Volta
Conflict1 August 1907

Disbandment of the Korean Army

Japan forcibly disbanded the Korean army. When battalion commander Park Seung-hwan took his own life, the guards fought Japanese troops around Namdaemun, and disbanded soldiers joined the righteous armies.

Street fighting between Korean and Japanese troops in Seoul — Western magazine illustration, 1907
Street fighting between Korean and Japanese troops in Seoul — Western magazine illustration, 1907

Ladislaus Richard Barteau · Public domain · Source

Japan gathered the soldiers at the training ground, unarmed for supposed drill, and held the disbandment ceremony. When Park Seung-hwan, commander of the 1st Battalion, 1st Guards Regiment, killed himself leaving the note "a soldier who cannot defend his country deserves ten thousand deaths", his men broke into the armoury and fought the Japanese in the streets around Namdaemun.

Provincial units such as the Wonju garrison and the Ganghwa detachment also resisted. The disbanded soldiers greatly strengthened the righteous armies (the Jeongmi righteous armies).

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States and rulers at the time
Korean Empire — Sunjong
Japan · belligerent — Emperor Meiji
Places
Sungnyemun (Namdaemun)

People

  • Park Seung-hwan1869 – 1907

    participant · Guards battalion commander whose suicide on the day of the army’s disbandment set off the fighting in Seoul

Themes that include this event

  • Military Systems Through the AgesAD 685 – 1907

    From the Nine Oath Banners to the Two Armies and Six Guards, the Five Commands and garrison system, the Five Army Camps and the Board of Marshals — armies rebuilt at every crisis