, 227 and 257), Tochigiyama's won-loss record against the names of his opponents, a hoshitorihyō chart, is shown. In this sketch, Tochigiyama (栃木山) stands at the top of a mountain with the other well-known makuuchi (top division) wrestlers at the time arrayed below him. In descending order on his right are Ōnishiki (大錦, 28th yokozuna), Tachiyama (太刀山, 22nd yokozuna), Ōtori (鳳, 24th yokozuna), Isenohana (伊勢ノ濱), Asahiro (朝汐) and Nishinoumi II (西の海, 25th yokozuna). To his left in descending order are Chibagasaki (千葉ヶ崎), Kyushuzan 九州山 and Ōshio (大潮).

References:

"Haru 1918: Makuuchi Banzuke," Sumo Reference, https://sumodb.sumogames.de/Banzuke.aspx?b=191801&heya=-1&shusshin=-1.

Kurakata Shunsuke 倉方俊輔, commentary on Itō Chūta’s sketch “315,” in Itō Chūta 伊東忠太 and Sugimura Kōtarō 杉村廣太郎, 阿修羅帖 [Ashura-chō], 5 vols. (Tokyo: Yumani Shobō ゆまに書房, 2013), vol. 4.

Notes on Sketch 316, dated January 23, 1918: In the Race to Degeneration, Russia Has the Upper Hand

Itō presents another contest between China and Russia to see which nation will plunge first into anarchy (the flag reading 無政府), fragmentation (the flag reading 分裂), and ultimate collapse (the flag reading 滅亡). (See Sketch 281, "China and Russia Compete in Degeneracy"). Cheered on by demons, Russia has the lead as both countries race toward the cliff’s edge. Yet Itō also offers an escape: a side path that branches off just before the precipice, at the end of which a welcoming angel stands with a flag. 

Almost seven months after Itō’s August 2, 1917 sketch, "China and Russia Compete in Degeneracy", both countries remained in turmoil. China was a republic largely in name, its Beiyang government under President Feng Guozhang and Premier Wang Shizhen dominated by rival military cliques, while in the south Sun Yat-sen’s "Constitutional Protection" government in Guangzhou, claiming to defend the 1912 constitution, depended heavily on warlords from Guangxi and Yunnan. In Russia, barely two months after the Bolshevik October Revolution, the Soviet government had dispersed the short-lived, elected All-Russian Constituent Assembly, Germany was demanding vast territorial concessions as the price of a separate peace at Brest-Litovsk, inflation had surged to more than 15 percent a month with industrial output and tax revenues collapsing, and foreign credit had virtually dried up. As Russia slid toward full-scale civil war, it did indeed appear to be "ahead" in the race toward national disintegration. The heavenly escape route for which Itō seems to hold out some hope appears unlikely.

References:

New Zealand Ministry for Culture & Heritage, "Republic of China — Facts," NZHistory, research and publishing group of Manatū Taonga, Ministry for Culture and Heritage, https://nzhistory.govt.nz/war/republic-china-facts.

Lin-Chun Wu, "Civilian and Military Power (China)," International Encyclopedia of the First World War, ed. Ute Daniel et al., issued by Freie Universität Berlin, https://encyclopedia.1914-1918-online.net/article/civilian-and-military-power-china/.

Mark Harrison and Andrei Markevich, "Russia’s Home Front, 1914–1922: The Economy," working paper/pdf, University of Warwick, https://warwick.ac.uk/fac/soc/economics/staff/mharrison/public/rgwr_postprint.pdf.

Translation of Umezaki Unosuke's commentary and notes on Sketch 317, dated January 30, 1918: Russia and Romania Sever Diplomatic Relations

Romania, isolated and without a single ally, after having its entire national territory trampled and ravaged by the German General Mackensen, joined the Brest-Litovsk armistice agreement under the initiative of the military side; but on January 30 the Romanian cabinet announced that this was not the will of the cabinet, and once again relations between Russia and Romania were broken off.

Romania, stripped bare with nothing left, unable to stand on its own feet, barely able to hold itself upright,  is pitiable enough in merely shaking hands with Lenin’s government—a regime puffed up to the skies on a single blast of communist flatulence. But even if it shrugs its shoulders beneath Mackensen’s glittering gaze, the outcome is obvious. Truly, Romania’s dilemma at that time was a perilous one indeed. 

Battleship Mutsu (former Kantō)

— Umezaki Unosuke

Itō’s sketch, depicting two naked men, Russia (露) on the left and Romania (羅) on the right, shows them striding away from each other, their body language making it clear that they have nothing more to say. Russia gestures toward his behind, perhaps suggesting Romania kiss it, while Romania turns up his nose in disdain.

Following the Bolshevik Revolution of October 1917, relations between the former allies deteriorated rapidly. Russian troops stationed in Romania became increasingly unruly, leading to several clashes between the two sides in mid and late January. On January 13, Bolshevik forces seized the Romanian state treasury, which had been sent to Moscow for safekeeping, and arrested the Romanian ambassador in Petrograd, Constantin Diamandy. On January 28, 1918, Romania formally broke diplomatic relations with Soviet Russia after Romanian troops entered Bessarabia, a region that had declared its intention to secede from Russia and unite with Romania.

Transcription of Booth Tarkington's commentary and notes on Sketch 318, dated February 7, 1918: General Strike in Germany

Both the strikers and the police helped the Allies. The police helped by running away.

— Booth Tarkington

The end of January 1918 witnessed the largest wartime political general strike in the German Empire. It grew out of months of mounting food shortages and war-weariness and was sharpened by anger over the Brest-Litovsk peace negotiations with revolutionary Russia, where the annexationist aims of the Central Powers had become increasingly clear. The German action was directly encouraged by the "Jännerstreik" in Austria-Hungary, a mass stoppage that began in early January 1918 and at its height brought hundreds of thousands of munitions workers out in protest against hunger and in support of a peace without annexations. From January 27, some 400,000 workers in Berlin alone, and roughly one million nationwide, concentrated in the armaments and metal industries of the major industrial centers, downed tools.

On February 5, the Tokyo Asahi Shimbun ran the headline "German General Strike: Declaration of Both Factions of the Social Democratic Party" (独逸同盟罷工 : 社会党両派の宣言). The article reported in part: "Both factions of the German Socialist Party [the Majority Social Democrats (SPD, later labeled MSPD) and the Independent Social Democratic Party of Germany (USPD)] declared that the general strike was spontaneous, was not anti-national in character, and that the demands of the workers were in agreement with the will of the great majority of the nation. They stated that, since the workers had elected representatives and established organizations, any attempt to suppress the strike would not be effective in the long run."

When leading USPD representatives and its leader Kurt Eisner were arrested on the night of February 1, 1918, the Majority Social Democrats and the trade-union leadership moved quickly to persuade workers to end the strike, and work was soon resumed.

Itō Chūta's sketch depicts workers on strike outside an arms factory (造兵廠), shouting at and driving off the police. While there were small scuffles with the police and military during the strike, the government's response to the strike was primarily military-administrative (martial law, arrests, prohibitions) rather than large-scale violent clashes. 

References:

bavarikon, "The Ammunition Worker’s Strike, January 1918," Free State of Bavaria online cultural portal, https://www.bavarikon.de/object/bav:BSB-CMS-0000000000003617?lang=en.

"独逸同盟罷工 : 社会党両派の宣言" ["German General Strike: Declaration of Both Factions of the Social Democratic Party"], Tokyo Asahi Shimbun, February 5, 1918 Kobe University Library Newspaper Digital Archive https://da.lib.kobe-u.ac.jp/da/np/0100297840/.

Notes on Sketch 319, dated February 8, 1918: The Fortieth Diet Session, Part 1

Itō’s sketch caricatures the tension between the non-party Terauchi Cabinet and the Rikken Seiyūkai party by depicting a naked, Billiken-headed likeness of Prime Minister Terauchi on the left, representing the Terauchi Cabinet (寺閣), being bitten while trying to feed a ferocious dog on the right representing the Seiyūkai (政友). Previously, in Sketch 251, the Seiyūkai dog is obediently standing beside its "master," Terauchi, as he pats it on the head.

The 40th Imperial Diet convened on December 27, 1917. In the 13th general election for the House of Representatives, held in April of the previous year, the Rikken Seiyūkai emerged as the largest party, although not with an absolute majority. (See Sketch 251.) By the opening of the 40th Diet it held 164 seats in the House of Representatives, ahead of the Kenseikai with 118 seats, the Shinseikai with 51, and the Rikken Kokumintō with 36. Although the Seiyūkai was not formally a government party (the Terauchi Cabinet remained a non-party, bureaucratic-military cabinet), it had pursued a policy of "friendly neutrality," supporting the Cabinet when advantageous while also restraining it and extracting concessions. In the Diet, it asserted its presence by criticizing and seeking amendments to elements of the government’s fiscal program, especially the proposed tax measures.

Itō’s sketch was likely prompted by press coverage in the first days of February of debates in the House of Representatives over the government’s proposed budget and tax bills. However, his characterization of the Seiyūkai as turning against the Terauchi Cabinet is somewhat misleading. The party was not launching an all-out attack on the Cabinet so much as using its parliamentary leverage to force compromise. On February 8, the date of Itō’s sketch, the conservative paper Kokumin Shimbun reported that, "At a time when both the government parties and the opposition parties remain dissatisfied with the explanations given by government officials, and are continually pointing out their lack of thoroughness and absence of policy. . . a compromise has already been reached between the Seiyūkai and the government.

"The members of the Seiyūkai, Kokumintō, and Shinseikai in our House of Representatives are those whom the public regards as the government parties. As for the Seiyūkai, although it is by nature a party that advocates party cabinets, it has taken as its duty the support of the present Cabinet and the surmounting of the difficulties of the times. It is by no means without reason that, in the present Diet, the Seiyūkai has maintained an attitude devoted to compromise, and that the government, too, has made its greatest effort to conform to the wishes of that party."

References:

Kurakata Shunsuke 倉方俊輔, commentary on Itō Chūta’s sketch “319,” in Itō Chūta 伊東忠太 and Sugimura Kōtarō 杉村廣太郎, 阿修羅帖 [Ashura-chō], 5 vols. (Tokyo: Yumani Shobō ゆまに書房, 2013), vol. 4.

"財政協定" ["Fiscal Agreement"], Tokyo Asahi Shimbun, February 8, 1918 Kobe University Library Newspaper Digital Archive https://hdl.handle.net/20.500.14094/0100259445.

Translation of Itō Jintarō's commentary and notes on Sketch 320, dated February 11, 1918: Germany Makes Peace with Little Russia (Ukraine)

Because Ōmaeda no Eigorō [大前田の英五郎] and Ainokawa no Matagorō [相の川の又五郎] were holding their ground, there was no way to expand his turf, and this affront to his pride drove Kunisada Chūji [国定忠治] to fury—yet no matter how skilled he was, there was nothing he could do.

It began with the killing of the magistrate at Iwahana, continued with his barricading himself on Mount Akagi, then the breaking through of the Ōdo checkpoint, and ended with his head exposed atop a tree three shaku high.

How closely this resembles the Great World War. For the moment, Germany plays the role of Kunisada Chūji. Even in defeat there is something bracing in its spirit, something crisp and decisive, that I find admirable. Tugging lightly at little Russia [Ukraine] and making the English and French bosses jump—there was something rather entertaining about that.

Even when his head was put on display, Chūji remained manly. And even in defeat, one might say that Germany, too, was admirable.*

— Itō Chiyū

*The exploits of Kunisada Chūji, a Robin Hood-like bandit of the Edo period, make for an often-told story that has been embellished over the years.

On February 9, 1918, amid the ongoing Brest-Litovsk peace negotiations between Soviet Russia and the Central Powers, the delegation of the Ukrainian Central Rada concluded a separate peace treaty with Germany, Austria-Hungary, and their allies. The agreement formally recognized Ukraine as an independent state under the authority of the Central Rada—a socialist-dominated coalition government without Bolshevik participation—and committed Ukraine to supplying Germany and Austria-Hungary with urgently needed grain and other foodstuffs.

Although the Bolshevik government in Petrograd publicly endorsed the principle of national self-determination for the former territories of the Russian Empire, it rejected the legitimacy of the Central Rada, claiming it did not represent the true will of the Ukrainian people. Soviet forces consequently advanced into Ukraine, occupying large areas of the country and capturing Kyiv on February 8.

Facing military collapse, the Ukrainian government appealed to Germany and Austria-Hungary for armed assistance. Central Powers forces entered Ukraine in February and March 1918, rapidly driving Soviet troops from most of the territory. By the end of April 1918, the German-backed strongman General Pavlo Skoropadsky had carried out a coup d’état dissolving the Central Rada, Bolshevik forces had been expelled, and Ukraine came under effective German and Austro-Hungarian military occupation, which lasted until the collapse of the Central Powers in November 1918.

