All the Emperor’s Tanks
An Alternate History of Japan.
I’d
like to take this space to thank Wladimir Kjavic Alfaro for his contributions
to this scenario. His thought-provoking ideas and commentaries have been
invaluable for me while writing it, and I wish I could have the time and talent
to make it as complex as he imagined it. But of course, any error you could
find here is entirely my fault and responsibility.
Preface:
The Tsingtao Campaign was far more important that most people think. The
siege and conquer of this German enclave in the Chinese coast by Japanese
troops had tremendous consequences for the future. The campaign, planned and
competently led by Lieutenant-General Kamio Mitsuomi, and executed in
conjunction with the Imperial Japanese Navy forces (under Vice-Admiral Kato
Sadakichi) and British troops, had two long term consequences: even when Japan
was forced to cede the port to China ater the war, Japanese troops were left behind
to garrison the Shantung railroad, the main link between the city and the rest
of China.
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Japanese howitzer firing during
the siege of Tsingtao, 1914. |
These troops, in latter years, grew until they formed the infamous –and
almost mutinous– Kwangtung Army. The second consequence was more subtle, but
more important: Lt-Gen. Kamio conducted a campaign based in the lavish use of
logistics and the scrupulous minimization of losses. But the young officers who
participated in the siege, particularly in the final charge against the German
positions the night of November 6th, 1914, concluded something
entirely different: that a careful planning and sheer will could overcome the
enemy. These way of thinking –among other factors– was one of the reasons which
conducted Japan to the disaster of the Second World War.
The Point of Divergence
A way –we think– this disaster could have been averted was… a book. More
precisely, a book published in 1919 by Kamio and Kato. The book, untitled “Shin
heiki jissenki” (Use of new weapons in actual battle), in which the authors
minutely described the tactics they used in the campaign, was destined to
became a decisive influence over the Japanese military thinking. The book,
emphasizing the lavish logistic and the mobility necessary in modern warfare,
as it was witnessed in Tsingtao and in the last moths of the Great War,
convinced many progressive men in the ranks of the military establishment of
the convenience of having a highly mobile army, able to carry enough firepower
to the battlefield.
These men –who passed to History as the Three Crows– commenced to look
for a way to achieve both goals at the same time. However, the younger officers
who participated in the Tsingtao campaign disagreed, sometimes violently, with
their superior’s conclusions: they were convinced that meticulous planning and
a good doses of “samurai spirit” could defeat any obstacle. This rift between
the Army would prove to be of the utmost importance.
“The Key to Victory”
"When the hour of crisis comes, remember that 40
selected men can shake the world."
--Yasotay (Mongol warlord)
The
publication of “Shin heiki jissenki”
in 1919 found Japan under the government of Hara Takashi, the first commoner to
serve as Prime Minister. He took advantage of long-standing relationships he
had throughout the government, won the support of the House of Peers, and
brought Tanaka Giichi into his cabinet as army minister. Tanaka, who had a greater
appreciation of favourable civil-military relations than his predecessors,
counted with the support of several Army officers, among them a very small
clique known as the ‘Three Crows’: sponsored by Prince Higashikuni Naruhiko,
uncle of the future Emperor Hirohito, the Three Crows (Nagata Tetsuzan, Obata
Toshiro and Okamura Yasuji), were in Europe in the early 1920s setting up an
organization for army intelligence. Their first meeting was held on October 27,
1921 at the German spa of Baden-Baden: in this meeting they selected
"Eleven Reliables" to carry out their program to reorganize the Army
into a modern and effective force, among other objectives. The “Three Crows”
and the “Eleven Reliables” were to form a semi-secret society known as “the Emperor's
Cabal” to work in secret their programs within the Army and Navy.
The
Eleven were chosen among elite intelligence officers: several members of this
group (among them Ishiwara Kanji, Itagaki Seishiro, Doihara Kenji, Daisaku
Konoto, Yoshioka Yasunori, Tojo Hideki and Watari Hisao), also formed part of
other secret organizations such as the Cherry Blossom Society. These
semi-secret societies maintained a plethora of often contradictory agendas, but
which more or less coincided in the necessity to clean up the Japanese
political graft, polluted by the events in the aftermath of the Great War.
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Kanto earthquake, Tokyo, 1923. |
The devastating Kanto earthquake, adding its effect to the decline in
sales to the Allies after the Great War and the subsequent economic slowdown
brought decline to two of Japan's rural enterprises: its silk industry and rice
growing. Distress in the countryside was moving people into sympathy with
extremist political movements, and while disappointed farmers blamed capitalism
and democracy while discovering their affinity with the militarist semi-secret
societies which promised “national reconstruction” and traditional ideals; the
people in the cities raised calls
for universal suffrage and the dismantling of the old political party network
created many years ago during the Meiji era: students, university professors
and journalists, bolstered by labour unions and inspired by a variety of
democratic, socialist, communist, anarchist, and other Western schools of
thought, organized political clubs that served as the genesis of new parties,
including socialist and communist parties.
In
1924, the Eleven Reliables, under the influence of German military experts, organized a
"studies group", led conjunctly by Captain Tsuji Masanobu and Asahara
Genshichi, an able businessman with important contact with European financial
firms. The Jujiro (Crossroads) Studies Group determined that the
complete structure of the Imperial Army was anachronistic and in consequence
they should sought for a new model. After a series of studies they determined
that, in first place, Japan’s over-dependence on Western suppliers of military
equipment could easily lead to a de facto colonization of the nation.
This could be helped with the creation of a bigger indigenous industrial base
in key sectors, that could be financed with devoting a good share of the work
of the new arsenals and other military-related facilities to the private
sector, following the example of the Yokosuka Naval Arsenal in the Meiji era.
Secondly, the Jujiro experts decided that the lessons of the First
Sino-Japanese War, the Russo-Japanese War, and the Great War (including the
Tsingtao Campaign) were evident: attrition warfare and long conflicts should be
avoided at any cost. The key to victory, they concluded, was a quick, mobile
campaign, based in the quick transportation of troops and supported with large
quantities of material to replace the human waves of past conflicts.
Although many people criticized the Jujiro Studies Group’s conclusions,
arguing that the emphasis on military development would retard the much-needed
economic growth after the (First) Great War, the reformers behind the Jujiro
Studies Group knew that the only way to create the industrial base necessary
for its new Armed Forces was to gain the complete support (and to certain
extent, control) of the industrial cartels (zaibatsu) and the capitalist
forces. At the same time, they knew that their plans depended also on
maintaining good relations and unity of interests with the government
bureaucrats (jushin), allowing the political parties to keep a voice in
the government, and thanks to their most complete vision of the international
scene, were disposed to reach a compromise with the civilian government in the
latter’s attempts to gain for Japan good relations with the external world.
Working in tandem with key members of the bureaucracy and the
traditional aristocracy (including the Imperial Family), these two scared by
the political division of Japan and its poor economic performance after the
Kanto Earthquake, the reformers insisted in gaining a central role in some of
the heavy industries that arose during and, briefly, after the Great War.
Needing a large initial investment of capital, and due to the sector’s
strategic implications, they needed direct government intervention in these
heavy industries, with help from the private sector.
Enriched by the thirst for war supplies of the belligerents during the
Great War and benefited economically by governmental policies of low wages, the
Japanese cartels, monopolizing the iron, steel, chemicals, textiles, paper,
cement and foods industries, became the first victims of the reformers. Having
lose the support of the traditional aristocrats and poorer people with their
extravagant spending and haughtiness, and having won the animosity of the
military due to their desires to keep spending at a minimum by keeping military
budgets lows, the cartels, known as zaibatsus, were forced, by a combination of
public pressure, legislation (like the “Efficiency in Production and
Distribution Law” imposed by the Armed Forces), blackmailing, and even physical
intimidation, to submit to plans of “controlled industrialization.”
With almost 25% of total government expenditure, this massive increase
in industrial, military and military-related spending was illogical from an
economic point of view. The factors that saved Japan from an economic disaster
due to the quick expansion of its industrial production were, first, they resisted
the urge to take loans so large that they were out of all proportion to the
producing ability of the Japanese economy, thus forcing an increasing in taxes
compensated by civilian hands founding hefty profits that went back into the
economy; and secondly, the forced expansion of industrial production injected
probably more money than the industrial-production sector of the economy would
have otherwise seen in normal conditions, enabling a great deal of machinery
and skills to be transferred to companies which soon were producing
simultaneously civilian-use and military-use goods.
However, the almost revolutionary plan devised by the Jujiro Group was
the catalyst of a rift among the ‘Emperor’s Cabal’. The Cabal men were already
divided by their political sympathies: while the most senior officers, among
them Ishiwara Kanji and Tojo Hideki, and whose contacts with German veterans of
the Great War allowed them to understand and accept the Jujiro’s analysis, and
favoured the continuous support of the Cabal to the Army and Navy factions
willing to work with government bureaucrats and the industrial cartels as tools
for the modernization of the Armed Forces along modern lines; the rest of the
Cabal members decided to support a group of mostly Army officers who, deeply
influenced by Kita Ikki, wanted to take control of the country and implement a
Showa Restoration. Both factions became known by the pejorative epithets they
used to call the rival faction: the senior officers’ faction was called
‘Karasu’ by the younger officers, while the younger officers’ faction was known
as the ‘Ashigeru’.
(The senior officers’ faction was called ‘Karasu’
(Crows), clearly as a pejorative term, but the origin of the term remains
obscure. Ashigeru means ‘the light ones’, the term used during the feudal wars
to designate the non-samurai troops, selected completely from the peasant
class.)
The Karasu were convinced that the conclusions of Kamio and Kato, who
favoured lavish logistics and mobility, were essentially correct, and the most
expedite way to gain the mobility and firepower necessary for the modern
battlefield was to create mechanized forces, which with adequate air support,
would prove to be vastly superior to the ‘human-wave’ tactics used in the Great
War.
The Ashigeru found inspiration in the ‘Nihon Kaizo Hohan Taiko’
(A General Plan for the National Reorganization of Japan), published in 1919 by
Kita Ikki and immediately banned by the government, and –despite the ban–
widely read in military circles. Kita introduced in his book the ideas of state
socialism, very appealing to the younger officers who usually came from Japan’s
depressed rural areas and who were aware of the dangers of communism. The Ashigeru
adopted a decidedly anti-capitalist and anti-parliamentary stance: their plans
included the suspension of the Constitution, abolition of the Diet and, in
conjunction with the Emperor, the creation of a “direct collectivist will”: the
Restoration Showa would abolish the aristocracy, the Emperor would renounce to
his wealth, the zaibatsu power would be diminished, the peasants and workers
would be supported by the government, and the Japanese society would be
recreated to return to its pre-industrial “purity”.
The gap between the Karasu and the Ashigeru factions grew to the point
to compromise the Army’s training and operational efficiency: when a colonel of
the Ashigeru faction assassinated the chief of the Military Affairs Bureau in
1928, the position of director stood vacant for several months while both
factions negotiated a compromise functionary and the whole system of military
education was paralysed for almost a year.
The complete break-up of both factions happened in April 1929, when the
Karasu faction leaders succeeded in convincing the government into accepting
their plan for the creation of a self-sufficient military industry in Japan and
Korea, by creating heavy industries and their basic industries based on a
comprehensive, planned economic program. The program, known as the First Seven
Years Plan, encompassed the investment in material resources, capital, labour,
and technology necessary to create a heavily mechanized army. The Ashigeru
faction saw in the Plan a new manifestation of the corruption of the Army –or
at least, of the corruption of the Karasu leaders, who were “selling” the Army
to the zaibatsus– and in 1929, an successful attempt was made on the life of
Colonel Itagaki Sheishiro, one of the leaders of the Karasu, the assassination
accompanied by plans for a coup d'etat.
Among the people arrested after the incident was Dr. Shumei Okawa, a
rightwing intellectual, personal friend of the Emperor's brother, Prince
Chichibu, and one of the most important ideologues of the Ashigeru faction:
after his confession, implicating a complot to place Prince Chichibu on the
throne in place of Hirohito and the assassination of the rst of the Karasu
leadership, the Karasu faction demanded immediate action against the Ashigeru
leaders, but in order to avoid the scandal, only a few officers belonging to
the Ashigeru faction were arrested, six were executed and others sent to
prison. From then on, the separation between both factions was complete, and
both sides were ready to fight each other openly.
The only thing in which both factions coincided was in their
disappointment for the civilian government policy to try to diminish the
military budgets and for what they interpreted was the unwillingness of the
civilian leadership to protect what they thought was Japan’s external security.
During the 1920s, Japan made an honest effort to maintaining peace and
cooperation with foreign powers. Japan's economic problems made a naval
build-up nearly impossible and, realizing the need to compete with the United
States on an economic rather than a military basis, rapprochement became
inevitable. Japan adopted a more neutral attitude toward the civil war in
China, dropped efforts to expand its hegemony into China proper, and joined the
United States, Britain, and France in encouraging Chinese self-development.
These efforts were wholeheartedly promoted by Emperor Hirohito, who ascended to
the throne in 1926.
This policy can be exemplified with the most important international
treaties Japan signed before the Second Sino-Japanese War: in the Four Power
Treaty on Insular Possessions (December 13, 1921), Japan, the United States,
Britain, and France agreed to recognize the status quo in the Pacific, and
Japan and Britain agreed to terminate formally their Treaty of Alliance. Then,
the Five Power Naval Disarmament Treaty (February 6, 1922) established an
international capital ship ratio (5, 5, 3, 1.75, and 1.75, respectively, for
the United States, Britain, Japan, France, and Italy) and limited the size and
armaments of capital ships already built or under construction. In a move that
gave the Japanese Imperial Navy greater freedom in the Pacific, Washington and
London agreed not to build any new military bases between Singapore and Hawaii.
Later, the Nine Power Treaty (February 6, 1922), signed by Belgium,
China, the Netherlands, and Portugal, along with the original five powers, had
as its goal the prevention of war in the Pacific. The signatories agreed to
respect China's independence and integrity, not to interfere in Chinese
attempts to establish a stable government, to refrain from seeking special
privileges in China or threatening the positions of other nations there, to
support a policy of equal opportunity for commerce and industry of all nations
in China, and to re-examine extraterritoriality and tariff autonomy policies.
Japan also agreed to withdraw its troops from Shandong, relinquishing
all but purely economic rights there, and to evacuate its troops from Siberia.
The Kellogg-Briand Pact (August 27, 1928), signed by Japan along with fourteen
other nations, denounced "recourse to war for the solution of
international controversies." Finally, by signing the London Naval Treaty
(January 1930), Japan agreed with Great Britain and the United States in new
limitations in naval construction.
The last treaty was bitterly opposed by the Imperial Japanese Navy,
ultra nationalists officers and civilians called the treaty a national
surrender, and navy and army officials girded themselves for defence of their
budgets. A “something must be done” spirit crossed Japan, worsened by the
terrible economic situation provoked by the Great Depression. The Ashigeru
faction decided it was time to act.
After the First Russo-Japanese War (1905), Japan gained some economic
privileges in southern Manchuria. After the fall of China into warlordism,
Japan had helped general Chang Tso-lin to gain control of Manchuria, while
Japan cemented its economic control over the entire region.
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Chang-Tso-lin, Manchurian warlord,
1928. |
Chang participated in the First Russo-Japanese war in favour of the
Japanese, as leader of a unit of Manchurian militia, and since his appointment
in 1918 as inspector general of Manchuria, he controlled that territory. With
Japanese help, he warred to extend his rule southward, against two other
warlords (Wu Pei-fu and Feng Yu-Xiang) for control of the city of Peking. As
the leader of the Fengtien army, he conquered and occupied the Peking-Tianjin
area in 1926. His control over Peking ended in 1928 when he was driven out by
Chiang Kai-shek Northern Expedition. Japan support of Chang was not gratuitous:
a good share of Japan’s commerce was conducted with Manchuria, taking advantage
of its control of the Southern Manchurian railway to create nearly eight
hundred Japanese-owned factories and acquire crucial commodities like coal and
iron.
Unfortunately for Chang and the Japanese, the Northern Expedition,
conducted by Chiang Kai-shek and his National Revolutionary Army, was a
complete success: Chiang managed to overthrew the warlord-backed Peking
government, established a new government at Nanking; launched a bloody purge of
Communist, who were blamed by Chiang to be socially and economically disruptive
and would slow the primary task of political unification under the Kuomintang;
and finally reached Peking in June, 1928.
Defeated, Chang retreated to Manchuria, from where the Japanese Kwangtung
Army chased out the few Nationalist forces in the theatre, and reminded Chiang
Kai-shek of the accord reached with Tokyo in 1927: in that year, Chiang had
recognized Japan's rights and interests in Manchuria, and in turn Japan
recognized Chiang's regime as the sole political authority in China. Japanese
fears about Chiang’s intentions, growing Chinese nationalism and also about a
vastly improved Red Army on the north side of Manchuria's border, created an
atmosphere of anxiety in the Kwangtung Army headquarters, which demanded
reinforcements from the Home Islands. This was the genesis of what would be
known as the Ashigeru Uprising.
As part of the reinforcement demanded for the Kwangtung Army
headquarters, the High Command ordered the 2nd Army division, in
that moment stationed at Tokyo and one of the pillars of the Ashigeru, to leave
for Manchuria. Fearing to loose their hard won influence in Tokyo, the Ashigeru
decided to stage a coup d'etat in the early hours of January 4, 1931: the
Ashigeru faction hoped their insurrection against the civilian government and
their enemies of the Karasu faction would open the way to their dreams of a
‘Showa Restoration’.
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Barricades in Tokyo, 1931. |
More than 34.000 officers and men occupied or tried to occupy the Army
general headquarters in Tokyo, the regional headquarters at Osaka, Kagoshima,
Keijo (Korea) and Mukden (Manchuria), the parliament, the residences of several
ministers and rival army leaders and the Prime Minister. In a homicidal rampage
they killed Lord Keeper of the Privy Seal, the Prime Minister, the Economy
Minister, the head of the Minseito Party, the Army’s Inspector General, the
Vice-Minister of the Navy, several of the “Reliable Men”, including General
Tojo Hideki and Lieutenant Colonel Ishiwara Kanji, and even Dr. Okuma, because
they considered him a traitor. During the next twenty four days, chaos engulfed
Japan, with loyal army and navy units fighting in the streets against the rebel
troops: it wasn’t until the recapture of Tokyo by loyal troops, composed mainly
by Imperial Guards
and led by General Yamashita Tomoyuki, that the Ashigeru uprising was finally
crushed.
Some of the rebel leaders committed suicide before surrendering, some
others surrendered hoping for trials at which they could make speeches and
expose their reasons. However, under orders of the Emperor, all the uprising
leaders above the rank of lieutenant were immediately taken to a military
prison: over one thousand officers and under-officers were charged with
treason, tried in a series of secret martial courts, and executed by firing
squad or hanging.
But the uprising was a debilitating blow to the already divided Japanese
Army: guilty of murdering the Prime Minister and a number of very influential
people, the military lost a lot of its former influence after the uprising.
Hirohito, using his constitutional prerogatives, personally named Hiranuma
Kiichiro –the Navy candidate– as pro tempore Prime Minister and General
Yamashita new Army Inspector General: the new Prime Minister, owing his post to
the Navy, allied with the political parties to cement their control over the
Army and even tried to decrease the military spending, something that almost
destroyed the surviving Reliables’ plans for the future.
However, an unexpected consequence of the Ashigeru Uprising was the
fighting amidst the Kwangtung army: a large number of the infantry troops of
this autonomous force joined the Ashigeru uprising and –after the crushing of
the Uprising in the Home Islands– they threatened to declare their independence
from the Japanese government and establish their own Manchurian state. The
Japanese government, with their hands full in the Home Islands, was unable to
send loyal forces to Manchuria, and the only thing in the way of a rival
government in Mukden
were two brigades of the Senshagun, training in the Manchurian
plain.
During the Ashigeru Uprising in the Home Islands, Manchuria was also a
place where the Ashigeru radicals tried to take what they saw as deservedly
theirs. Infantry troops occupied the Kwangtung army’s headquarters, the
military outpost along the South Manchurian Railway and the Antung-Mukden
railways, and tried to dislodge loyal troops from Dairen and Port Arthur, where
the IJN Ryojun Fleet was stationed.
Meanwhile, two brigades of Senshagun troops, composed mostly by some
dozens of small,
machine-gun-armed tankettes and a few British (Mk.VI), French
(Renault FT17) and Japanese prototype tanks, were conducting a series of field
exercises near the Manchurian town of Yingkow. There, the IJA Technical Bureau
had installed an excellent workshop to provide services for the machines used
in the field exercises whose purpose was to learn how to mechanize the armed
forces and provide it the enormous firepower and mobility the IJA had planned
for the future. Even when the early exercises demonstrated that the tankettes
where no match against the heavier machines, especially when the tanks where
used in combination with air power, the IJA was still trying to integrated them
as a sort of mobile armoured machine gun nests to support the infantrymen.
The first battle between the Ashigeru rebels and the loyal Senshagun troops
broke in January 15, 1931, after the rebels tried to convince the Senshagun
troops to join the rebellion. When these half-hearted efforts failed, they
sieged the town, with the intention of taking the workshop and disarm the loyal
soldiers. Isolated from the Home Islands, surrounded, cut off from supplies and
outnumbered nearly seven to one, the Senshagun troops counted only with their
machines, a few airplanes and the workshop.
After a six day standoff, the rebels launched a human wave attack against
Yingkow, where the loyal men had spent the time entrenching and retrenching.
The rebels were mercilessly slaughtered by the massed fire form the tankettes
and primitive tanks from the Senshagun ranks. After several hours of butchery
the Senshagun tankettes swept through the rebel files, slashing all those who
remained alive with machine gun fire. The ill-planed Ashigeru assault against
the town was completely shattered, and the few survivors surrendered.
Seven days later the Ashigeru uprising was crushed in the Home Islands.
But that wasn’t the end of the ordeal of the Senshagun troops. In a
surprising move, and with no declaration of war, over three divisions of the
Kuomintang’s Nationalist Revolutionary Army, commanded by General Wang Yan-li,
crossed into the Manchurian provinces in January 15, 1931.
When the news of the invasion arrived to Nanking, some members of the
Chinese government spoke against the move, fearing Japanese retaliation. But
Chiang Kai-shek claimed that the crisis in Japan was inducing disturbances in
Manchuria, and the entry of Nationalist Chinese troops into Manchuria was
solely with the intention of preserving peace and order. Actually, watching
Japan in turmoil and Japanese troops fighting among themselves, he wished to
revert the outcome of the Dairen Conferences (1927), where Japan cemented its
sphere of influence in Manchuria.
Although the hastily planed offensive called for the invasion of
Manchuria to occur in February 7, 1931, the fratricidal battle of Yingkow sped
up the process. With cavalry riding on the flanks and an ample force of
artillery in the centre, they proceeded onward to Yingkow, with the intention
to destroy the weakened Japanese forces there.
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Imperial Japanese Army infantryman
(1931) |
Of course, the excuse used by Chiang wasn’t believed in Tokyo, where the
hastily assembled government was completely aware that Chiang’s intention was
to extend his authority into areas beyond what had been agreed to at the
Washington Conference. However, the civilians and the military were trying to
decide what to do: many members of the military demanded a declaration of war
against China, while a good number of members of the Diet recommended
moderation and tried to negotiate with Chiang, trying to extract from him a
promise to honour the clauses of the Dairen and Washington Conferences. Most of
the politicians in Tokyo had no intent to initiate direct military conflict
with China at that time with an Army divided against itself, had strong
incentives to avoid the resulting political conflict with the international
community over Manchuria, and had entered what they thought were serious
negotiations over control of Manchuria.
After a gruelling march, the Chinese forces, after founding the IJA
facilities and equipment at Yingkow destroyed and the Senshagun troops in their
way to Dairen, finally approached Mukden, the nominal capital of Manchuria.
There they were greeted with the news that Chang Tso-lin was assassinated at
the railway station in the city while trying to escape. One of the commander of
the Fengtien Army (Chang’s personal army) was the organizer of the plot, but
the assassins were unable to kill Chang Tsue-liang, son of the previous warlord
and now nominal ruler of Manchuria.
While the Chinese forces cemented they control of most of Manchuria,
occupying a number of strategic points and all Chinese towns within a radius of
200 miles of Mukden, the Japanese government, under heavy military pressure and
taking advantage of Japan’s public opinion, which resented the Chinese
unprovoked attack, decided to demand from Chiang the immediate removal of the
National Revolutionary Army’s troops, and to make a “demonstration.” However,
and to the chagrin of the Imperial Japanese Army, the government decided to use
the Imperial Japanese Navy to teach Chiang a lesson: with the Army discredited
and in disarray by the Ashigeru uprising, the civilian leadership wished to use
the loyal Navy as a political counterweight of the troublesome Army.
Despite the League of Nations’ pleas to contain the conflict to
Manchuria, the IJN commenced with destroying the minuscule Chinese navy, and
when this failed to convince Chiang to retire his troops from Manchuria (by
then the Chinese troops were approaching Dairen), the IJN launched a series of
raids, first quick attacks against strategic objectives and later more powerful
attacks against the Chinese main ports. The Chinese government was particularly
humiliated when IJN
Special Naval Landing Forces (SNLF) launched a surprise attack
in February 17, 1931, against Shanghai, one of the largest city and the most
important commercial port of China. Several thousand SNLF troops which had
debarked unnoticed in the middle of the night managed to infiltrate the city's
defences and caused chaos while the surprised Chinese garrison attempted to
mobilise, but the SNLF troops were quick in returning to their ships, not
before mining the harbour and render it useless for several weeks.
After these daring attacks, and overconfident after having the Japanese
ground forces on the run, Chiang decided to formalize the conflict and declared
war on Japan in March 1, 1931. While appealing for international help to
mediate the conflict, the Japanese Government saw the opportunity to use the
Army forces which were hastily built-up in the Liaodong peninsula against
Chiang. The initial attack, launched from Dairen in March 3, was a minor one,
consisting of only two under-strength divisions (12 battalions in total). But
from Korea the Japanese poured in more stronger forces: three strong and
experienced divisions, including strong air and its first mechanized forces,
the latter composed by tankettes and new S-7 Tetsuken Japanese-made tanks.
