The Anti-Comintern Pact Ë 151
Fig. 6.4.Shigeki Usui and the sons of Haidar Bammat, Chatou, France, 1936.
Disunity within Japan over the Anti-Comintern Pact appeared almost farcical. As
in 1931, the civilian government failed to control the military, which had spearheaded
the pact with Germany, and in any case the civilian government frequently changed
hands. In March 1937, a little over three months after Japan signed the pact, Naotake
Sat ̄o, the new minister of foreign aairs in a newly created cabinet, declared to the
French press that “I was the rst to regret the Japan-German Accord,” that he intended
to prevent the anti-Communist German-Japanese agreement from becoming a military
alliance, and that there “should be no war between Japan and Russia during the next