In Itō’s sketch, Ukraine, referred to as "Little Russia" (小露), is personified as a seated woman who leans in to whisper confidentially to Germany (獨), depicted as a kneeling man. As she speaks, she points toward something outside the frame, implicitly indicating Russia. The image evokes the secretive and highly asymmetrical nature of the negotiations that led to the February 1918 peace agreement between Ukraine and the Central Powers, concluded while the broader Brest-Litovsk talks with Soviet Russia were still underway. By casting Ukraine as quietly conferring with Germany behind Russia’s back, Itō underscores both the diplomatic isolation of the Bolshevik government at this moment and the sense of furtive maneuvering that surrounded Ukraine’s separate peace. 

References:

Xenia Joukoff Eudin, "The German Occupation of the Ukraine in 1918," The Russian Review 1, no. 1 (November 1941): p. 90–105, Stable URL: https://www.jstor.org/stable/125435.

Translation of Narusawa Kinbei's commentary and notes on Sketch 321, dated February 13, 1918: Russia and Germany Make Peace?

Amazake shinjō*

— Rei

* A traditional children’s play phrase meaning roughly "Come here—I'll give you amazake (sweet sake)," used to lure or tease someone playing the enemy or oni. 

The question mark in the title of Itō’s sketch refers to the ongoing stalemate in the Brest-Litovsk negotiations, which cast doubt on whether a peace agreement between Russia and Germany would in fact be concluded. On February 10, 1918, Russia’s chief negotiator, Leon Trotsky, announced the Bolshevik position of "neither war nor peace": a unilateral withdrawal from the war, the demobilization of the Russian army, and a refusal to accept Germany’s proposed peace terms.

Itō visualizes this uncertainty through the image of a seesaw, with the Allied Powers arrayed on the left and the Central Powers on the right. Russia (露), shown cautiously rising from its seat on the Allied side and edging hesitantly toward the Central Powers, threatens to upset the balance and tip the seesaw in their favor.

In his commentary on the sketch, Shunsuke Kurakata describes the scene as follows:

Among the Allied powers on the left, those showing particularly grim expressions are Romania (羅) (Sketch 223), most of whose territory had been occupied, and Italy (伊) (Sketch 299), which had suffered a severe blow at the Battle of Caporetto. Serbia (塞) (Sketch 165), Belgium (白) (Sketch 062), and Montenegro (黒) (Sketch 188), whose lands had been ravaged, have already fallen off and are regarded as no longer relevant to the outcome of the seesaw game.

As Russia shifts position, the seesaw begins to tilt toward the Central Powers on the right, yet Germany (独), Austria-Hungary (墺), Bulgaria (勃), and Turkey (土) also wear anxious expressions. They likely fear that if Russia were to collapse and fall away as a result of its abrupt change of direction after the revolution, everything would be lost.

Amid all this, only the United States (米), gazing calmly at the three fallen countries, retains a look of composure…

References:

Kurakata Shunsuke 倉方俊輔, commentary on Itō Chūta’s sketch “321,” in Itō Chūta 伊東忠太 and Sugimura Kōtarō 杉村廣太郎, 阿修羅帖 [Ashura-chō], 5 vols. (Tokyo: Yumani Shobō ゆまに書房, 2013), vol. 4.

Notes on Sketch 322, dated February 13, 1918: Pneumonic Plague in Shanxi, China; Great Earthquake in Shantou

The New York Times

PNEUMONIC PLAGUE IN CHINA

Disease from Mongolia Spreading Into Shansi Province.

BOSTON, Feb. 23. -The pneumonic plague has broken out in Shansi Province, China, and has assumed such proportions that all North China is seriously threatened. Advices to this effect were received today by the American Board of Commissioners for Foreign Missions from members of its staff in North China.

This deadly pestilence was first reported in December. Unchecked in North China, it might prove more devastating than famine, flood, and war combined. Today's mail advices from missionary centres had been awaited anxiously.

The Mercury

EARTHQUAKE IN CHINA.

TWO THOUSAND CASUALTIES.

NEW YORK. February 20.

The Tokio correspondent of the United Press Association of New York states that an earthquake has destroyed the town of Swatow [Shantou], the Chinese seaport, to the east of Canton. There were about 2000 casualties.

In this sketch, Itō employs the image of a giant rat vaulting over skeletons and collapsed buildings to convey the twin calamities of epidemic disease and natural disaster afflicting China. Reports of a major outbreak of pneumonic plague began to circulate from northern China in late 1917, particularly from Shanxi Province and adjacent regions. By February 1918, the scale and lethality of the outbreak ensured its frequent appearance in the international press, including the New York Times report reproduced above.

Almost simultaneously, news arrived of a powerful earthquake that struck the Shantou (Swatow) region on February 13, 1918, causing widespread destruction and heavy loss of life across parts of southern China. Itō’s image collapses these two disasters into a single apocalyptic scene, using the giant rat—long associated in popular imagery with plague and contagion—as a symbolic agent linking epidemic death and physical devastation, even though pneumonic plague itself spreads directly between humans.

In later years, epidemiologists and historians would question whether the northern China outbreak identified at the time as pneumonic plague may instead represent one of the earliest manifestations of the influenza pandemic that erupted globally in 1918–1919, claiming millions of lives worldwide. For a detailed analysis of this interpretation, see Mark Osborne Humphries, "Paths of Infection: The First World War and the Origins of the 1918 Influenza Pandemic," War in History 21, no. 1, 2013, p. 55–81.

References:

Extract from "Pneumonic Plague In China," New York Times, February 24, 1918, p. 16, TimesMachine,  https://timesmachine.nytimes.com/timesmachine/1918/02/24/98258431.html?pageNumber=16.

"Earthquake in China," The Mercury (Hobart, Australia), February 23, 1918, p. 7, Trove: The National Library of Australia https://trove.nla.gov.au/newspaper/article/11383422.

Notes on Sketch 323, dated February 16, 1918: The Mysterious German Spy Bolo Pasha Receives a Death Sentence

In Itō’s sketch, a bound, kneeling figure, disreputable in appearance yet defiantly composed, awaits beheading by an executioner dressed in the informal working attire of a lower-ranking Edo period samurai, a costume also associated with officials charged with execution. The short apron-like garment worn at the waist invites a comparison with a French bistro apron, pointing to France, where Bolo was arrested and sentenced to death. 

Arrested in Paris on charges of treason on September 29, 1917, Bolo Pasha (Paul-Marie Bolo) was tried by a French military court-martial and sentenced to death on February 14, 1918 for acting as an agent of Germany. His execution would follow two months later, on April 17, 1918.

Bolo’s background and his transformation from adventurer to paid German agent were summarized a decade later in a New York Times article dealing with the contested administration of his estate. That article described him as follows:

Bolo Pasha, a citizen of France, living in Paris, who was known to his French friends equally well as Paul Bolo, was born in the Levant and first appeared in France as a barber's assistant in Marseilles. After several unsavory adventures in as many countries of Europe and the East, he saw the opportunity to place himself in a position beyond the dreams of avarice as an agent for the German Empire in France. A contract between Bolo Pasha and Baron von Bernstorff, then German Ambassador to the United States, was signed in New York early in 1916. He began at once his task, "to debauch French public opinion."

He was arrested in France in February, 1917 [sic; arrested September 29, 1917], and accused by Premier Painlevė with the betrayal of France's state and military secrets to the German high command. He was convicted before a court-martial and sentenced to die the latter part of February, 1918, after a year of charges and counter charges that involved prominent Frenchmen and at least once an American.

References:

Extract from "Refuses to Release Bolo Pasha Estate," New York Times, October 11, 1927, p. 18, TimesMachine, https://timesmachine.nytimes.com/timesmachine/1927/10/11/98420336.html?pageNumber=18.

Translation of Shibusawa Eiichi's commentary and notes on Sketch 324, dated February 17, 1918: Repudiation of Russian Government Loans

If words are sent forth in violation of principle, disorder will return in kind; if wealth is acquired by improper means, it will be lost by improper means.*

— Seien

*The passage Shibusawa (Seien) cites comes from The Great Learning (Dàxué 大學), one of the Four Books of the Confucian canon.

A decree regarding the "Annulment of State Loans" was adopted by the All-Russian Central Executive Committee during its January 21 to February 3, 1918 session.

Its main provision declared the annulment (cancellation) of "all state loans concluded by the governments of the Russian landowners and Russian bourgeoisie...as from December 1, 1917." And, to eliminate any doubt of its meaning, was reinforced in the decree with the statement, "Absolutely and without any exception all foreign loans are annulled."

In response  the Ambassadors from the United States, Japan, France, Spain, Great Britain, and Italy, and the Ministers from Belgium, China, Portugal, Switzerland, Sweden, Norway, Denmark, Holland, Brazil, Argentina, Greece, Serbia, and Persia issued the following diplomatic protest on February 15: "In order to avert all misunderstanding in the future, the representatives in Petrograd of all foreign powers declare that they consider the decrees on the subject of the repudiation of the Russian national debt, the confiscation of property of all sorts and other analogous measures as without value, inasmuch as they concern their nationals, and the said representatives reserve to themselves the right to claim at any hour they desire from the Russian Government damages for all losses, which the decrees and measures put upon their nationals."

References:

Papers Relating to the Foreign Relations of the United States, 1918, Russia, Volume III, United States Department of State, Office of the Historian, https://history.state.gov/historicaldocuments/frus1918Russiav03/pg_32.

"Debt Repudiation Rouses All Nations," New York Times, February 20, 1918, p. 2, TimesMachine, https://timesmachine.nytimes.com/timesmachine/1918/02/20/96864502.html?pageNumber=2 

Notes on Sketch 325, dated February 22, 1918: Russia Submits to Germany

On February 18, 1918, Germany resumed military operations against Russia, advancing as much as 250 kilometers in five days, encountering almost no resistance. The renewed offensive reflected German frustration with what it regarded as Russia’s deliberate attempt to prolong the Brest-Litovsk negotiations, in the hope that revolutionary unrest in Germany might weaken the government and force more favorable peace terms.

On February 19, the day after Germany resumed military action, the Soviet government informed Berlin that it was prepared to accept the peace terms Germany had previously proposed. Germany not only ignored this overture, four days later on February 23, it issued a new ultimatum imposing even harsher conditions and additional indemnities, while continuing its rapid military advance. Faced with the threat of further military collapse and the danger such a defeat posed to the survival of the new Bolshevik regime, the Soviet leadership accepted the ultimatum the same day.

Itō’s sketch underscores the profoundly unequal power relationship between the two sides. Russia is depicted as a kneeling figure, wearing a strained, submissive grin as it reads the revised peace terms, while Germany, shown seated and stern, points imperiously to a scroll listing the new demands. These include reparations totaling four billion rubles, Russia’s renunciation of sovereignty over Latvia, formal recognition of German occupation of Riga, acceptance of Lithuania as an independent state under German protection, and the abandonment of all claims to Poland, which would fall within Germany’s sphere of influence.

With pen in hand and sword laid ready at his side, Germany signals unmistakably that refusal will bring renewed military force—and still harsher terms.

Transcription of Thomas R. Marshall's commentary and notes on Sketch 326, dated February 23, 1918: Allied Envoys Withdraw from the Russian Capital

More and more, the world around, the eye is gaining precedence over the ear. At a glance we get what it would take hours to obtain by the sense of hearing. This cartoon will halt the myth that Liberty is not License.

Thos. R. Marshall - Washington 7 Dec 20.

Beginning on February 24, 1918 the diplomatic missions of the Allied Powers (Britain, France, the United States, Japan, and others) evacuated the Russian capital Petrograd following Germany's resumption of military operations against Russia on February 18, 1918, as the peace negotiations at Brest-Litovsk stalled. (See Sketch 325.) They relocated primarily to Vologda, which the Bolshevik government had designated as a temporary diplomatic center safer from imminent German occupation.

The New York Times

REDS WILL FIGHT, FRANCIS CABLES

ENVOYS READY TO LEAVE

WASHINGTON, Feb. 23.—The State Department today received a cable message, bearing date of Feb. 18, from David R. Francis, Ambassador at Petrograd, which said the Council of Workmen's and Soldiers' Delegates was preparing to defend the capital against the Germans, and that the representatives of the allied nations had arranged to leave if the enemy came dangerously near.  

References:

Extract from "Reds will Fight, Francis Cables, Envoys Ready to Leave," New York Times, February 24, 1918, p. 2, TimesMachine, https://timesmachine.nytimes.com/timesmachine/1918/02/20/96864502.html?pageNumber=2.

