Captain Jules Brunet (1838-1911) was a member of the first French military mission to be sent to Japan in order to help modernize the armies of the shogunate. He was a graduate of the École Polytechnique, and he specialized in artillery. He arrived in Yokohama in the beginning of 1867.

First French Military Mission to Japan

The military mission was able to train the Shogun's army for a little more than one year, before the Shogunate lost to the Imperial forces in 1868 in the Boshin War. The French military mission was then ordered to leave Japan by Imperial decree.

However, Jules Brunet chose to remain. He resigned from the French army, and left for the North of Japan with the remains of the Shogunate's armies in the hope of staging a counter-attack.

The Hakodate war

Jules Brunet helped set up the Ezo Republic, with the leader of the Japanese shogunate's navy, Admiral Enomoto Takeaki, as the President. He also helped organize the defense of Hokkaido. Troops were structured under a hybrid franco-japanese leadership, with the Commander in chief Otori Keisuke seconded by Jules Brunet, and each of the four brigades commanded by a French officer (Fortant, Marlin, Cazeneuve, Bouffier), seconded by eight half-brigade Japanese commanders.

The final stand occurred in the northern island of Hokkaido, in the city of Hakodate, where in June 1869 the shogunate forces lost a final battle between 800 shogunate soldiers and an 8000-strong Imperial army.

Rehabilitation

Jules Brunet was evacuated by the Dupleix and sent back to France for trial. He was quickly rehabilitated by the time of the war between France and Prussia in 1870, and later rose to the position of Chief of Staff of the French army ("Chef d'Etat Major") under the Minister of War Chanoine (curiously, his superior officer at the French Military mission when he was in Japan) 30 years later in 1898.

Jules Brunet was partly the inspiration for the character of Nathan Algren in the 2003 movie The Last Samurai.

See also

• The Last Samurai
• Naval Battle of Hakodate