The Japanese basic practice was to move to surround the Chinese units
nearest them as rapidly as was possible: the Chinese were once and again
surrounded and forced to surrender. A few of the smartest Chinese commanders
managed to withdraw to new lines, losing much of their strength in the process.
The IJA troops then descended on the hurriedly abandoned positions and make
great efforts to reconstitute their forces there. This process, though risky,
proved to be most successful. In those rare situations where the Japanese were
fiercely opposed, as they were in Gaixian in March 9, they were stopped.
However, this was the exception, not the rule.
As the Chinese forces were expelled from southern Manchuria, Chiang
determined that it would be a better tactic to go on the offensive again, and
took to the field with roughly half his force (nearly 87.000 men), leaving the
rest behind in various positions of garrison in Mukden proper. Chiang proved
that he had not yet learnt the lessons of modern warfare: he launched a mayor
offensive at the south of Mukden against the Japanese vanguards, and while the
Chinese troops achieved some success, this was misleading: the Chinese only
advanced while they heavily outnumbered the Japanese, and even the only slowly.
When IJA reinforcements arrived in March 29 they rapidly pushed the Chinese
forces back to their start line with heavy losses.
This defeat has the distinction that it was the first time when an
armour vs. armour battle took place in Asia. The 36 FT-17s purchased from
France by Chang Tso-lin and captured by Manchurian militia loyal to Chiang
Kai-shek at the beginning of the war were completely destroyed by the Japanese
armoured brigades, now composed almost exclusively of S-7 tanks, despite this model’s
mechanical problems. This victory reinforced the Japanese belief in the inherent
superiority of their Shinsenkyo (New Warfare) doctrine,
which would overcome their opponent who relayed in the anachronistic ‘human
wave’ tactics. Unfortunately, the battle of Mukden also reinforced the Japanese
belief in the usefulness of the tankettes as part of the armoured forces.
The city of Mukden fell in April 16 without a fight: Chiang’s forces had
abandoned the city the day before.
The Japanese government presented Chiang with rather mild armistice
terms (esentially status quo ante bellum plus downsizing of the Chinese
Army), which he found outrageous and refused to accept. Without a strategy to
end the conflict, the civilian elements of the Japanese Government found
themselves unable to extricate the country out of the conflict. This moment was
chose by the Army to present the government with a daring plan: after the
“great” victory at Mukden, the Army claimed, Chiang needed another lesson of
Shinsenkyo, this time in a decisive battle: this would guarantee Chiang’s
acquiescence to discuss terms and finish the war.
After a five weeks lull, used by both sides to rest and replenish their
ranks, the IJA resumed its advance, this time against Peking. After a series of
small battles with Chinese regular troops, Manchurian militiamen and even
skirmishes with Communist guerrillas, the IJA reached the outskirts of Peking
in June 22, 1931.
This time, however, things did not go so smoothly. First, for a simple
matter of arithmetic: while the IJA brought the newly formed North China Army’s
strength up to 250.000 men, 150 S-7 Tetsuken tanks and 200 aircraft; the
Chinese had brought theirs up to almost 320.000 men, divided in three forces,
right (under General Chang Fa-kui), centre (under General Chu Shao-liang) and
left (under General Chen Cheng), the best of the KMT National Revolutionary
Army. Secondly, the Japanese failed to create an adequate logistic system: many
times during the battle, the IJA troops found themselves with dangerously low
quantities of ammunition and fuel. After three months of hand-to-hand fighting
in and around the shattered city, and after repulsing the Japanese invaders
back to the outskirts of the city, nearly 100.000 of the Kuomintang’s best
troops and more than half of their remaining tanks were lost. The Japanese
losses amounted to 60.000 men and the IJA’s reputation, hardly won back after
the “great” victory at Mukden.
After suffering these exaggerate losses, and under pressure from public
opinion and from members of the international community, both governments
arranged a ceasefire, followed by the withdrawal of Japanese troops from Hebei
and their confinement in Manchuria, while Chinese troops were forbidden to
enter Manchuria. Tokyo ordered the North China Army to comply and return to
Manchuria, order that was obeyed despite the furious protests presented by the
IJA General Staff, which found itself again without enough political clout to
impose its point of view. KMT politicians and several warlords also pressured
Chiang to comply with the armistice terms, something he did after a violent
altercation back in Nanking with his advisors.
With total war between Japan and China appearing imminent, several
countries, among them the United States, responded to an appeal to mediate.
Fortunately for Japan, Chiang’s ill-temper, stubbornness, his links with the
Chinese Communist and the Soviet Union, and finally his decision to enter
briefly into Manchuria in violation of the armistice’s terms, predisposed the
international community against China. The new Japanese government, formed
after the armistice and led by former Admiral Saito Makoto with support from
the Seiyukuai Party’s politicians, was able to muster enough diplomatic
pressure to force China to accept a peace treaty advantageous to Japan.
The conflict, known in Japan as the “Manchurian Incident” and in the
rest of the world as the Second Sino-Japanese War came to an end. The Treaty of
San Francisco (September 19, 1931) annulled the previous arrangements between
China and Japan in regards of Manchuria: the new treaty forced China to
recognize complete Japanese control over Manchuria’s postal, telegraph and
telephone services; complete freedom for Japanese companies to invest in
Manchuria’s agricultural, mining and transport industries; the leasing –for the
next 99 years– of the port of Dairen to Japan and the placing of Manchuria’s
coast at Japan’s disposal in military respects; the free entry of Japanese
nationals to Manchuria; and the role of Chang Tsue-liang (the son of the former
warlord) as “Governor” of Manchuria in behalf of the Chinese government in
Nanking. Additional clauses effectively turned Manchuria economically dependent
on Japan, secured Manchuria’s market for Japanese exports and made possible to
exclude Chinese commerce from Manchuria.
In exchange, Japan recognized Manchuria as an integral part of China,
renounced to any and all claims over any Chinese territory outside Manchuria,
and assumed the responsibility for the defence of Manchuria.
This conditions turned Manchuria into a de facto Japanese territory,
with all the advantages of annexation without its inescapable domestic and
international political disadvantages.
Part 2: “Justice on Behalf of Heaven”
"Qui Desiderat Pacem, Præparet Bellum"
--Flavius Renatus, 200 B.C.
After the Ashigeru Uprising, the IJA saw itself with the country under
martial law, with their ranks, especially those of the junior officers,
depleted, and completely dishonoured in the eyes of the Emperor and the public
opinion. Despite the fact that they counted provisionally with some power (the
Army saw the “Manchurian Incident” as a gods-send opportunity to demonstrate
its worthiness, and at the same time as a way to test its Shinsenkyo theories
of mobile warfare), the General Staff knew its position was precarious: the
debacle of the Battle of Peking and the successful naval campaign against China
proved to be too much for the Army, and in the August 1931 elections, the
Seiyukuai Party, with former Naval Chief of Staff Admiral Makoto Saito as
candidate, won the elections. The Treaty of San Francisco, which ended the
“Manchurian Incident” found good popular support, and the new civilian
government, endorsed by the Navy, tried to rebuilt the political system badly
damaged by the Ashigeru Uprising and the “Manchurian Incident”.
The new government immediately copied the example of Sweden, which by
then was recovering quickly from the Great Depression: quick and deep borrowing
and spending in infrastructure and industrial development, in the Home Islands,
later in Korea, and after the San Francisco Treaty, in Manchuria, improving
markly the economic situation and retiring support from the most radical
groups, many of them coincidentally associated with the Army.
Yet, at the close of the war, the decline in production of arms forced
many factories to dismiss its workers. Strikes occurred in the coal, steel,
railway and textile industries, with the urban labour movements spreading in
most industries. The frustration in the country generated fears among
conservative elements, who remembered very well the situation in Russia prior
to the overthrow of the tsar or the Bolshevik Revolution, even when the
situation was far better in Japan than in Russia in 1918.
Despite the efforts of the most conservative forces, leftist movement in
the Home Islands grew in importance, with the Nippon Rodo Sodomei
(Japan’s Worker’s Federation) unionising up to 300.000 people, and the Rodo
Nominto (Workers and Peasants’ Party), of Marxist orientation, gaining 18
of the 466 seats of the Lower Chamber of the Diet in the 1931 elections. By the
1933 elections, a coalition of leftist minor parties, factions, and students
organizations, known as Shakai Minshuto (Social Democratic Party),
gained ten percent of the seats in the lower chamber. Most moderate elements
formed the Rikken Kaishinto (Constitutional Progressive Party,
center-left), while the center was occupied by the old Seiyukuai and the
Minseito parties. The right-wing parties and factions were then merging under
the banner of the Shinnihonkai (New Japan Association), with the support
of the military establishment and the Kyochokai (Harmony Society), an
anti-unions group formed by the zaibatsus.
Meanwhile, in China, the defeat in the “Manchurian War” provoked serious
problems for the Kuomintang and Chiang Kai-shek: protests, many of them bloody,
spread across China, and many people demanded the dismissal of the officials
who had participated in the "sell-out" to Japan, including Chiang.
But the biggest problem, and the real defeat for Chiang, was the legitimacy
gained by the Communist Party, which bitterly opposed the San Francisco Treaty.
Communists remained underground in China's cities, where very quietly they were
organizing in factories, but in the countryside, communists guerrillas were
operating and growing, training and organizing peasants in revolt and promoting
the slaughter of landlords and the redistribution of the land.
Chiang launched several military offensives against the communist,
mainly in Jiangxi Province, but the guerrillas mobility and knowledge of the
terrain allowed them to ambush Chiang’s forces at will. The National
Revolutionary Army commenced to lose large quantities of material and thousands
of men in these ambushes, and many warlords started to try to disassociate
themselves from Chiang’s regimen. The KMT forces were forced to leave a few
outposts on the fringes of the territory held by Mao Tse-tung’s guerrillas, and
were directed against the increasingly restless warlords of China’s interior
and revolting peasants in zones supposedly under complete KMT rule.
By 1935, Chiang’s "communist suppression expeditions” were becoming
a real civil war, waged against Mao’s Red Army guerrillas in Jiangxi, Hubei,
Henan, Shaanxi and Hunan provinces, and even in some coastal districts.
Surprisingly, in spite of his loss of legitimacy after the San Francisco Treaty
and the civil war against the Communist, Chiang's government managed to make
some economic gains: by 1935, China had 115,000 kilometres of motor highways,
up from 1,000 kilometres in 1925. It had 13,000 kilometres of rail lines, up
from 8,000 in 1927. Elementary and secondary education was growing rapidly.
Credit societies were being established, including an Agricultural Credit
Administration, designed to improve conditions in rural areas. Chiang believed
that China had to be stronger before taking revenge on Japan and reconquer
Manchuria, but for some people, his efforts to strengthen China were taking too
much time…
Despite the Grand Depression and the expensive “Manchurian Incident”,
Japan emerged from the Second Sino-Japanese War richer than when it went in,
gaining valuable markets in Manchuria, which commerce and natural resources
were a preserve for Japanese companies accordingly with the San Francisco
Treaty.
The Manchurian government, nominally under Chang Tsue-liang, an addict
to opium who served as a suitable puppet, was actually exerted by an
Administrative Council, formed by Japanese bureaucrats and businessmen. The
IJA, chastised after the Ashigeru Uprising and their defeat at Peking, accepted
the disbandment of the Kwangtung Army and the formation of the Manchurian
Guards: a hand-picked corps, completely loyal to the civilian government, and
especially trained to defend the huge and sparsely populated territory. The
Manchurian Guards were composed by light infantry with extensive air support,
and counted with the backing of the Senshagun troops, which kept training and
experimenting in the Manchurian Plain.
A Manchuria rich in natural resources and sparsely populated had obvious
advantages for a densely populated and resource-poor Japan. Amongst Manchuria's
resources exploited by Japanese companies were iron, coking coal, soybeans,
salt and above all land, all severely lacking within the Home Islands. Japan’s
growing population guaranteed that the Home Islands were no longer
self-sufficient in food, and with a surplus of agricultural population and many
willing emigrants. However, since these emigrants were not welcome in
significant numbers anywhere in the world, as both the United States and the
British dominions actively discriminated against them, they found in Manchuria
a suitable place to establish themselves, specially when the Japanese
government, wishing to make its position more secure in Manchuria, invited the
veterans of the “Manchurian Incident” there, giving them low interest loans
with which to buy land: this offers was later extended to common citizens.
Manchuria became a valve for tens of thousands of Japanese and Koreans who tried
to escape poverty at home.
These immigrants, numbering five hundred thousands by 1936, grabbed
lands and built plantations that produced soybean, cotton, and other forest
products. Nonetheless, a good number of these agricultural settlers could not
compete with the locals who were willing to work for much lower wages. Most
lasted only a year as settlers before joining the administrative and defence
apparatus as supervisors, police, bureaucrats, soldiers and foremen.
On the other hand, the zaibatsus were encouraged by Tokyo to establish
commercial enterprises in the new territory. They built railways, roads, and
hydraulic works to serve these enterprises. By 1936 the zaibatsus had spent 1.5
billion yen in Manchuria, investing in railroads, highways, hydro-electric
plants and improve the area's harbours and navigable rivers. Useful amounts of
iron, aluminium and other minerals were also discovered. In contrast, output of
synthetic oil and coal production were modest at best. The failure of Manchuria
to replace these vital sources was thus a huge disappointment for the Japanese
government and specially the military, because both were industries where Japan
was heavily reliant on foreign sources of supply.
But in 1934 was evident that, while the commercial operations in
Manchuria were benefiting the zaibatsus, tax revenues from Manchuria were not
paying the cost of maintenance, administration and defence. The average
Japanese taxpayer –like his European counterpart in South and Southeast Asia–
was subsidizing his nation's colonial acquisitions. In an effort to support its
administrative and military expenses, including the Manchurian Guards, the
Senshagun Corps and two brigades of native Manchurian militia, the Japanese
government established a monopoly in the production of salt and alcoholic
beverages, taxing consumption of these products. Other producers were banned
and severely punished with imprisonment and confiscation of property.
Despite these setbacks, the protectorate over Manchuria was initially seen
by Japan as an relatively inexpensive and successful experience.
The peace Mongolia knew after the consolidation of the Qing dynasty was
shattered in 1911, with the collapse of the Chinese Empire and the proclamation
of the Chinese Republic. In the early 1920s, the Japanese government tried to
establish more formal contacts with Outer Mongolia: both sides were actively
engaged in political dialogue and in some commercial contacts. The
pre-communist era Mongolian political leaders eagerly sought to establish
relations with Japan vis-à-vis Russia and China. But the political and military
turbulence in Russia dragged Mongolia, which in November 25, 1924, became a
Communist country, the Mongolian People’s Republic, which rapidly became a mere
Soviet puppet regimen.
Contacts between Japan and Mongolia were conducted exclusively through
the Japanese embassy at Moscow, and in 1925 Mongolian diplomats requested the
Japanese government to recognize the MPR in due time. Japanese diplomats
requested Ulaanbaatar to give permission for them to visit Mongolia two times
in 1926 and 1928 and it was only the last minute intervention of the Soviet
authorities what prevented the Japanese representatives to establish direct
contact with Mongolia.
After the “Manchurian Incident” and the instalment of a Japanese
protectorate over Manchuria, the Soviet Union first tried to negotiate with
Japan: Stalin personally insisted on Japanese recognition of the Mongolia
People’s Republic as a sine qua non condition for Soviet recognition of
Manchuria as a Japanese protectorate as established by the clauses of the San
Francisco Treaty.
The Japanese government tried to avoid to recognize the MPR as a
sovereign state. Instead, the Japanese ambassador insisted in a mutual
declaration, in which both sides announced to work together for "the
preservation of the status quo of Outer Mongolia and Manchuria". This was
not enough for Stalin, who decided that the best way to ensure the safety and
security of the Asiatic part of the USSR was to put Red Army troops there
allegedly “to deter any Japanese attempt to use force to extract political or
territorial concessions from the MPR.”
The truth is that the Communist administration of Mongolia was rapidly
turning the country into a humane and economic disaster. After the death of the
8th Jebtsundamba Khutuktu, the communist forbidden his replacement in order to
eliminate the symbol of theocratic power over Mongolia. This was followed by
open persecution of the Buddhist monastic class, the nobility, the nomads, and
the nationalists: these purges and the bloody contra-revolutionary uprising
caused thousands of victims, and the situation worsened when the sheep and
cattle herders, angered by forced collectivisation, slaughtered up to 7 million
animals. Severe food shortages provoke more victims and by 1933 Mongolia was in
the brink of civil war. Recognizing its failure, the Mongolian communist
leadership engaged in the “New Turn Policy”: a socio-economic gradualism is
introduced, while collectivised agriculture and worker cooperatives are
abandoned. Herders and peasants are allowed to own private property again and
the cattle tax is reduced. However, that was then limit of the reform, and
political, cultural and religious repression continued unabated.
All this only attracted the attention of Japan: Tokyo contacted a
Mongolian chieftain, Prince Teh Wang, a suitable candidate to, in due time,
lead a “Mongolian government in exile”, just in case the IJA had to intervene
against the MPR. In November 3, 1935, Prince Teh Wang visited Japan and
received an audience before Emperor Hirohito: some people interpreted the
gesture as a recognition of the Prince’s role as a “foreign head of state.”
Even when this was intended as a public relations manoeuvre, and not as
a recognition of a rival Mongol government, this visit only served to increase
Stalin’s paranoia, and ordered the deployment of more troops in Mongolia, and
stationed them along the southern and south-eastern border of Mongolia on the
pretext of having found "the Japanese plan of military occupation of
Mongolia and creating a Pan-Mongol state", recalling the pan-Mongol
conference sponsored by Japan in the early 1920s.
So, in April 1935, Moscow and Ulaanbaatar signed the “Soviet-Mongolian
Protocol of Mutual Assistance”, providing a legal foundation for the entrance
of Soviet troops into Mongolia’s territory. The deploying of up to 30.000 Red
Army men in Mongolia beside the powerful Red Army forces in the Siberian and
Far East military districts was interpreted by Tokyo, understandably, as a
imminent menace for the future of the Manchurian protectorate. The subsequent
deterioration of Soviet-Japanese relations was followed by the built-up of air
and mechanized forces in Manchuria.
This build-up was followed by clashes between IJA and Mongolian forces
across the Mongolian-Manchurian border, as a way to measure the strength and
readiness of the other side. However, none of this clashes was of particular
importance, until May 16, 1935, when one Japanese patrol was ambushed and
annihilated by Soviet forces, armed with BT tanks and artillery support, in
what was indisputably Manchurian territory.
The IJA commander of the Hailar Military Command rushed in
reinforcements for a punitive expedition in force, and in May 24, 1935, the IJA
force, composed by 3.000 infantry, 15 upgraded Tetsuken tanks (model S-9
Shinhoto Tetsuken) and 50 pieces of artillery, under the orders of General
Nakamura Makoto, entered Mongolian territory and found their Soviet and
Mongolian foes near the Buir Nuur lake. The new tanks proved to be a good match
against the scattered Soviet BM tanks, and the Soviet and Mongolian forces were
forced to retreat after suffering heavy losses. By then, the Prime Minister,
who ignored the magnitude of the “incident” recalled the IJA troops.
From then on, the Soviet-Japanese relations knew a sharp decline: the
Soviet leadership gave instructions to carry out mass arrests and the execution
of several ten of thousands of Mongolian government, party and army cadres on
the pretext of "rooting out the pro-Japanese elements in the Mongolian
government", while Japanese newspapers vehemently denounced the Soviet
Union and alarm in Japan mirrored in the Soviet Union: in a defensive move, the
Soviet Pacific Fleet was ordered to reach home waters, which, in turn, scared
Tokyio into believing that Stalin might be preparing for war. But Stalin wanted
peace: he was launching then a crackdown of rival factions within the Communist
Party after the assassinations of Sergey Kirov and the assumed culpability of
the “Zinovievist” faction and other political rivals. As quickly as the war
scare arose, it subsided.
But Tokyo considered that, after the “Buir Nuur incident”, a
rapprochement with China was a good idea. Chiang Kai-shek, worried about the
presence of Soviet forces in Mongolia, and the virtual protectorate Stalin
exerted over Shen Shi-kai, warlord of the isolated province of Sinkiang,
accepted Japanese proposals for improving relations: both sides diminished the
forces facing each other along the “Manchurian/Chinese” border, forces that
were redirected towards the Mongolian border, in the case of Japan, and against
the Communist guerrillas, in Chiang’s case. But that was no the end of the
story: several right-wing members of the Diet demanded a strong response
against Soviet provocations, and the most exalted of them even suggested a
preventive war against the Soviets. But the rest of the Diet, dominated by a
coalition of the Seiyukuai and the Rikken Kaishinto parties (as a counter
against the Shinnihonkai), simply ignored such demands, wishing to concentrate
their efforts in domestic affairs.
Judging by the 1933 elections, Japan’s political scene was becoming more
balanced, with the ultra-nationalist sympathizers of the Ashigeru faction dead
or discredited, and the rest of the right wing movements and organizations
countered by leftist political parties, which by then enjoyed some stature, and
were pushing for more progressive policies –like the National Health Insurance
Law– in favour of the people more affected by the Great Depression and who
opposed military adventurerism in China, Mongolia and Siberia. Japan,
meanwhile, was climbing out of the Depression, excepting some industries, as
silk and other textiles, which had not recovered most of their overseas
markets.
Meanwhile, due to the political fallout suffered by the patriotic
societies after the failed Ashigeru uprising, and the defeat of the Imperial
Japanese Army in its attempt to occupy Peking, the Army was at a low point in
prestige, and its supporters were trying to reform their public image under the
Shinnihonkai (New Japan Association) party, which publicly supported a moderate
foreign policy, orientated against the Soviet Union; a program of modernization
and strengthening of the armed forces, specially the Army; and domestic reforms
in order to separate the labour movement form Communism, noting the alliance
between Communist intellectuals and the labour movement.
In May 1, 1934, a strike by coal miners threatened to shut down
industries that used coal as their fuel. The government tried to negotiate a
compromise settlement, but the mishandling of the police officers sent to the
mines resulted in the death of three of the strikers and dozens more in jail.
What seemed an incident without importance became a tragedy months later: in
September 5, 1935, a disgruntled young socialist and son of a member of the
Diet, Urameshi Yusuke, who had vowed to avenge the death of the coal miners and
to strike a blow against oppression and for working people, fired twice to
Prime Minister Hirota Shinso as he rode in a motorcade taking him to the Diet.
Both the Prime Minister and one of his attendants were badly hurt, and died
while they were rushed to the hospital. The assassination enraged the nation
and increased the hostility toward communism and leftists in general.
The reaction was immediate: police swooped down on hundreds of labour
leaders and known socialists and communists, arresting over a thousand and
imposed censorship over socialist publications. However, most of the socialist
members of the Diet protested, alleging the unconstutionality of the measures
and the brutality exerted against many of the detainees by the police. Days
passed in a political impasse until Emperor Hirohito dissolved the Diet and
called for new elections. This was taken as an indication that the crisis was
over and all was well again.
This was a good opportunity for the right-wing parties to gain power
through the now consolidated electoral system and, led by General Nakaoka Ken
–an aggressive organizer– the Shinnihonkai gained the 1935 elections with a
considerable margin, taking a good number of the seats enjoyed until then by
the Rikken Kaishinto and all the seat of the Shakai Minshuto, which was
completely discredited by the assassination of Primer Minister Hirota.
The Shinnihonkai –under the nominal leadership of Higurashi Sota, but
under the actual control of General Nakaoka– immediately commenced with
measures to counter the economic crisis, increasing military expenditures and
began to look for recourse in business with its empire abroad and with other
powers. Arms production stimulated the economy, producing a strong recovery,
with the devaluation of the Yen helping to bring a recovery in exports. A
series of important economic and trade agreements concluded with several
countries, including Great Britain, France and several Latin American countries
produced the first favourable balance of trade since 1932.
The public supported this and other measures, especially a strong
military, after the recent clashes with the Soviet Union and Mongolia, which
were understood as a stain on the national honour: the new Shinnihonkai
government was –or at least that was the public’s perception– uniting the
interests of the military and rest of the nation.
The Second Russo-Japanese War
"Only the offensive leads to the attainment of
victory over the enemy. As a type of combat, the offensive has incontestable
advantages over the defence. The attacker has broad capabilities for launching
surprise strikes, for the rapid exploitation of the results of sudden
attacks..”
--Extract from one
of the Imperial Japanese Army’s manuals.
The sudden invasion of the Soviet Union by the Imperial Japanese Army in
March 2, 1938, despite the common opinion in the West, was not an opportunistic
attack launched to take advantage of the Stalinist purge of many of the most
capable of the Soviet military commanders, although that clearly was one of the
reasons. Domestic problems, pressure from the Army and its bitter rivalry with
the Navy, strategic considerations in regards of Manchuria, previous encounters
with Soviet troops, all these factors was taken in account by Tokyo in its
decision to go to war.
Despite the comfortable margin enjoyed by the Shinnihonkai in the Diet,
it faced a strong opposition from parties in the centre and the left of the
political spectrum: its economic policies encountered heavy resistance from the
unions and its failure to negotiate a new economic treaty with the United
States, which by then were suffering from the “Roosevelt Depression”, affected
negatively Japanese exportations and the growth of the national economy,
despite the positive impact produced by deficit spending in previous years both
at home and in Japan's colonial areas.
Besides, in spite of all the government’s propaganda, Manchuria was not
becoming a “land of opportunities” for all the Japanese: small business was
largely frozen out of Manchuria except in the so-called “water trades”, while
small retailers could not compete with the Manchurians and small manufacturers
had little to offer to the great zaibatsus operating in Manchuria and virtually
controlling its economy with its emphasis on high technology and gigantic
enterprises, including the South Manchuria Railroad Company, by then a
state-owned zaibatsu on its own.
Moreover, farmers, who loomed large in official pronouncements about
Manchuria, could not compete with Manchurians and Korean immigrants, and were
forced to suffer under the exactions of landlords and the pressures of their
own numbers. Many people, including senior politicians, commenced to openly
doubted the convenience of maintaining such an expensive pseudo-colony. Among
them, many leftists and centrist even dared to openly ask for the devolution of
Manchuria to Chiang Kai-shek and concentrate all efforts in reforming the Home
Islands. Meanwhile, distinguished naval officers talk about the importance of
the naval arm in these years, specially with the British and their first-class
naval base at Singapore, the recent political problems in Thailand and their
renewed border dispute with the French, and the supposed Chinese threat to
Taiwan. They called for an increase on the naval budget in detriment of the
Army’s ever-growing mechanized forces, directed against the Soviet Union in
defence of a territory that wasn’t technically Japanese but Chinese: “let the
Chinese defend China”, “sell the tanks to Chiang”, and “our sacred Japan’s
security lies at the seas”, were their slogans.