Translation of Maeda Eun's commentary and notes on Sketch 327, dated February 28, 1918: The Winter's Results

Who in the world today can truly
point out the blue demons and the red demons,
and fully comprehend
that those spoken of are not human beings at all?

fifth month of the Metal Rooster (58th term of the sexagenary cycle)

— inscribed by Shishū Dōjin

A sumo-like scorecard of deaths during the winter of 1917-1918, tabulating twenty-one noted public figures who passed. In front of the list of dead, oni of the underworld celebrate. The list reads from right to left as follows:

• 文学博士 佐々醒雪 Doctor of Literature, Sassa Seisetsu [1872-Nov 25, 1917]

• 男、医学博士 青山胤通 Baron, Doctor of Medicine, Aoyama Tanemichi [1859-Dec 23, 1917]

• 子、山尾庸三 Viscount, Yamao Yōzō [1837-Dec 21, 1917]

• 理学博士 和田雄治 Doctor of Science Yūji Wada [1859-Jan 5, 1918]

• 前高工長 手嶋精一 Former principal of Tokyo Technical High School, Tajima Seiichi [1850-Jan 23, 1918]

• 法学博士 杉享二 Doctor of Law Sugi Kōji [1828-Dec 4, 1917]

• 京都画家 菊地芳文 Kyoto artist Kikuchi Hōbun [1862-Jan 18, 1918]

• 小説家 柳川春葉 Novelist Shun'yō Yanagawa [1877-Jan 9, 1918]

• 文学博士 吉田東伍 Doctor of Literature Yoshida Tōgo [1864-Jan. 22, 1918]

• 男、工学博士 宮原二郎 Baron, Director of Engineering Miyahara Jirō [1858-Jan 15, 1918]

• 実業家 朝吹英二 Businessman Asabuki Eiji [1849-Jan 13, 1918]

• 子、海軍中佐 中牟田武正 Viscount, Navy Commander Takemasa Nakamuta [1877-Feb 1, 1918]

• 海軍中将 秋山真之 Vice Admiral Akiyama Saneyuki [1868-Feb 4, 1918]

• 京都画家 鈴木松年 Kyoto artist Suzuki Shōnen [1848-Jan 29, 1918]

• 政治家 宗像政 Politician Tadashi Munakata [1854-Feb 7, 1918]

• 侯爵 蜂須賀茂韶 Marquess Hachisuka Mochiaki [1846-Feb 10, 1918]

• 官女 滨荻典侍 Court Lady Hamaogi Lady-in-Waiting [1835-Feb 10, 1918]

• 京都老妓 中西君尾 Kyoto aged geisha Kimio Nakanishi [1844-Feb 17, 1918]

• 製鉄所長官 押川則吉  Steel mill Director Norikichi Oshikawa [1863-Feb 18, 1918]

• 雅樂家 芝葛鎮 Gagaku musician Fujitsune Shiba [1849-Feb 19, 1918]

• 図案家 河邊正夫 Designer Kawabe Masao [1874-1918]

Notes on Sketch 328, dated February 28, 1918: Situation at the End of February, Taishō 7 (1918)

In this sketch, Itō presents a map of the Eastern Front, contrasting the front line as of January 1, 1918 (shown in purple) with that of late February 1918 (shown in red). While the beginning of the year saw the possibility of a separate peace between the new Bolshevik Government and Germany, the mid-February negotiating stalemate brought on a major German offensive on February 18, moving the front line to within approximately 100 miles (160 km) of Russia's capital Petrograd ペトログラード, with German forces occupying much of Estonia エストニア and Latvia ラトビア as they advanced.

In his bilingual commentary, Takakusu Junjirō uses Japanese and classically styled Sanskrit to contrast moral principle and self-interest.

Transcription of Itō Yonejirō's commentary and notes on Sketch 329, dated March 1, 1918: Unraveling the Mystery of the Hitachi Maru

The Wolf has carried off the lamb;

The baffled Bobby cries, "Oh damn!"

— Itō Yonejirō

In Itō’s sketch, the German commerce raider SMS Wolf, a heavily armed auxiliary cruiser disguised as a merchant vessel, is personified as a swarthy, vigilant figure carrying a sack of plunder and leading by the hand a downcast young girl who represents the Japanese merchant ship Hitachi Maru. They move furtively through the night. In the foreground, a lantern-bearing Japanese searcher, rendered in deliberately archaic attire, moves unaware through the scattered remnants of the Hitachi Maru: sandals, torn clothing, and a dagger symbolizing the ship’s single defensive gun. 

Although it was officially reported on October 11, 1917, that the Hitachi Maru, a Japanese civilian merchant vessel carrying passengers, crew, and cargo, had gone missing in the central Indian Ocean, the circumstances of its loss remained unknown for months. The ship’s owners and the Japanese Navy conducted extensive but fruitless searches.

Only after the SMS Wolf completed its long raider voyage and returned to its home port of Kiel on February 24, 1918, did the facts emerge. The Hitachi Maru had been captured on September 23, 1917, stripped of valuable cargo, and its surviving passengers and crew taken prisoner. On November 7, 1917, the vessel was scuttled in the Cargados Carajos Shoals in the southern Indian Ocean. The late-February disclosure of this fate prompted Itō’s March 1, 1918 sketch.

References:

Australian War Memorial, "Starboard side view of the 6557 ton Japanese freighter, Hitachi Maru...", Accession No. P05338.065,  https://www.awm.gov.au/collection/C1166005?image=1.

Notes on Sketch 330, dated March 5, 1918: The Allied Powers Hope for Japan’s Military Intervention

In the wake of Germany’s renewed military offensive against Russia in mid-February 1918, following the breakdown of the Brest-Litovsk peace negotiations, and amid the continuing disintegration of the Russian army after the Bolshevik Revolution, the Allied powers sought to formulate a military response to German actions in Russia and, secondarily, to weaken the Bolshevik government.

In early 1918, Britain and France pressed a hesitant Japan to dispatch troops to Siberia, where the strategic port of Vladivostok contained large stockpiles of Allied military material and where approximately 40,000–60,000 pro-Allied Czech Legion troops, rendered non-combatants under Bolshevik orders, were stranded along the Trans-Siberian Railway.

Itō’s sketch is likely a response to early March press reports suggesting that Japan was preparing to intervene militarily in Siberia, including two Reuter dispatches dated March 4, published under the headline "Japan to the Rescue." One dispatch reported in part: "A high Japanese official in London states Japan has been awaiting a chance for effective military cooperation in conformity with the Allies' interests. Large Japanese forces in Korea and Manchuria are ready to advance at a few hours' notice." A second dispatch noted that "Public attention is concentrated at Tokio on the necessity for safeguarding peace in the Far East against the intrusion of German influence in Siberia."

In reality, Japan remained reluctant to undertake a major re-engagement in the war, particularly in the absence of American support for Allied intervention in Russia. Despite the optimistic tone of the Reuters reports, Japan would not dispatch troops to Siberia until August 1918, after the United States reversed its position and lifted its objections to intervention in mid-July 1918.

In Itō’s composition, two figures representing the Allied Powers are shown approaching a Japanese samurai seated calmly within his home, gesturing toward a scene of violent struggle outside, where brawling figures suggest both the Allied ongoing battle against Germany and their desire to subdue the revolutionary Bolshevik government. The samurai listens with arms folded, showing no inclination to reach for the sword laid before him—a pointed reflection of Japan’s actual posture in early March 1918, notwithstanding contemporary press speculation about imminent military action.

References:

"Japan To The Rescue," The Warrnambool Standard, March 4, 1918, p. 3, Trove: The National Library of Australia https://trove.nla.gov.au/newspaper/article/74046314.

Notes on Sketch 331, dated March 8, 1918: Austro-Romanian Peace Agreement

Romania, having agreed to an armistice on December 9, 1917, signed a preliminary peace treaty with the Central Powers at Focșani on March 5, 1918, an arrangement that would later be formalized and superseded by the Treaty of Bucharest of May 7, 1918. The terms imposed on Romania included the cession of territory to Austria-Hungary, and in its exhausted and militarily helpless condition, Romania had little choice but to accept them.

As reported in the New York Times in an article titled "Rumania’s Peace Treaty: Why the Onerous Terms of the Central Powers Had to Be Accepted," the negotiations at Focșani "were nothing more than a farce, for the Germans allowed no discussion at all. They simply laid their preliminary conditions before the Rumanian delegates and, taking advantage of the military helplessness of Rumania, told them: 'You can take it or leave it.'" Although the Romanian delegates made several attempts to discuss the terms, they quickly realized that resistance was futile and that submission was unavoidable.

Itō’s illustration renders this coerced settlement as a marital union between Austria and Romania. Between the two figures are arranged the sake cups of the san-san-kudo ritual, the traditional Japanese wedding ceremony symbolizing formal and binding union. Austria-Hungary, with its long imperial history, is personified as an elderly man, while the female figure represents Romania, compelled to swallow harsh and disadvantageous terms. Presiding over the ritual and pouring the ceremonial sake is Germany, underscoring its dominant role in dictating the peace.

References:

"Rumania’s Peace Treaty," Current History: A Monthly Magazine of the New York Times 8, no. 3 (June 1918), https://www.gutenberg.org/files/41479/41479-h/41479-h.htm.

Kurakata Shunsuke 倉方俊輔, commentary on Itō Chūta’s sketch “331,” in Itō Chūta 伊東忠太 and Sugimura Kōtarō 杉村廣太郎, 阿修羅帖 [Ashura-chō], 5 vols. (Tokyo: Yumani Shobō ゆまに書房, 2013), vol. 4.

Notes on Sketch 332, dated March 11, 1918: German–Finnish Peace Agreement

For nearly five centuries Finland had been effectively part of Sweden. Following Sweden’s defeat by Russia in the Finnish War of 1808–1809, Finland was transferred to the Russian Empire, where it existed as the Grand Duchy of Finland with a significant degree of autonomy. After the abdication of the Russian Tsar in March 1917, the Finnish independence movement accelerated rapidly, and Finland formally declared independence on December 6, 1917, a declaration that was recognized by the Bolshevik government in early January 1918.

Soon after independence, Finland was plunged into civil war, pitting the Red Guards, supported by Bolshevik Russia, against the White Guards, who were backed by Germany and by Finnish forces trained under German auspices. As the conflict intensified, the German Imperial Government announced on March 7, 1918, that a treaty of peace had been concluded between Germany and Finland. Negotiated by the White leadership, the treaty effectively secured German military assistance, which proved decisive in the White victory achieved by early May 1918.

Article 1 of the treaty declared:

The contracting parties declare that between Germany and Finland no state of war exists and that they are resolved henceforth to live in peace and friendship with each other. Germany will do what she can to bring about the recognition of the independence of Finland by all the powers. On the other hand, Finland will not cede any part of her possessions to any foreign power nor constitute a charge on her sovereign territory to any such power before first having come to an understanding with Germany on the matter.

In Itō’s sketch, Finland is personified as a slender, fragile woman, her downcast face conveying bitterness and regret. Germany, by contrast, appears as a coarse, brutish man, with the sword laid before him signaling that force is the true foundation of the relationship. Leaning against the German figure is a young boy, representing a contemporary rumor that one of Kaiser Wilhelm II’s sons would be made King of Finland. Itō’s parenthetical annotation notes this explicitly: "It should read ‘the German Emperor’s son as King of Finland,’ so it is said."

In reality, no son of Wilhelm II was ever considered for the throne. In October 1918, the Finnish parliament elected Friedrich Karl of Hesse, Wilhelm II’s brother-in-law, as King of Finland. Germany’s defeat the following month, however, rendered this untenable, and Friedrich Karl renounced the crown without ever reigning. Finland would adopt a republican constitution in 1919.

References:

"Peace Treaty Between Finland and Germany: Full Text of the Document." Current History (1916-1940), vol. 8, no. 3, 1918, pp. 445–48. JSTOR, https://www.jstor.org/stable/45470639?seq=1.

Kurakata Shunsuke 倉方俊輔, commentary on Itō Chūta’s sketch “332,” in Itō Chūta 伊東忠太 and Sugimura Kōtarō 杉村廣太郎, 阿修羅帖 [Ashura-chō], 5 vols. (Tokyo: Yumani Shobō ゆまに書房, 2013), vol. 4.

Translation of Ōki Enkichi's commentary and notes on Sketch 333, dated March 11, 1918: The Armenian Massacre

The pillar supporting the sky has broken, and the ropes tying the earth to the ground have snapped.

— inscription by Tenrai

In Itō's second sketch (see Sketch 157) on the wartime massacres of Armenians, a man wearing a fez, representing the Ottoman Empire, is on a murderous rampage, about to slaughter an Armenian family as the mother pleads for the life of her child. The legs of another victim, only partially visible at the left edge, further testify to the violence. Dated March 11, 1918, the sketch appeared amid renewed reports of massacres as Ottoman forces advanced into Transcaucasia. These renewed atrocities followed the mass killings and deportations of Armenians in 1915–1916, events later identified as an example qualifying as genocide in Benjamin Whitaker’s 1985 report, prepared in his capacity as Special Rapporteur for the United Nations Sub-Commission on Prevention of Discrimination and Protection of Minorities. 

Pinang Gazette

AND STRAITS CHRONICLE

No. 58. Vol. LXXVI.

MONDAY, 11th MARCH, 1918 (p. 7)

The Armenians.

