“THE SITUATION REMAINS VERY TENSE”: THE DIARY OF CLAUDE DE PIMODAN’S TRIP ON TAIWAN (OCTOBER - NOVEMBER 1896)
According to Treaty of Shimonoseki ending the First Sino-Japanese War of 1894-1895 Taiwan was transferred to Japanese rule. Thus, the new period in Taiwanese history began. The Japanese got Taiwan through diplomatic means and not military ones, but they had to conduct a full-scale military operation to ‘pacify’ the local population that resisted the new authorities and then to suppress constantly local guerilla actions. French military attaché in Tokyo Commandant Claude de Pimodan (1859-1923) had the opportunity to visit Taiwan in October - November 1896 together with the inspection team of high-ranking Japanese military officers who wanted to see the real situation on the island by their own eyes. Military attaché’s trip diary reflected immediate impressions of one of the first Europeans who visited Taiwan in the very beginning of the Japanese colonial rule. The most interesting are his notes on the tactic of the anti-Japanese guerilla fight, on the results of the Japanese oppression of local people’s mutinies, on the relations of local population with the Japanese and the aborigines (whom he called “savages” according to the spirit of his time). Generally sympathizing with the Japanese, the author adhered to the position of a neutral observer and realistically assessed the first steps of their colonial policy. Pimodan published diary notes in his book “Trips on the Far East (1895-1898)” ( Promenades en Extrême-Orient (1895-1898) ) (1900) which is almost not used in Russian studies of Taiwan. The present paper gives a detailed description of this source in a historical context for the first time.