This, of course, was unacceptable for the powerful zaibatsus, which
profited from the markets and cheap manpower of Manchuria; the Army and its
political sympathizers; anti-communist activists and conservative elements
among the Japanese political class, specially the landowners, whose interest
would be severely affected for such course of action.
All these groups also coincided in their assessment of the Soviet Union
as Japan’s main enemy, not only by the recent clashes along the
“Mongolian-Manchurian border”, by the increasing difficulties Chiang Kai-shek
was encountering in fighting “Mao and his Communist bandits,” and even more
worrisome, the Soviet military built-up in its Siberian and Far East districts.
Ever since the "Imperial Doctrine for National Security" was
drawn up in 1909, both the United States and Russia were considered as the most
likely enemies of Japan. The Navy, as always, stressed the importance of the
potential threat to Japan by the United States, while the Army was equally
insistent in its affirmation that Russia constituted the greatest danger to
Japan's security.
The outcome of the “Manchurian Incident” and the protection obtained
over Manchuria forced a redistribution of the military strength in favour of
the : the Soviet response to the San Francisco Treaty and the subsequent
skirmishes with Japanese forces in the Mongolian-Manchurian border was
understandably strong, and the construction of "Tochka" (frontier
pillbox) positions along the border with Manchuria was followed by periodical
Soviet Army incursions against Manchuria, which gave evidence of exceptional
execution and tactical skill of the Red Army.
The year 1934 saw the deployment of the Skorostnoi Bombardirovshchik
(SB; Fast Bomber) medium bombers in the Soviet Far East as a menace to the
Japanese positions in Manchuria, and more ominously, in 1936 the first Ilyushin
IL-4 heavy bombers squadrons were placed in the Maritime Province, at striking
distance of the Japanese home islands. The Shinnihonkai, already politically
and economically supported by the groups profiting with the protectorate over
Manchuria, was now hardly pressed to “do something” by the public opinion about
the Soviet menace.
In the year 1938 seemed that the occasion to “do something” was at hand.
The Yezhovshchina –or the Great Terror of the times of Yezhov– commenced
in 1937 with the murder of 3.000 NKVD commissars that he saw as not fit to
serve under him. After that more people stood trial: confessions and executions
of "Trotskyites" and supposed spies in behalf of Germany and Japan
were followed by a purge of the Soviet military establishment, including
Mariscal Tukhachevsky, chief of staff of the Soviet army and creator of the
“Deep Battle” doctrine, the Soviet equivalent of the Japanese Shinsenkyo.
Accused of hatching a plot against Stalin, he was put on trial in June, and he
was quickly executed.
More purges were launched against others in the Army officer corps and
in the Navy. Including Tukhachevsky and those executed with him, Stalin ordered
the execution of 3 army marshals, 14 of 16 army commanders, 65 of 67 corps
commanders; 136 of 199 division commanders, 221 of 397 brigade commanders, and
all eight of the Soviet Union's admirals. More than 35,000 military officers
had been shot or imprisoned. The Soviet armed forces, which until then were
ominously menacing the Japanese sphere of influence in Manchuria, now lacked
its most experienced and able officers and with the remaining officers too
scared to do anything against Stalin’s wishes.
The Khunchun
Treaty of 1886 defined the border between China and Russia in eastern
Manchuria, as the ridge tops of a series of mountains and hills near the Sea of
Japan. Territory on the eastern slopes was Russian and the Chinese possessed
the western. Although talks for demarcation were begun at the time of the
Buir Nuur Incident, the talks were fruitless and the actual demarcation line
was left unsettled. Manchuria’s long
undefined borders became a source of friction between the Japanese Empire
and the Soviet Union, and one of these
clashes, the “Nozoe Incident”, degenerated into the Second Russo-Japanese War.
The Manchurian Guards and the Chosen colonial administration organized
punitive actions against Korean and Chinese irregulars, funded and armed by the
Soviet Union. Those guerrillas found in the Soviet Far East a haven where they
could train and escape after their skirmishes with Japanese troops and
Manchurian militia. Instead of fighting large battles, they channelled great
efforts into Communist indoctrination with the Korean peasantry and reconnoitring.
They also sent a great number of small units, groups and agitator to Korea and
Manchuria to make preparations for a peasant uprising.
One of this punitive expeditions was organized by Major-General Nozoe
Junichi, headquartered in the Korean town of Yanji, near Mt. Paektu. The mix of
IJA, Korean and Manchurian police forces under his command was known as the
"Nozoe Punitive Command"; and their mission was to clear the
Korean-Manchurian border zone of Communist guerrillas.
The situation in Korea and Manchuria in those days was threatening. The
communist guerrillas of the Korean People’s Revolutionary Army performed some
combat operations in northern Korea, and in their most successful operation,
they managed to destroy 22 Japanese planes and two hangars, and sank two
oil-tankers and fishing boats. After this attack, a friend told Major-General
Nozoe about the impending plan to disband the "Nozoe Punitive
Command" and transfer its authority to the Manchurian Guards headquarters.
Desperate, Major-General Nozoe went on a rampage of punitive actions against
the Korean People's Revolutionary Army. The day he chose to launch what it was
his last punitive expedition was February 2, 1938.
In the early morning of that day, a battalion of Nozoe’s troops fell in
an KPRA ambush near Mudan River. Almost the entire battalion was destroyed:
Colonel Nozoe claimed that the KPRA forces were helped by Soviet regulars, and
showed captured Soviet equipment as a proof. After this disaster, troops of the
Manchurian Guards –the 19th Division under Lt Gen. Suetaka
Kamezo– invaded in full force the Korea-Soviet border zone,
searching for the KPRA temporary secret bases, in Korea and even in the Soviet
Far East; and crossed the Soviet border in February 19.
The Manchurian Guards troops were intercepted by units of the well
equipped OKDVA (Special Red Banner Eastern Army) under Marshal Blyukher: a
hasty divisional strength attack on February 22 was repulsed by the Japanese.
An attack by the 32nd Rifle Division north-east of Lake Khasan and the 40th
Rifle Division from the south-east, was ordered for February 27. Soviet forces
heavily outnumbered Japanese forces in tanks and aircraft: Imperial General
Headquarters in Tokyo immediately ordered to push the Russians back across the
Tumen river. For the mission the Manchurian Guards selected forces extracted
from the 10th, 28th and 29th Infantry Divisions, the 23rd Tank Regiment, the
Botanko Artillery Regiment and the Manchurian Air Brigade. In addition to
engagements by ground forces, there were several encounters between units of
the Red Air Force and air units of the Japanese Army Air Force up to March 1,
when the Japanese forces returned to their original station. The Battle of Lake
Khasan appeared to have come to a close.
But in March 2, a Japanese Army almost
half a million men strong backed up by over 1.800 tanks, invaded the Soviet
Union and Mongolia. Crossing the
border in several points, executing a four-pronged assault designed to
psychologically overwhelm the enemy's leadership: the first was launched
against Khabarosk; the second against Tamsagbulag, in Mongolia; the third was
launched against Leninskoje; and the fourth and main thrust was launched
against Blagoveshchensk, with the intention of cutting the Red Army’s access to
the Soviet Far East. Meanwhile, an aero naval attack, conducted by the Imperial
Japanese Navy and the Special Naval Landing Forces, destroyed the Soviet Pacific
Fleet and occupied the ports of Vladivostok, Sovetskaya Gavan, Katangli,
Nikolayevsk, Okha, and Petropavlosk-Kamchatskiy, and captured the Soviet oil
extraction facilities in northern Sakhalin intact.
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Attack on the Soviet Pacific Fleet
in Vladivostok. From the movie “Sora ippai no kuroi bara” (The sky clouded with black roses), 1994. |
The disorganized Soviet forces were rapidly subdued: the larger Soviet
forces in the theatre were largely made up of conscripts ran by the
Kommissariat, or political arm of the Soviet army. The Red Army had just come
out of the great purge where many of their best leaders and generals were
either killed or imprisoned. Those that were left had only whatever control the
Kommissars let them have. All major decisions went through the Kommissar and
they were there to enforce Stalin’s word. Their lack of proper leadership cost
the Red Army over 200,000 men in the first months of the war to the not as
mobile but better-led Imperial Japanese Army forces. When the lack of roads or
ammunition or combustible forced the IJA to stop, the IJA Air Force operated
with deadly intent and raided constantly behind Soviet lines.
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Lieutenant Colonel Yamashita
Tomoyuki, “The Siberian Tiger”, 1938. |
The Northern Manchurian Army, led by Lieutenant Colonel Yamashita
Tomoyuki, numbering in excess of thirteen divisions of infantry and 40
Senshagun brigades, manoeuvred across the Amur River from Manchuria, and
launched and attack seeking to subjugate the city of Blagoveshchensk: although the
Japanese lead regiments were cut down in the face of the tenacious Soviet
resistance, soon more experienced crack battalions joined the fray, veterans of
campaigns in China and Mongolia. Heavy casualties ensued as the Japanese
succeeded in seizing the northern and eastern outskirts of the city, succeeding
in opening a breach in the north of the city and, pin-wheeling around the
Soviets and cutting them off from behind, thus obligating them to either
concede the city or accept being surrounded. Forced by the political commissars
to defend the city to the last man, the Soviets were defeated by Yamashita’s
forces in April 15, 1938. From then on, the city of Blagovechshensk and its
rail facilities served as the main bastion of the Japanese war effort in Siberia
during the first year of the war.
With armoured forces on the flanks and an ample force of artillery in
the centre, the Japanese proceeded onward to Svobodnyi, taking in vast tracts
of land along the way, and forced to stop the advance to repair the railroads
destroyed by the retreating Soviets. After two weeks, the Japanese forces
finally approached Svobodnyi, where they found themselves confronted by a
significantly numerically superior force consisting of over 60,000 Red Army
men. General Yamashita, as per his instructions, ordered his army to fortify
and wait for reinforcements. The casualty estimates in engaging such a large
force were too high for Yamashita's liking. The reinforcements he was
expecting, however, were being diverted to Komsomolsk to deal with the remnant
Soviet forces there, which threatened the Japanese flank.
Seizing the lull to their advantage, the Red Army had opened up with a
barrage of artillery followed by at least three armoured divisions, which fell
in amongst the Japanese troops and caused immense losses: the Soviets,
employing their domestic advantage, had no shortage of supplies, whereas the
Japanese front was extended over almost 110 kilometres from Blagovechshensk.
General Yamashita, split between literally obeying his orders and following
competent military reason, ordered his forces to commence a withdrawal towards
Blagovechshensk. At the same time, the offensive against Mongolia was called
off after the failure to capture Svobodnyi: the IJA forces, and a few thousands
of Mongolian volunteers, retreated to Manchuria
In June, and acting under direct orders from Stalin, the Red Army began
a powerful offensive against the city of Manzhouli, in Manchuria: Stalin hoped
that a direct attack against Manchuria would force the Japanese to abandon
their positions in Siberia to defend their main possession in China.
Unbeknownst to Stalin and Stavka, though, the Japanese had reinforced Manzhouli
with the North China Army: 30.000 infantry and nearly 400 tanks had fortified
the city. On June 17, with enemy infantry in the lead supported by a heavy
artillery bombardment and armoured forces pulling in the flanks, the IJA was
forced to withdraw into the south-eastern confines of the city to protect
against the vicious firepower of the enemy. The Soviets, taking this as a sign
of weakness, increased their efforts and soon were caught up inside the city,
with the Senshagun forces surrounding them, except for a narrow corridor
connecting the Soviet forces to the border. Keeping together in small, tight
groups, the Soviets managed to break the defences of the city's periphery, but
then were thrown back in a rout as the Japanese armoured forces, outnumbering
the entire Soviet armoured forces by nearly two to one, initiated what may have
been the largest tank battle since the Great War. Despite heavy casualties
inflicted by the Soviet artillery, the Senshagun held together and smashed
through their enemy's lines with extreme success, trapping the Soviet force,
almost 40.000 men, in a pocket in and around Manzhouli.
Both sides rushed to bring reinforcements towards Manzhouli: the IJA
sent Yamashita’s North Manchurian Army, leaving the Manchurian Guards defending
Blagovechshensk, and the Mongolian Army, which offensive against Mongolia was
called off after the failure to take Svobodnyi; while the Red Army sent
powerful reinforcements out of Irkutsk, numbering over 74,000 men and several
hundred tanks. General Yamashita, the 'Tiger of the Amur', by June 24 had at
his disposal a significant force of 111,000 men, several hundred airplanes and
four armoured regiments, which constituted the Manzhouli Front. Despite their
alarming superiority in number of tanks, the Soviets lack in quality of
soldiers, and quantity of trained NCOs and aircrews, and so the threat to the
Japanese force was not as Yamashita feared.
The “Battle of Manzhouli” continued throughout the next eight days,
during which time the Soviets suffered heavy casualties; at nightfall, the
Russians tried a new strategy, and launched an air assault with airborne
troops, though the clever use of AA artillery by the Japanese and the failure
to conduct such novel style of warfare by the Red Army put a damper on the
Soviet hopes of a quick victory: the next week, the Soviets attempts to relieve
the rapidly shrinking pocket at Manzhouli throwing wave after wave of soldiers
at the Japanese ring around the city managed to unseat the Japanese forces
located north of the city.
Exploiting this opportunity, the Soviets deployed whole armoured
divisions into the gap, eventually breaking out into the pocket and threatening
to split the Japanese army into two parts with the Red Army in the middle. But
the superbly trained and disciplined Senshagun were swift to reform and their
lines bent around the Soviet advance; soon the Soviet found themselves again
surrounded: the Soviets launched a ferocious attack, attempting to break the
Japanese ring and re-establish contact with the rest of the Red Army forces,
but they were repulsed repeatedly with heavy casualties.
That the Japanese had maintained a nearly 2.5:1 kill ratio advantage
over the Soviet armoured forces was decisive: the deployment of the S-11 Tsuyoi medium tanks,
with a similar armour than the Soviet BT tanks, but with a larger main cannon
and more range and autonomy, meant that the Soviets were under heavy attack and
losing their tanks throughout their entire advances before reaching their
Japanese counterparts. Psychologically and strategically defeated, General
Voroshilov was forced to call a retreat after several days of bloody
engagement, abandoning the Manzhouli pocket forces to their fate. By the end of
the battle, the Soviets reported 33.000 casualties (Japanese estimates reached
the 380.000 mark) in exchange for 180.000 Japanese (the IJA reported 28.000)
and large quantities of materiel and POWs.
Exhausted, the Soviet retreated towards Irkustk, while fresh Imperial
Japanese Army forces, having been kept south of Manzhouli by the threat of a
Soviet breakthrough, were shifted wholesale into northern Manchuria: their
objective to capture the “Skorovodino Triangle”: the small towns of
Skorovodino, Never, and Tachtamygda, who were still occupied by Red Army forces
and which represented a menace for northern Manchuria and Blagovechshensk. Over
105.000 men, 150 airplanes, and 300 tanks were put under the command of
Major-General Akifusa Shun, who had been commanding officer of the border
garrison in northern Manchuria. General Akifusa led his army after a difficult
march through northern Manchuria by means of an extensive gathering of Kurogane
trucks. By August, after two weeks of transit, the army crossed
the Soviet border, expecting Soviet resistance to first begin in Skorovodino
proper, that being the most valuable town in the “Triangle”. To their surprise,
they encountered only sporadic partisan resistance which collapsed later into
the month after all three towns had been garrisoned with detachments of
soldiers.
The Red Army had retreated towards
Chita, where they were franticly building vital road and rail lines to European
Russia, and amassing forces for a renewed offensive against Manchuria in early
September, before the winter made impossible any ground offensive against the
Japanese. The IJA took the opportunity to deal once and for all with Svobodnyi,
which had been cut off from the rest of the Soviet Union but has supplies and
ammunition to hold out for the entire winter. More than five infantry and two armoured
divisions were rallied against the city. General Yamashita, who presided over
the operation, arrived at Blagovechshensk on the almost repaired Trans-Siberian
Railway. His forced attacked in force the city, hoping it would be the last
operation of the war: despite ferocious Soviet resistance, the city fell on
September 15, 1938.
Both sides, exhausted, rested for the next two weeks, while both air
forces attacked the respective transportation hubs in both sides of the front,
and in the chill air of the early Siberian winter, the Red Army battled their
bloody way into the destroyed remnants of Manzhouli again, after they finally
amassed troops for a significant counteroffensive. The exhausted IJA men held
admirably whilst the Soviet tanks tried to encircle the Japanese positions:
with the IJA men ill prepared for the winter, it became clear to Yamashita that
the Battle of Manzhouli had been lost for the time being; the Japanese forces
began two separate retreats, leaving the Soviet government in control of the
remnants of Manzhouli by the most harrowing margin. From then on, the war
degenerated in patrol and aerial clashes along the front, which extended from
Manzhouli, along the Hinggan mountains, up to Tachtamygda. Both side hoped it
was the end of the war.
Between November 1938 and May 1939, Moscow and Tokyo attempted to reach
a mutually satisfaction settlement of the conflict. In Tokyo, the government
was divided between those who demanded more territorial gain as a security
measure to keep Manchuria in Japan’s hands and secure the Mongolian border; and
those who thought possible a less ambitious arrangement, pointing at the
terrible losses in men and material and how any change in the Soviet borders
would only increase the strategic commitments of the Japanese forces, already
stretched far beyond its logistical capabilities. After several days of
internal struggle, the “hawks” in the Japanese government won over the “doves”,
and were ready to present their demands to Stalin: the Soviet Union was to
accept the demilitarisation of the Transbaikalia and the Far East, surrender
the northern half of Sakhalin and the Maritime Province to Japan, concede
fishing privileges in the Sea of Okhotsk for Japanese companies, and finally,
Moscow should renounce to its mutual defence pact with Mongolia, retire all
Soviet forces from Mongolian territory, and accept the Japanese occupation of
Mongolia.
Meanwhile, in Moscow, Stalin was originally disposed to accept a status
quo ante bellum situation, due to the terrible situation of the Red Army
and the impossibility to defeat the Japanese Army despite the Soviet advantages
in numbers and logistics, but few days later he changed his mind after hearing
about the logistical problem the IJA was suffering. He demanded not only the
devolution of all Soviet territory occupied for the Japanese forces, the
Japanese demilitarisation of Manchuria, and the recognition of Soviet
“privileges” in Mongolia and the diplomatic recognition of the Choybalsan
(communist Mongolian) government. At the same time, Stalin asked what passed
for Stavka for war plans against the Japanese in Manchuria: it was clear that
the Japanese were a danger for the Soviet Far East and he wanted to clear the
Asian mainland from their presence.
In December 3, in Geneva, Stalin and representatives from the Japanese
Empire met and discussed their respective terms. The outraged responses of
Moscow and Tokyo after hearing the other side’s proposal were followed by months
of bickering. Neither side wanted an ante bellum settlement: Tokyo could
not justify the high losses suffered until then without some concessions,
either in the Far East, where they insisted in the possession of northern
Sakhalin/Karafuto and the Maritime Province, a land rich in oil; or in
Mongolia, which, they claimed, was a dagger pointed at Manchuria. Stalin
demanded the demilitarisation of Manchuria as a sine qua non condition
for the termination of the war. In his opinion the only way to safeguard
Siberia and the Soviet Far East from a future Japanese attack, not only against
the URSS, but also against Mongolia.
By February 1939, the situation in Europe was changing rapidly in
detriment of Soviet interests, and Stalin knew it: he proposed a compromise
settlement, with a partial demilitarisation of both the Soviet Far East and
Manchuria and the mutual recognition Soviet interest in Mongolia and Japanese
interests in Manchuria. Initially, the Japanese Prime Minister and the
civilians in the Cabinet saw this settlement as mutually beneficial, but the
Army, aware of the menace represented by Germany to the Soviet Union, wanted
for a renewal of hostilities, in order to force Stalin to greater concessions,
including the cession of northern Karafuto and the Maritime Province. The Army
Minister, Lt-Gen. Nakaoka Ken, attacked what he called Prime Minister
Higurashi's "appeasement of the Communist." This appeasement, he
said, "makes a larger war more likely in the future."
Unable to muster enough assistance from the Shinnihonkai’s “doves”, and
witnessing the popular support for the war, due to the reactivation of many
industries, fuelled by the war orders and what they saw as a “holy crusade”
against the Communists: the patriotic thing to do was to lend a hand in the
struggle.
And thus, the IJA prepared itself for the second round.
On May 14, 1939, the IJA renewed their offensive, their first objective
was to retake Manzhouli, a movement largely anticipated by Stavka. However, in
June, and despite Stavka’s intelligence, the IJA called off all its operations
against Siberia after retaking Manzhouli and Japanese armoured forces were
again crossing the Mongolian border, not in pursuit of the enemy but to take possession
of the country: after the capture of the town of Tamsagbulag, the Japanese
government organized a rival Mongolian government under Prince Teh Wang, who
with Japanese support had managed to forge certain degree of political unity
among Mongolian chieftains: he proclaimed the formation of the Mongol Empire,
adopted the name Demchugdongrub, declared Tamsagbulag the provisional capitol
of Mongolia, and swore to re-establish the Mongolian independence from the
Soviets and the traitorous Mongolian communist.
Around the Baikal, Stalin had been amassing more troops for a spring
offensive. The Red Army forces in Mongolia and the Baikal shores at this time
numbered 700.000, with more than a million men in the reserves, and they had
more artillery and tanks than before. The Red Army's spring offensive began on
early June. Within a week his forces were again in Manchuria: casualties on the
Japanese side were heavy, but they turned the drive around. Using their
overwhelming advantage in the air, the IJA caused more of 90.000 losses in one
week of fighting, and the IJA started driving the Red Army forces back towards
Chita. It was clear that the IJA was attempting, not only to crush any Soviet
attempt to enter Manchuria from their bases at Chita, but also to conquer
Mongolia.
At the same time, forward elements of the Senshagun punched through the
Mongolian border guards line. In their tow followed 80,000 battle-hardened
infantrymen, 223 tanks and 150 pieces of field artillery. Led by
Lieutenant-General Adachi Hatazo, who based his headquarters in the puppet
Mongolian provisional capitol, the Mongolian Front Army advanced rapidly on
Ulaanbaatar, the capital of the frail Mongolian People’s Republic. The
scattered Mongolian regiments patrolling the road towards the capitol,
materially neglected for years and suddenly surprised, were thrown back or
surrounded and forced to surrender in a series of minor skirmishes.
However, the Soviet offensive against Manchuria forced Lt.-Gen. Adachi
to stop his advance: 375.000 men were escorting almost 500 BT and T-26 tanks in
their advance against Manchuria. The Soviet general Semyon Timoshenko signalled
the advance against Japanese positions: the Soviets moved along a
northwest-southeast axis in their efforts to reach the Japanese transport
system, hastily built during the last winter. To root out the Japanese Army at
north-western Manchuria, Timoshenko ordered a detachment of four divisions of
infantry, two of tanks and a regiment of artillery to advance behind their
enemy's rear. The Japanese Army responded by withdrawing into their second
defensive lines to guard its supply lines and attack this new threat; the
Soviet general took the opportunity to sweep behind the Japanese front whilst
deploying thousands of specially trained Siberian troops.
Lt.-Gen. Yamashita intercepted the first diversionary attack, beating it
back into the Soviet border in a brief battle which claimed few casualties
except a degree of Soviet pride, and then, thinking himself victorious,
returned to Manzhouli, only to encounter nearly the whole of the Soviet army.
Yamashita fell back to the southeast but was now pinched between two enemy
forces. After a lengthy and desperate four day battle in the barren plains
around Manzhouli, he realised the size of the forces rallied against him, and
resolved to retreat rather than face destruction. After this great victory,
Timoshenko wheeled south-southwest on his way to Mongolia.
The Japanese army was forced to call off major attacks because of this
and were bent into a defensive posture. The forces in Mongolia were called back
to Manchuria, to join the Japanese forces there: unbeknown to General
Timoshenko, the IJA forces in north-central Manchuria were numerous and well
equipped with tanks and artillery, and was well organised and experienced from
last year's campaign. The IJA Army of Northern Manchuria numbered roughly
380.000 infantry and 500 tanks: forces that advanced due west in order to stop
the Soviet advance into Manchuria. By early July, the North Manchuria Army had
inflicted disproportionate losses against the Red Army forces, which had outrun
their logistical apparatus and were unable to stabilize their supply routes,
thanks to the IJA Air Force.
More than 200,000 Red Army men were killed or captured, narrowly holding
the bridges across the Amur river in the face of an army only half their size,
yet better equipped, better disciplined and better led. After offensives
lasting throughout July the IJA called off its offensive just after reaching
the outskirts of Chita, where fierce resistance succeeded in halting the
Japanese. When it became clear that the Soviets could not be dislodged, but
with Marshal Timoshenko held in check at Chita and Stalin proposing
negotiations, Tokyo responded by ordering an end to its offensive against the
Soviet Union, allowing the Soviets to dig nearly impregnable positions across
mountainous terrain north of the Soviet-Manchurian border. Leaving two third of
their forces behind, the IJA marched to Mongolia to take control of the Kerulen
river basin.
The first major halt was the quiet town of Undur Khan, where the Emperor
Demchugdongrub was recognized by Japan as the legitimate ruler of Mongolia.
Since all the land up to the border paid fealty to the Mongolian Imperial
regime, the IJA had an easy time of his march, and was able to collect food
from the peasantry and quarter his troops in people's houses, without having to
fear Communist raids. Meanwhile, the Soviets pressed all the Mongolian men
available into service as militia to augment whatever Soviet Army forces were
in the area: nonetheless having almost a three-to-one superiority, the
Mongolian People’s Army miserable quality of soldier meant that both heavy
casualties or mass desertions happened.