MASSACRES RESUMED.

London, March 8.

Reports received by the Armenian Information Bureau indicate that the handing over of Transcaucasia to the Turks will lead to further massacres of Armenians, perhaps to their final extermination. Turkish troops advancing to reoccupy Armenia are destroying all the remaining Armenian population. Every Armenian male, man, boy and babe at Samsun have been put to the sword. Similar atrocities are being perpetrated in every town and village. 

References:

"The Armenians. Massacres Resumed," Pinang Gazette and Straits Chronicle, March 11, 1918, 7. NewspaperSG, National Library Board Singapore. https://eresources.nlb.gov.sg/newspapers/digitised/article/pinangazette19180311-1.2.44.3 

Benjamin Whitaker, Revised and Updated Report on the Question of the Prevention and Punishment of the Crime of Genocide, United Nations Economic and Social Council, Commission on Human Rights, Sub-Commission on Prevention of Discrimination and Protection of Minorities, 38th sess., agenda item 4, UN Doc. E/CN.4/Sub.2/1985/6 (July 2, 1985), 9, para. 24, https://digitallibrary.un.org/record/108352/ 

Translation of Okino Iwasaburō's commentary and notes on Sketch 334, dated March 14, 1918: Russia Transfers Its Capital to Moscow

Three hundred and four years after Mikhail, the first of the Romanov dynasty, acceded to the throne in 1613, the Romanov family, which possessed a large portion of the earth and ruled over two hundred million people as God's representative, finally came to a sad end. What caused this great event? It arose because, after the elections of 1915*, the people's hearts were stirred by the ideology of overthrowing the bureaucracy. Once the people's hearts turned, even the authority of being God's representative could do nothing about it.

— Okino Iwasaburō

*Okino’s reference to the "1915 elections" concerns the zemstvo, Russia’s system of local provincial and district self-government, whose elections were held periodically and, in some regions, took place or were concluded during 1914–1915 despite wartime disruption. These elections, together with the zemstvos’ prominent role in wartime relief and logistics, revealed a sharp shift in public and elite sentiment, driven by the imperial bureaucracy’s failure to manage the war effort effectively. 

Russia relocated its capital from Petrograd to Moscow between March 10 and 11, 1918, under threat of advancing German forces. Government institutions were moved to Moscow via midnight trains, and by the 12th, the Red Flag was raised over the Kremlin, the former Tsarist fortress.

Itō's illustration depicts this relocation as a scene akin to a "midnight flit" (a panicked escape under the cover of night). Three disheveled figures are shown scurrying along a mountain path, clutching various daily necessities like pots, brooms, and boxes. In his haste, the figure at the very rear is dropping items from his pack.

In the upper right, three colorful demons (oni) brandishing knives are seen advancing toward them, serving as a metaphor for the German army’s advance towards Petrograd, which served as the catalyst for the move. Besides this military threat, the move was also driven by anti-Bolshevik unrest caused by the worsening food crisis in Petrograd.

Moscow To Be New Capital Of Bolsheviki

By JOSEPH STEPHEN

PETROGRAD, March 11, 1918 (UP) - The government is moving to Moscow as a first step in organization of a resistance on all fronts, according to an official press announcement today. 

References:

Excerpt from "Moscow To Be New Capital Of Bolsheviki," by Joseph Stephen, UPI Archives, March 11, 1918 https://www.upi.com/Archives/1918/03/11/Moscow-To-Be-New-Capital-Of-Bolsheviki/2919180047013/.

Kurakata Shunsuke 倉方俊輔, commentary on Itō Chūta’s sketch “334,” in Itō Chūta 伊東忠太 and Sugimura Kōtarō 杉村廣太郎, 阿修羅帖 [Ashura-chō], 5 vols. (Tokyo: Yumani Shobō ゆまに書房, 2013), vol. 4.

Translation of Hozumi Shigetō's commentary and notes on Sketch 335, dated March 18, 1918: German Prisoners of War in Siberia Rise Up

Radicalized prisoners break out of jail.

— Hozumi Shigetō

Itō’s sketch depicts a line of determined, grim-faced men clad in white robes and armed with staves, emerging from a stockade. They represent the tens of thousands of prisoners of war held in Siberia, nominally under Russian control, whose status had become increasingly uncertain following the collapse of imperial authority and the Bolshevik seizure of power.

On March 19, the New York Times would report under the headline "Tokio Points Out Danger in Siberia," "A message to Reuter's from Tokio, dated Saturday, states that the Japanese War Minister, speaking in the House of Representatives, stated that there were 94,000 German prisoners east of Lake Baikal, and 60,000 west of that point. Those in the east are beyond control, and are trying to get arms."  

Itō’s image captures contemporary fears that a vast, poorly controlled mass of former enemy soldiers, a potentially explosive force, had been unleashed across Siberia.

References:

"Tokio Points Out Danger in Siberia," New York Times, March 19, 1918, p. 1, TimesMachine, https://timesmachine.nytimes.com/timesmachine/1918/03/19/102677888.html?pageNumber=1.

Translation of Takaishi Shingorō's commentary and notes on Sketch 336, dated March 20, 1918: The German Emperor's Vision

When this sketch was drawn, Germany’s submarine campaign was scoring success after success, and one may be certain that this distribution map stood vividly before the German Emperor’s mind. Had it later proved possible to reverse the situation, it might even have been interesting to see this ideal put into practice, if only for a short time. Had the menace of a powerful Germany pressed so close next door, Japan as well might have been forced into greater alertness—and in the end perhaps benefited from it. 

— Takaishi Shingorō

This commentary by Takaishi Shingorō written in 1921 is his reflection on Itō Chūta's map depicting the German Emperor's (Kaiser Wilhelm II's) geopolitical ambitions during World War I, specifically during the period when German U-boat (submarine) warfare was achieving significant success. Takaishi suggests, along with Itō, that the Kaiser had a clear vision of territorial expansion or sphere of influence (represented by the distribution map). 

In his map Itō postulates the German Emperor's vision for a post-war Europe and Asia following a German victory, giving Germany control of all of Europe and much of Asia. 

He color-coded the map as follows:

•  本国 — The homeland

•  新領土 — New territories

•  保護国 — Protectorates

•  勢力範囲 — Sphere of influence

The parallel double lines are rail lines, including the Siberian and China Eastern Railway connecting, "the homeland" Berlin (伯林), in the upper left corner, with cities in Russia and China, with Russia color coded as a "protectorate" and most of China color-coded as a "sphere of influence."

Notes on Sketch 337, dated March 23, 1918: The United States Builds an 8,000-Ton Concrete Ship

In Itō Chūta’s sketch, three industrious foxes mix concrete and apply it to what appears to be an unlikely vessel—a ship constructed of concrete.

With steel shortages an ongoing wartime concern, concrete began to attract serious interest as an alternative shipbuilding material. Although reinforced-concrete hulls were heavier and less efficient than comparable steel hulls, they required considerably less steel plate. On March 14, 1918, the nearly 8,000-ton Faith, the first large concrete seagoing ship built in the United States, was launched at Redwood City, California. 

The SS Faith measured 336 feet in length and had a top speed of approximately 10 knots. She was powered by two triple-expansion steam engines producing a combined 1,760 horsepower. Although conceived as a wartime emergency vessel, the ship was never deployed during World War I.

After the war, however, the Faith did enter commercial service, operating as a cargo ship and hauling various materials on international routes until 1921, when she was decommissioned in Cuba. The vessel was ultimately broken up in 1926.

In its May 6, 1918, issue, the New York Times reported on the ship’s successful trial voyage:

SAN FRANCISCO, May 5.—The 7,900-ton steamer Faith, the largest concrete ship in the world, built by the San Francisco Shipbuilding Company, had a successful trial trip here today, averaging more than eleven knots an hour in its four trips over the official trial course. 

The Faith’s engines were installed in forty-four days, a local record. The success of the trip will result in the construction of three more concrete boats, each larger than the Faith, at Redwood City by the same company.

References:

Dan Calic, "A Ship Made of Concrete?," Redwood City Pulse, December 31, 2021 (updated March 25, 2024) https://www.rwcpulse.com/blogs/portal-to-our-past/2021/12/31/a-ship-made-of-concrete/.

"Concrete Ship Has Trial," New York Times, May 6, 1918, p. 13, TimesMachine, https://timesmachine.nytimes.com/timesmachine/1918/05/06/102699307.html.

Notes on Sketch 338, dated March 26, 1918: The 40th Diet, Part Two

The 40th Imperial Diet, which opened on December 27, 1917, closed on March 26, 1918. As the largest party, the Rikken Seiyūkai (立憲政友会) demonstrated its influence by adopting a case-by-case, pragmatic stance (see Sketch 319). It accepted three measures with amendments, the wartime-profits tax, liquor tax, and income-tax revisions, while forcing the Cabinet’s remaining proposals to lapse. 

Itō translated this political situation into an image in which the ministers of the Terauchi Cabinet, a nominally non-party government, are shown "duck-walking" beneath the legs of a giant man representing the dominant Rikken Seiyūkai, fearful of a beating. Following Prime Minister Terauchi Masatake (寺内正毅) are Home Minister Gotō Shinpei (後藤新平), Foreign Minister Motono Ichirō (本野一郎), Minister of Agriculture and Commerce Nakakōji Ren (仲小路廉), Finance Minister Katsuta Shukei (勝田主計), and Education Minister Okada Ryōhei (岡田良平). Judging from the way Terauchi clutches his Billiken-shaped head, he appears to have already taken a punch. The image thus portrays a cabinet unable to move its legislative agenda forward without the consent of the Rikken Seiyūkai. 

References:

Kurakata Shunsuke 倉方俊輔, commentary on Itō Chūta’s sketch “338,” in Itō Chūta 伊東忠太 and Sugimura Kōtarō 杉村廣太郎, 阿修羅帖 [Ashura-chō], 5 vols. (Tokyo: Yumani Shobō ゆまに書房, 2013), vol. 4.

Translation of Raymond Poincaré's commentary and notes on Sketch 339, dated March 26, 1918: German Forces Shell Paris

I greatly admired the very original talent of Dr. Chuta Ito

Paris 28/7/20

Poincaré

On March 23, 1918, a few days after the German Army launched its last major offensive on the Western Front, three long-range German Paris Guns (Parisgeschütz) began intermittently shelling Paris from positions approximately 120 kilometers behind the German lines. Firing from well beyond the range of conventional artillery, the guns represented a new and unsettling form of long-distance bombardment.

Although the physical damage inflicted was limited, owing to the shells’ relatively small bursting charges, their supersonic descent meant that the projectiles arrived silently and without warning, detonating before any sound of firing could be heard. The primary objective of the bombardment was psychological: to spread fear and undermine civilian morale. Despite this, Paris continued to function, and the attacks failed to produce the panic the Germans had hoped for. The Paris Guns were finally silenced in August 1918, as German forces retreated during the Allied advance.

On March 24, the New York Times reported under the front-page headline "Paris Reports That City Is Shelled From a Distance of 74½ Miles":

PARIS, March 23.—According to the latest reports, the long-distance cannon which bombarded Paris this afternoon was firing from a distance of 120 kilometers (approximately 74½ miles) and was located about twelve kilometers beyond the French front.

A subsequent dispatch from London added that "The guns in France are distinctly heard in London tonight."

In Itō Chūta’s sketch, the Paris Guns are personified as a gray-skinned demon, a coloration he frequently employed when representing Germany, rearing back to hurl a rock-like projectile. The shell arcs overhead, passing harmlessly above a woman and her child, who stand calmly behind a low wall outside their home, seemingly unconcerned by the unseen threat. Parenthetically, Itō notes "a distance of sixty-two miles" (六十二哩路程), underscoring the extraordinary reach of the weapon.

References:

"Paris Reports That City Is Shelled From a Distance of 74½ Miles," New York Times, March 24, 1918, p. 1, TimesMachine, https://timesmachine.nytimes.com/timesmachine/1918/03/24/121603153.html?pageNumber=1.

Kurakata Shunsuke 倉方俊輔, commentary on Itō Chūta’s sketch “339,” in Itō Chūta 伊東忠太 and Sugimura Kōtarō 杉村廣太郎, 阿修羅帖 [Ashura-chō], 5 vols. (Tokyo: Yumani Shobō ゆまに書房, 2013), vol. 4.

Translation of Yamasaki Naomasa's commentary and notes on Sketch 340, dated March 27, 1918: The Kyūkan Bribery Scandal

The heavenly net is vast and wide; Though its mesh is coarse, nothing slips through.

Still, the great mysterious ocean swallows boats and fish.

— Tanseki-gakunin

On March 10, 1918, the legal newspaper Hōritsu Shinbun reported in detail on what had become known as the Great Kyūshū Corruption Case, one of the largest graft scandals of the Taishō period. Centered initially in Fukuoka Prefecture, the affair soon expanded to Tokyo, Osaka, Okinawa, and other regions, ultimately implicating 104 individuals.

