What if Japan had surrendered conditionally?

How many civilians were killed at Pearl Harbor?. a thousand or so. How many Japanese civilians were killed in the meeting house and other firebombings? about a million. We are talking about a revenge ratio of civilians of nearly a thousend
What does that have to do with ANYTHING? The point isn't revenge, though that was of course in the minds of lots of people. It was breaking the power of Imperial Japan, which manages not to be the most evil regime in the 20th century solely because the fucking Nazis existed, forever.

And if you RELLY want to play the numbers game then add in the tens of millions of civilians the Japanese murdered in China and Southeast Asia. Or the POWs they were deliberately starving and working to death.
 
Making the Emperor a figurehead was a strategic decision that robbed the 'never surrender' group of a figurehead of their own. But even it was contingent on the unconditional surrender.
 
The key here is not what the USA/Truman would or would not accept, it is what the Japanese military, in particular the Army, would find acceptable. The "conditions" that the Japanese floated were very close to a return to status quo antebellum. They would be willing to give up some of their Pacific Islands (the ones they got post WWI) but the core of their Empire would remain intact. Limited demobilization, war crimes prosecuted by the Japanese (this means a few scapegoats commit seppuku, and the Japanese define crimes and since they were not a Geneva Convention signatory), and so on.

The Peter Tsouras-edited book Rising Sun contains one scenario-essay where this pretty much happens. Basically, the Japanese manage a massive victory at Leyte Gulf that has the potential to throw a gigantic monkey-wrench into the timetable for the war in the Pacific. After the defeat and the prospect of years more fighting, the US government agree to a negotiated peace whereby Japan keeps the core of the Empire and Indochina.

The latter part I agree is completely unrealistic. But if Japan had won a colossal-enough victory, could that have been enough to let them make conditions like you outline?
 
The absolute best case scenario Japan could hope for is a withdrawal from all post-1914 gains, abandoning everything in mainland Asia beyond the Yalu.
 
The latter part I agree is completely unrealistic. But if Japan had won a colossal-enough victory, could that have been enough to let them make conditions like you outline?

No. That entire scenario was horribly flawed even before you get to the peace. Leyte Gulf was going to be a horrible disaster no matter what they try (other than not showing up obviously).

Beyond that, the Americans expected a million casualties in the invasion of Japan, and they were going to go through with it. A single defeat, no matter how magically massive, is not going to change the determination to finish Japan.
 
No. That entire scenario was horribly flawed even before you get to the peace. Leyte Gulf was going to be a horrible disaster no matter what they try (other than not showing up obviously).

Beyond that, the Americans expected a million casualties in the invasion of Japan, and they were going to go through with it. A single defeat, no matter how magically massive, is not going to change the determination to finish Japan.

Yeah, I thought so. The only scenario in that book that really rang true to me was the one where Japan doesn't fight America at all, and even that had issues...

A map of that scenario: http://mdc01957.deviantart.com/art/Hokushin-East-Asia-1943-306445592
 
No, unconditional surrender meant the terms of peace would be at the discretion of the Allies. There is a pervasive misunderstanding that the Japanese continued resistance to secure the Emperor. This is simply false

There were certainly many people in the government though who did argue that preserving the Throne should be the only condition for accepting the Potsdam Declaration. This was of course also driven by fear that if the war continued, the Soviets could attack Japan directly, or possibly even more importantly, that there could be an internal wide-scale socialist revolution which the leading class in Japan was deadly afraid. (This later factor gets often too little attention in these discussions.) However, it seems that even then rhetoric often mixed with the danger this would direct at kokutai. (I note here that I'm talking about summer 1945 here, earlier the situation was very different.)

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

Do you have a source for these peace terms? I have often heard about them in discussions but I haven't actually encountered them myself.
 
I agree that there were voices in Japan which wanted some sort of peace well before the summer of 1945. The problem was these voices is that they only whispered among a small group of confidants. To openly advocate for a peace settlement that was not a "victory" was an invitation to marginalization and internal exile at best, assassination at worst. The extremists, who while not a majority were very much in the drver's seat or close to it, were willing to see Japan go down in a Gotterdamerung rather than surrender.
 
