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Imperial Guard of Japan

Imperial Guard
近衛師団
War flag of the Imperial Japanese Army.svg
The ensign of the Imperial Japanese Army
Active 1867–1945
Country  Empire of Japan
Allegiance Emperor of Japan
Type  Imperial Japanese Army
Role Infantry
Cavalry
Artillery
Size 3 Divisions
10 Regiments
Garrison/HQ Tokyo
Engagements Satsuma Rebellion
Sino-Japanese War
Russo-Japanese War
World War I
World War II
Disbanded 1945
Commanders
Notable
commanders
Yamagata Aritomo, Ōyama Iwao, Kotohito Kan'in, Hajime Sugiyama, Hideki Tojo, Yasuji Okamura, Shunroku Hata, Tadamichi Kuribayashi, Tomoyuki Yamashita, Masaharu Homma, Sadao Araki
Imperial Guard Headquarters
Kōgū-Keisatsu Honbu
皇宮警察本部
Japanese Crest GosannKiri.svg
Seal of the Imperial Guard Headquarters of the National Police Agency.
Agency overview
Formed 1947
Preceding agency Palace Guard Headquarters (until 1954)
Legal personality Governmental: Government agency
Jurisdictional structure
General nature
Operational structure
Overviewed by the National Public Safety Commission National Police Agency
Sworn members 900 (December, 2010)
Agency executives
  • Kunio Igarashi, Commissioner, Imperial Palaces
  • Kenji Oyama, Assistant commissioner, Imperial Palaces
Units
Responsible for guarding the following Imperial properties

The Japanese Imperial Guard (近衛師団 Konoe Shidan?) is an organization which is dedicated to protection of the Emperor of Japan and his family, palaces and other imperial properties. Originally formed as a unit within the Imperial Japanese Army, it was dissolved at the conclusion of World War II, before being replaced by a civilian counterpart in 1947.

It became a formal part of the Japanese National Police Agency in 1957.

When the Emperor Meiji assumed all the powers of state during the Meiji Restoration he ordered the formation of an Imperial Guard to protect himself and the Japanese imperial family. In 1867 the Imperial Guard was formed from loyal retainers and former samurai. This unit would then go on to form the nucleus of the new Imperial Japanese Army.

By the 1870s the Imperial Guard, which had been organized and trained along French Military lines, consisted of 12,000 officers and men. It was organized into the 1st Guards Infantry Brigade which had the 1st and 2nd Regiments. The 2nd Guards Brigade contained the 3rd and 4th regiments. However following the decisive German victory in the Franco-Prussian War in 1871, the French defeat prompted the Japanese government to recruit some of the victorious German officers to retrain and reorganize the Imperial Guards on the Prussian Gardes du Corps model. The Imperial troops first saw action in the Satsuma Rebellion in 1877.


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Wikipedia

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