The case originated in September 1917 with the investigation of a low-paid Yawata Steel Works employee whose lavish lifestyle exposed a web of systematic bribery linking officials of the Kyūshū Railway Administration Bureau (Kyūkan), Yawata Steel Works, and the Fukuoka Mining Bureau with coal mine operators, timber contractors, steel brokers, and merchants. Bribes took the form of cash, gifts, kimono certificates, housing, utilities, and preferential treatment in railcar allocation, mine inspections, and steel material disposal. What began as a local inquiry quickly escalated into a massive judicial operation led personally by Prosecutor-General Hiranuma, involving dozens of prosecutors, extensive house searches, and the seizure of years of account books.

The scandal’s breadth was underscored by its human toll. At least five suicides were directly connected to the investigations, including contractors, a village mayor, and senior railway officials who took their lives in detention. Most shocking was the February 18, 1918 suicide of Oshikawa, Director-General of the Yawata Steel Works, which intensified public suspicion and propelled the case onto the national political stage.

Several weeks prior to the date of Itō’s March 27 sketch, press coverage of the ongoing Kyūshū corruption scandal resumed after earlier reporting restrictions were lifted. Sensational headlines such as "The ‘Big Boss’ Is Former Section Chief Hori"* (Tokyo Asahi Shimbun, March 7, 1918) revived public attention by identifying key figures and framing the affair as a systemic, rather than isolated, abuse of power.

In his sketch, Itō caricatures the extraordinary scale of the scandal by depicting more than thirty demons (oni), large and small, being swept up in a net and herded into confinement by two figures representing government prosecutors. The image conveys not merely individual guilt but a wholesale roundup, suggesting a vast web of corruption ensnaring bureaucrats, industrial executives, and intermediaries alike.

*Hori Tomitarō, a former Yawata Steel Works sales official and later a director of Teikoku Foundry Company (帝国鋳物会社). 

References:

"九州の大疑獄事件 : 九管、製鉄所、鉱務署の贈収賄  法律新聞" ["Major Corruption Scandal in Kyushu: Bribery Involving the Kyushu Railway Administration, the Imperial Steel Works, and the Mine Inspection Office"], Hōritsu Shimbun, March 10, 1918, Kobe University Library Newspaper Digital Clippings, https://da.lib.kobe-u.ac.jp/da/np/0100281445/.

谷川みらい, "官営八幡製鉄所の販売部門 ―八幡製鉄所疑獄事件の背景と影響" [Mirai Tanikawa, "The Sales Division of the Government-Operated Yawata Steel Works—The Background and Impact of the Yawata Steel Works Corruption Scandal"], p. 16, https://www.jstage.jst.go.jp/article/rekishitokeizai/61/1/61_1/_pdf/-char/ja 

Notes on Sketch 342, dated April 3, 1918: Persia Colludes with Germany

From well before the outbreak of the First World War, Germany had deployed operatives across the Balkans and the Middle East, often under diplomatic or commercial cover. These agents were dispatched wherever Berlin believed that politically weak or unstable states could be exploited, part of a broader, if ultimately unrealistic, vision of extending German influence far beyond Europe.

With the onset of war, such efforts intensified, with particular emphasis placed on undermining British rule in India, long regarded as the "jewel in the crown" of the British Empire. German strategy sought to achieve this indirectly, by opening routes of influence and agitation through the formally neutral states of Persia and Afghanistan, which together formed a potential corridor to British India.

In late March 1918, a flurry of newspaper reports revived attention to these long-standing fears. Among them were accounts of German overtures to the Shah of Persia, serious enough to prompt the United States Secretary of State to cable the American minister in Tehran, John Lawrence Caldwell, expressing concern over press reports "that a Persian delegation has left Teheran for Berlin via Constantinople to arrange a permanent alliance between Persia and Germany, based upon a large German loan to finance Persian railways and to equip the Persian army with German instructors." Whether accurate or exaggerated, such reports reinforced Allied anxieties at a moment when Russia’s withdrawal from the war had left Persia politically exposed.

In Itō’s sketch, Germany (獨) is personified as a sword-wielding figure standing atop a crouching Persia (波), using it as a human platform to lean over the ramparts of Afghanistan (阿富汗斯坦) and threaten a panicked figure representing India (印度).

References:

W. Griesinger, German Intrigues in Persia: The Diary of a German Agent, the Niedermayer Expedition Through Persia to Afghanistan and India, Hodder and Stoughton, 1918),  https://archive.org/stream/germanintriguesi00lond/germanintriguesi00lond_djvu.txt.

Foreign Relations of the United States, Supplement: 1918, Volume I, Document 912, United States Department of State, Office of the Historian, https://history.state.gov/historicaldocuments/frus1918Supp01v01/d912.

Notes on Sketch 343, dated April 5, 1918: The Western Front

This map serves as a follow-up to Itō’s March 30 map (Sketch 341) and details the German advances during the first week of Operation Michael, the opening phase of the German Spring Offensive on the Western Front, codenamed Kaiserschlacht ("the Emperor’s Battle").

In this sketch, Itō depicts the Western Front at three different moments for comparison: April 1917 (approximately one year prior to the March 21, 1918 German offensive); the situation at the start of the March 21, 1918 German offensive; and the front as of April 1, 1918, ten days after the offensive began. These are distinguished through color coding as follows:

• Purple — 攻勢前の戰線 (Front line before the offensive)

• Red — 四月一日の戰線 (Front line on April 1)

• Yellow — 昨年四月の戰線 (Front line in April of the previous year [1917])
  
  

On the map, Montdidier is marked as the westernmost point of the German Spring Offensive, representing the high-water mark of Operation Michael in early April 1918, before the advance stalled short of Amiens and lost momentum.

In his commentary on this map, architectural historian Shunsuke Kurakata observes: "The depiction of the Western Front continues from Sketch 341. Here, the front lines are shown color-coded by time period. This type of front-line notation was also common in the newspapers and magazines of the time. It is believed that Itō used such sources as a foundation, while also consulting more detailed maps, to create a composition with a high degree of visual clarity."

References:

Kurakata Shunsuke 倉方俊輔, commentary on Itō Chūta’s sketch “343,” in Itō Chūta 伊東忠太 and Sugimura Kōtarō 杉村廣太郎, 阿修羅帖 [Ashura-chō], 5 vols. (Tokyo: Yumani Shobō ゆまに書房, 2013), vol. 4.

Notes on Sketch 344, dated April 12, 1918: Russia Rejects a Japanese Landing at [Vladivostok] Harbor

In this sketch, Itō depicts a resolute samurai standing firmly at the prow of a boat just off the shore of the Russian port city of Vladivostok, identified on the signpost as 浦じおすとっく, a phonetic rendering of the city’s name. Lifting his sedge hat to announce his arrival, the samurai, possibly representing the officer in charge of the landing, Rear Admiral Katō Kanji, (see below for his remarks to the citizens of Vladivostok), keeps a watchful, stern eye on two figures in the background, depicted in loincloths (fundoshi), who are locked in a chaotic sword duel. The image serves as a visual metaphor for Japan’s self-presentation as a stabilizing force arriving to "rescue" or impose order on a Russia portrayed as having descended into primitive turmoil. In this way, the sketch reinforces a contemporary Japanese narrative of a civilizing intervention.

Upon the landing of Japanese forces, Rear Admiral Katō Kanji (Katō Hiroharu) addressed the Vladivostok population:

Citizens! I, Commander of the Japanese Squadron, sincerely empathize with the situation Russia has found itself in and wish a quick end to all fighting and that your revolution is a resounding success … I have deep concerns, however, that ongoing political disputes may become extremely heated; the city functions as though it has no police, and I cannot help but worry about the life and property of subjects of the Japanese empire and Entente countries residing here … I simply have to send in landing forces … and take the measures I deem necessary before I ask the Japanese Imperial Government for further instructions … I would encourage the Russian people not to worry and to continue their daily routine.

On April 4, as reported widely in the international press, a robbery and assault on the Ishido Store (Ishido Shōkai), a small Japanese-run trading firm in Vladivostok, resulted in the death of one Japanese national, the wounding of several others, and the theft of approximately 2,000 rubles. This attack "in broad daylight" by unknown Russian assailants, incorrectly described in a U.S. State Department telegram as "five Russian soldiers", soon became known as the Ishido Shōkai Incident (Ishido shōkai jiken 石戸商会事件).  Citing the need to protect Japanese life and property, Japan used the incident as justification for landing troops on April 5 from warships that had already been anchored in Vladivostok harbor since January. These forces immediately began patrolling the city.

Over the course of the day, Japanese reinforcements brought the total landing force to more than 600 men, soon joined by approximately 50 British marines. The landings provoked a formal protest from Georgy Chicherin, the Soviet People’s Commissar for Foreign Affairs, who characterized the action as "deeply painful," declared it to be clearly directed against the Soviet government, and demanded the immediate withdrawal of foreign troops. Within days, Vladimir Lenin warned local Bolshevik authorities to prepare for a possible Japanese-led attack backed by the Allies, and martial law was declared in Siberia in preparation for an attack by Allies and White Russian, anti-Bolshevik forces.

Although Japan officially framed the operation as a limited police action in response to the Ishido Shōkai Incident, these events marked a critical escalation. They constituted the immediate prelude to the far larger, multinational Allied Intervention in Siberia, which would be formally launched in August 1918.

The New York Times

SATURDAY, APRIL 6, 1918

Special to The New York Times. 

JAPANESE IN VLADIVOSTOK.

Small Armed Force Lands Following Attack on Subject of Mikado.

WASHINGTON, April 5.--For the purpose of protecting life and property a small armed force has been landed at Vladivostok from Japanese cruisers in the harbor at that port.

References:

Sergey V. Grishachev and Vladimir G. Datsyshen, "Allied Intervention in the Russian Civil War and Japanese Troops in Russia’s Far East, 1918–1922," in A History of Russo-Japanese Relations: Over Two Centuries of Cooperation and Competition, ed. Dmitry V. Streltsov and Nobuo Shimotomai (Leiden: Brill, 2019), p. 139.

Extract from "Japanese in Vladivostok," New York Times, April 6, 1918, p. 2, TimesMachine,  https://timesmachine.nytimes.com/timesmachine/1918/04/06/102687683.html?pageNumber=2.

FRUS, 1918, vol. 2, "The Secretary of State to the Ambassador in Russia (Francis) [Telegram], April 5, 1918," d.141, United States Department of State, Office of the Historian https://history.state.gov/historicaldocuments/frus1918Russiav02/d141.

"浦港の惨殺事件（詳報）" ["The Vladivostok Murders: Detailed Report"], Nichibei Shimbun (San Francisco), April 30, 1918, p. 4, Hoji Shinbun Digital Collection, Hoover Institution Library & Archives, https://hojishinbun.hoover.org/?a=d&d=jan19180430-01.1.4. 

V. I. Lenin, "Directives to the Vladivostok Soviet," in Collected Works, 4th English ed., vol. 27, Progress Publishers, 1972, p. 226.

Notes on Sketch 345, dated April 19, 1918: British Forces Retreat—Again and Again

In his third sketch responding to the German Spring Offensive codenamed Kaiserschlacht ("the Emperor’s Battle"), launched on March 21, 1918, Itō abandons the detailed cartographic treatment of the rapidly shifting front lines seen in Sketches 341 and 343 and returns instead to a more overtly satirical, caricatural mode. Here he depicts a winged, oni-like demon with his serpent-like sword raised on high, symbolizing the advancing German armies, in pursuit of a mounted warrior whose frantic retreat has caused his helmet to fly off, a clear personification of the withdrawing British forces.

By early April, the initial German thrust (Operation Michael) had driven the British back as much as 60–65 kilometers (about 40 miles) at its deepest point, reaching the Montdidier sector and halting short of Amiens. Although the Germans failed to secure their strategic objectives, the scale and speed of the advance shocked the Allies. A second offensive, Operation Georgette, launched on April 9 in the Lys sector of Flanders, produced further advances of about 10–20 kilometers (about 6-12 miles), but likewise failed to break the Allied front.

By mid-April 1918, cumulative losses from the Spring Offensive were already immense. British forces had suffered well over 200,000 casualties, including large numbers taken prisoner during the opening days of Operation Michael; French reinforcements incurred tens of thousands of casualties as they were rushed north to stabilize the line; and German losses, particularly among elite storm troop units, were likewise severe, running into the hundreds of thousands.

In visual terms, Itō captures this moment of apparent German momentum and British retreat while subtly foreshadowing its limits: the fleeing rider has already escaped beyond the demon’s immediate reach, suggesting that speed alone would not deliver Germany the decisive victory it sought.

In early August 1918 an Allied counteroffensive would push the German Army into a sustained withdrawal, driving it steadily eastward, ultimately forcing them to relinquish all of their spring gains.