After resting for a week, the IJA continued to advance: Lt.-Gen. Hatazo
determined that it would be a better tactic to go on the offensive against the
Mongolian Communist forces, and took to the field with most of his forces. The
Mongolians pulled into Ulannbaatar, where they put up winter quarters and
awaited the coming of the next year. However, in early September they were
driven out from the city without a fight, General Choybalsan, leader of the
Mongolian People’s Republic, simply having declared a retreat; excluding sporadic
clashes of cavalry, the war remained one of positions rather than movements: by
mid-September the heavy Siberian winter had begun to set in and covered the
mountains plains with snow; both sides delayed any action until next Spring,
leaving the Japanese momentarily in control of the Mongolian capital and the
rich Soviet Far East.
In the coming months, talks continued at Moscow. Militarily each side
struck against the other, mainly trough the use of artillery, to remind the
other of its military might and determination. In November, 1939, and with
German forces occupying Poland, Stalin finally decided the risk of a two-front
war was too real; hoping to win a favourable and quick end to the war, offered
Tokyo an armistice, that would froze the front and form a “control zone”,
effectively surrendering all territory occupied by Japanese forces to Japan.
Despite the opposition of the most right-wing element within the Shinnihonkai,
who claimed that such arrangement would be appeasing communism and inviting
subversion at the Imperial Homeland, Prime Minister Higurashi, concerned about
the economic costs involved in continuing the war, agreed with Stalin that the
war should be ended.
The armistice was signed on January 27, 1940. The front would become a
“control zone” recognized by both sides, while East Mongolia was to remain
under Communist rule and West Mongolia under Emperor Demchugdongrub: both sides
were allowed to keep up to 30.000 men in their respective Mongolian satellite.
Both sides face each other along a uncomfortable and hardly defensible border,
forced to keep large forces to check each other’s movements. However, while
Japan could sit and lick its wounds, the Soviet Union was franticly transferring
its battle-hardened forces to its western border and replacing them with green
and under-armed forces: the German invasion of the Soviet Union was now
imminent.
The months between the armistice with the Soviets in January, 1940, and
the resuming of the war in May, 1942, were of mind-boggling activity for the
Higurashi cabinet. First, it had to deal with the opposition of Japan's hawks
to the armistice with the Soviets. Outraged, they accused Higurashi of "unforgivable
timidity”, and decried the “shameful action” of “crawling away from the
negotiation table with the tail between our legs.” What was not evident for
them, but painfully clear to both the Army field commanders and to Higurashi,
was the fact that in the conflict against the Soviets, the advantage went to the
Imperial Japanese Army, but by the narrowest of margins.
First, the occupied Siberian territories, unlike Manchuria, was costing
Japan more money than it was able or willing to spend and producing little if
anything in return. The territory was rich, but the capital necessary to
exploit such riches was impossible to extract from the capital-starved
zaibatsus: before and during the war, the government had diminished and then
eliminated the taxes to business profits in order to stimulate rapid
reinvestment and to increase industrial production –especially war materiel–
and diminish unemployment. Thus, the zaibatsus had been investing most of their
profits on the already established industries, leaving them with not enough
money to invest in the new territories. The government was forced to create a
state-owned company to promote the exploitation and settlement of Siberia, the Kokuryu
Jyukogyo (the Amur River Industrial Development Corporation, or Kokugyo).
Secondly, the Hiranuma cabinet realized during the first year of the war
one of the shortcoming in the previous industrialization plan: the previous
governments had envisioned building a Japanese self-sufficient military
industry by creating heavy industries and their basic industries, under the
assumption that material resources, capital, labour, and technology could all
be easily acquired once the control over Manchuria was obtained. Unfortunately,
these plans did not care to consider the creation of a machine tools industry,
the industry most necessary to create other industries. Japan was heavily
dependent on imported machine tools as well as other sophisticated technology
from Europe and the U.S., and the accelerating industrialization after 1937
left Japan even much more dependent on imports from Europe and the U.S.
Rapidly this technological disadvantage transformed in a financial
problem as well: the creation of Kokugyo and the impending reorganization of
the war industries forced Japan to look for foreign sources of capital. The
Cabinet decided to send Ayukawa Yoshisuke, founder of the Nissan zaibatsu, to a
mission to bring foreign capital to Japan. After failing to find support in
Germany, Britain and France, which by then were heavily investing in their own
war industries, Ayukawa made contact with Maxwell Kleiman, a New York
businessman with personal contacts with Kagami Kenkishi, president of the
Japanese shipping company NKY and in whose house in New York Ayukawa was
staying. Kleiman acceded to travel to Tokyo in representation of Kuhn, Loeb
& Co., a major Wall Street investment bank, to meet Finance Ministry
officials to discuss the mediation of loans to the Japanese government in
exchange for ‘concessions’ in Manchuria.
Third, the war had clearly demonstrated that many of the assumptions
made by the Army High Command were partially or completely wrong. The
tankettes, so useful against the Chinese infantry, were proven worthless
against a heavily mechanized foe like the Red Army. The IJA Air Force was badly
damaged by the Red Air Force, and more advanced models, with larger ranges were
needed; the IJAAF
sorely lacked dive bombers, and medium and long range bombers, a
disadvantage which allowed the Soviets to amass its armies unmolested before
each offensive. Moreover, the armoured trains, which in the first months of the war
were of crucial importance, were proven to be particularly
vulnerable to aerial attacks later in the war and the IJA found itself unable
to transport its men to the front with the speed called for its doctrine: the
lack of enough trucks and half-tracks were badly felt during the last months of
the war, with thousands of men making gruesome marches across Manchuria to meet
their Soviets counterparts. Moreover, the large and increasing number of Soviet
tanks was forcing the IJA Technical Bureau to come with some practical solution. These
were some of the disadvantages found in the war, and which could cost Japan the
next war –inevitable defeat, accordingly with the IJA High Command– if Germany
and the Soviet Union managed to reach some sort of agreement, or Germany failed
to defeat Moscow.
Again, the domestic situation was not the best. Those around the Emperor
who favoured peace with the URSS were winning influence over those who had
grown more hostile to Stalin. These more pacific men were pleased by Japanese
economic penetration into Mongolia and Siberia, and Japan's growing economic
ties with China. They also favoured the concentration of governmental efforts
on domestic issues. Some of them even suggested the devolution of the territory
conquered west of the Amur River in exchange of economic concessions and the
demilitarisation of the Soviet Far East and eastern Siberia. The Navy was
pressing for more money to reach the limits negotiated in the Washington
Treaty, now that the U.S. and Britain were expending more money on their
respective navies, with war in Europe seemingly imminent. The U.S. and British
Pacific squadrons, with its bases in Hawaii, the Philippines and Singapore,
were seen as a threat to Japan's shipping between the Home Islands and the rest
of the world, forces able to strangle Japan at will, making necessary a
credible naval deterrent against both powers.
However, part of the the Cabinet and the press and the Army High Command
were opposed to what they called “an incomplete peace” with Stalin: they
confided in Japanese superiority, and they believed in fighting until the
Imperial Homeland won a peace that offered it lasting protection against the
URSS and a peace that justified the nearly 167.000 Japanese soldiers killed in
the war and many more as casualties. The public was deeply divided between
those who wanted the sacrifices that had already been made to account for
something, and those who wanted peace to return to their normal lives.
Nonetheless, the later opinion was held for a slim majority of the Japanese.
Finally, the international atmosphere were changing rapidly. The Chinese
welcomed the war, both as a distraction for the Japanese Army and a lessening
of the Soviet support to Mao and “his bandits”. However, it was evident that
the Japanese Army could crush the Chinese Revolutionary Army in any conflict in
the near future: Chiang began to rearm rapidly and turned to Germany and away
from Japan to sell raw materials including wolfram (for tungsten) and antimony
required for armaments. In return, Germany gave advice and military equipment
to Chang Kai-shek for the purpose of suppressing the Communists and the
eventual war that might take place against the Japanese. Moreover, Berlin sent
Hans von Seeckt, one-time Commander-in-Chief of the Reichswehr, and an
industrialist, Klein, as advisers to Chiang. Both were involved with the
development of several armaments factories and arsenals for the National
Revolutionary Army, now under an unified Kuomintang command. Chiang was
confident that in a matter of a few more years, China would be strong enough to
face the Japanese and expel them from Manchuria, Korea and, maybe, even Taiwan.
A Japanese offers for an anti-communist alliance were rebutted.
Relations with the U.S. were cold but improving, especially during the
last five years –to the chagrin of hawkish Mahanians in the U.S. Navy– mainly
for the sake of mutual trade and economic growth. Talks between Roosevelt's
delegation to Tokyo and the Japanese began on August 2, 1940, but Tokyo decided
that Roosevelt was not serious about an arrangement in regards of China and
naval forces with them. They felt more of a sense of urgency than did
Roosevelt. Concerned about its security and disappointed over its attempts at
an alliance with China, Japan began to explore an alternative: better relations
with France. Tokyo did what it could to improve relations with Paris, including
offering of technological exchanges –the French Army had expressed its interest
in Japanese tank designs– and talks about security agreements vaguely directed
against China, who was seen in Paris as too friendly towards the Germans.
The Higurashi cabinet was weathering these situations when in June,
1940, Germany invaded the Soviet Union. Despite the obvious sympathy felt for
many Japanese towards Germany, or more precisely, the German invasion of
Japan’s enemy, the Higurashi cabinet decided to decline Berlin’s invitation to
join in the attack. The Army was having problems with the zaibatsus in the
former’s attempt to modernize its armoured forces: professional jealousy
between the Army and the zaibatsus’ engineers; corruption among the Army
bureaucracy, with groups favouring the acquisition of their corporate patrons’
models; and excessive bureaucratic dictates were damaging the Army’s efforts.
The Cabinet created, in October 1940, a Military Affairs Committee to combat
such problems, which became known as the Itagaki Committee after General
Itagaki Seishiro, who was put in charge of it.
By early 1941, the Imperial Japanese Army guaranteed it was ready to
resume its offensive against the Soviet Union. However, the failure to convince
Britain and the U.S. of the need for an international conference to reduce
naval expenditures –Japan was in no shape economically to pursue a naval arms
race and at the same time to wage a land war against the URSS– and the
announcement by Britain that in 1942 it would withdraw from the Washington and
London agreements concerning naval limitations, pressed by the Soviet-German
war and aggressive declarations from Berlin, presented Japan with the
possibility of a naval war in the near future, or so the Imperial Japanese Navy
High Command claimed: they menaced with its constitutional right to veto any
plan to resume war with the Soviets if their demands were not met. Admiral
Yamamoto jumped at the opportunity to force the government to increase the
Navy’s budget, stating that "to hold its own in the struggle for naval and
commercial supremacy in East Asia", Japan needed a bigger, stronger navy.
Higurashi was persuaded by the Navy Minister to present the Cabinet with
a plan to wait and divert some resources to the Navy, hoping the Germans would
be able to defeat the Soviets. Higurashi’s cabinet rebelled, and he saw that
his position as –nominal– leader of the Shinnihonkai was in jeopardy. His cabinet
advised him that he had to announce an ultimatum to Stalin as a sort of
compromise with the Army and the Navy, taking advantage of the fact that by
then, German forces were at the gates of Moscow again. And he did so, but not
before sending a personal envoy to Stalin to offer a “mutually beneficial
arrangement”: a peace treaty in exchange of the Maritime Province and Mongolia.
Stalin refused. Virtually everyone in the cabinet was surprised by Stalin’s
defiance, yet the pressure to take advantage of Germany’s successes in the war
was too big.
His offer turned down, Hiranuma sent an ultimatum to Stalin demanding
recognition of Japan's authority over Outer Manchuria and Japan’s protectorate
over the entirety of Mongolian territory, or face war. Stalin refused again.
But Japan’s honour demanded to fulfil their ultimatum, and in May 1, 1942, at
3:15 a.m., the Imperial Japanese Army crossed the control line into Soviet
territory. Twenty five hours later, German forces crossed the French, Belgian
and Dutch borders. The Second Great War had begun.
The Second Great War
"The extraordinary development of the Japanese
tank arm deserves the very careful attention of students of war... In the fiery
furnace of war the tank crews of the Imperial Japanese Army were elevated far
above their original level. Such a development must have required organization
and planning of the highest order."
Semyon Timoshenko, Soviet commander of the
Siberian front, 1942
The first months of the second phase of the Second Russo-Japanese War
were specially difficult for Tokyo: the Japanese invasion of Siberia
automatically turned Japan in Germany’s co-belligerent, and the German invasion
of western Europe the next day put Japan in the dangerous position of pursuing
a war against the URSS and at the same time make perfectly clear that its war
was against the URSS only, not against the Franco-British alliance. It was
clear that Stalin knew about the German plans against France and Britain, and
that was the reason after his refusal to accept the Japanese ultimatum.
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Japanese propaganda, 1942. |
Despite the frantic efforts made by Japanese diplomats to reassure Paris
and London about Japan’s friendly attitude towards them, relations with both
powers cooled noticeably: Stalin welcomed the Franco-British alliance as an
ally against Germany, and publicly expressed his confidence on the alliance’s
support against Japan soon. And Washington also modified its attitude: scared
for what they perceived as a Germano-Japanese attempt to control Eurasia, the
Congress approved assistance to the Franco-British Alliance, amid shouts of
"to hell with Germany and Japan."
In a move friendly to the Alliance, Japan broke diplomatic relations
with Germany, despite the opinion of Japan’s minister for foreign affairs, Hata
Hachiro, who argued that friendly gestures would convince the French and the
British that Japan was afraid. In spite of this, Britain and the United States
banned shipments destined to Japan’s war industries and enforced economic
sanctions against Japan, using a League of Nations’ declaration accusing Japan
of transgressing the League of Nations Charter with its invasion of Siberia.
However, the previous contacts with Paris helped to keep Japan on friendly
terms with France: the French government wished to keep the Japanese friendly,
and France’s interest in Japanese tanks skyrocketed after the German invasion.
Rapidly both governments reached an accord, and in July 16, 1942, France and
Japan signed a non-aggression treaty, followed two weeks later by an addendum
with concrete commercial arrangements, basically guaranteeing the transfer of
Japanese tanks and other weapon systems to the French, to be paid with raw
materials, especially oil. Both Washington and London were alarmed: they feared
that France's “friendliness” could encourage Japanese aggression, but the
French were busy enough fighting the Germans and refused to break their
non-aggression agreement with Japan.
If the situation in the diplomatic front was bad, the situation in the
war front was hardly better. The first days of the war the IJA mechanized
assault, executed flawlessly according with the principles of Shinsenkyo,
advanced unstoppable, until they crashed against the magnificent Soviet
defensive positions along the Ingolda and Shilka rivers: the Red Army, helped
by the mountainous terrain, applied the concept of “killing zones” to defend
their territory: an impressive system of fortifications were constructed along
the control zone, with concrete-roofed bunkers, tank- and artillery-firing
positions, minefields, and stretches of barbed wire. Once and again the
Japanese armoured assaults were deflected with heavy losses.
The prediction of Japanese military planners that the war would be over
by autumn was obviously wrong. It seemed that the Soviet had secured their
eastern front and would easily defeat any Japanese attempt to cross into
central Siberia: during the first weeks of the war the Japanese were kept just
a few miles inside the former control zone. The obvious unwillingness of the
Red Army to launch any counteroffensive in that front convinced the IJA High
Command that the Soviet Union was ready to wage a defensive war, forcing the
Japanese to bleed white in vain attempts to enter Soviet territory.
If the situation in the Siberian front was a modern version of the
trench warfare of the First Great War, in the Mongolian front things resembled
more the German east front: neither side made much headway: the field of battle
remained dominated by swift and highly mobile forces which fought across the
vast Mongolian plains, thus a resolution of hostilities was difficult to
achieve. The Japanese countered the Soviet armoured numerical superiority with
its tactical aviation, especially the Nakayima NK-27 Funryu,
which proved to be lethal against Soviet armoured forces, and the first
platoons of
the new S-43 Tetsuwan, whose successes in the battlefield
rapidly turned it into the IJA workhorse during the rest of the war in
replacement of the old
S-11 Tsuyoi.
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Destroyed Soviet tank near Ula-Ude
(1942) |
Decided to break Soviet resistance along the Siberian front, General
Yamashita decided to use the considerable chemical arsenal accumulated in IJA
arsenals in Mukden, destined originally to use against the Soviets in case of
an invasion of Manchuria. In combination with an aerial conventional
bombardment, the IJA artillery saturated the Soviet defences with a combination
of phosgene, mustard, lewisite, hydrogen cyanide, and biphenyl cyanarsine. Even
when some of the Soviet troops were prepared against chemical weapons, most of
them lacked any protection, and the Red Army suffered heavy losses. The rolling
bombardment lasted for over two weeks, until finally Yamashita sent several regiments of Okami
light tanks to outflank and scout the enemy positions.
The Soviet forces, severely depleted and still reeling after the
bombardment were forced to concede its defensive positions, including the
devastated hulk of the city of Chita: they executed a well-executed withdrawal
along a complex system of defensive positions towards the southern coast of the
Baikal lake. The land gained by the Japanese turned more into a liability as
the endlessly deep Soviet defensive lines folded in on themselves time after
time, each second line reinforced by more artillery and larger concentrations
of infantry and anti-tank self-propelled cannons.
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IJA
Air Force logistical support for ‘Operation Hime’: the invasion and
occupation of Yakutsk, 1942. |
Defeating entrenched defenders was nothing new, but the Siberian front
distinguished from most others by its expanse of land, making any Japanese
assault a logistical feat, with several divisions operating in geographically
disparate areas, closing in on the same goal. As an example, the field testing
of the new IJA paratroopers regiments took the form of dozens of transport
planes dropping men and war materiel over the isolated city of Yakutsk, in
northern Siberia: because of the tenuous supply situation, and the fierce
Soviet resistance, the IJA paratroopers suffered heavy losses and two weeks
were necessary to occupy the small town. However, Operation Hime succeed in
denying the Red Army a threatening position in Siberia, and helped the IJA to
gain valuable experience it used in the War of the Generals.
Whilst the Siberian front remained largely static, with defensive
positions slowly changing hands all the way towards Irkutsk, the Mongolian
front became a potential Japanese disaster as the Soviets aggressively
exploited their superiority in numbers and the distraction of nearly two corps
of IJA troops by the Siberian Front. With the Soviet factories in the Urals
turning out tens of thousands of tanks and aircraft, the IJA High Command
decided to place Yamashita in control of the Mongolian Front, while
Major-General Kaburagi Masataka was put in charge of the Siberian front.
Kaburagi, known as a ruthless commander, was considered more suitable to handle
the Siberian front in the face of the vicious Soviet defence. The Imperial
Japanese Army struggled to secure his fragile supply lines and put an end to
the frequent aerial attacks on their railways, although they only achieved
limited success –the Japanese superiority in tactical aviation was countered
with the Soviet Union’s large number of medium and long range bombers.
But blind luck saved the IJA of a long and uncertain war of attrition:
in early August the Germans finally realized the significance of Moscow as a
communications center, as the hub of the Soviet Union's railways, and its
psychological value, and in one of their last successful offensives of the war,
the Germans surrounded the city. With the Soviets shuttling division after
division to the European front, the IJA was able to march towards Ulan-Ude and
Central Asia in two long trains of men, equipment and trucks. By late August
the IJA reached the Soviet lines in Ulan-Ude and tried to execute an
encirclement, though the Soviets turned out too tenacious for this, as they
held their positions. The Red Army absorbed the force of the Japanese
offensive, bending but not breaking, and took heavy casualties. Two weeks of
heavy fighting followed as the Japanese tried to dislodge the Soviets from
their heavily positions around Ulan-Ude, though this only yielded more losses
and frustration. In the south, the situation was not much different, with
Yamashita forces being absorbed by the vast expanses south of the Sayan
Mountains in pursuit of the retreating Soviet forces, which were heading
towards Central Asia.
By September, and with the harsh Siberian winter approaching rapidly,
Kaburagi launched the second and final attack on Ulan-Ude: the attack bogged
down under a massive curtain of Soviet artillery: despite the fact that the
Japanese artillery had superior range and accuracy, the fact that the Soviet
supply lines were only half as long meant that the Soviets could still outgun
their IJA counterparts. Enraged by his failure, Kaburagi retreated. General
Timoshenko committed the mistake to press this apparent advantage, and soon the
Soviet forces were rushing forward: it seemed that the steady Japanese advance
would be reversed into a Japanese defeat until the Soviets found themselves
under heavy chemical attack. The Red Army tried to held the ground recaptured
and to grind down the Japanese counterattack, but the well disciplined Japanese
forces launched a dramatic assault across the front, defying the toxic fumes
and the Soviet
disarticulated forces.
At the same time, the newly created Strategic Air Fleet
launched a week-long conventional and chemical attack against Ulan-Ude, as a
practice against the Soviet industrial centres in western Siberia: the bombing
–executed at night to reduce the losses of pilots and bombers– was terribly
inaccurate, resulting in the killing of many civilians. The city disappeared
amidst thick clouds of smoke and fire. Soviet resistance in the ruined city
collapsed and Japanese troops entered the city, ignoring the grotesquely
mangled and burnt corpses surrounding them.
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Mongolian Imperial Army troops
near Ulan Ude, 1942. |
After the destruction of Ulan-Ude, the IJA High Command called off
Yamashita´s advance towards Central Asia, considering those territories
strategically worthless. Instead, they instructed Kaburagi to pursuit the
retreating Soviets until he reached the Sayan-Baikal defensive line. Built
between the Baikal and the Vostochnyj Sayan mountains, the Sayan-Baikal tons of
steel and concrete proved to be too much for the IJA, which, after an initial
crash into the Soviet lines, and wishing to avoid a horrible bloodletting
before what appeared to be an early winter, called off all ground offensive
operations.
However, after the destruction of Ulan-Ude, the Japanese Strategic Air
Fleet continued with sporadic attacks against Soviet war production. First, the
bombing of one of the few trucks producing plants of the Soviet Union near
Abakan: the SAF destroyed nearly 2.272 trucks, but the factory was back in
production within a few weeks. Later, an incendiary attack against Bratsk
destroyed some factories and many other buildings destroyed were destroyed and
312 people killed. The SAF could not effectively attack the Soviet Union's
major industrial area, the Novosibirsk-Novokuzneck-Krasnojarsk triangle because
it was too heavily defended, and the winter forced the SAF to call off many of
its raids, but they found other targets. Raids against Ust’Kamenogorsk,
Semipalatinsk and Pavlodar succeeded in destroying a good number of factories.
However, the harsh winter meant an end to operations for the rest of the
year, and after suffering heavy casualties in attacking the well-entrenched
Soviets, Tokyo was eager to engage in negotiations: with Franco-British troops
in the Rhine and with Soviet troops in control of Moscow and approaching Kiev,
it was obvious that Germany was already defeated. The Japanese government
feared that the numerical and industrially superior Soviet Union would finish
Germany first and then Japan. During the harsh winter of 1942, thousands of men
were lost building or improving the IJA own “kill zones”, expecting the
inevitable Soviet counterattack in 1943.
To the surprise of the entire world, the German government was overthrown
by the Wehrmacht in what is known as the Christmas Coup. The new German
military government immediately opened negotiations with Paris and London,
expecting to find receptive ears to their calls for peace. Suddenly, Stalin
realized that if Berlin managed to convince the Franco-British alliance of an
armistice or even a peace settlement, the Soviet Union would be still facing
more than five million German soldiers still in Soviet lands. In response to
German peace overtures with his western co-belligerents, Stalin opened
negotiations with Japan: diplomats from the Japanese and Soviet empires met in
the city of Athens to discuss peace terms.
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Japanese Empire and Japanese
occupied territories, January 1943. |
Two months of negotiations, which began in January 1943 –coinciding with
a tacit armistice in the German western front that allowed the battered
Wehrmacht to counter the last Soviet winter offensives– ended in the Treaty of
Athens (March 17, 1943), which yielded a massive withdrawal of Japanese forces
from the occupied territories in exchange for the Soviet cession of Outer
Manchuria (including northern Karafuto) and the southern half of the Kamchatska
peninsula; the creation of a 15 kilometres demilitarised zone along the
Soviet-Japanese and Soviet-Mongolian borders; the recognition of the Mongolian
Imperial government as the only Mongolian government; and the adoption of a
significant portion of Japan's debt. Although both sides felt unsatisfied with
the terms of the treaty, Moscow and Tokyo grudgingly signed the Treaty of
Athens, thus ending the Second Russo-Japanese War.
Blissfully. The IJA High Command reported a total of 588,000 dead for
the second phase of the Second Russo-Japanese War, in addition to the losses in
war materiel and the losses of the previous war.
Facilis Descensus Averno Est
"Whether Japan and China can establish friendly
relations or not will almost determine our country’s fate.”
Prime Minister
KatayamaTetsu, 1945
Despite the fact that unpopularity of the Athens Peace Treaty in Japan
led to a loss of influence for the New Japan Party, Prime Minister Higurachi
was forced to reach a compromise peace with the Soviets: considered at the Five
Ministers Conference, attended by Higurashi and Finance Minister Shigeaki
Ikeda, Foreign Minister Hachiro Arita, Navy Minister Mitsumasa Yonai, and Army
Minister Nakaoka Ken, the treaty was seen as the only way to face the changing
geopolitical and economical situation of Japan.
Japan had emerged from the war still a constitutional monarchy. And it
emerged with inflation, a huge debt and unemployment aggravated by the
demobilization of ten of thousands of men, and diplomatically isolated. The
Army expenditures: fuel, food, transport equipment and other supplies for
almost 2.1 million men, 1.500 tanks, and 1.300 planes were devouring a large
part of the budget, and both the Navy and the zaibatsus resented the enormous
resources devoted to this huge force. And they were not the only ones who held
a grudge against the Army: bitterness and disappointment among the veterans,
many of them rewarded with land in the New Territories (Outer Manchuria) which
was not apt for traditional Japanese agriculture, helped to fill the ranks of
antimonarchist, anarchists, radical trade unions and restless socialist
revolutionaries.
Despite the repression against them, many socialists and working people
were agitating, strikes were uncomfortably common, and tenants began refusing
to pay rent. On the other extreme of the political spectrum, those who were too
young to have fought in the war against the URSS but who saw glory in those who
had fought for the Empire, helped to strengthen radicals groups who saw Chiang
Kai-shek’s successes against the Communist and the increasing intervention of
Washington in China’s favour as a menace against the Imperial Homeland.
