Now and Then 24

The French Hill: End Meiji era - Today

"In Naka Ward’s Yamate area, the slopes going down towards the Yokohama Doll Museum make up the area that is still today called 'French Hill", or furansu-yama. The origin of this name comes from the long history of foreigner settlement in Yokohama; about 130 years ago, the French military was stationed near French Hill, while the British had its military in the area of today’s Minato-no-mieru-oka Park/Iwasaki Museum.

Foreign military did not always have a large presence in Japan. Although conflicts between Japanese and foreigners took place constantly with the influx of the foreign population, the Shogunate government, asserting its sovereign right, took the responsibility of mediating conflicts and ensuring the security of the Settlement.

The turning point came in 1862, when the samurai of Shimazu Hisamitsu, father of the lord of the powerful Satsuma domain (today’s Kagoshima Prefecture), clashed with a group of foreigners at Namamugi-mura Village, which left one foreigner dead and two wounded (See Now and Then 23). The reason of the clash – cultural misunderstanding, hubris of the foreigners, or willful murder committed by the Japanese due to their dislike of foreigners – remains unknown, but the Namamugi Incident eventually led to the stationing of French and British garrisons to protect their respective legations in the Settlement (...)

As elsewhere, the British and the French delighted in games of one-upmanship. The French, for example, built their flagpole higher than that of the British, while the British made sure they had more troops than the French.

The French also cultivated shogunate officials, especially the highly capable Oguri Tadamasa, who, along with Kurimoto Kon, welcomed their help in constructing a naval shipyard at Yokosuka. The French also established a language school and a small iron and steel plant near Ishikawa-cho. All this reflected the desire of Paris to build up its influence as part of its global competition with the British. The French Minister Léon Roches, who served as a translator for the French army for several years in North Africa before joining the foreign service, vastly overrated the shogunate’s chances. But his liberal support for the government no doubt encouraged Harry Parkes, the British minister, to cultivate contacts with the pro-Emperor party. Eventually, Roches lost the trust of the French government, which ordered him home in the middle of 1868.

The foot soldiers could not have enjoyed all this tit-for-tat tomfoolery very much, since the conditions under which they were forced to live on Camp Hill were hardly idyllic. At first the British simple erected tents on the fields covered with nightsoil that stank to high heaven, while a damp fog clung to the heights in the morning. Many soldiers died of smallpox. When drunk, which by all accounts was a frequent occurrence, the Englsih akatai ("red troops") were referred to as akatombo, or "red dragonflies". Similarly, the French were known as the "blue troops".

Foreign residents were allowed to lease land on the Bluff from 1867. Nevertheless, the foreign residents were clearly happy to have troopers nearby. Writing in 1866, A.B. Mitford, the Second Secretary to the British Legation, admitted that "for nearly four years I never wrote a note without having a revolver on the table and never went to bed without a Spencer rifle and bayonet at my hand". The foreign troops were not withdrawn till 1875."

Source:
John Carroll, 'Trail of Two Cities', ed. Kodansha, Tokyo, 1994, p. 87-88
And
Yokohama Echo, August 2004