References:

Anton Paier, "The German Offensives, 1918. An Analysis of Operations and Leadership (part 1)," https://wsb.edu.pl/files/pages/634/9-1.pdf.

Alexander Watson, "German Spring Offensives 1918," International Encyclopedia of the First World War, ed. Ute Daniel et al., https://encyclopedia.1914-1918-online.net/article/german-spring-offensives-1918/.

Translation of Narusawa Kinbei's commentary and notes on Sketch 346, dated April 20, 1918: German Forces Invade Russia

Like A Mountain of Stolen Goods

However, the big thief’s gamble missed the mark and all the stolen goods were confiscated by the police and were supposedly returned to the victims.

You’re saying it was "problematic" that the police officers took a cut for themselves or accepted bribes during that process?

As if the authorities could ever be in the wrong! Might is Right.

— Reisen

By mid-March 1918, both Germany and Soviet Russia had ratified the Treaty of Brest-Litovsk, which had been signed on March 3. In early April, German authorities began the systematic occupation and administration of the vast territories ceded by Russia under the treaty, transforming what had previously appeared to be abstract diplomatic concessions into concrete geopolitical realities. Contemporary press reports emphasized that Germany was not merely accepting territory on paper, but was actively advancing into, policing, and economically exploiting former Russian lands.

On April 22, the New York Times reported that the Russian government had formally protested to the German Foreign Secretary that the Taurida Republic, encompassing the Crimean Peninsula, formed an integral part of the Russian Federal Republic, and expressed the hope that Germany would not violate the Brest-Litovsk Treaty by attempting to detach it from Russia. Within days, however, anti-Bolshevik Crimean Tatar forces, operating with German military support, overran the Taurida region, underscoring the fragility of Russian sovereignty in the ceded areas and the extent of German intervention beyond the treaty’s nominal terms.

Itō’s map and accompanying statistical table visualize the scale of Russia’s territorial losses resulting from the Treaty of Brest-Litovsk (see also Sketches 303, 321, and 325). The table enumerates the territories relinquished by Russia—Finland; the Baltic provinces of Estland, Livland, and Courland; Poland; Lithuania; and Ukraine—together with their respective land areas and populations. In total, the figures attribute to Russia the loss of approximately 435,000 square miles of territory and 55 million inhabitants, vividly conveying the magnitude of the collapse of the former imperial domain.

References:

"Russia Fears Loss of Tarudia Republic," New York Times, April 22, 1918, p. 6, TimesMachine, https://timesmachine.nytimes.com/timesmachine/1918/04/22/102694422.html?pageNumber=6.

Phersu Atlas, "Chronology: Polity 7085," https://phersu-atlas.com/chronology/polity7085.html.

Notes on Sketch 347, dated May 9, 1918: German Peace Proposal Rejected

On May 7, 1918, the New York Times ran an article titled "Denies Receiving A Peace Offer," reporting that Foreign Secretary Arthur J. Balfour told the House of Commons that "no peace offers had been made recently by the enemy." He stated definitively: "There is no representative of a neutral nation in this country who has made tentative or informal suggestions of peace negotiations."

Despite Balfour's public protestations, his words did not reflect the behind-the-scenes reality of the war's diplomacy. In early May, Hendrikus Colijn, the former Dutch Minister of War, arrived in London under the guise of a business trip for Royal Dutch Shell. In truth, he was acting as a secret intermediary for German proposals tailored to appeal to British self-interest. 

The proposal, initiated by German Foreign Secretary Richard von Kühlmann, was a strategic "peace offensive." As reported by the Times, the terms relayed by Colijn included: 

1. Germany to renounce all claims in the west.

2. Restoration of Belgium.

3. Alsace-Lorraine to be autonomous, within the German Federation.

4. The status in the east to remain as at present.

5. Austria to make certain concessions to Italy in the Trentino.

6. Balkan questions to be solved by an international conference.

7. All colonial questions affecting Africa and Asia Minor to be settled by a conference of all the belligerents.

8. Germany to abandon all claims to her former Chinese protectorate of Kiao-Chau, but in exchange to receive certain economic concessions in China.

The German proposal brought by Colijn was initiated by Germany's Foreign Secretary Richard von Kühlmann and the existence of the proposal would also be denied by Germany, which found itself in a weakened condition after their prolonged offensive (Kaiserschlacht) on the Western Front.

The existence of this proposal was also denied by Germany. Despite their aggressive military posture, the German army was in a state of precipitous decline. The Kaiserschlacht (Spring Offensive) on the Western Front, which had begun in late March, was ultimately a desperate gamble to force a peace settlement before German manpower and morale completely collapsed. At the time, the Dutch, a "neutral armed nation," were under immense pressure from Germany to allow the transit of war material. The Berlin newspaper Vossische Zeitung noted that since Holland had "recently yielded to Anglo-American pressure, she must grant these conditions to redress the balance."  

In his sketch, Itō portrays Holland (和蘭) as a demure girl in a blue kimono bearing a letter box (fubako), which presumably contains the secret German peace proposal, gingerly approaching an older woman in a gray kimono marked England (英), who unconcernedly looks at her while smoking her pipe reflecting the British refusal to even entertain the proposal. In the background a gray-skinned, concerned-looking man, representing Germany (独) peeks from behind a fence anxiously watching to see if his diplomatic gambit will succeed.

References:

"Denies Receiving A Peace Offer," New York Times, May 7, 1918, p. 2, TimesMachine, https://timesmachine.nytimes.com/timesmachine/1918/05/07/102699450.html?pageNumber=2.

Translation of Narusawa Kinbei's commentary and notes on Sketch 348, dated May 24, 1918: Tochigiyama Wins the Championship

An Honest Confession

An upstart country bumpkin like me doesn’t know West from East.*

— Reisen

* The reference to "West from East" is to the East (Higashi) and West (Nishi) camps on the banzuke (ranking hierarchy) and suggests that no matter which division his opponents are in this "country bumpkin" from  Tochigi Prefecture will knock them down.

The 1918 Summer Tournament (Natsu basho), held at the Yasukuni Shrine in Kudan, Tokyo, from May 12 through May 23, saw the 27th yokozuna, Tochigiyama Moriya, win the championship with a record of 9 wins and 1 loss. His only defeat came at the hands of the ōzeki Asashio Tarō.  

In Itō's sketch we see, as in his other sketches depicting sumo tournament champions, a hoshitorihyō chart. At the top left, the scorecard lists Tochigiyama’s opponents, with a single black circle indicating his loss to Asashio. Below the chart, Itō depicts the wrestlers as traditional round dolls. The Tochigiyama doll, identifiable by the mawashi (belt) bearing his name, stands triumphantly with arms raised. In a humorous display of the yokozuna's dominance, his fellow competitors are shown as overturned dolls, scattered across the ground in his wake.

References:

"Natsu 1918: Makuuchi Banzuke," Sumo Reference, https://sumodb.sumogames.de/Banzuke.aspx?b=191805&heya=-1&shusshin=-1.

Transcription of J.O.P. Bland's commentary and notes on Sketch 349, dated May 31, 1918: Sino-Japanese Agreement

Judging by this cartoon, Dr Chuta Ito evidently believes that "the meek shall inherit the earth."

— J.O.P. Bland London 31. Oct. 1920

On May 16, 1918, Japan and China concluded the Sino-Japanese Joint Defense Military Agreement (Army), followed by the Sino-Japanese Joint Defense Military Agreement (Navy) on May 19. Although the terms were officially classified as military secrets, key provisions were widely reported at the time.

Nearly two months earlier, on March 25, 1918, Chang Tsung-Hsiang, Envoy Extraordinary and Minister Plenipotentiary for the Republic of China, had submitted a confidential diplomatic note to Japan’s Minister for Foreign Affairs, Viscount Motono Ichirō, proposing bilateral cooperation to confront what he described as the "steady penetration of hostile influence," referring to Germany and the Bolsheviks, into Russian territory. This incursion, he warned, posed a threat to the peace and stability of the Far East, and warranted "common measures" between China and Japan.

The finalized agreements contained the following key provisions:

Equality: Japan and China would act on equal footing regarding their military operations and strategic interests.

Cooperation: Japan was granted freedom of movement for its forces and access to resources in designated "war zones," notably Northern Manchuria.

Sovereignty: Japan pledged to respect China’s sovereign rights and local customs to minimize disruption and friction.

Withdrawal: Japanese troops were to be entirely withdrawn from Chinese territory at the conclusion of the war.

Joint Command: A unified command structure was established, including the exchange of liaison officers.

Infrastructure: Both sides agreed to cooperate on military railways, telegraph, and telephone communications.

Termination Clause: The agreements would remain in effect until the conclusion of World War I and the ratification of peace treaties with Germany and Austria-Hungary.

Although officially in force until January 28, 1921, when both governments jointly declared the agreements null, their practical significance eroded far earlier due to public backlash in China. As the secret terms became known, they were widely viewed as infringing on Chinese sovereignty. Within weeks, over 1,000 Chinese students studying in Japan returned home in protest. The agreements became a rallying point in the broader anti-imperialist fervor that culminated in the May Fourth Movement the following year.

Itō Chūta’s satirical sketch, dated May 31, 1918, presents a propagandistic interpretation of the recently concluded agreements. In the image, a strong, half-naked young man (symbolizing Japan) supports an elderly, frail figure (representing China), who leans heavily on a staff. The posture and physical disparity reflect Japan’s self-image as the benevolent and capable guardian of a weakened China.

References:

John V. A. MacMurray, ed., Treaties and Agreements with and Concerning China, 1894–1919, vol. 2, Republican Period (1912–1919) (New York: Oxford University Press, 1921), p. 1407–1415, https://hdl.handle.net/2027/miun.aex6321.0001.002.

Kurakata Shunsuke 倉方俊輔, commentary on Itō Chūta’s sketch “349,” in Itō Chūta 伊東忠太 and Sugimura Kōtarō 杉村廣太郎, 阿修羅帖 [Ashura-chō], 5 vols. (Tokyo: Yumani Shobō ゆまに書房, 2013), vol. 4.

Transcription of Sir William Conyngham Greene's commentary and notes on Sketch 350, dated June 19, 1918: Prince Connaught Comes to the Imperial Court

The distinguished Artist has portrayed the Prince and his  Staff in “Undress Uniform”
in consideration, no doubt, of  the Nyubai; or did he merely intend to camouflage the
Warmth of the Prince’s greeting under an assumed appearance of Coolness?

— Conyngham Greene
H.B.M. Ambassador 1913–1919

The central purpose of Prince Arthur of Connaught's fourth visit to Japan, beginning June 18, was to present the Field Marshal’s baton to Emperor Taishō, on behalf of King George V, previously awarded him by the British Government. (See Sketch 312). While the mission served as a formal military ceremony, it also functioned as a vital reaffirmation of the Anglo-Japanese Alliance during the final stages of the Great War. During his two-week stay, the Prince was celebrated across the country, with his itinerary including Yokohama, Tokyo, Nagoya, Kyoto, and Osaka. 

All the trams were decorated with two Union Jacks and two Rising Suns each. Crowds and decorations, especially the Union Jack and Rising Sun crossed, everywhere.

— British Captain Malcolm Kennedy, Language Officer in Japan, commenting on Prince Arthur's arrival in Tokyo

Itō adopts a whimsical Indian-inspired design, alluding to the Duke of Connaught’s military service and associations with India. In his comments on Itō's sketch, British Ambassador Sir Conyngham Greene jokingly calls the prince's skimpy outfit his "Undress Uniform" worn "in consideration... of the nyubai," the notoriously hot and humid Japanese rainy season.

References:

Malcolm Duncan Kennedy, "Tuesday 18th June 1918" [Visit of Prince Arthur of Connaught to Japan], in The Diaries of Captain Malcolm Duncan Kennedy, 1917–1946.

Translation of Narusawa Kinbei's commentary and notes on Sketch 351, dated June 23, 1918: Semyonov in a Predicament

New Aesop’s Fables

A cherry tree, captivated by the song of a cicada, offered it a place to stay. Finding a shady spot to rest, the cicada sang on, feeling at ease. Before long, however, the cherry tree drove the cicada away, claiming the noise interfered with its nap. Abandoned by the cherry tree, the cicada was threatened by sparrows and mantises, falling into great distress. The cicada felt deeply just how unreliable the hearts of others can be.

— Reisen

Itō's satirical sketch serves as a visual metaphor for the military predicament of Grigory Semyonov, the White Cossack leader of the anti-Bolshevik forces in the Russian Far East. In a May cabinet meeting, Japan decided to support Semyonov's army and dispatched troops to northern Manchuria based on the Sino-Japanese Joint Defense Military Agreement. (See Sketch 349.)  Semyonov’s name is phonetically rendered in Japanese using the ateji characters 蟬夜脳 (Semi-ya-no). Because the first character, 蟬 (semi), means "cicada," Itō portrays the general as the vulnerable insect.