Even worse, a coalition of Korean leftist and nationalist groups staged
a series of riots in Fusan and Keijo, between February and April, 1943, in what
were the bloodiest incidents in Korea before the November 1947 uprising: the
Japanese Army killed more than 7,500 Koreans, 17,300 were injured and almost
74,000 were arrested. Hundreds of Korean nationalist fled into Outer and Inner
Manchuria and China, where some of them organized, with Chinese and U.S. help,
the Korean Provisional Republic’s Army, led from Honolulu and later Shanghai by
Yi Sing-man. The uprising and his crushing by Army troops only helped those
among the Shinnihonkai Party who refused to support the downsizing and reform
of the Army and the relocation of the budget to other, more pressing issues.
In May 13, 1943, mutiny broke out among conservative soldiers in Tokyo.
Fearing a new Ashigeru revolt, the Prime Minister ordered loyal troops, fresh
from Korea, to retake the capitol at any cost: on May 24 these troops succeeded
and the leaders of the mutiny committed suicide before surrendering. The
civilian government resumed power, but its prestige, already badly damaged by
the economic crisis and the Korean insurrection, received a death blow after
its center-right supporters abandoned the Shinnihonkai, and in June 1943 new
elections were held.
The Katayama Government, 1943-1950
The collapse of the Shinnihonkai and the strengthening of moderate
leftist parties resulted the election of a coalition of socialist and centrist
parties centred around the Rikken Kaishinto–Seiyukuai alliance. Its Prime
Minister was Katayama Tetsu, leader of the Rikken Kaishinto. Fear in
conservative groups accompanied his election as Prime Minister, including the
fear that the government could be influenced by Moscow after Katayama
declarations against the budget proposed by the Army, but the radical
legislation they expected never happened. Katayama's government concentrated
around three main topics: domestic reform, assimilation of the New Territories
and a “diplomatic offensive” to end Japan’s isolation. A fourth topic,
demilitarisation, was also present, but was treated with utmost care and rarely
mentioned publicly, but Katayama’s efforts were, at least in part, frustrated
by Chiang Kai-shek’s belligerency and later by the Third Great War.
In the domestic field, Katayama increased spending on building public
housing, usually with controlled rents; broke up thousands of estates, large
and small, as the first part of an agrarian reform (which was not completed
until a few years after the Third Great War, though); abuse against workers,
widespread corruption, and misuse of land by the zaibatsus in Manchuria and the
New Territories were investigated and mitigated; controls on child labour were
enacted and modest legislation protecting Koreans, Taiwanese and Manchurian
natives were voted and approved; the eight-hour workday and the right of labour
to strike were guaranteed; the severity of penalties for minor crimes was
reduced and inadmissible police methods were eliminated; and he gained
popularity with his efforts for protecting the rights of citizens guaranteed
under the Japanese Constitution, popularity that secured his government to survive,
with minor changes, until 1950.
Despite the protests and critics from the right-wing parties, these
measures –due to Katayama and his supporters’ believe that these reforms were
needed to forestall or abort far left movements from taking power in Japan–
actually helped to defuse tensions in the middle of the Japanese society, and
lessened the influence of pro-Moscow groups, something that definitively helped
Japan during the crisis provoked by the Third Great War.
The assimilation of the “New Territories” (northern Karafuto, southern
Kamchatska and Outer Manchuria) proved to be a harder task than domestic
reforms. The vastness of the territory, sparsely populated by people of
Tungusic, Mongol and Slavic ethnicity, the fear of a Soviet attempt to recover
these lands, the necessity to maintain large ground forces there, the lack of a
transport or economic infrastructure, all these problems hindered the Japanese
projects for their new lands.
The Katayama government decided that, unlike Manchuria, the New
Territories will not be developed as part of a “reserve” of cheap manpower and
resources for the zaibatsus. Taking advantage of the necessity of keep a strong
Army presence there, the government augmented the powers and funding for the Kokuryu
Jyukogyo (the Amur River Industrial Development Corporation, or Kokugyo).
Created to oversee the quick exploitation of the Amur River valley in 1938,
Kokugyo was transformed in a development agency to settle the mostly virgin
territory, and transform it in a new frontier for the Japanese people.
Japanese sharecroppers and tenant farmers were given lands, access to
electrical power, and phosphate fertilizers, the government hoping to advance
farming in the New Territories and encouraging migration there, offering former
soldiers land near Takasago (former Khabarovsk) and Karafuto in easy terms.
Japanese migration rose along with the growth in number and size of Japanese-owned
farms. The organization of Japanese peasant pressure groups succeded in closing
the New Territories to Korean and Manchurian immigration: in their native
territories, the Koreans and (Chinese) Manchurians were often able to undersell
Japanese farmers, and many Japanese immigrants with small farms failed at
farming. Thus, the New Territories served as a valve for the Japanese who could
not find prosperity in neither Manchuria nor Korea. This system of
state-sponsored farming communities was implemented in Hokkaido and Karafuto,
too, becoming two other important receptacles of Japanese immigrants.
However, due to the harsh weather and poor roads, most of the people who
moved to the New Territories were not farmers, but industrial workers, miners
and fishermen: the Kokugyo organized the beginning of the industrialization of
the territory, with the concession of the construction of new port facilities
in Urakawa, Washima and Suzu (former Vladivostok, Petropavlovsk-Kamchatskiy and
Nikolayevsk, respectively) to the S.M.R., Mitsubishi and Okura firms, railroads
to the South Manchurian Railways Company (including a study of the feasibility
of a railroad connecting Urakawa and Suzu), the exploitation of the oil
deposits in Karafuto to an Anglo-Japanese consortium, and other industrial,
forestry and mining enterprises were granted to consortiums formed by Kokugyo
with private firms (Nissan, Mitsubishi, Mitsui, Sumitomo, Furukawa, Fujita, and
Noguchi), provided with government incentives such as loans and subsidies.
However, Kokugyo kept for itself the exploitation of the gold mines of
the New Territories, together with the Korean mine golds. Gold provided an
invaluable means of purchasing foreign goods much needed by Kokugyo’s business
interests and the Japanese Empire. The production of about 30 % of gold in the
Japanese Empire was one of Kokugyo’s most profitable activities and was one of
the main financial pillars for establishing and operating its other fronts. The
financing of its other operations was closely tied to meeting the government
drive to boost gold production because of dwindling foreign reserves: as Japan
experienced an acute trade deficit in 1944 and 1945 (due to the contraction of
European and American markets), it began to ship gold in March 1944 as a means
of alleviating further depreciation of its currency and deterioration of its
trade balance.
In addition to pursuing the exploitation of gold mines, Kokugyo sought
the establishment of joint ventures with foreign firms for the exploitation of
minerals in the New Territories, and in 1946, after consulting with the
Manchurian Regional Government and the Nichiman Shoji (Japan-Manchuria
Trading Company), Kokugyo was allowed to sign contracts for joint ventures to
built industrial plants in Manchuria and the Home Islands: Daimler-Benz and
Fiat for automobiles, Harbison Walker for magnesite processors, United
Engineering and Mesta for heavy machinery, International Harvester for diesel
trucks, Reichmetal for light metal alloys, B.M.W. for aviation engines, Boeing
for airplanes, and SKF for high-grade ball bearings, for example. By 1965, and
despite the lost of its Manchurian assets, Kokugyu was the largest Japanese
company and one of the largest industrial conglomerates of the world.
Despite the settling of a good number of Japanese in the city of
Takasago (Khabarovsk), it was the port city of Urakawa (Vladivostok) which
attracted the largest number of immigrants, rapidly becoming the largest port
city of the Sea of Japan. Used in the Soviet era as nothing more than the main
base of the Soviet Pacific fleet, under Japanese administration Urakawa became
a burgeoning settlement: Kokugyu and private firms provided the most modern
facilities to the port: schools, aqueducts, temples, hospitals, a university,
courthouse, harbour, etc., in the hope of attracting immigrants, who would
cement Japanese control over the strategic port. Its location and the efforts
to assimilate the New Territories into metropolitan Japan guaranteed the
transformation of Urakawa into an extremely major commercial centre, connecting
Japan with its continental territories and allies in a time when Korea was
becoming increasingly agitated. Urakawa brought immense prosperity to the New
Territories and it was natural its election as one of the main ports of the IJN
and later as capitol of the namesake prefecture.
The non-Japanese people inhabiting the territory were given a modicum of
self-government, similar to those given to the Manchurians. Unlike the
Manchurians, though, the New Territories never experienced the nationalistic
movements and the “decolonization” process Korea, Taiwan and Manchuria knew:
the scarce population, the nightmarish experience of Communism and the
enlightened policies followed by the Japanese government secured that, even if
there never was a high degree of assimilation, the non-Japanese population of
the New Territories never felt as alienated as the Koreans or the Manchurians,
and many among them favouring assimilation rather than national independence,
advocating that with this assimilation should come more political power, civil
rights and Japanese citizenship.
The “native” population of the New Territories was composed mainly by
Russians, Ukrainians, Belorussians, Chinese, Cossacks, and Mongols; there were
smaller communities of Abkhazians, Altai Turks, Bashkirians, Chukotkans (in the
Kamuchatsuka Special Territory), Kalmykians, Karachays, Tungus, Tatars and
Yakuts.
After martial law was lifted in 1944, Tokyo dealt with the tribal
peoples signing agreements with local tribal chieftains, offering them autonomy
under Japanese protection: tribal chiefs exercised their authority over their
people and collected taxes that were delivered to Japan, ostensibly for
maintenance of the region. The harsh nature of most of the territory
discouraged Japanese settlers from moving into tribal lands, remaining these in
the hands of the natives.
The Slavic population was harder to manage: the lands occupied by the
Slavs were wanted by the Japanese government to settle their own. Initially,
the relocation of population was confined to northern Karafuto, where 100.000
Russians and people of other ethnicities were relocated to the continent
between the years 1944 and 1950. As a result, these and other Slavs formed the
Autonomy Association, which wished to block further losses of lands and sought
reforms rather than the overthrow of Japanese rule, like the abolition of the Peace Preservation Law article that
imposed over the Slavs the obligation to carry an identification card. Further
evictions were avoided and the growing economic activity in the New Territories
organized and fuelled by Kokugyo helped to defuse hostility, but the tension
between the Japanese government and settlers and the Russians and the other
“native” ethnicities was not allayed until 1954, with the Japanese belated
participation in the Third Great War and further acquisition of Siberian
territory, which allowed Japan to create the Far Eastern Republic for the
Slavic population.
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Flag of the Far Eastern Republic. |
An unexpected consequence of the acquisition of Outer Manchuria was the
creation of a growing community of foreign origin in Japan, mostly in Karafuto
and Hokkaido. Despite agitation against immigration from the New Territories by
people in southern and central Japan, another revolt against Japanese rule in
Korea in 1947 and Kokugyo influence helped to impede the enactment of
legislation excluding these immigrants. Even when racial and cultural
differences impeded their total integration, a good number of these immigrants
took advantage of their unrestricted residence rights to settle in Japan, some
of them permanently. The formation of the Far Eastern Republic in 1955
signalled the end of this migratory movement, with large numbers of people moving
to the new republic, but a small community of Russians and Russified Ukranians,
which appeared in Toyohara in the early 1950s, decide to stay in Japan and they
and their descendants obtained Japanese citizenship in the early 1980s.
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St. Sofia Cathedral in Toyohara,
built in 1952. |
During the years 1943 and 1948, the government of Emperor Demchugdongrub
concentrated in undoing the damages made by the communist regimen. The Five
Reforms: political, militar, economic, religious and “national”, sought the
reestablishment of Mongolian traditional lifestyle along more modern lines,
following the Japanese model. Undoubtedly, the presence of the 170.000 strong
Japanese Army of Mongolia helped Emperor Demchugdongrub to impose his reforms.
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Flag of the Mongolian Imperial
State |
The political reforms began with the formal establishment of the
Mongolian Imperial State with the adoption of a Japanese-style constitution by
the Imperial Great Hural. The Imperial Minor Hural is elected to serve as the
standing body of the Imperial Great Hural when such body was not in session.
The Imperial Great Hural was confided with the power to elect a cabinet and a
Prime Minister. The capital city, Ulaanbaatar (The Red Hero) regained its
original name, Niyslel Huree (Capital City).
The nobility, almost completely exterminated by the communists, was
rehabilitate as its skills and money became increasingly necessary to help
Mongolia’s recovery, and received a status similar to that of the Japanese
nobility. The first cabinet, formed by a coalition of moderates, rightists and
nobles dedicated itself to purge the country of communists and impose the rest
of the reforms.
It was clear well before the end of the Second Russo-Japanese War that
because of the scarce population and huge territory Mongolia had to rely on
Japan for its defence. It became also obvious that economically and
politically, Mongolia would also depend on Japan. On the other hand, Tokyo,
despite the onerous cost of its protectorate over Mongolia, considered the
Mongolian Empire as a vital buffer and a direct extension of its Far Eastern
and Siberian defence against China and the URSS, and its way to exert influence
over Sinkiang and northern China.
The core of the new Mongolian Imperial Army (MIA), a 20,000 strong
force, was organized and trained by Japanese officers in the use of the modern
Japanese military equipment. Despite the desires of the Mongolian government,
the IJA advisors insisted in keeping a good number of these Mongolian troops as
cavalrymen, due to their outstanding performance as scouts, skirmishers and
dragoons against Soviet and Red Mongolian forces in the last conflicts, and
insisted in providing older Japanese tanks and transport vehicles to the MIA.
On the other hand, the IJA trained a good number of pilots and provided them
with modern planes, recognizing that Mongolia’s territory was ideal for aerial
warfare. By the beginning of the Third Great War, the MIA numbered nearly
90.000 well trained if poorly equipped men, and remained mobilized for the
duration of the war even when its troops only participated in occupation duties
in Tannu Tuva and Buryatia. Mongolia also supported the Japanese war effort
with livestock, raw materials, money, food, and military clothing.
The Mongolian traditional economic system received a death blow under
the Communist regimen, and Mongolia was forced to rely almost entirely in
Japanese support to recover its balance. As a measure to restore Mongolia’s
economy, the Imperial Great Hural ratified a program for developing Mongolia on
a “directed capitalism” line put forth by Kokugyo agents. The Hural called for
immediate devolution of feudal property, but the nearly 600 feudal estates,
confiscated by the communist and given to members of the laity and monks who
leaved their monasteries, were only partially given back to the nobility, as
most of the new owners refused to surrender their new lands. Many nobles were
indemnify with stock from the de-nationalized firms in control of the Imperial
government.
The livestock herders were de-collectivised, and Japanese civilian
experts, most of them working for Kokugyo, were brought to bring back private
enterprise to reactivate the economy. Many Japanese trading firms opened
offices in Mongolia, and by 1950, exports to the Japanese Empire had rose to
85% of Mongolia’s gross national product. The taxes on cattle were considerably
lowed, devolved the private property confiscated by the Communist Party, lifted
the ban on private industry, allowed the artisans to abandon their
cooperatives, and de-nationalized trade and transportation. For the first time
since the communist takeover, famine didn’t menace Mongolia.
Besides the communists, the only power who could face the Imperial
government was the religious establishment, and the Imperial Great Hural took
measures: after the murder of nearly 800 religious leaders, the Mongolian
Lamaists lied acephalous, a condition that the Imperial government used to
abolish the figure of the Bogdo Khan even before the search for the
reincarnation of the 8th Jebtsundamba Khutuktu who died in 1924. In this way,
the Mongolian theocracy was eliminated and its influence was replaced by the
figure of the Emperor, thus adapting the Japanese model to Mongolia’s
situation. The effectiveness of this system was tested in 1948 when, after
ineffectual protest after the government decided not to return the Dleger Ih
Uul province (until 1924 the Ih Shav’ Buddhist estates) in Northern Mongolia to
the control of the lamas, the Tögsbuyant and Ulaangom lamas rised in rebellion.
The rebel lamas were incarcerated and judged. The lack of support among the
people for the rebel lamas encouraged the government to enact a Law of
Separation of Church and State.
In 1947, the Mongolian government organized a Pan-Mongolian Conference
in Niyslel Huree, where the Mongol Emperor proclaimed the creation of a Greater
Mongolia comprising the Mongolian Imperial State, Inner Mongolia, Tannu Tuva
and Buryatia, as the main goal of his government, and as the only way to
protect the independence and security of the Mongolian people. As part of this
“national reform”, the Great Hural replaced the Cyrillic alphabet and
reintroduced the traditional 24 character Mongolian script, and dedicated large
resources to alphabetize Mongolia, where the 90% of the population was still
illiterate.
Since the figure of Chinggis (Genghis) Khan was still tremendously
powerful among the Mongolian people, Emperor Demchugdongrub advocated to create
a national cult around Chinggis and himself as his heir and descendant. First,
he re-established the Altan Ordon nai Dailga (the Offering Ceremonies of
the Golden Ordon), a series of offering ceremonies based in the Eight White Shitügen
(object(s) of veneration), and conducted first in the Imperial Palace in
Niyslel Huree, and later in a ceremonial complex, the Chomchog, built in
western Mongolia exactly after the structure of the yurts (ordon) of the time
of Khubilai Khan. This became one of the most sacred places in Mongolia, and
served as the substitute of the tomb of the Mongol conqueror, which, despite
Emperor Demchugdongrub’s desires and the best efforts of Mongolian and Japanese
experts, wasn’t found until August 19, 1984, in a walled burial ground 322
kilometres northeast of the Mongolian capital. The tomb, known as the Ikh
Khoring, or the Great Taboo, is now the most sacred place in Mongolia, and
one of the most exciting attractions of the Mongolian Empire.
Also, Mongolia sought diplomatic recognition from the Nanking government
in 1947. When Chiang Kai-shek refused to recognize Mongolian independence,
Niyslel Huree responded with a mutual recognition of independence with the
Tibetan government in agreements signed in the Mongolian capitol. The
recognition of Tibetan independence by Niyslel Huree was saw in Tokyo with
apprehension: in that year Chiang was building up his forces to expel the
Japanese from the continent, and the Katayama government, with its pro-naval
policy, didn’t wanted to provide Chiang with an excuse. Yet, after the Chinese
invasion of Manchuria in 1947, Tokyo immediately signed an Agreement on Mutual
Recognition and Friendly Relations with Lhasa, and Tokyo allowed Mongolia to
participate in the War of the Generals. It was not until 1962 when the Chinese
governments recognized both the independence of Mongolia and his rights over
Inner Mongolia.
The fourth decade of the century began with a Japan “victorious” over
the Soviet Union and almost completely isolated from the outside world,
excepting a treaty of non-aggression with the French. The Katayama government,
judging the situation unbearable, and wishing to respond to world hostility,
decided to make its position in the world more secure by ending Japan’s
diplomatic isolation, and began by looking to an alliance with France and
warming its relations with Britain, the Netherlands, the U.S. and even the
URSS.
Avoiding another war was a priority for the Katayama cabinet. Meanwhile,
the Army began complaining that sooner or later the URSS or even China would
become a menace and Japan might want to go to war against these powers to
prevent this; and the Navy argued that the United States and to a lesser degree
British naval power was already a menace to Japanese position in the Pacific.
In this atmosphere of mutual suspicion and barely veiled hostility was when
Katayama’s Foreign Affairs minister, Sato Naotake, launched his “diplomatic
offensive” of 1944. Sato’s initiative, aimed at Paris, London, Bangkok, Moscow,
Nanking, and Washington, met different levels of success. At the same time,
these powers were also wondering about Japan’s future actions.
In France, the government was more concerned about the troublesome
post-war political evolution of Germany and its domestic economic troubles, and
was happy to reach with Japan an agreement that would make their respective
empires more secure. France recognized Japan's position in Manchuria, and Japan
gave recognition of France's position in Indochina. And Japan and France
settled long-standing disagreements concerning Japanese economic penetration in
Indochina and –secretly– planned future “security actions” if case Chiang would
try to extend his influence south.
Moreover, in a secret treaty signed in Paris in December 1944, and out
of a desire for a rapprochement with France that had been developing in Japan
–due to the former’s strategically placed colonies– and the realization among
French strategists that France was unable to protect adequately their homeland
and their colonies in Asia and the Pacific at the same time; both nations
agreed that –should war break out in Europe– Japan was to defend the
Indochinese and French Polynesia waters, while France's navy was to act in
behalf of both nations in the South China Sea if war should break between China
and Japan.
A diplomatic impasse with the United Kingdom was headed off by Sato’s
envoy, Tojiyi Kikujiro, who with London an agreement that included a mutual
recognition of present borders and zones of influence, but nothing could be
agreed to that would make Japan's position in the Pacific more secure: the
British government informed Ambassador Tojiyi that Britain could not agree to a
mutual pledge against aggression with Japan or any other any security
commitment with Japan, but agreed to an increase in Japanese investment in
British colonial possessions, specially Burma. This agreement had particular
importance in the future position of Japan in South and Southeast Asia.
Rapprochement with Thailand was far more easier. Relations with Thailand
were good during the 1930s and 1940s, specially after heavy Japanese
investments in that country’s rice, oil and wood industries. Japanese
businesses have been interested in Thai natural resources since the beginning
of the XX century. Rice, cotton and lead were initial exports from Thailand to
Japan, and cotton clothes were imported. With the Thai-Japanese agreement of
February 1945, the volume of trade increased, and Tokyo established the
Japan-Thailand Association to develop an economic relationship and later became
the center of Japanese intelligence operation in Thailand, Burma and Malaysia.
As the Third Great War and the independence wars in Asia proceeded,
Japanese intelligence activities in Thailand, based around the Japanese
consulate, the Japan-Thailand Association and later the Minami Kikan
(South Organization, organized by the IJN as a military intelligence group
disguised as a commercial venture), increased, with the long-term aim to
isolate the South Chinese and the U.S. and negate them any influence in the new
decolonised nations. After the independence of the British and French colonies
in South East Asia, the Japan-Thailand Association was turned over to a
consortium (Mitsui, Mitsubishi, Kajima, Nippon-Koei and Kinsho-Mataichi) to
help the Thai, Burmese and Malayans to exploit their natural resources,
especially oil and gas.
Thailand’s sanguine outlook on Japan was confirmed and cemented in March
1942, when Japan sold to the Thai Navy the cruiser Kashima,
re-christened Chakri Naruebet by the Thais, and senior Thai naval
commanders kept visiting Tokyo frequently since the purchase to discuss
possible arms purchases, culminating in Thailand’s acquisition of six out of
nine of its major warships from Japanese companies. Despite Thai protests over
Japanese recognition of the Thai-Indochinese border, relations reached new
levels with the grant of a huge loan from Japanese banks to Thailand, money
that Thailand wanted for the combat of a fungal pathogen called Helminthosporium
oryzae, or brown spot of rice, which was killing their rice production.
Relations knew further improvement in 1947, with the signing of a trade accord,
which included the exchanging of Thai rubber, tin, rice and other agricultural
products for Japanese steel and farming equipment, and Japan’s compromise to
subsidise the purchases of such imports for Thailand's farmers so that
agriculture could be modernised and brought to world standards.
Bilateral relations with the Soviet Union, the latter embittered after
the “betrayal” of France and Britain in the last months of the Second Great
War, were re-established, and both countries agreed –to the chagrin of the
right-wing Japanese parties– to re-establish diplomatic and commercial
relations between their two countries. These warming responded to the little
respect both nations were receiving from the other Great Powers, and, from
Sato’s viewpoint, a prosperous and contented Soviet Union was less of a danger
to Japan. Bilateral relations improved the next years and, to the surprise and
consternation of the rest of the world, Moscow and Tokyo signed a
non-aggression treaty in Omsk in August 6, 1947: the treaty included a mutual
reduction of forces along the border and a pledge from the Japanese not to join
any European power or combination of powers against the URSS, due to Japanese
reluctance to tie itself to European conflicts, and a Soviet pledge to cut all
its support to Nanking’s regimen, which was still receiving considerable help
from the URSS. The spectre of the treaty kept haunting Japan during the Third
Great War and beyond.
In the interest of maintaining peace, Sato culminated his “diplomatic
offensive” with a summit meeting organized in Kyoto in 1946, where
representatives of Britain, Thailand, Portugal, France, the United States and
Holland, met “to put behind any past disagreements” and to attempt a sincere
reconciliation between these countries and Japan. Sato was eager to see all these
nations satisfied on the issue of their security, knowing that this would help
Japan win what it could in the deteriorating situation in Manchuria. The
participants agreed to respect one-another's borders and possessions, and to
cooperate against any aggressor to whatever extent geography and military
capabilities allowed; and they also agreed that disputes that could not be
solved by negotiations were to be submitted for arbitration to the League of
Nations.
Despite Chiang’s refusal to send a representative (he demanded the
Japanese withdrawal from Manchuria as a sine qua non condition before
entering any security agreement with Tokyo), and the scepticism and veiled
hostility of many in the United States (Washington sent a low-level diplomat to
Kyoto and the Congress refused to ratify the treaty); the Pact of Kyoto
solidified Japan’s presence as a legitimate diplomatic and political force well
beyond the borders of the Empire.
Unfortunately, in Nanking the Pact was received with open hostility,
with many Chinese believing that Japan and the other powers were abandoning
previous commitments to respect China’s territorial integrity, and the Pact of
Kyoto was an instrument to isolate the Nanking regimen. The attitude of China's
government was expressed in a coded message that its Foreign Office sent to its
embassy in Washington, complaining that China had "to break asunder"
the "ever-strengthening chain of encirclement" around her, and how
Japanese-occupied Manchuria was "a pistol aimed at China's heart". It
was obvious for Sato that the normalization of Japan’s relations with the
European colonial powers unfortunately didn’t prevented the worsening of the
Sino-Japanese relations or the intervention of the United States in East Asia.
Japanese strategy regarding China changed in the late 1930's and early
1940's from one of opportunism, absorbing Manchuria when China was so weakened
as to be judged incapable of strong resistance, to one of wariness. And they
were hardly the only ones, France and Britain began to feel that their
interests in China were in peril.
The informal Chinese alignment with Germany isolated the former country
from the other European Great Powers, and this only helped to heighten the
nationalist passions among Chinese students and labour unionists: these were
attacking –with the cover support of Nanking– not only Japanese commercial
interests in China, but French and British companies and some nationals also
suffered, and several Chinese groups organized a boycott of British, French and
Japanese goods. In April 1944 in Hong Kong, a strike for higher wages resulted
in British police firing and killing some of the strikers: the subsequent
disturbs paralysed the city for months.
