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The Japanese military code was based on Bushido--unwavering allegiance to Feudal masters converted to Emperor and country. Bushido originated as the ethical code of Japan's medieval Samurai warriors. The central theme was unquestioning loyalty to their Feudal Daimyo (大名) or Feudal master -- an unquestioning obedience in all matters. Bushido has been likened to European chivalry --the ethical code of medieval knights. And there was a great deal of similarity. We note some objections to this with authors maintaining differences. First of all we have to understand that despite the legends that both Samurai and Knights in reality were more like armed thugs brutally treating the common people and defeated opponents. The major difference we see in moderating force of Western Christianity. Of course this also can be overstated. The Christian knights that fought the Crusades committed terrible atrocities. But this was a brutal age and Muslim forces were hardly the soul of the code of tolerance. justice, and mercy. But over time, Christianity moderated and channeled overall Western society in a more humane direction. This did not occur in Japan. Some Japanese authors contend that classic Bushido placed an emphasis on compassion, benevolence, and other non-martial qualities. his of course is how Western chivalry came to be viewed. There appear to be eight principal qualities emphasized by Bushido. they include: 1) Justice, 2) Courage, 3) Mercy, 4) Politeness, 5) Honesty, 6) Honor, 7) Loyalty, and 8) Self Control. Bushido was based on a belief in an absolute, universal moral code. Now we can question how close this came to the behavior of actual Samurai warriors came during the medieval and modern era. We believe that Western society developed in a more positive direction than Japanese society. This can be debated, but what can not be questioned is the fact that the Japanese military in the Meiji Era seized upon Bushido and its code. Among other matters, the Bushido code prohibuted soldiers from surrendering. It was seen as a loss of honor which the Japanese took very seriously. And they applied that concept to the unfiortunate soldiers that surrendered to them. According to one military historian, "those who had surrendered to the Japanese -- regsrless of how courageously or hionorably they had fought -- merited nothing but contempt, they had fofeited all honor abnd all rights to be treated with dignity or respct." 【Borch】 And eventually the miklitary fashioned Bushido it in its own image, not only as a code for the military itself, but after sizing control of the nation (1930s), imposed Bushido on the population nation as whole. The military retained many aspects of Bushido (Courage, Honor, and Loyalty), but displaced or reduced many other features (Justice, Mercy, Politeness, Honesty, and Self Control). Especially lacking was any degree of Mercy.
What is observable is the difference between the behavior if the Japanese Army in previous wars. There were in the Russo-Japanese War (1905) and World War I (1914-18) none of the atrocities reported during World War II. A factor had to be like the NAZIs that they had won the War and there would be no post-war accounting. The military leaders built a code of suicide to a an unprecedented degree never held as part of Bushido. Here the idea was that the military spirit of the Japanese soldier could overcome the material superiority of the pleasure loving Americans. In the run up to World War II, Japan's military leaders sought to inculcate the entire Japanese nation with this ethos of Samurai warriors including women and children. And as the war began to turn and battlefield losses mounted, the militarists began training women and children for Ketsugo. So it is not surprising that large numbers of young men were willing to sacrifice themselves as well as Japanese civilians on Saipan and Okinawa. and the assumption as in the case of the NAZIs that the War was won and Japan would never have to answer for the atrocities committed. In fact Japan as a nation has never come to terms with the atrocities committed by the Imperial army in its name. .
Borch, Fred L. "Asia for the Asians: Bushido, and Japanese War Crimes in the Netherlands East Indies, 1942 to 1946," in Military Trials of War Criminals in the Netherlands East Indies, 1946-1949 (2017).
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