The drawing reflects the events of June 1918, a time when Semyonov’s troops were being relentlessly pushed by the Red Army and forced to retreat toward northern Manchuria. In the illustration, the cicada finds itself perilously trapped between the grasping claws of a mantis and the open beak of a sparrow. The composition subverts the traditional kachō-e genre ("flower-and-bird pictures") which reflects Shintō and Buddhist appreciation for nature's harmony to mirror the harsh reality of the Russian Civil War.

References:

Kurakata Shunsuke 倉方俊輔, commentary on Itō Chūta’s sketch “351,” in Itō Chūta 伊東忠太 and Sugimura Kōtarō 杉村廣太郎, 阿修羅帖 [Ashura-chō], 5 vols. (Tokyo: Yumani Shobō ゆまに書房, 2013), vol. 4.

Translation of Higashi Kan'ichi's commentary and notes on Sketch 352, dated July 2, 1918: Rumors of the Assassination of the Deposed Russian Emperor

The House of Romanov
— unfinished draft by Ōsho 

Do you not see how, across eight million square miles of the earth, Russia sprawled over the northern reaches of Europe, holding one-seventh of the world— a dominion so vast it had no equal.

The House of Romanov seized sovereignty, and one able ruler after another rose to the throne. Among them, Peter the Great dreamed boldly, making territorial expansion the policy of the state.

Then came Napoleon Bonaparte, who swept across Europe in conquest, yet even he was checked and bloodied amid the frozen snows and bitter cold of the Russian land.

From that time onward, Russia’s power only swelled. Hundreds of thousands of fierce soldiers were raised and trained, and the nations of the world looked on in wary fear. Who could hope to restrain
this coiling serpent, this rampaging boar?

Its capital and its institutions grew vast and imposing, surpassing all others in Europe. Their structures were praised for perfect balance and beauty; it was not only the palaces that dazzled the eye— luxury reigned in gold-embroidered garments and jade-like banquets of extreme extravagance.

Yet, tragically, conflict was ignited by France and Britain, and from that moment the calamity of the Romanovs was set in motion. Rebels rose in swarms and stormed the imperial palace; the dynasty was driven out, wandering in humiliation, sent northward in exile.

In the end came imprisonment and brutal slaughter, a shared captivity and a violent death, claiming not only the fallen emperor but even the empress and the crown prince.

As early as mid-June 1918, reports began circulating that Tsar Nicholas II, then confined in Yekaterinburg, was either already dead or, paradoxically, “not dead.” Such rumors were reported to London by the British Consul-General in Moscow, Sir John Oliver Wardrop, who sought to counter persistent claims of the former tsar’s assassination.

On June 26, the New York Times ran a front-page headline, "Russian Paper Now Affirms Ex-Czar Has Been Murdered," reporting that "the Russian newspaper Vjia is quoted by the National Tidende’s Stockholm correspondent as stating that the Red Guards have murdered the ex-Czar at Ekaterinburg." In the days that followed, the paper carried a series of contradictory headlines: on June 27, "Ex-Czar Not Assassinated"; on June 29, "Former Czar Nicholas Now Reported Safe"; and on June 30, "Bolshevist Official Denies Ex-Czar Is Dead."

Many of these spurious reports can be traced to Robert Wilton, a correspondent for The Times who also reported to the British Secret Intelligence Service and maintained close ties with anti-Bolshevik White Russian circles. Wilton’s dispatches played a significant role in amplifying and sustaining rumors of Nicholas II’s death well before official confirmation.

On July 18, 1918, the Bolshevik authorities announced that the tsar had been executed in Yekaterinburg in the early morning hours of July 17.

In his sketch, Itō depicts a masked assassin creeping up on the Tsar from behind under the cover of night. Fitting for the summer season, Nicholas II is shown relaxing in a yukata (Japanese summer robe) in a garden surrounded by high walls as a reminder of the reality of his confinement. 

References:

Claire Theresa McKee, "British Perceptions of Tsar Nicholas II and Empress Alexandra Fedorovna 1894–1918" (PhD diss., University College London, 2014), p. 317, 332, https://discovery.ucl.ac.uk/id/eprint/1420957/.

"Russian Paper Now Affirms Ex-Czar Has Been Murdered," New York Times, June 26, 1918, p. 1, TimesMachine, https://timesmachine.nytimes.com/timesmachine/1918/06/26/102714338.html?pageNumber=1.

"Ex-Czar Not Assassinated," New York Times, June 27, 1918, p. 4, TimesMachine, https://timesmachine.nytimes.com/timesmachine/1918/06/27/102714777.html?pageNumber=4.

"Former Czar Nicholas Now Reported Safe," New York Times, June 29, 1918, p. 1, TimesMachine, https://timesmachine.nytimes.com/timesmachine/1918/06/29/98267222.html?pageNumber=1.

"Bolshevist Official Denies Ex-Czar Is Dead," New York Times, June 30, 1918, p. 1, TimesMachine, https://timesmachine.nytimes.com/timesmachine/1918/06/29/98267222.html?pageNumber=1.

Kurakata Shunsuke 倉方俊輔, commentary on Itō Chūta’s sketch “352,” in Itō Chūta 伊東忠太 and Sugimura Kōtarō 杉村廣太郎, 阿修羅帖 [Ashura-chō], 5 vols. (Tokyo: Yumani Shobō ゆまに書房, 2013), vol. 4.

Translation of Takagi Nobutake's commentary and notes on Sketch 353, dated July 3, 1918: Germany's Three Billion Mark Tax Increase

The common people of the entire nation weep, trapped in distress and poverty.

The white bones on the battlefield wail in the autumn wind.

If only the "Iron Man"* of those years were still here, 

The final days of the "Powerful Qin"** would not be the same.

A Picture of the People Suffering in Extreme Misery. 

— Seiin Nobu 

* A reference to Germany's "Iron Chancellor" Otto von Bismarck.

** A reference to the Qin Dynasty (221 BCE to 206 BCE) serving as a metaphor for the German Empire.

On April 23, 1918, the Reichstag conducted the first reading of a new package of tax legislation proposing additional taxes totaling nearly three billion marks. By the time the measures were finalized and passed in mid-July, the total projected tax revenue increase had risen to more than four billion marks. The principal driver behind this expansion was the mounting burden of servicing Germany’s rapidly growing war debt.

Itō Chūta’s sketch, which caricatures Germany as mechanically squeezing every last drop from its population, pointedly captures the social impact of these fiscal measures. Among the most consequential was the revised turnover tax (Umsatzsteuer), an indirect levy whose increased rate was largely passed on to consumers. By raising the prices of most everyday goods, the tax placed a heavy burden on ordinary Germans and made wartime financial policy a matter of direct daily hardship rather than abstract state finance.

References:

"Das vierte Kriegsjahr: Die wichtigsten Ereignisse vom 1. Aug. 1917 bis 31. Juli 1918," Frankfurter Zeitung und Handelsblatt, no. 210, Zweites Morgenblatt, July 31, 1918. 

Translation of V. E. Orlando's commentary and notes on Sketch 354, dated July 4, 1918: Italian Army Repels the Austrian Army

I admire the expression of the Japanese artist, who so profoundly embodies the heroic sensibility of his race; and I offer my thanks for the tribute rendered by him to the glorious epic of the Italian soldier.

Rome, 27 December ’20 V. E. Orlando

In the parenthetical inscription to the right of the clashing figures, Itō identifies the scene as the "decisive battle of the Piave River" (ビャヴェ河の決戦), fought between June 15 and June 23, 1918. The sketch shows a tan-colored Italian soldier on the left toppling a gray-skinned opponent, a visual shorthand for the Italian repulse of the Austro-Hungarian offensive, which was supported in places by German units. The engagement marked a decisive turning point on the Italian front in the final year of the First World War. 

The First Battle of the Piave was fought between November 10 and December 25, 1917. Despite initial advances, the Austro-Hungarian and German forces failed to break the Italian front.

The Second Battle of the Piave, intended to bring about Italy’s military collapse, began on June 15, 1918. After nine days of fighting, the Austro-Hungarian army abandoned the offensive and retreated across the Piave River.

The battle cost Italy some 85,000 men dead, wounded, or captured, while Austro-Hungarian losses reached approximately 143,000. By late June 1918, limited Italian counteroffensives had recovered most of the previously lost ground. Although essentially a defensive success, the victory was celebrated throughout Italy as a "miracle," prompting a collective vow to endure any sacrifice until victory. The battle marked the end of any serious Austro-Hungarian threat to Italy.

References:

Stefano Marcuzzi, "Piave, Battles of," in 1914-1918-online. International Encyclopedia of the First World War, ed. Ute Daniel et al., October 13, 2016, https://encyclopedia.1914-1918-online.net/article/piave-battles-of/.

Notes on Sketch 355, dated July 5, 1918: The Czech Army Wields Its Might

By the first week of June 1918, the Czechoslovak Legion, originally organized in 1914 as a volunteer force of Czechs and Slovaks in Russia seeking independence from the Austro-Hungarian Empire, had seized control of the Siberian sections of the Trans-Siberian Railway. Following violent confrontations with Bolshevik authorities, the Legion effectively severed the Bolsheviks’ rail access to Siberia. As the most organized military force in the region, their dominance enabled Russian anti-Bolshevik groups to rally and form a "Provisional Government" in Siberia, whose declared goal was to "root Bolshevism out of Russia".

Itō’s sketch, dated July 5, 1918, was produced just days after news reports reached Japan that the Legion had dissolved the Bolshevik Council of Workmen's and Soldiers' Delegates at Vladivostok (an event that occurred on June 29). Reports were also circulating that military and political discipline had collapsed in the Legion as they began wholesale executions of captured Red Army soldiers. In the sketch, Itō depicts both the Legion, labeled "Check" (チェック), and the Bolsheviks, labeled "Extremists" (過激派), as oni (demons). By portraying both sides as monstrous figures engaged in a chaotic game of tag, Itō suggests that he saw both forces as destabilizing threats to the emerging world order.

Despite routing Bolshevik forces and controlling the railway, the Legion remained trapped in Siberia, unable to reach the Western Front in Europe. This predicament became the primary justification for the Allied Siberian Intervention in August 1918. This massive military operation included Japan’s dispatch of more than 70,000 troops to the region, far exceeding the numbers sent by other Allied nations.

References:

J. F. N. Bradley, "The Czechoslovak Revolt Against the Bolsheviks." Soviet Studies 15, no. 2, October 1963, p. 124–151. https://www.jstor.org/stable/149174

Kurakata Shunsuke 倉方俊輔, commentary on Itō Chūta’s sketch “355,” in Itō Chūta 伊東忠太 and Sugimura Kōtarō 杉村廣太郎, 阿修羅帖 [Ashura-chō], 5 vols. (Tokyo: Yumani Shobō ゆまに書房, 2013), vol. 4.

Translation of Toki Zenmaro's commentary and notes on Sketch 356, dated July 9, 1918: German Ambassador to Russia Mirbach Is Assassinated

The culprit's name is Pyotr Aketivitch!*

— T. - Z.

*This name does not belong to the historical assassins, Yakov Blumkin and Nikolay Andreyev. It likely references the Russian anarchist theorist and advocate of "direct action," Kropotkin, whose full name is sometimes seen written as Pyotr Alexeivitch Kropotkin. Kropotkin's call for "direct action" was embraced by the Left Socialist Revolutionaries responsible for Mirbach's death. 

Appointed as Germany's Ambassador to Russia in April 1918, Wilhelm von Mirbach was assassinated at his embassy in Moscow on the afternoon of July 6, 1918. The assassins were immediately identified as Left Socialist Revolutionaries Yakov Blumkin and Nikolay Andreyev. The assassination was driven by fury over Mirbach's role in negotiating the harsh terms Germany imposed on the Bolshevik government in the Treaty of Brest-Litovsk, and by the Left S.R.'s disgust with Lenin's acceptance of those terms. That same day, the Left SRs launched an unsuccessful coup d'état against the Bolsheviks.

Itō has taken the assassination of Mirbach, attacked by his assailants in the embassy with a gun and with a bomb and "Japanified" it. In his sketch, a gruff appearing Japanese lord (whose gruffness identifies him as German in Itō's visual lexicon) wearing formal hakama is speared through a shoji screen by a hidden assassin, transforming modern political violence into the aesthetic vocabulary of Japanese theatrical tradition.

References:

"Soviet Writers Treat History More Boldly," New York Times, February 3, 1969 1918, p. 3, TimesMachine, https://timesmachine.nytimes.com/timesmachine/1969/02/03/issue.html.

Lutz Häfner, “The Assassination of Count Mirbach and the ‘July Uprising’ of the Left Socialist Revolutionaries in Moscow, 1918.” The Russian Review 50, no. 3 (1991): p. 324–44. https://doi.org/10.2307/131077. 