Farther north, in Shanghai, hostility toward the foreigners escalated
two months later into attacks against the foreign missions and consulates,
including looting, robbing and the murder of several foreigners. A joint
Anglo-Japanese gunboat action and an international force protected the
international settlement in the city, and the protest from Paris, London, Tokyo
and Washington forced Chiang to restrain the rioters. These two incidents had
two major consequences: the popular support for Generalissimo Chiang was
reaffirmed, allowing him to had the provisional constitution replaced (July
1944) with a “constitutional compact”, which afforded Chiang nearly complete
powers; and convince the European colonial powers to negotiate.
It was clear that China’s period of internal disunity and external
weakness was over: even when Chiang was unable to defeat either Japan or the
European colonial powers by himself, his virtual victory over the communist
insurgency led by Mao, ruthlessly suppressed at the cost of millions of lives
and now confined in the farthest regions of China’s northwest, and the
tremendous show of popular enthusiasm for the nationalist cause left most
warlords powerless against him and forced the merging of most of their forces
with Chiang’s, hoping to keep some of their former power. This situation forced
Paris and London to start negotiation with Nanking, but Japan’s situation was
far more serious.
China's acquiescence to negotiate with Washington, London and Paris in
late 1944 about these countries’ interest in China, including a guarantee given
to Chiang about the formers taking steps to “coordinate” their interest in
China with Chiang’s policies and to respect China's sovereignty, independence
and territorial and administrative integrity, gave China confidence that by
following a foreign policy of "befriending the far and antagonizing the
near" –which knew a stump after Germany’s defeat in the Second Great War
but was resumed with Washington taking Germany’s place– it would recover its
national sovereignty, specially over the rich and huge Manchurian territory.
This left Japan outside the arrangements and forced to look for a way to
deal with an unified and hostile China. The first year of the Katayama
government (1944) saw a lukewarm attempt to revive a rival Chinese government,
centred around the last Chinese emperor, Pu-Yi. He was a guest of the Japanese
government since November 25, 1924, when he escaped from the forces of the
warlord Feng Yu-hsiang. After the “Manchurian Incident” (the Second
Sino-Japanese War) he lived in Mukden, where he and his entourage enjoyed the
hospitality and protection of Japan, and in January 1942, Prime Minister
Higurashi visited him, with a concrete offer of support him in any attempt to
recover his throne. Unfortunately for him, the failure to create an organized
monarchist group in China due to the popularity of the Kuomintang signalled the
end of Pu-Yi’s attempts to conspire for Japanese help to recover the Chinese
throne: the outcome of the Third Sino-Japanese War and the War of the Generals
put the last nail in the coffin for the dream of the restoration of the Chinese
monarchy. He died of old age in November 27, 1971 in Mukden.
In consequence, Tokyo saw itself trapped in an unmanageable situation:
its earlier concentration in the Soviet Union and its underestimation of
Chiang’s capacity to unify China behind his regimen left Japan with huge
investment and almost six hundred thousands colonist in Manchuria, which was,
by the terms of the San Francisco Treaty, still part of China. Manchuria’s
impending unification with the rest of China threatened Japan's economic
privileges in central China, its protectorate over Mongolia and even its
control over the New Territories (Outer Manchuria). During the years 1945 and
1946, the Katayama government unsuccessfully tried to convince Chiang to sign a
treaty respecting Japan’s extensive economic privileges and the continuation of
Japanese monopoly of the Southern Manchuria Railway in exchange of the
withdrawal of Japanese forces from Manchuria. In private, Chiang claimed to
understand Japan’s position, but he also declared that the status quo
was unsustainable, both for China and Japan.
The deep rooted hatred of all Japanese among the Chinese after the
humiliating defeats in the First and Second Sino-Japanese Wars, and exploited
by Nanking wherever possible during the national unification movement, created
an attitude of rejecting or insulting all things Japanese which had permeated
the Chinese people during the years between the Treaty of San Francisco and the
Third Sino-Japanese War. To make things worse, Chiang’s intransigence, fuelled
by Chinese resentment and envy against Japan, his successful monetary reform in
1940 and the financial boom of the previous years strengthened Chinese economy,
enabling that country to reorganize the National Revolutionary Army along
modern standards, with the help of thousands of Germans mercenaries acting as
trainers and advisors and the financial support of the United States and the
Soviet Union, intensified the anti-Japanese movement and practically forced
Chiang to invade Manchuria in 1947.
At the same time, anti-Chinese feelings were growing in Japan. At first
among colonists, right-wing and pro-Army circles, and later among the general
populace, these were directed against unwarranted infringement of Japanese
legitimate rights in China and Manchuria, which most Japanese believed had been
gained at the cost of blood during the Sino-Japanese and Russo-Japanese wars.
However, the Katayama government was trying to follow the impossible policy of
keeping the status quo in Manchuria and at the same time provide the Navy, the
natural political counterweight to the Army, with enough funds, now with the
United States seemingly more friendly by the day towards Chiang’s regimen.
Concurrently, the nation's finances could not meet the requirement's of
both the Army and Navy, and, as there was no unified budgetary program for the
Armed Forces, year after year there was intense competition between the two
services to see which could acquire the greater part of the appropriations. The
Katayama government sought to revitalize the Navy in order to deter the United
States and diminish the Army’s political influence, while simultaneously
looking towards a more streamlined and strong Army to face the Chinese.
The way for the inevitable clash between Japan and China was already
paved.
The Dark Valley
"Aus
der Kriegsschule des Lebens. - Was mich nicht umbringt, macht mich
stärker."
Friedrich
Nietszche, Götzen-Dämmerung, 1888
The years between the Chinese invasion of Manchuria (March 1948) and the
end of the Third Great War (June 1954) are known in Japan as the “kurai
tanima” (the Dark Valley). Even when the Japanese armed forces knew no
defeats in the brief conflicts of those years, Japan emerged diplomatically
isolated after years of efforts to avoid such fate, strategically overstretched
with security commitments from Tashkent to the Marshall Islands, and socially
agitated under the strain of external conflicts and internal reforms. But history
is written in retrospect, and with the benefit of that hindsight is evident now
that the struggles during the kurai tanima allowed Japan to recover its
national balance and to cement its democratic vocation, despite the regional
tensions generated during those years.
The Chinese invasion of Manchuria, after a six months-long series of
“demonstrations” along the Sino-Manchurian border, began in March 13, 1948,
without so much as a declaration of war: the Chinese Army launched a massive,
headlong, attack across the border against the Japanese positions in southern
Manchuria. The initial wave of Chinese forces numbered in excess of seventeen
divisions of infantry and possessed over 600 very modern German tanks. The
Chinese, led by General Chung Li-shan, manoeuvred across the border from its
bases around Peking on southern Manchuria, with the clear goal of occupying
Fengtien in order to separate the Liaodong Peninsula from the rest of
Manchuria. It was clear that the previous “demonstrations” were nothing but a
stratagem to give the Chinese Army enough time to organise the massive host
into a combat ready state.
The Imperial Japanese Army forces manning the defences in southern
Manchuria, which had been bolstered in late months with large numbers of troops
retired from the Soviet border, was well prepared for the engagement:
consisting of 60,000 soldiers armed with the most modern equipment and superbly
trained, most of them veterans from the Soviet front. Counting with a largely
leg-mobile Chinese Army, IJA engineers prepared in the years before the war
down-scaled versions of the defensive lines built by the Red Army in Siberia,
which proved to be lethal against human-wave tactics. These defensive lines were
built around the strategic zone of Chinchow, between the coast and the desert.
Highly mobile and mechanized Japanese forces awaited behind the defensive
lines, ready to cut down any Chinese attempt to enter the Manchurian Plain.
In the last days of March, the Chinese launched several attacks, seeking
to subjugate the Chinchow defensive lines: although the Chinese lead forces
were cut down in the face of the tenacious Japanese resistance, soon more and
better trained Chinese forces joined the fray, stiffened with both German
mercenary and U.S. “voluntary” forces, and lead by German commanders, veterans
of campaigns in Russia and France. Heavy casualties for both sides ensued as
the Chinese succeeded in seizing the Po Hai beaches: on August 4, the Chinese
launched a massive attack, urged by Chiang Kai-shek in complete disregard of
Chinese losses. The Japanese defenders used their entire arsenal of chemical
weapons, showering the Chinese –and sometimes, their own troops– with a
cocktail of phosgene, mustard, lewisite, hydrogen cyanide, biphenyl cyanarsine
and the new “nerve gasses”, launched from the IJA artillery positions, sprayed
from ground attack planes, and from bombs dropped by the Strategic Air Fleet.
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IJA tanks on the battlefield
(1948) |
Even this did not halt the advance, and soon the whole line, stretching
over several hundreds of kilometres became embroiled in fighting. A Chinese
attempted to exploit their breach to the east, circling around the Japanese
forces and cutting them off from behind, failed thanks to the overwhelming
power of the IJN naval aviation and battleships, thus obligating the Chinese to
either continue their murderous frontal assaults or accept to call off their
encircling attempts.
In this way, the Imperial Japanese Army held their lines despite the
insistent Chinese assaults, until the Chinese Revolutionary Army was forced to
shift their weight around towards the western arid foothills and became engaged
by the IJA and Strategic Air Forces, which kept the Chinese forces at bay:
despite the important contribution of German and U.S. forces, the Chinese
lacked an air force as well trained, equipped and numerous as their Japanese
foes. Meanwhile, the main force of the Chinese Army fortified the Chinese
position behind the Chinese forces bombarding or otherwise harassing the
beleaguered Japanese defence lines, setting up fieldworks and emplacing
artillery behind their own makeshift defensive lines. At the same time, the
Imperial Japanese Navy was finishing the much smaller and technologically
inferior Chinese Revolutionary Navy off Qingdao, thus enabling the Japanese
general offensive of September.
In September 5, and spearheaded by four IJA armoured divisions, the IJA
launched its own offensive from their ferociously defended entrenchments and in
conjunction with a disembarkment of IJN Special Naval Landing Forces and
paratroopers behind the Chinese lines. The commander of the Imperial Japanese
Army, General Yamashita, managed to convince Tokyo that it was obvious that the
war would not be over fighting at the defensive and that offensive operations
were necessary to convince Chiang to negotiate: at this point in military
history defensive warfare was clearly inferior, and like in the Second Great
War, the best defence was a good offence. By mid-September the superior
strength of offensive warfare resulted in an embittered Chinese High Command
forced to abandon plans for a hasty victory, and ordered a withdrawal of the
northern divisions to secondary defensive lines just outside Peking: the
retreat had started.
Taking advantage of their superior mobility, and putting in practice
the new “cavalry” doctrine fom its armour devised by the IJA
after its experiences against Soviet forces in Mongolia, four armoured
divisions, followed by eight more and supported by the Strategic Air Force and
the IJN Special Naval Landing Forces, were able to encircle in the southern
bank of the Luan river almost the entire Chinese Northern Army that, oblivious as
to the inferiority of their forces’ mobility, launched a huge attack out of its
bases near Peking, mixing their brave but ill-trained infantry with scattered
armour crewed by German mercenaries and aircraft piloted by U.S. “volunteers”,
hoping to turn the tide of the war through their sheer numbers and stop the
Japanese advance into China proper.
Although the Japanese attackers were outnumbered, their discipline and
their superior equipment and doctrine easily turned the tide: while pocketing
the Chinese Northern Army, the Japanese forces, supported by their superior air
forces and supplied from the sea after the IJN secured the Po Hai, advanced
towards Tang Shan. There, the Peking garrison and the Chinese Sixth Army, both
among the best trained and well equipped with German armour and artillery, held
the Sixth and Eighth IJA Armies in thrall for nearly three weeks as the Chinese
tried to open a relief corridor into the Luan pocket, while the Japanese were
sending more forces to strengthen the IJA's grip on the pocket.
Increasingly desperate and fearing the consequences of the Japanese
naval blockade of the main Chinese ports, Chiang Kai-shek ordered the use of
human wave tactics, intending to use green troops as cannon fodder to soften
the Japanese defence in the south to the point that the Sixth Army and the
Peking garrison could exploit the momentary weakness to open a corridor. The
poorly equipped and unprotected Chinese troops fell victim of conventional and
chemical attacks, costing the Chinese Army literally tens of thousands of
casualties with no gain. Meanwhile, SAF and artillery bombardment shrunken in
half the Luan pocket, which rapidly was running out of ammunition and
food.
In September 29, and with supplies and ammunition in critically low
levels, the Luan pocket surrendered. The IJA took whole divisions prisoner, and
with them massive quantities of Chinese equipment. As the Northern Army
crumbled in the face of superior force, the only thing between Peking and the
Japanese was the new Northeast Army, formed out of the Sixth Army and the
Peking garrison, which, despite the incessant chemical and conventional
bombardment of the SAF, held together a worthy formation.
This moment was chose by Tokyo to offer terms to Chiang Kai-shek, with
amounted to Chinese recognition of Manchurian independency plus the
demilitarisation of the northern provinces of China proper. These rather mild
terms was the outcome of both the Katayama Cabinet’s distaste for the
increasing in the Army’s popularity and political influence plus the strong
pressure exerted by Washington over Tokyo to limit its gains in China proper.
However, Chiang considered himself far from defeated, and rejected the Japanese
proposal, despite the U.S. ambassador’s efforts to convince him to compromise
for a peace closer to a status quo ante bellum.
With numerous divisions of fresh voluntaries and conscripts, new
armoured divisions, and with his best forces (the Northeast Army) still with
their fighting capabilities complete, Chiang ordered another offensive out of
Tang Shan. The offensive began in October 3 with a frontal assault against the
Japanese forces in the Luan valley: but again, with the control of the air
above the battlefield, the Japanese held firm and repulsed the Chinese repeatedly.
The unrestricted use of chemical ammunition against Tang Shan resulted in chaos
and slaughter, with Chinese infantry hacked to pieces by the chemical attacks
and Senshagun forces, and with thousand of refugees abandoning the city,
clogging the roads towards Peking and making difficult the arrival of Chinese
reinforcements. By the end of the first week of this, the final Chinese
offensive, most of the Chinese divisions had been grounded up and forced to
retreat to Peking, closely followed by Japanese forces that again, as in 1931,
were at the outskirts of the city.
But Japanese plans to encircle the city, in order to avoid the mistake
committed in 1931, and to proceed to the south were called off due to two
events that changed the course of the war: first, the Korean uprising of
November 1947, and the suicide of Chiang Kai-sek.
With most of Korea stripped of Japanese forces, and organized by both
Chinese and Soviet agitators, the Koreans initiated a second revolt against the
depleted Japanese colonial garrison of the peninsula, retreating to the
mountainous interior to evade the attempts of the Japanese and loyal Korean
forces to defeat them. A two month long cat-and-mouse game between the Japanese
and the rebels followed, which claimed the lives of thousands of Japanese
troops and inflicted only negligible losses on the rebels, who were able to
replenish their ranks as they caroused throughout the countryside while gaining
support from discontented peasants. As shipments of smuggled Chinese and Soviet
weapons flowed into the country, the alarmed Japanese authorities began to
clamp down on elements of the pro-autonomy and pro-independence groups and
arrest known dissenters. Kempeitai forces impounded thousands of small arms and
bombs. But facing a too widespread a revolt to respond effectively, the
Kempeitai was forced to demand Tokyo for IJA help to crush the revolt. A good
number of the forces in the Chinese front was called back to Korea to help
putting down the revolt.
However, IJA HQ back in Tokyo decided against calling off the operations
against Peking: military intelligence was certain that Chiang Kai-shek and
other leaders of the KMT were still in the city, and wanted the opportunity to
capture him and the Northeast China Army in the erstwhile Chinese capitol. Army
reserves in the Imperial Homeland were sent to Korea to help quell the
rebellion, while the Imperial Japanese Navy received authorization for a series
of daring attacks against the Chinese main ports: using Taiwan and the Ryukyu
as starting points: almost 15,000 men of the Special Naval Landing Forces plus
the powerful IJN aero-naval forces attacked in numerous points of the Chinese
coast of the East China Sea, including the port of Shanghai, damaging and
sacking supply depots, oil storage facilities and factories, with local
garrisons often taken by surprise under cover of night. But the most daring
attack launched by the IJN was the invasion of the island of Hainan: what began
as a show of force, with SNLF paratroopers taking the town of Haikou, ended
with the complete occupation of the island, seizing it from the increasingly
disconnected Chinese government and using it as an advanced IJN base against
the Chinese southern coast.
Meanwhile, and in an action lasting eight days, the IJA forces turned
back the defensive rings of the poorly supplied and increasingly demoralised
Peking garrison, managing not only to completely surround the city, but to
pocket in it nearly 380,000 unsupported Chinese troops (most of the Northeast
Army): by November 25, most troops had thrown down their arms and surrendered,
after suffering repeated chemical and conventional attacks. Chinese attempts to
break the ring around the city were inarticulate and chaotic at best, with most
of the troops of the Chinese Revolutionary Army either acephalous and
disintegrating or at the orders of the warlords, both new or old. The siege of
Peking had come to a conclusion with the Japanese predictably re-capturing the
strategic city from the few and uncoordinated although determined Chinese
defenders in the inner city by early December. Peking was quickly made a focal
point for incoming supplies from Manchuria, the New Territories and the
Imperial Homeland and proved a great asset in the eventual Japanese
participation into the War of the Generals.
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IJA’s anti-tank self-propelled
artillery, 1948. |
Among the Chinese casualties of the Battle of Peking was Generalissimo
Chiang Kai-shek. He was discovered dead in his home in central Peking: despite
Chinese allegation of the contrary, he was not executed by the Japanese
invading force, but he had hung himself in his private bedchamber. The elite
Imperial Guards battalion sent to find him had strict orders to capture him
alive and unhurt at any cost: Tokyo knew very well that they needed Chiang´s
authority and his role as the internationally recognized Chinese head of state
to put an end of the war and avoid intervention from the European powers or
–more likely– from the United States. The latter were already creating a diplomatic
tussle about the conquest of Hainan, which meant a virtual naval siege of
China, and the death of Chiang in –from Washington’s point of view– mysterious
circumstances and hysteric Chinese accusation of a Japanese conspiracy to
conquer China were only complicating the diplomatic climate for Tokyo. This was
one of the reasons of the virtual war by proxy fought against the U.S. during
the War of the Generals.
At the same time, and in the wake of the Chinese defeat at Peking and
the death of Generalissimo Chiang, a conspiracy of warlords and discontented
members of the Kuomintang attempted a coup d’etat against Chiang’s second, Li
Tsung-jen, blaming him for the costly defeats at Japanese hands and hoping to
recover their former influence over their old fiefdoms. The tumult that
followed the attack was used by Li to flee Nanking towards Guangdong, with the
warlords and their supporters sealing off and fortifying many parts of Nanking,
and even some of them attempted to negotiate with Tokyo in behalf of the Chinese
government.
The Third Sino-Japanese War was costly and bloody, despite its brevity.
A horrid total of over 700,000 military casualties, three quarters of these
Chinese, and an indeterminate total of civilian losses were added to the
butcher’s bill. The total of the latter is unknown but it’s clear that these
were horrendous, especially on Peking, Tang Shan and towns target of chemical
attacks; these plus the unsettling disregard of the Chinese commanders for the
lives of their own civilians –in their zeal to fight the Japanese– combined in
some of the most grisly scenes of warfare up to date.
Further complicating the scene was the long-delayed independence of the
Philippines, granted by the U.S. in January 1, 1949. Despite its status as an
independent nation, Manila was closely aligned with Washington, and hosted
powerful U.S. Navy aero-naval forces in Cavite and Subic Bay.
How foreign interests would react to the new balance of power in Asia
remained to be seen.
With Chiang Kai-shek gone, and several warlords (some old, some new),
vying for power in the Chinese interior and in Nanking, it was not clear to
Tokyo (or for anybody else for that matter) who was in charge and with whom
they were supposed to negotiate the Chinese rendition. Washington was the first
to react: they rapidly recognized Li Tsung-jen, commander of the Chinese
Revolutionary Army’s (CRA) Seventh Army (with its HQ located in Guandong), one
of the most influential men in the Kuomintang, vice-president of China and
fervent anti-Japanese as new Chinese head of government. Although he was
nothing but another warlord, Li implemented, with Washington’s financial and
diplomatic backing, a series of measures to bring stability to the zones he
controlled, known as the “Seven Great Peace Policies,” and dimmed by Washington
as an “unequivocal” sign of Li’s intentions to install a democratic government
in China. However, his personal sympathies for other policies dimmed “communist”
for right-wingers in the Kuomintang and for federalism, impeded the
reorganization of the KMT and the CRA around Li Tsung-jen.
In response, Tokyo established a puppet regimen in Peking led by Tu
Yu-ming, one of the generals of the CRA, with control of the province of Hebei
(including the cities of Peking and Tianjin), with whom Tokyo concluded a peace
treaty. Known as the Treaty of Peking (April 1949), the puppet government of
Peking recognized the cession of Manchuria and Hainan (including the Paracel and
Spratley islands) to Japan; the right to install garrisons in China’s main
ports; the recognition of Japanese commercial rights in China proper; Imperial
Mongolia’s control over the Mongolian-populated areas of the provinces of
Ninghsia, Suiyuan, Chahar and Hsingan (Inner Mongolia) and the independence of
Tibet and Sinkiang. Even when his association with the Japanese alienated many
fervent Chinese patriots, his anti-Communist stance, Japan’s military and
political support, and his control of the rich cities of Peking and Tianjin,
allowed Tu Yu-ming to gain access to the outer world, an industrial base, a
well-trained and armed if not very loyal force, and some support at the expense
of other northern warlords. At the same time, a combined action by IJA and
Imperial Mongolian forces knocked down the Jining warlord and pacified the
bandit-ravaged provinces of Shandong and Shanxi, to be surrendered to the
Peking government.
At the same time, in Nanking, the quick dissolution of the Kuomintang
Party further compounded the situation by leaving a vast power vacuum in the
rest of China which was compensated for by increased sporadic acts of violence
and radical Nationalist and Communist sabotage. Central China’s armies were
slipping into chaos over the issue of Chiang’s succession and how to deal with
rebels, revolutionaries and dissenters. One of the strongest Chinese forces,
the Tenth Army, which served as Nanking and Shanghai’s garrison, fell under the
control of Pai Chung-hsi, former warlord of Guangxi and political rival of Li
Tsung-jen. Pai was one of Chiang's tactical advisors in numerous CRA victories
against other warlords during the Northern Expedition, and he disbanded the
Tenth Army and reorganized it as the Green Banner Army (GBA): he rapidly used
the GBA to defeat his rivals in Nanking and impose his control over the
provinces of Jiangsu, Anhui and Chejiang.
In central China, part of the left-leaning members of the CRA wanted to
join forces with Li Tsung-jen against Pai Chung-hsi and the Japanese-backed
Peking government; while a second group, formed around Liu Chih and composed by
former members of the proto-fascist Blue Shirts, violently anti-Japanese and
anti-Communist, broke with the first group and started to wage war against
them. A third group, far more numerous but weaker in both men and resources,
were small warlords and adventurers that looked only after themselves. Further
scandals on the disbursement of funding for social services, including public
schools, food subsidies, public housing and agricultural aid led to a loss of
faith in a centralized government. Ethnic violence against Europeans and
Japanese escalated as the state of political uncertainty in China’s three
capitols reached a peak.
This time of opportunities was also harnessed by Mao Tse-tung and the
badly mauled Communist guerrillas, which once again, with Soviet backing, were
trying to install a “dictatorship of the proletariat” in China. In the town of
Yinchuan, in the province of Ninghsia, a mob of disillusioned peasants rallied
around the figure of Mao, which proclaimed Yinchuan as the centrepiece and
example of an advanced revolutionary society. A few weeks later, Imperial
Mongolian Army troops chased down Mao out of Qinghai and destroyed his
“revolutionary society”. It did not meant the end of Marxism in China, though:
Mao re-established his headquarters in Xining, Qinghai, and both rural and
urban guerrillas appeared in years to come, some of them affiliated to Mao’s
CCP, other were splinter groups lead by Lin Biao and other of his former
collaborators.
In Tokyo, Prime Minister Katayama chose this moment to call back the IJA
forces from Peking and ordered their return to Manchuria. Unwilling to entangle
in the fight between Peking, Nanking, and Guangdong, Katayama hoped that Pai
Chung-hsi could be convinced to recognize the Peking Treaty and unify China
with no further direct Japanese intervention: by early 1949 Japan was
uncomfortably close to strategic overstretch and with the costly Third
Sino-Japanese War and its aftermath badly damaging the diplomatic position
gained by Japan in recent years. Even when the French and the British
understood Japan’s position, both London and Paris recognized Li’s government
in Guangdong as the legitimate Chinese government and offered no diplomatic
support to Tokyo.
Besides, the URSS, despite its non-aggression treaty with Japan, was
steadily but noticeably reinforcing the border garrisons and its defensive
lines along the common border, something that really scared the Cabinet in
Tokyo. The only action that Katayama took until his electoral defeat in 1950
was to allow Imperial Mongolia to act in behalf of the Mongolians living in
China: Emperor Demchugdongrub’s forces entered Inner Mongolia and occupied the
towns of Baotou and Hohhot: after repulsing the weak warlord of Jining, the
still weak Imperial Mongolian Army decided to call off any other offensive
operation and consolidate its conquest.
So the War of the Generals –as the multi-sided Chinese civil war is
known– proceeded, with a Washington-backed warlord in the south, a Tokyo-backed
warlord in the north, an independent warlord in the centre and chaos in the
remainder of China.
In Korea, the years 1948 and 1949 were of tense calm: the large Korean
rebellion was put down by the local garrison and forces extracted from the IJA
reserves and SNLF. After being slaughtered by the better-trained, armed and
organised Japanese forces, the November revolt was followed by scattered
uprisings of Korean nationalists, but the support for the revolt amongst the
common people was lacking as most were content with the measures taken by Tokyo
to defuse the rebellion, including the exception of ethnic Koreans from the
compulsory military service. After the dying out of disturbances by mid-January
1949, the rest of the year proceeded smoothly. However, Korean nationalist
belonging to the Korean Provisional Republic’s Army, and seeing how the U.S.
granted independence to the Philippines, declared Korean independence in June
11, 1949, in the southern Chinese city of Nanning, with Yi Sing-man as
President of Korea. Even when both Washington and Li Tsung-jen supported Yi,
neither was ready to recognize Korean independence, a move that would surely
meant war with Japan and the displeasure of the European colonial powers.