There are ALWAYS conditions during a surrender. The difference is who determines them. A surrender in which the entire contribution of the loser is "I give up" is an unconditional surrender. If the losers get to contribute even "I give up and I'm keeping my cat" - and the winner allows the loser to keep the cat, it's a conditional surrender.
Indeed. Surely getting to keep your Head of State after defeat is a pretty good condition. It's akin to Hitler getting to stay in the Kehlsteinhaus post-VE Day.
 

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Congress woul;d never have approved a Conditional Surrender. Since it would be a Treaty, the Senate would have the final say.
 

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Indeed. Surely getting to keep your Head of State after defeat is a pretty good condition. It's akin to Hitler getting to stay in the Kehlsteinhaus post-VE Day.
The Japanese went from a God Emperor who could literally trace his supposed blood-line back to the start of the Human Race and a a God who walked the Earth to a guy who has less actual authority than The Queen of England.
 
... Since it would be a Treaty, the Senate would have the final say.

Hmm this brings up a funny vision. Japan agrees to surrender, photo op on the Missouri, occupation troops land, weapons deposited, soldiers demobilizing... Senate votes down the surrender treaty. Everyone "OH SHIT" Weapons reissued soldiers moved back to battle positions, weapons and ammo passed back out, plaque removed from battleship deck, shooting resumes...
 
The issue is that by the time terms of surrender were being worked out, everyone knew that the US would win. It was just the question of whether the US felt it was worth it to keep fighting to be able to obtain a blank check in Japan. IMO unless the Soviets put books in Hokkaido or the Japanese develop the bomb (both equal ASB IMO), the US is gonna fight to make sure it can do whatever it wants in Japan. The US wanted to teach the world that any attack made on US sovereign soil, whether it be just islands or the Lower 48, would be met with an absolutely gargantuan retaliation.
 
How about if we change the scenario, because I also don't think any conditional surrender was possible after Potsdam Declaration.

What if a completely new government rule Japan and more pragmatic militarist faction control the Army and Navy.

After the defeat in the Leyte Gulf and the beginning of B29 bombing campaign, this government sent serious peace feelers to the Allies in December 1944. Basically, they agree with most of the terms in the Cairo Declaration.
That the Japanese Government will:
1. Abandon all territorial gain post 1937.
2. Withdraw from Taiwan, Manchuria, and Korea.
3. Immunity for the Tenno.
4. Joint military tribunal for war criminal based on Japan.
5. Limited occupational force
6. Negotiated amount of reparation to the Allies.
7. The assurance from the Allies about the sovereignity of the Empire of Japan (now solely based of Home Island and Karafuto)

What will happen after that?

Edit. Let say, there were no coup, assassination of top leaders, or uprisings. Everybody somehow magically okay with this and just want the war to stop because nobody think they can win.
 
In a similar vein as the above, would the Wallies consider conditional surrender if Japan was defeated earlier on, let's say in Malaya, or even in FIC?
 
The Japanese went from a God Emperor who could literally trace his supposed blood-line back to the start of the Human Race and a a God who walked the Earth to a guy who has less actual authority than The Queen of England.

so? the guy was a war criminal,keeping him as the head of state for 40 fucking years was the same kind of mistake the allied did with so many nazi criminals who were handes west germany on a tablet to lieve out the rest of their live in peace,comfort and position of authority. at least they didn't put doenitz in charge over here.
 
The absolute best case scenario Japan could hope for is a withdrawal from all post-1914 gains, abandoning everything in mainland Asia beyond the Yalu.

I can't even see them keeping Korea or Formosa.

If they surrender early enough in the spring of '45, however (with the Soviets still tied down advancing into Germany and not belligerents in the Pacific yet), there's an outside chance they might keep the Kuril Islands. Maybe.
 
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