Battle of Hakodate

A handover, not a storming

On the morning of 27 June 1869 — Meiji 2, fifth month, eighteenth day — Enomoto Takeaki and the remaining former-shogunate command surrendered Goryōkaku, their headquarters near Hakodate, to Meiji government forces.

The fortress was opened and handed over, closing about seven months of fighting in the Hakodate campaign and the last organised campaign of the Boshin War.

Nothing left to hold

Hakodate town, the former-shogunate fleet and the remaining outer positions had already fallen, leaving Goryōkaku surrounded and exposed. The fort had been built against foreign naval attack, but the ironclad Kōtetsu could fire into it from Hakodate Bay.

After negotiations the previous day, further resistance was judged hopeless. Kuroda Kiyotaka, the Satsuma officer who supervised the surrender, later argued that Enomoto's abilities should be spared.

The date, and a disputed republic

Some narratives give 26 June, because the negotiations and the unconditional-surrender decision fell on the preceding Japanese-calendar day. The Japanese "May 18" is not 18 May on a Gregorian calendar; it converts to 27 June.

Enomoto, Ōtori Keisuke and other senior prisoners were transported to Tokyo. Ōtori's surviving diary begins with his departure from Goryōkaku on the day of the surrender.

Calling the Ezo regime a republic is contested: peer-reviewed scholarship notes that most historians now doubt it was genuinely republican, and Enomoto's title sōsai can be rendered director-general rather than president.