The “victory” in the Third Sino-Japanese War ironically served both as a
boost and as the end for the Katayama government’s popularity; the growing
civic moral of early 1948 was followed by the extinction of regular commerce
with China, which had enjoyed a fivefold increase in the last ten years, which
meant a declination in the Japanese exports and an economic slowdown. Coupled
with the expenses of the war and the Korean revolts (which suppression damaged
Japan’s international image), the lost of markets to a recovering Germany,
rising unemployment, and finally with a large debt to German and U.S.
creditors, a sudden banking crisis arose in early 1949: Japan experienced
financial panic, widespread business paralysis and an upward spiral in prices.
Coincidentally, the discredit of the ruling coalition resulted in the
collapse and reform of the old political parties. Suffering the same fate of
the old Shinnihonkai, the main political parties divided into multiple
factions: the old Shinnihonkai had splitted years ago into the conservative Kokumin
Shinto (New Popular Party), the fascist Tohokai (Eastern Society)
and several minor groups; several leftist groups abandoned the centre-left Rikken
Kaishinto (Constitutional Progressive Party) and the Nihon Shakaito
(Japan Socialist Party) and merged into the Shinshakaito (New Socialist
Party): after the split, the Rikken Kaishinto absorbed several groups and
renamed itself Shakai Minshuto (Social Democratic Party); the far-left
tried to coalesce around the Nihon Kyosanto (Japan Communist
Party), but failed, suffering further atomisation. Finally, in the centre, the
old Seiyukuai and Minseito parties merged into the Mushozoku no Kaigi
(Political Assembly of Independents, commonly known as the Independent Party)
provoking the formation of the Heiwato (Peace Party), the Jiyuto
(Liberal Party) and minor groups organized by dissidents.
Katayama’s sound policies, which included frugality in spending by both
the government and the public, the improvement of social programs, and the
breaking up of more estates, large and small, to give the land to the peasants,
were not enough to counter Japan’s economic decline, and Katayama was defeated
in 1950, to a coalition of centrist and centre-right parties led by the Independent
Party.
The Mirror Effect
“Japan is military supreme in the Pacific and
industrially the controlling factor in Asia. And in due course, with the
mastery of the major portion of the undeveloped wealth of Asia, Asiatic
militancy and industrialism shall reign supreme in this world and the Mikado
shall become the Mikado of kings."
U.S. President
John Foster Dulles, 1955
The implosion of China into a new period of warlordism, and the
intervention of the U.S. in the Chinese quagmire, meant one of the most
intractable geopolitical and diplomatic problems for the new Japanese
government.
Led by former Navy Minister Yonai Mitsumasa, who based his platform in a
pro-détente stance, with peace representing "the first step in healing
Asia of its wounds and in ushering through a time of co-operation and
co-existence," Prime Minister Yonai stated that Japan was falling behind
other nations industrially and economically and would have to reduce military
expenditures (with most of the reductions affecting the Army) and concentrate
more aggressively on social and economic goals if it were to maintain its
technological and military superiority.
He resisted increasing pressures coming from Peking and from native
right-wing elements to involve Japan directly in the War of the Generals,
already in its second year and with no clear winner yet, but with Li Tsung-jen
forces gaining ground in southwest China and with Pai Chung-hsi losing lots of
men and equipment against Liu Chih’s forces in central China: his costly defeat
in the Battle of Nanyang in October 1952 at the hands of Liu Chih’s faction
forced Pai to begin negotiations with Tokyo: in December 1952, Pai accepted the
terms of the Treaty of Peking, in exchange of Japanese support in “convincing”
Tu Yu-ming to join Pai (as vice-president) against Liu Chih and Li Tsung-jen,
and the repatriation of the 80.000 men of the former Northeast Army, who were
immediately recruited for Pai’s Green Banner Army: Nanking needed all the men
it could use against Li’s powerful New Nationalist Army, trained by U.S.
“volunteers” and financed by Washington.
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Green Banner Army soldiers (1952) |
At then same time, as a cost-saving measure the diverse Japanese forces
in Outer and Inner Manchuria were reorganized as the Japanese Army of Manchuria
(JAOM): this force kept Tokyo’s control over Manchuria until the
de-colonisation process in the late 1960s, and served as the training school
for the militaries of Turkestan (former Sinkiang), Imperial Mongolia, Manchuria
and even Korea.
However, and despite his desire to keep Japanese forces from intervening
directly in the War of the Generals, Yonai wanted to keep some influence in the
events in the continent: he and the Cabinet coincided that a divided China
would be in Japan’s best interest. Thus, wishing to save costs and diminish the
IJA domestic influence, at Yonai’s orders the Kempeitai and the Nakano School
(as the Japanese intelligence agency was known) organized a series of covert
operations in China proper, Turkestan and Tibet as well as covert actions
against their nominal allies in Nanking in support of Liu Chih insurgents and
even –with the complicity of the URSS– in support of Mao and other communist
groups in South China. Nakano purchased South China Air Transport (SCAT) and
based it first in Hainan and later in Nanking, which soon became the agency's
center for clandestine operations in Asia for the following 20 years.
During the early 1950s 300 operators were assigned to Hainan to provide
guerrilla training, radio broadcasts, air drops, balloon surveillance, and
propaganda. In 1951 Nakano sent up air balloons which carried 300 million
leaflets which weighed a total of 400 tons. The balloons were released in South
China and carried pro-Pai, pro-Japanese messages into the zones controlled by
Liu Chih and Li Tsung-je. Nakano's front company in Haikou was named Eastern
Enterprises. Over 8,500 guerrillas were trained, and they carried out 18 raids
and conducted acts of sabotage in southern and central China. SCAT planes
dropped 75 million anti-Washington, anti-Li leaflets.
By the mid-1950s, Chinese agents were also trained on Manchuria and
Taiwan and then parachuted into the provinces of Yunnan and Sichuan. The goal
of these groups was to infiltrate among the population of these provinces,
ravaged by Li’s military conquest, and to attempt to encourage them to revolt.
Led by Colonel Suzuki Keiji of the IJA, who travelled to Yunnan in June 1955,
ostensibly as correspondent for the Yomiuri newspaper, the teams managed to
increase Japanese intelligence activities and influence in southern China
dramatically: at that time, a small splinter group of the New Nationalist
Party, organized by Fu Tso-yi, had split from the NNP, the political arm of
Li’s New Nationalist Army, and had become very active. Fu’s faction adopted a
militant anti-Washington stance and were prepared to fight Li and, thus, were
seeking support from other groups. Suzuki contacted the Fu faction leaders and
realized that the group was going to be a major player in the struggle for
China. It would become a very suitable ally for the Japanese after the War of
the Generals.
While Nakano-trained rebels were operating in south and central China,
the agency began focusing its attention upon Tibet in 1956. Nakano actively
backed the Tibetan cause (Li’s government did not recognized the Peking Treaty,
and was trying to expand its control over Outer Tibet) with arms, military
training, money, and air support. In February 1956 Nakano coordinated several
attacks in various parts of eastern Tibet. In October 1957 the first of
numerous two-man teams of Nakano-trained Tibetans left from Manchuria and
parachuted from unmarked IJN planes into the mountains of Tibet. After Li
invaded the Tibetan provinces of Kham and Amdo, an uprising succeeded in 1958,
and the Dalai Lama cemented his control over these two provinces.
The fusion of the Peking and Nanking governments revived the anti-Japanese
movement in the U.S. Newspapers reported that Japan was “maniac for domination
of the world" and that the Japanese Empire was a “threat to civilization.”
Anti-Japanism hardened from agitation for the expulsion of Japanese immigrants
to outright Japanophobia. This anti-Japanism, based on the racist “Yellow
Peril” anxiety, also played up by people in the U.S. who desired a military
build-up to check the advances Japan had made into China during the Third
Sino-Japanese War and the War of the Generals and to curb the reduction in arms
production that accompanied the end of the Second Great War, the mirage of the
Chinese market (that never lived up to Japan or U.S. expectations and only
deepened the confrontation between the two countries); the pro-China lobby and
anti-Japanese or pro-naval elements in the successive U.S. governments; all
those factors resulted in the apparition of a “Mirror Effect”: the tendency to
escalate criticism by repeating mutual overreactions of those criticisms
resulting from poor understanding between the two countries.
These events found its counterpart in Japan: anti-U.S. protests started
with a national rally in Tokyo sponsored by nationalist elements on June 1951.
The radical sentiments expressed at this meeting included slogans as “war with
the United States is Japan's inevitable fate,” and “Japan should fight even if
defeat is inevitable." This movement grew, with various incidents further
deteriorating the situation: dock workers' refusal to load or unload U.S.
cargoes in Yokohama, boycotts of Hollywood films, a movement to stop subsidies
to U.S.-affiliated schools, the theft of a national flag from the U.S. Embassy,
and finally the assassination of the U.S. consul at Yokohama in October 1951.
After knowing a brief period of calm, the fever reached a new peak in
early 1953, as an attack on Shanghai by Pai Chung-hsi’s forces, trained and
armed by the IJA, captured and executed five U.S. “volunteers,” actually,
agents of the U.S. intelligence agency. The execution of the volunteers, along
with sympathy toward China (or rather, towards Li’s regimen in southern China)
and criticism against Japan in U.S. media only helped to arouse Japanese public
opinion: in both side of the Pacific, already over-sensitive public opinions
were inflamed, and right wing, militarist elements in both sides were fuelling
the confrontational spirit that only served to turn the War of the Generals
into a war waged by proxy. Both of the main Chinese armies’ staff officers
–supported by Japanese and U.S. “advisors”– frequently fabricated crises,
accumulated faits accomplis without
obtaining prior endorsement from the respective capitols or their patrons, and
in defiance of the civilian leadership's wishes they went to the extreme to
ordering unauthorized assaults and bombing attacks against Japanese and U.S.
enclaves in the disputed zones.
The crisis reached a peak in April 27, 1953: a cargo vessel under
Japanese flag, the Akatsuki Maru, was stopped and boarded by New Nationalist
naval forces in Hainan waters. Attending the distress call of the Akatsuki
Maru, a IJN plane, coming from the IJN base at Hankou, was downed by New
Nationalist planes, actually crewed by U.S. “volunteer” pilots. In retaliation,
a hour later IJN airplanes bombed a New Nationalist Air Force base at Beihai,
in the coast of Guangxi, destroying several planes and fuel depots. Some U.S.
military leaders were excited and eager to strike at the Japanese air bases in
Hainan, while some IJN leaders were also excited and eager to strike at U.S.
“volunteers” forces in southern China. U.S. commanders in China approved the
shooting down of a IJN surveillance plane with an U.S.-made anti-aircraft
missile. The Japanese pilot was killed, and immediately the IJN started a
partial mobilization of their forces, an action immediately copied by the U.S.
Navy.
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Prototype of the Junyo, first IJN
Air Force jet plane, 1954. |
Japanese military leaders were dismayed by Prime Minister Yonai's
reluctance to retaliate against the downing of the plane, and the continuous
dogfights between IJN and USAAC airplanes above the narrow strait separating
Hainan from China (which witnessed the first all-jet dogfight in history)
only exacerbated their displeasure. However, at planning sessions, Yonai made
clear that he enjoyed the Emperor’s support and suggested a diplomatic solution
to the crisis. The IJA High Command agreed, but most IJN officers, especially
middle ranking officers, were enthusiastically in favour of continued military
action to force the U.S. out of China.
Four days into the crisis, Japan ordered a standby for mobilizing its
military: it was clear –or so it seemed at the time– that Washington, its naval
officers’ opinion notwithstanding, did not want war.
However, the U.S. president, Alexander Bourne, who had suffered several
heart attacks and had been ordered by his doctors to rest and to avoid
exertion, suffered another heart attack, collapsed and died in May 2, 1953. His
Vice-President, John Foster Dulles, was sworn as President in May 4, 1953.
Dulles, who previously had preference for escalating the crisis, was handed a
report by the U.S. ambassador to South China, the gist of which was that the
U.S. had a hard choice: either involve the U.S. directly in the War of the
Generals or see a Japanese-aligned Nanking government’s victory, after several
victories obtained by Nanking with the help of Japanese “advisors” and
“voluntaries.” Meanwhile, U.S. hawkish press continued to oppose compromise and
to favour military action, expressing exasperation with Japan and demanded that
the United States’ position in China be maintained and respected, and these
demands were widely supported by the U.S. public. The decision of Tokyo to
resume the mobilization of its military after Bourne’s death just served to
fuel the war hysteria.
So far the United States had lost only a few dozens or so of “advisors”
and “voluntaries” in South China –while supporting South Chinese incursions
into the Yangtze Valley, occupied by North Chinese troops– and a pilot of the
“voluntary” U.S. forces over Hainan. Dulles and his advisors began to discuss
how to contrive an excuse for U.S. air and naval power to save South China.
Large numbers of equipments and “voluntaries” began to be shipped –more
overtly than covertly– from the Philippines, Guam and Hawaii to South Chinese
ports, triggering a formal protest from Tokyo in June 17, raising international
tensions. Finally, in June 22, a Japanese first-class destroyer, the IJN
Asakaze, exchanged fire with the USN battleship Abraham Lincoln, in a confused
action in the dark of night 100 kilometres off the coast of Hainan. Even when
neither ship was damaged, President Dulles used the report of an attack as an
opportunity to introduce to Congress the "Hainan Resolution,"
characterized as a response to Japanese aggression and calling for direct
action in China with U.S. regular troops: the reaction of the U.S. public
opinion was one of overwhelming approval in support of a tough response against
the Japanese, even when such measure would surely mean an all-out war against
Japan.
U.S. aggressive actions were an embarrassment for Prime Minister Yonai,
who had desired peace and rapprochement with Washington. Ultra-nationalist
politicians opposed to Yonai’s “weakness” used U.S. belligerence to win
opposition to his government. Yonai’s pleas to London and Paris for diplomatic
support went unheard, provoking Yonai’s parliamentary coalition’s fall and new
elections were programmed for the first week of August, 1953.
While the U.S. Congress was still deliberating about the approbation of
the “Hainan Resolution”, and the IJN was taking positions in the Pacific
Mandates and Hainan, the Red Army, under the complete control of an aged and
ailing Joseph Stalin, executed four simultaneous attacks against Finnish,
Polish, German, and Romanian military objectives in the early hours of July 27,
1953, starting
the Third Great War.
The sudden Soviet invasion of Eastern Europe took the world by surprise
and meant, despite its geographical location, the end of the “Hainan Crisis”
and incidentally of the War of the Generals.
With increasing pressures coming from Berlin, and later from London and
Paris, to help in the war against the Soviet Union, and from native right-wing
elements to escalate the crisis, both Washington and Tokyo found themselves in
a political impasse. Had the military men in Tokyo and Washington had their way
a naval war in the Pacific might have commenced, but the civilian leadership in
both capitols struggled to keep the military from over-reacting and striking
against their foes.
The new Japanese government, under Yamada Otozo, and supported by a
coalition of right-wing and center-right parties, was confident that the New
Nationalist Army was no match for the combined might of the IJA and the Green
Banner Army. However, they also knew that the IJN, despite the naval modernization
program of the last five years, was still behind the USN in both
numbers and firepower, and that a naval war in the Pacific was to be avoided at
all cost, until the resources and industries of Manchuria and the New
Territories were completely developed, including the vital synthetic oil plants
in Urakawa (former Vladivostok) and the promissory oil fields in northern
Karafuto and Turkestan.
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IJN submarine
“Sumire”(Kiri-class), based in the German Type XXI
submarine (1955) |
At the same time, the terrifying advances of the Red Army in Eastern
Europe forced most if not all European governments to ask the U.S. for help
against the Communist onslaught. With Soviet forces overrunning half of Germany
by late August, the pressure of native anti-Communist elements in the U.S. and
the European governments became unbearable. Secrets negotiations between
London, Paris and Tokyo ended with a Japanese promess to enter the war against
the Soviet Union after a “satisfactory resolution” of the Hainan Crisis and the
international recognition of the Treaty of Peking.
At the same time, conversations between Yamada and the U.S. ambassador
in Tokyo, Kerry Jones, during which Jones dropped a hint that Washington wanted
a settlement of the crisis in Hainan, both sides began secret negotiations in
Vancouver. Neither side wanted to withdraw its support for their respective
clients in China, but they arranged a system to keep their aero-naval forces in
southern China separated and diminish their respective “voluntary” forces in
China. However, Washington’s refusal to recognise Nanking’s government impeded
a successful conclusion of the negotiations, both sides letting the crisis
disappear for the moment, but menacing to resume after the conclusion of the
war in Europe.
The “Grand Alliance”, as the anti-Soviet alliance was know, was forced
by the U.S. to negate recognition to the pro-Japanese Nanking government, in
exchange of U.S. help against the Soviet Union. Yamada used this as an excuse
to publicly deny any Japanese involving in the Third Great War. However, he also
declared Japan’s right to trade with the Grand Alliance belligerents, and Japan
recovered its economic stability, first, with the capture of a good share of
the Alliance’s members’ markets, and later, with the sales of weapons and other
industrial goods to Germany, Italy, France, Britain, Finland, Hungary and
Romania, and later, to Sweden and Turkey after the entry of these countries in
the Third Great War in early 1952. The only military action taken by Yonai
during the Third Great War was to send the IJN to patrol Indochinese waters
after the departure of the French Navy to Europe, and the sending of a small
SNLF force to help the Legion Étrangere to garrison the cities of Hanoi
and Saigon, as per the terms of the 1944 treaty with France.
With the U.S. attention diverted by the war in Europe, the New
Nationalist Army, under Li Tsung-jen, decided to end the War of the Generals
before the Japanese could use the world’s distraction to launch an invasion of
South China. A fear justified by intelligence reports of Japanese increasing
pace in naval construction and modernization both in the Home Islands and in
the New Territories, and the secret movement of a mechanized unit of the JAOM
toward Hefei.
Known as the Yangtze Campaign, the final battles of the War of the
Generals began in January 1954 with 140,000 men of the New Nationalist Army
(NNA) equipped with almost 500 old German and much newer U.S. tanks, advancing
from south-central China to Shanghai, the nexus of Japanese occupation. The
Japanese, whose garrison had been stripped of most of its men and assets after
the Vancouver negotiations, had only 5,000 SNLF infantry and an IJA artillery
brigade in the city, defended mainly by Green Banner Army (GBA) troops. The
Chinese forces, however, bypassed the city to avoid a direct clash with the
Japanese forces, and were redirected against GBA forces between Nanking and
Shanghai.
The NNA launched an assault across the Yangtze river, bypassing the main
GBA fortifications along the coastline, and reduced the smaller ones with
chemical and conventional artillery bombardment. After several days of this
treatment the GBA finally surrendered the south bank of the Yangtze, and took
positions on the other side, only to be surpassed by the rapid NNA advance,
which now turned towards Nanking. Meanwhile, the Japanese government stridently
protested, and announced the entry of Japanese “voluntaries” to reinforce
Nanking’s garrison, while at the same time making clear that no regular IJA
forces were participating in the war.
Despite its logistical problems, and the relentless harassing of the GBA
airforce (generally crewed by IJA Air Force pilots), by the end of February
1954, the city of Nanking was in sight. The GBA, with Japanese guidance, had
built several entrenched rings around it, and squadrons of the IJA airforce
maintained air superiority over the city. Li decided to wait after nightfall to
launch his attacks against the city, out of the sight of Japanese airpower;
this time the exchange was much more brutal than the one on the Yangtze, since
Nanking no longer had land to trade for time.
This was the moment chosen by the Japanese to intervene: the Japanese
“voluntaries” revealed themselves as the “Imperial Hussars”, an all-mechanized elite
unit that spear-headed a GBA offensive planned to envelop the NNA forces.
Several divisions of the NNA were totally devastated, and a good number of its
tanks were destroyed or disabled by the Imperial Hussars and the GBA tactical
aviation, again composed mainly by Japanese crews and planes. When Li realised
that to continue the offensive would mean to sacrifice the rest of his force
for no gain, he called a retreat to the NNA lines, a move rejected by his
generals but supported by Washington, which insisted in the convenience of
concentrate the NNA’s efforts on besieging the GBA forces along the Yangtze
river.
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“Imperial Hussars” assault gun
(1954) |
Yamada had already decided to continue with this cost-effective and
politically acceptable operations in China, when Tokyo’s attention over the Chinese conflict was
momentarily distracted by events in Europe: the Red Army, despite dreadful
losses in men and equipment, were steadily but surely getting closer and closer
to the English Channel when, in March 6, 1954, the First Shock Army was
devastated outside Eindhoven (Holland) by what was described by the Great
Alliance’s governments as an “Atomic Bomb.”
In a conjunct
communicate, the Grand Alliance’s High Command, based in Paris, ordered the
URSS to withdraw its forces to the ante-bellum borders or face sure
destruction. An ailing Stalin flatly rejected to do so with his forces so close
to the Channel, and the Grand Alliance responded with six more “atomic bombs”:
used against transportations hubs in occupied Poland and Germany,
concentrations of Soviet forces in northern Bavaria and southern Bulgaria, and,
despite strong AA Soviet defenses, against Leningrad and Lvov; the use of these
terrible weapons served to break the Soviet frontal forces and logistical
systems, and allowed the Grand Alliance’s forces to surge after months of
defeats in the ground.
This moment was
chosen by Washington to ask Tokyo the withdrawal of Japanese voluntary forces
from China, and Japanese recognition of the Li government as the legitimate
Chinese government. The Yamada cabinet agonized for the next three days,
fearing that the U.S. could use their Atomic Bombs against Japan, but at the
same time pressured by nationalist elements within the coalition to refuse to
comply with the U.S. virtual ultimatum. Fortunately for Japan, Stalin refused
to comply with the Alliance’s terms and fought on, bringing more destruction to
central Europe and the URSS, and giving time to Japan to attempt negotiations
with Washington while winning some face-saving measure for his government.
Prime Minister Yamada
immediately channeled all available resources towards the Japanese atomic
project, still in its theoretical stage, and resumed talks with the Grand
Alliance about breaking the Soviet-Japanese non-aggression treaty in order to
open a new front now with the Red Army in the run in Europe, in exchange for
European support for Japan’s position vis-à-vis the United States. Pressured by
Paris, and seeing the U.S. forces suffering increasing casualties despite the
use of atomic bombs against the Red Army, President Dulles agreed to held a
tetra-partite conference in London with the Japanese and both Chinese
governments to hammer out a “satisfactory arrangement.”
At the conference,
and after shedding away the initial and exaggerated suggestions, both sides
moved into the outlining of real demands. Japan resisted giving up all the
terms of the Peking Treaty, but under pressure from the other delegations it
ceded Hainan to the New Nationalist Party’s control, disavowed its ample
economic concessions in China proper, its right to garrison the Chinese main
ports and agreed to retire the Japanese volunteers from China proper, in
exchange for the recognition of its possession of Manchuria.
And even more
important, the Japanese delegation also promised that Japan would join the
Grand Alliance –as co-belligerent– and launch an offensive against the URSS: in
return, the U.S. consented to retire most of its direct military support to
Li’s regimen, reduce its naval forces in the Philippines and Guam, and agreed
not to build bases in Chinese territory. Finally, the U.S. and Japan agreed to
collaborate with both Chinese regimens to look for an unified Chinese
government to be created by pacific means. Finally, all sides agreed that
disputes that could not be solved by negotiations were to be submitted for
arbitration to a neutral power. The treaty, known as the London Accords, also
included a clause “neutralizing” Tibet, but did not mention neither the
Mongolian possession of Inner Mongolia nor the independence of Turkestan
(Sinkiang).
The unpopularity of
the treaty in Japan led to a loss of influence for Yamada's government, but it
was received with extreme irritation in China, especially among the strongest
warlords and GBA civilian leadership: both sides –by different reasons– found
several of the terms of the London Accords, especially the one calling for an
“unified Chinese government”, unacceptable.
The Japanese
government denounced its treaty of no-aggression with the URSS in May 15, 1954,
and two days later declared war on the URSS. Immediately the Strategic Air
Force (SAF) commenced bombing raids over Siberia’s industrial cities, operating
out of its bases in Greater Mongolia and Turkestan. The Japanese government
asked from the Grand Alliance governments the technology to build its own
“Atomic Bombs” arguing that the URSS main industries were located between the
Urals and the Baikal Lake, outside the range of the Grand Alliance’s bombers in
Europe and Asia, but close enough for Japanese bombers operating from Japan and
its allies’ territories. For obvious reasons, the Grand Alliance refused to
comply with the Japanese demands, and instead they suggested that Tokyo could
autorize U.S. forces to operate out of Mongolian territory, a suggestion
rejected by the Yamada cabinet.
This first diplomatic
showdown with the Grand Alliance was used by Tokyo as a opportunity to refuse
to invade Siberia with ground forces: alleging that the IJA wasn’t ready for a
full-scale invasion, Japanese intervention was limited to bombing raids and
artillery duels with Siberian forces. It was evident that the Japanese
commitment to the war was, at best, lukewarm, and some people –specially in the
U.S.– feared that Japan could conclude an arrangement, even an alliance, with
the URSS. This was enough to electrify Washington into devoting even more
resources to the production of atomic bombs, which were used with great effect
in central and eastern Europe, to the chagrin of several European governments
in exile.
The Alliance thrusts
into occupied Germany and Romania during June found Soviet troops in a state of
disintegration: facing defeat after being stopped and later forced to withdraw
by the use of atomic bombs after months of useless carnage, the Red Army troops
began to mutiny and either went home or deserted to the Alliance. However,
Stalin was able to conscript even more troops and reached a tacit arrangement
with the Japanese: both sides refused to engage in ground actions, and the
Japanese participation in the war was limited to sporadic –and rather harmless–
bombing raids.