Translation of Kamiizumi Tokuya's commentary and notes on Sketch 357, dated July 13, 1918: Battleship Kawachi Explodes and Sinks

Deeply regrettable

— Kamiizumi Tokuya

On July 12, the Imperial Japanese Navy’s large battleship Kawachi exploded and sank in Tokuyama Bay while at anchor, and 621 of the 1,020 crew members lost their lives. A Japanese naval commission considered arson but, lacking plausible suspects, regarded the decomposition of cordite as the most likely cause.

The New York Times

WEDNESDAY, JULY 17, 1918

Japanese Battleship Lost;

500 of the Crew Drown

TOKIO, July 16.—The Japanese battleship Kawachi, of 21,420 tons displacement, blew up and sank in Tokoyama Bay, 150 miles northeast of Nagasaki, on July 12. Five hundred members of the crew lost their lives.

The battleship Kawachi was built at Kure in 1912. She carried a complement of 900 officers and men. The warship was 500 feet long, of 84 feet beam, and drew 28 feet of water. Her armament consisted of twelve 12-inch guns, ten 6-inch guns, eight 4.7-inch guns, and twelve 12-pounders. She also was equipped with five 18-inch torpedo tubes.

Itō personifies the battleship Kawachi as a woman in a tragic, Kabuki-style poisoning scene, shown vomiting blood while clutching her chest. The overturned teacup and tilted teapot represent the contemporary speculation that the disaster in Tokuyama Bay on July 12 was not the result of an enemy attack, but was caused by an unwittingly self-administered poison, later suspected to be decomposing cordite held in the ship's hull.

References:

"Japanese Battleship Lost; 500 of the Crew Drown," New York Times, July 17, 1918, p. 1, TimesMachine, https://timesmachine.nytimes.com/timesmachine/1918/07/17/102722907.html?pageNumber=1.

"Kawachi Class Battleships (1910)," Naval Encyclopedia https://naval-encyclopedia.com/ww1/japan/kawachi-class-battleships.php.

Transcription of F. A. Vanderlip's commentary and notes on Sketch 359, dated July 16, 1918: Decision for Small Dispatch of Troops

October 29, 1920

Kokusui Publishing Company,

1 Harshimoto-Cho, Kanda,

Tokyo, Japan.

Gentlemen:

In reply to your favor of September tenth, I wish to say frankly that the sample of the cartoon you were good enough to send me makes no great appeal to us Americans. We fully appreciate the part which Japan played in the Great War, and doubtless the enthusiasm it has aroused in your country and its reflection in the work of such an artist as you recommend will form a valuable part of the history of that period. However, the times have changed and I fear that among Americans who can not read the explanations given in Japanese characters to the cartoon, there might be a misunderstanding because of the bellicose nature of the cartoon, as it necessarily would be depicting the condition in war-time.

The war, however, is past history. Peace has come, and I am very anxious to see the love of peace imbedded in every heart, whether Japanese or American.

Yours very truly,

F. A. Vanderlip *

*In 1920, Vanderlip, led a high-profile mission of American businessmen to Japan to improve bilateral relations following the tensions of World War I.

While an extraordinary cabinet meeting was held on July 12, 1918 to deliberate on an American proposal for a limited joint expedition to safeguard the Czechoslovak Legion (see Sketch 355), the final diplomatic and military parameters were still being refined on the date of Itō's sketch. It was not until August 2 that the Japanese government officially announced its intention to send troops to Vladivostok (浦港), with the United States following suit the next day.

Japanese forces began landing at Vladivostok on August 11 and by the end of that month, approximately 18,000 troops had arrived at the port. In comparison, the first contingent of 1,600 American troops landed on August 16. Despite the initial "superficial agreement" for a limited humanitarian mission, the Japanese presence ballooned to roughly 70,000 men by the end of October 1918. This expansion saw Japanese forces align with counter-revolutionary (White) forces, leading to direct and violent conflict with Bolshevik (Red Army) partisans and effectively ending the myth of a "limited" intervention.

In Itō's visual metaphor, a samurai is depicted leaving a room while carrying only a wakizashi (short sword), which symbolizes Japan's initial public commitment to a small-scale, limited dispatch of troops. This restraint is further emphasized by the presence of a long sword (tachi) and a standard sword (uchigatana) that remain behind on the sword rack in the alcove. By choosing the smallest blade for his journey, the samurai visually communicates the mission will be limited as desired by the Americans, focusing on the "Security of Vladivostok Port and Czech Support" (浦港警備とチェック後援) rather than a full-scale military engagement, which it would quickly become.

References:

Chihiro Hosoya, "Origin of the Siberian Intervention, 1917—1918," The Annals of the Hitotsubashi Academy 9, no. 1, 1958, p. 91–108. http://www.jstor.org/stable/43751377.

Notes on Sketch 360, dated July 20, 1918: Both Armies Secretly Pray for Peace

In the dead of night, two figures standing in for the Central Powers and the Allied Powers, slip into a Shintō precinct whose hanging plaque reads "Peace Shrine" (平和神社). Each crouches beneath an oversized sugegasa (菅笠), the sedge-woven conical hat associated with travelers and pilgrims, as if ashamed to be seen seeking peace.

In this sketch, Itō Chūta alludes to the round of clandestine peace feelers and rumors that circulated in 1918, especially Austria-Hungary’s separate-peace initiative later known as the Sixtus Affair. In 1917, Charles I used his brother-in-law, Prince Sixtus of Bourbon-Parma, as an intermediary to sound out the Entente about a compromise settlement. The episode erupted into public scandal in early April 1918 after Austria's Foreign Minister Ottokar Graf Czernin claimed that France had initiated negotiations; the French press retaliated by publishing Charles’s letter, fatally embarrassing Vienna and narrowing its diplomatic room to maneuver.

Dated July 20, 1918, the image frames both coalitions as privately exhausted after the German spring offensives (see Sketches 341 and 345) and their staggering casualty lists, reduced, in Itō’s sketch, to furtive supplicants praying that sheer attrition might finally force open a path to peace.

As historian Robert Rill notes, the Sixtus Affair underscored that the era of Kabinettpolitik, policy made through "secret negotiations behind closed doors," had passed.

References:

Robert Rill, "Sixtus Affair," in 1914-1918-online. International Encyclopedia of the First World War, ed. Ute Daniel et al., Freie Universität Berlin, 2014, https://doi.org/10.15463/ie1418.10146.

"Count Czernin on Peace Terms" and "Austro-French 'Peace Initiative' Controversy," Current History: A Monthly Magazine of the New York Times 8, pt. 1, no. 2, May 1918, p. 323–333. https://www.gutenberg.org/files/38750/38750-h/38750-h.htm#Page_328.

Notes on Sketch 361, dated July 26, 1918: The Japan-U.S. Postures

In this satirical depiction of the lead-up to the Siberian Intervention, an oversized figure representing the United States (米) towers over a diminutive Japan (日). The American figure is a caricature of Woodrow Wilson, identified by his distinctively long, prominent chin, a recurring motif in Itō’s work, wearing a smug, cunning expression and dressed in a kimono tucked up for work. He beckons with his left hand to a hesitant Japan, depicted as a naive child trailing behind. Although dressed in samurai attire with a sword, the Japanese figure looks downcast and "weak-kneed," obediently following the American lead rather than walking as an equal.

Itō depicts Wilson clutching a merchant's abacus (soroban) and wearing a coin purse (saifu) around his neck. These symbols brand the U.S. proposal for the Siberian Intervention not as a noble rescue mission for the Czech Legion, but as a calculated business strategy. The commentary suggests that while the U.S. publicly invited Japan to a joint military action, the strict conditions placed on troop numbers and geography, represented by the calculating abacus, were actually a "trap" designed to restrain Japan while expanding America's own commercial sphere of influence in the region. Overall, the sketch reflects the deep anxiety of the Japanese elite and public in 1918, illustrating a "commoner's perspective" that laments Japan's diplomatic naivety in playing second fiddle to a wealthy, calculating Washington.

Notes on Sketch 362, dated July 29, 1918: Rice Prices Surge

In this sketch, Itō visualizes the rice-price crisis as a fever chart. Two naked, gaunt figures respond to thermometer-like gauge as the red mercury shoots upward. The green figure to the left holds up four fingers, indicating the price has risen to over 40 sen, while the blue figure holds his head in disbelief. The scale marks rice at 44 sen per shō (about 1.8 liters), as Itō notes explicitly to the right of the sketch 一升四十四銭, around a 60% jump in a month. Flames lick in from the sides, signaling how quickly an economic shock is turning into social combustion. 

On July 23, 1918, less than a week before Itō dated this sketch (July 29), groups of fishermen’s wives in Toyama Prefecture, notably in Uozu, moved to block rice shipments and confronted dealers over inflated prices, actions often treated in later chronologies as the opening of the nationwide wave of the 1918 rice riots. See Sketch 365.

As prices continued to climb, the press tracked the market almost day by day, along with public frustration, official efforts that looked improvised or ineffective, and business criticism of intervention. 

On July 26, the Osaka Shimpo would report that in addition to population growth outstripping rice production "the convergence of various factors arising from the Great War [WWI] that have driven up commodity prices has caused extreme anxiety in the lives of our Imperial citizens. The food problem has now invited a situation so grave that it can absolutely no longer be overlooked." The following day, the paper carried the criticisms of two prominent business leaders of the government’s heavy-handed interference in the rice market with Chiyosaburō Watanabe, President of Osaka Gas, stating that the government's efforts to stem the "surge in rice prices is exactly like trying to dam a flowing stream that is merely seeking its natural level; the guilt for the result lies squarely with those who attempted the damming."

Appropriately on Itō’s next rice-price sketch, Sketch 363, dated August 8, the title shifts from prices "surging" (暴騰) to rice prices "running wild" (狂騰), as rice prices climb to nearly 60 sen.

Note on rice prices: Rice prices in 1918 were reported in different units, typically shō and koku.  A shō (一升) is a household measure (about 1.8 liters). A koku (一石) equals 100 shō and was used for wholesale/trade.

References:

Keiichiro Fuwa, "History Of Japan’s Industrial and Environmental Crises," Industrial & Environmental Crisis Quarterly 8, no. 2 (1994): p. 111–128.

Shotaro Kojima, "The Influence of the Great War upon the Japanese National Economy," Weltwirtschaftliches Archiv 17, 1921, p. 525–548.

"米騒動" ["Rice Riots"], Kotobank, https://kotobank.jp/word/%E7%B1%B3%E9%A8%92%E5%8B%95-66267.

"国民生活の危機 : 米価暴騰問題" ["Crisis in the Lives of the People: The Problem of Soaring Rice Prices"], Osaka Shimpō, July 26, 1918, Kobe University Library Newspaper Digital Archive   https://hdl.handle.net/20.500.14094/0100103305.

"米価問題" ["Rice Price Issue"], Osaka Shimpō, July 27, 1918, Kobe University Library Newspaper Digital Archive  https://hdl.handle.net/20.500.14094/0100216897.

Notes on Sketch 363, dated August 8, 1918: Rice Prices Run Wild

In this sketch dated ten days after Itō's Sketch 362, which shows a price rise in rice to 44 sen per shō, prices for rice are now off the scale, rising to 56 sen per shō (一升五十六銭) and beyond. Four emaciated figures populate the background while a blue demon fans the flame of social unrest.

In the press's continuing coverage of rising price of rice and the ensuing social unrest, on August 3, the Tokyo Kokumin Shimbun, in an article titled "Price Survey," wrote in a sharp rebuke to the government and the Terauchi Cabinet, "Although our government authorities have long claimed to be investigating commodity prices, the price of rice, the most essential staple for the life of our citizens, continues to skyrocket without end. The more the authorities exert themselves, the more expensive rice becomes. Consequently, the public laughs at the incompetence of those in power. . . [D]evising a fundamental relief measure must be the most urgent task of our Empire." The article goes on to compare Japan's disjointed efforts at bringing the price of rice under control unfavorably to the systematic state controls seen in Europe. 

The day following Itō's August 8 sketch, newspapers reported on the August 7 riots in the town of Namerikawa, Nakaniikawa District, Toyama Prefecture during which women were demanding that the town council set rice prices at 25 sen per shō, along with rumors of riots in several other fishing towns.

Note on rice prices: Rice prices in 1918 were reported in different units, typically shō and koku.  A shō (一升) is a household measure (about 1.8 liters). A koku (一石) equals 100 shō and was used for wholesale/trade. 

References:

"物価の調査" ["Commodity Price Survey"], Kokumin Shimbun, August 3, 1918, Kobe University Library Newspaper Digital Archive https://hdl.handle.net/20.500.14094/0100247860.

"一升二十五銭にせよ : 滑川町会は三十五銭廉売を決議 : 二千の群集尚鎮静せず" ["Price It At 25 Sen Per Liter: Namekawa Town Council Resolves to Sell It at 35 Sen: Crowd of 2,000 Still Not Calmed Down"], Osaka Asahi Shimbun, August 9, 1918, Kobe University Library Newspaper Digital Archive https://hdl.handle.net/20.500.14094/0100101361.