The Third Great War
ended in October 1954, with an Army coup d'etat in Moscow and the Grand Alliance lines in
eastern Poland and western Ukraine: after the assassination of Stalin and his
inner circle, the Red Army accepted the draconian terms imposed by the Great
Alliance, including the retreat of the URSS to its 1919 borders, the payment of
very large indemnities to the nations invaded, complete disarming, the
occupation of the main cities and industrial zones by Grand Alliance’s forces
and the trial of Soviet political and military commanders accused of war
crimes. However, the rotten Soviet system did not survived the war and the
former URSS fell into chaos, with the peripheries rapidly falling in the hands
of ethnic militias and warlords.
Prime Minister Yamada ordered the IJA to launch a land and air invasion
against Siberia, claiming the action necessary to verify the surrender of
Soviet forces there. After finding scattered resistance by communist and
nationalist guerrillas, IJA forces contacted their British Imperial
counterparts in the city of Tashkent. Tokyo considered that its influence over
the entire Turkestan and the still powerful Siberian industrial cities well
worth another diplomatic showdown with the Grand Alliance, and recognized
Symeon Timoshenko’s military regimen, centred around the industrial cities of
central Siberia, as a legitimate successor state of the URSS and established
diplomatic relations with Novosibirsk.
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IJA soldiers inspecting a Soviet
medium tank in Central Asia (1954) |
After being re-elected in 1955, Yamada continued Japan previous
foreign
policy: discrete meddling in the War of the Generals in order to weaken China,
and diplomatic and economic support to a chain of vassal and allied states in
Central and Northeast Asia despite the opposition of the Grand Alliance.
However, the collapse of the Grand Alliance during the Time of Troubles that
followed the Third Great War allowed Japan to keep its influence over Siberia
and Central Asia with no further diplomatic quarrelling.
Effectively, the Grand Alliance immediately started to show
cracks after the end of the war: Washington’s disenchantment after heavy losses
during the war and its costly occupation duties in Russia and Eastern Ukraine
arosed a new wave of isolationism; the break-up of the Franco-British alliance
after disagreements over London’s support for a Romanov restoration (in the
person of Vladimir Cyrilovich Romanov, son of Grand Duke Cyril Vladimirovich
Romanov, cousin of the last Russian Emperor Nicholas II) in its occupation zone
around Saint Petersburg, in opposition of the French-backed Russian Republic in
Moscow; the border wars between Hungary and Romania, the abortive Second War of
German Reunification and the emergence of Bavaria and Prussia as independent
entities; the myriad of ethnic and politic conflict in the decaying corpse of
the URSS, ending in the apparition of Belarus and Ukraine as independent
successor states; and finally, the Franco-Italian war of 1957, provoked by the
implosion of the Yugoslavian kingdom and after which France assumed the role of
main European power.
In January 1956, the heads of state of Japan, Mongolia, Turkestan,
Thailand, Siberia and Tibet met in Kyoto, where the Japanese government
proposed the creation of a "Co-Prosperity Sphere", including all of
the attending parties and any other power that wished to join, with the
intention of preventing war and increase economic activity in Asia. The
conference generated concern in Paris and London, and was furiously denounced
by Washington: for them, it was obvious that Japan was seeking to impose its
hegemony in Asia.
The extension of the invitation of the Pai Chung-hsi’s regimen, known as
North China, to a second round of conferences immediately provoked an U.S.
response: it was an electoral year, and Dulles’ advisor warned that a feeble
response would give the Democrats a decisive advantage. He warned Tokyo about
further “aggressive moves” and increased the military support for Li’s regimen
(a measure in defiance of the London Accords). The US Navy began a partial
mobilization in April 6, 1956, and the IJN began taking military precautions,
going to its battle stations in the Pacific Mandates, Taiwan and Hainan (which
still was under Japanese occupation, also in defiance of the London Accords).
Then, in April 15, 1956, Chinese students, nationalist intellectuals and
industrial workers combined in a well-organized and bloody revolt, in Shanghai,
Peking and Taijin, against North China’s government. Japanese accusations of
U.S. complicity with the “criminals and rebels” where denied by Dulles, who at
the same time congratulate the North Chinese “freedom fighters.” The Nanking
government declared martial law, and both Japanese and loyal Chinese forces
combated the revolt with harsh measures, including the execution or
incarceration of many nationalist activist, and commenced to send detainees to
the old prisoner camps in Manchuria (near the Mongolian border and built for
the prisoners taken during the Third Sino-Japanese War) when, in April 24, over
200 Japanese soldiers of the Shanghai garrison were killed by rebel GBA forces,
a success that sparked a full scale revolt against the Japanese across North
China.
In March 5, the Nanking garrison refused to fire on protesters that
menaced to occupy the Presidential Palace, and a battle between them and
Japanese elite forces (the Imperial Hussars) erupted. The Japanese forces
almost destroyed the GBA force, but thousands of demonstrators, armed with
petrol bombs and small weapons, joined forces with the beleaguered garrison’s
men and wiped out almost the entire Japanese force in a bloody street battle:
the capitol were in the hands of the rebels. With the Green Banner Army
melting, the civilian leadership of North China asked the Japanese government
to send forces to restore order.
However, Prime Minister Yamada, pressured by both the Japanese public
opinion and the political opposition in Tokyo, both opposed to lose more men in
what they saw as a lost cause; by the U.S., who wanted the Japanese out of
China; and from the powerful Army lobby, which wanted to cling to what they
thought was their rightful position in China; could not reach a consensus about
what to do besides relocating the North Chinese government in Peking. Besides,
the growing crisis in North China was taxing Japan’s abilities to keep its
empire in northeast Asia, where again the Koreans and even some Chinese
Manchurians were stepping up their demands for independence. News of the
defection of several warlords of the Chinese interior who until then favoured
Pai’s regimen and who now were absorbing little by little the forces of the GBA
and seizing government building and radio stations in the Chinese interior was
too much. Another war, this time against both China and the U.S., seemed in the
making: any incident might have sparked such war, and Yamada decided to act
against it.
Yamada convened an emergency meeting with U.S. and Li’s representatives,
while hinting that he wanted settlement of the crisis in China and that Japan
was ready to recognize Li’s regimen. At the same time, Yamada demanded from Pai
Chun-hsi the withdrawal of the remaining GBA forces from the provinces of
Jiangsu and Anhui, and ordered the withdrawal of Japanese forces from North
China, while keeping the Navy and the JAOM in alert. Together, the loyal GBA,
Mongolian and IJA forces imposed Peking’s rule over the provinces of Henan,
Shangdong, Shanxi and Hebei. Meanwhile, in May 20, South Chinese troops entered
the cities of Nanking and Shanghai, and were welcomed as liberators by the
rapturous city masses. However, huge quantities of arms had been seized from
the GBA’s arsenals, and warlord militias were roaming the countryside, fighting
among themselves and against the South Chinese Army.
In June, and after a round of secret negotiations between Japan and the
new US government, this time celebrated in Paris, Tokyo acceded to evacuate the
nearly 15.000 Japanese nationals still in territory controlled by the South
Chinese Army to Manchuria, and the IJN lifted its blockade of the port of
Shanghai. The U.S. responded with a communiqué acknowledging that no agreement
had been reached on the political unity of China, but that all “foreign forces”
were ready to leave Chinese territory according with the terms convened in the
London Accords. Li protested the tacit recognition given by Washington to Pai
Chun-hsi regimen and to the cession of Manchuria, but after JAOM and North
Chinese forces repulsed all the South Chinese attempt to cross into Henan and
Washington failed to react, he decided to drop the issue. Temporally. At the
same time, having finished carving up China, Tokyo and Washington tacitly
agreed that their main disagreement was settled, and that they will remain in
their own sphere of influence in Asia.
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East Asia, 1957 1: Japanese Empire 2: Mongolian Imperial State 3: Far Easter Republic 4: Turkestan (Sinkiang) 5: North China 6: South China 7: Tibet The rest of China is in chaos. |
In the aftermath of the War of the Generals, Tokyo took steps to
withdraw to its Manchurian territories, using the new republic of Hua Bei Guo
(North China) as a docile if not particularly friendly power as a buffer
against South China. At the urging of Prime Minister Yamada, North China signed
a treaty of mutual defence with Japan, and recognized the London Accords.
Finally, to secure the vast Japanese colonial empire in continental
Asia, Yamada convened another meeting in Kyoto. Representatives from Mongolia,
Turkestan, North China, the Far Eastern Republic (recently created to ubicate
the Slavic population of the New Territories) and Japan discussed the formation
of a new economic and political bloc. Representatives from Thailand, Siberia,
the Phillipines and even South China were are also invited to this meeting, and
under the guide of Tokyo, a new Great Power emerged in November 1956: the
“North East Asia Co-Prosperity Sphere”.
Considerated suspicious by the European colonial powers, and treated
with open hostility by South China and the U.S., the Co-Prosperity Sphere
suffered from the beginning the stresses of diplomatic isolation, nationalistic
revolts in Korea and Manchuria, and the enormous cost of developing such a vast
empire. As the years passed, the clandestine Japanese and US intervention on
the Chinese quagmire, the Korean Independence War, and the South Chinese Civil
War paved the way for the 1965 clash between Japan and the United States known
as “The Mandates War”…
FIN
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Notes
Among the loyal units that fought against the Ashigeru rebels in 1931,
the most outstanding force was the Imperial Guard Division (Dai Nippon
Teikoku Konoe Shidan, or Kodan). Formed originally as a light infantry
formation, the Kodan was established by Emperor Meiji in the neighbourhood of
Tokyo in his youth, with the security
of the capitol in mind. These troops trained to a very high physical standard,
and thank to this they saw action during the First Russo-Japanese War: their
excellent performance gained them their incorporation as an integral part of
the Imperial Japanese Army.
Used during the Ashigeru Uprising as special shock troops against the
rebels, the Kodan stormed through Tokyo, recapturing one by one the buildings
and military facilities occupied by the rebels. After the Uprising, and with
extreme need of loyal, well-trained troops to fight immediately during the
Second Sino-Japanese War, the Kodan was expanded to a total of 12 regiments:
these troops were used as light infantry screening the slow-moving line
formations, but after the war and the adoption of Shinsenkyo, the Imperial
Guards regiments were reduced in number and used as a elite support group for
the armour.
During the Second Russo-Japanese War and the Second phase of the
Russo-Japanese War, a regiment of Imperial Guards were added to each armoured
division to be used as shock troops. Despite the heavy commitment of the IJA
during these conflicts, the High Command refused to flexibly their standards,
and all the men admitted to the Kodan had to be of above-average size and
strength and endure an intense physical training. Of the 105,000 men who served
in Kodan regiments, 16,000 were killed and 25,000 wounded.
After the signing of the Treaty of Athens (March 1943) the Kodan was
reorganized and, due to its excellent war record, it was bestowed with the designation as 1st armoured infantry division, as was
transformed into an elite mechanized infantry division. Today, organized to
bludgeon any attack into the heavily urbanized Tokyo landscape, it is an
airborne force. The Kodan is also part of the Rapid Reaction Force, together
with the Kidan and the Naval Infantry.
Despite the traditional articulation of the Japanese armies, centred
around the infantry, and with cavalry used only in a reconnaissance role, the
support enjoyed by the idea of modern armoured forces among the most
progressive elements of the Imperial Japanese Army, and the extinction (or fading
into irrelevance) of the most conservative elements after the Ashigeru
Uprising, and finally, the Second Sino-Japanese War in 1931, meant that Japan
could create a fairly strong and modern armoured forces by the late 1930s.
The first tanks of the IJA were a few units of the ubiquitous Renault FT
and the Vickers Six-Ton, Type C and Carden Loyd Mk VI in the mid-1920s. The
first indigenous model was the Sensha (Battle Wagon) Type 87, built in
the workshops of the Osaka Arsenal in 1926. It counted with a low-velocity
cannon of 57 mm and two 7.2 mm machine-guns, a crew of five men, a length of 6
metres, a weight of almost 18 tons, and powered by a 140 HP engine. After two
years of experiments, a more conventional design, the S-7 Tetsuken, became the
first Sensha of autochthonous design built in large numbers, together with the
T-5 Inoshishi tankette. The Tokyo Gas and Electric Corporation was
granted the contract to built these vehicles. Two companies of tanks were
established, with one at the Chiba Infantry School for further research and
development, and the other in Manchuria to study tank tactics.
The recently formed Senshagun forces counted with several models of
tankettes. The most popular model was the T-5 Inoshishi (Boar). The T-5
weighted 3700 kilos, with a crew of two, and was armed with a single 7.7 mm
machinegun, later upgunned to a 9 mm machinegun. With an armour of 12mm, and a
top speed of 40 kph, it was perfect for the IJA necessities in Manchuria: it
proved devastating against the Ashigeru and Chinese light infantry forces, and
in consequence, it was produced in large quantities until 1941, when after
suffering horrendous losses against the Red Army, the IJA gave up its efforts
to integrate the tankettes as moving, armoured machine gun nests to support
infantry attacks. Even so, the T-5 tankettes were kept in the IJA inventories,
in semi-mobile positions as part of the “defensive lines” used against the Red
Army in the Siberian front and later in southern Manchuria against the Chinese
Army. A few hundreds were donated to the Imperial Mongolian Army in the early
1940s, and the rest were ceded in the early 1950s to Pai Chung-his’s Green
Banner Army, that used it in counter-insurgence warfare against light Communist
and Fascist forces.
The Sensha (battle wagon) model 7, Tetsuken (Iron Fist),
was the first mass produced tank of the Imperial Japanese Army. Based
originally in the famous Christie tank, the Tetsuken’s first prototypes
appeared in August 1929, and by 1931 the production of the S-7 (the main
production model) started with a 37 mm gun and one to three machine guns. By
1935 the main production model was the S-9 Shinhoto (New Turret)
Tetsuken, a model equipped with a 45 mm gun. Devastating against Chinese
forces, most S-7 and S-9 were either abandoned, destroyed or replaced by more
modern tanks, like the S-11 medium tank Tsuyoi (Strong) after the
initial –and lethal– encounters with more advanced BT Soviet tanks during the
initial months of the Second Russo-Japanese War.
General Characteristics (S-7)
Length: 5.7 m
Width: 2.1 m
Height: 2.2 m
Weight: 11.5 tons
Speed: 53 km/h (road)
Range: 375 km
Primary armament: 45 mm gun
Secondary armament: one or two 7.62 mm machine guns
Crew: 3
Despite the replacement of these early models for more powerful and
better armed ones, like the S-13 Okami, S-15 Okami-B, and S-25 Tetsuwan, there
were two aspect of thse early “battle wagons” that were kept: the first one is
its mobility. This proved of crucial importance in the bad roads of northern
China and the Mongolian and Siberian vast, and frequently heavily forested,
expanses. The second was the decision to keep the tanks powered with air-cooled
diesel engines, that did not exploded when the tank was hit, circumstance that
permitted many crews to survive a close encounter with a Soviet counterpart.
Formed in the late 1920s, this naval landing organization was created to
replace the reliable yet unspecialised landing parties until then used by the
IJN out of its fleet personnel in an ad hoc basis. Known in Japanese as Rikusentai,
the SNLF were used in full force for the first time during the Second
Sino-Japanese War against China’s main coastal cities: used in hit-and-run
attacks despite being heavily armed, the SNLF demonstrated their skills in
infantry combat –until then denied by the IJA– in the attack against Shanghai
in the night of 17-18 February of 1931. They demonstrated their worth,
including its capacity in garrison and defence operations, during November
20-29, 1947, when a SNLF battalion, later reinforced with extra SNLF companies,
took Haikou and later occupied the entire island of Hainan during the Third
Sino-Japanese War.
By then, the early SNLF organization as battalions had changed into what
was known as a Regular SNLF, formed generally by three rifle companies (6 rifle
platoons and 1 heavy machine-gun platoon each), and two or three companies of
heavy weapons (antitank guns, antiaircraft guns, tanks and sometime tankettes),
and a small number of special troops for a total a total of 1,300 to 1,500 men.
If needed, these Regular SNLF could be pairing like units together in combat acting like teams.
The careful analysis of the tactical advances of the European armies
during the Great War, and the lessons contained in “Shin heiki jissenki”
(Use of new weapons in actual battle), the book published by Kamio Mitsuomi and
Kato Sadakichi, plus the Russian ideas of “Deep Battle” (by Marshal
Tuckhachevsky among others), the German advanced concepts proposed by Guderian,
von Seeckt, Lutz and von Vollard-Bockelberg, and the ideas of the British
experts B.H. Liddell Hart and J.F.C. Fuller of heavily armoured units demonstrated
that mobility could offset numerical inferiority.
Even when this was not a new idea, the technical advance represented by
the tank presented by a number of military experts in different countries the
exciting perspective of strategic penetration by armoured forces. These ideas
differed, thought, in the use the different experts gave to the supporting arms
role; and in the case of Japan, the native variation of these ideas, known as
Shinsenkyo (New Warfare) doctrine, was received with a whole array of political,
financial and technical difficulties.
Shinsenkyo clearly indicated the necessity to allow the tanks to fight
to full effect, lauching surprise armoured attacks followed by motorized
infantry divisions, which was supposed to hold occupied territory, thus freeing
the armour for another blow. However, the Imperial Japanese Army of the late
1920s and early 1930s was still mostly an infantry army, with tanks serving as
an auxiliary of the infantry. It was not until after the success on the Second
Sino-Japanese War (1931), that the IJA High Command officially adopted this new
high-speed way of fight as the official strategic and tactical concept of the
Imperial Japanese Army.
Shinsenkyo (New Warfare)
would be a war of manoeuvre, using what Liddell Hart had called the strategy of
the indirect approach. The army would manoeuvre against the flank of the enemy.
Mechanized weapons and air support would be important aspects of war.
Exploitation by motorized forces would follow the use of the maximum mass available
to break the enemy line, emphasizing surprise, speed, intensity, sustained
action, and flexibility of plan.
The IJA, through the Jujiro Studies Group, decided that the Army combat
effort was to become predicated upon the following policies:
·
Enormously
increased firepower.
·
Opposition to
hostile fire by combined fire and movement.
·
Direction of
fire mass against the sector of least resistance to achieve rapid penetration
and to permit subsequent flanking movement.
·
Simultaneous
fire and movement with supporting artillery fire to neutralize enemy effort.
·
Substantially
independent exercise of command except as regards reserve employment and
artillery support.
Shinsenkyo knew three main stages of evolution. First, the experience of
fighting the Chinese Army, by then mostly composed by light infantry, provoked
a change in the original conception of Shinsenkyo: while retaining its main
ideas of a war of manoeuvre, using flanking attacks rather than frontal
assault, kept and expanded the idea of rapid advance by train, truck or even
horse-borne infantry hordes, backed by road-bound artillery and large numbers
of tankettes.
It was not until the Second Russo-Japanese War that a more modern way of
fighting, emphasizing the primacy of tanks and artillery over infantry, with
the latter envisioned in an armour-support role, was adopted. In great secrecy,
the IJA brought to Siberia the Italian general Federico Baistrocchi and his
staff, which in the late 1930s had developed a very innovative theory of
warfare in restrictive terrain. “La Guerra di Rapido Corso” was adapted
to the previous Shinsenkyo theories and the the lesson of the war against the
Soviets. The conclusion was that two types of tank were needed: a light tank
with high speed, light armor and armament was needed to engage in
reconnaissance and screening operations, and a medium tank with heavy armour
and weaponry to be a battle tank.
Later, after the lessons of the second phase of the Russo-Japanese War
and the Second Great War were adopted, the IJA High Command noticed the
unfavourable position of infantry, and changed its conception of the role of
tanks, placing them in a “cavalry” role.
In its last evolution, Shinsenkyo called for the division of the IJA in
three main parts:
1) Light armoured divisions, designed for exploitation and
reconnaissance.
2) Armoured divisions, designed for penetration, encirclement, and
exploitation, with the ability to manoeuvre rapidly over a wide range.
3) Mechanized infantry divisions, designed for the reinforcement of the
armoured units and holding ground when dismounted.
All three of these divisions counting with organic air support.
Shinsenkyo, as seen in the Second phase of the Russo-Japanese War
(Mongolian Front) and the Third Sino-Japanese War, had as its main feature the
combined employment of various arms, particularly infantry and armour. IJA
forces were designed to be used in small, flexible, highly manoeuvrable units
of great firepower. Each forward echelon, upon achieving a breakthrough was
followed by reinforcements for purposes of exploitation.
Mobility and manoeuvrability comprised the fundamental characteristics
of the IJA by 1950: the three main parts acting together, with fast moving
divisions, designed for exploitation and reconnaissance; tank brigades,
designed for penetration, encirclement, and exploitation, and motorized
divisions, designed for rapid movement over a wide range and for the
reinforcement of mechanized or fast moving units.
Surprise, speed, intensity, sustained action and flexibility of plan
allowing for unforeseen contingencies were seen as the basic factors for a
successful action. In this aspect, Shinsenkyo differed only slightly from the
Soviet concept of “Deep Penetration” or the German “Blitzkrieg”, with their
main difference the integration of air forces (which were in the Japanese case
totally integrated to the ground forces), and the composition of the armoured
divisions (with large quantities of light and medium tanks in a cavalry role in
the IJA, in opposition to other forces, including few heavier tanks and large
numbers of anti-tanks guns).
As a consequence of the severe pressure imposed by the Siberian front in
the Second Russo-Japanese War, staff studies and war plans laid very large
stress on the defensive: unlike other armies, were the general assumption was
that an offensive against its soldiers was to be responded with an immediate
offensive of their own, the IJA, facing large numbers of Chinese troops and
Chinese commanders willing to sustain large numbers of casualties, taught that
defensive lines, composed by complex systems of fortifications, large mine
fields and heavy artillery, were to be used where possible, utilizing all
footholds that the terrain may offer, with large mobile forces waiting behind
the lines, expecting the defensive lines to blunt the attack in order to allow
them to finish them, or to be used as a second defensive line in case the
fortification were bypassed or conquered. That doesn’t mean that they were
expecting to fight a defensive war from static positions, but they expected to
initiate or resume the offensive at the earliest possible moment, forcing the
enemy to incur in disproportionate losses before facing it with mobile forces.
The IJA was organized to fight in two fronts, the Siberian Front, facing
the URSS and the defensive lines in the mountainous terrain of southern
Siberia, and the Mongolian Front, facing the Red Army armoured forces and Red
Mongolian light infantry and traditional cavalry. Each front counted with as
many as 25 divisions each, with light armoured forces and infantry prevailing
in the Siberian Front and heavier armoured and mechanized infantry forces in
the Mongolian Front.
Each front was under the responsibility of a Field Command, that could
be decomposed in Groups of Armies, Area Armies (equivalent to a French or
British Army), and Armies (equivalent to a western Corp), which composition
varied widely due to the geographical variety of the fronts.
The average army was composed of five tank battalions, four infantry
divisions (mechanized or not), one motorized machinegun regiment (eventually
replaced by a light armoured regiment), one artillery regiment, one engineer
regiment, one flame-thrower company, one medical company, one supply company, a
motor transport centre, assorted units (like field antiaircraft artillery
companies, searchlight companies, antitank gun battalions, road construction
units, airfield construction units, field duty units, fixed radio units, line
of communication hospitals, water purifying units, construction duty companies,
and airfield companies); and IJA Air Force reconnaissance, ground attack and
bombing groups. Some divisions had “special operations” (infiltration,
intelligence, sabotage) units attached. When chemical weapons were introduced,
one chemical company and one chemical mortar battery were added to each
division, with picked personnel trained in decontamination and anti-chemical
weapons work. This profusion, on the Army level, of independent units allowed
the IJA the formation of temporary combat teams organized for specific
missions, allowing the IJA a greater flexibility than the Red Army, tied to the
dicates of the political commisars and lead by inexperienced officers.
The IJA average infantry division was composed (at the beginning of the
war) by two regiments of leg-mobile infantrymen and one regiment of mechanized
infantry, plus two reserve batallions. The need of more mobile infantry
divisions was evident after the susceptibly of the Manchurian and Mongolian
railroads to air attack by the Red Air Force, but despite immense efforts to
motorize most of its infantry, it was not until the Third Great War and the end
of the War of the Generals, with the subsequent downsizing of Japan’s armed
forces, that the IJA managed to create an all-motorized infantry. The
mechanized infantry’s purpose was to support and protect the armoured
battalions, and it saw more action in the Mongolian front, were the terrain was
more suitable for large armoured encounters; meanwhile the Siberian front saw
more semi-mechanized infantry, and sometimes, one infantry division was
stiffened with two battalions of elite (and all-mechanized) Imperial Guards to
be used as shock troops.
The bloody encounters with Soviet “defensive lines” in Siberia forced
the IJA to decentralize its heavy support weapons (“bunker-busting” artillery
and heavy mortars) from regimental to battalion control and of light support
weapons (light artillery and mortars) from battalion to company control; and
lead to the formation of expanded and highly specialized assault engineer
battalions. Moreover, certain infantry divisions in this front were designated
as mountain infantry, and were specially adapted for mountain warfare, with the
ordinary composition of an infantry division, but with more animal transport.
The IJA armoured divisions, as designed before the war, was a mixture of
light and medium tanks. However, the formation of two different fronts forced
the formation of armoured divisions composed mainly by light tanks for the
Siberian front, while divisions formed mostly by medium tanks (with light tanks
used in recognizance role) were used in the Mongolian front. During the war,
and under the implacable teaching of the Red Army, the IJA armoured forces
changed radically in composition, incorporating rapidly organic air support,
self-propelled anti-tank guns and heavier divisional supporting weapons. In
theory, each armoured division counted with one tank regiment of three
battalions, a truck-borne infantry regiment, one support and antitank
battalion, one artillery regiment of six batteries, one mixed engineer
battalion, one supply section, and one medical section. However, their
composition in the battlefield changed as the war progressed, with some units
incorporating more mechanized infantry, while other included more
self-propelled anti-tank guns.
The Second Russo-Japanese War was used for the IJA as a test field of airborne
troops. Originally ideated as a mean to infiltrate recognizance and sabotage
teams behind enemy lines, the use of airborne divisions by the Germans
convinced the IJA High Command to try to use its nascent parachuted forces as
shock troops. The forces used in Operation Hime, the invasion and occupation of
Yakutsk, were composed by two parachute infantry regiments and a parachute
light artillery regiment. However, the heavy losses sustained by the airborne
forces due to desperate Soviet resistance (and its inexperience), only served
to reinforce the IJA’s initial sceptical attitude towards large airborne units.
It was not until the successes of the Red Army airborne forces during the Third
Great War that the IJA reconstituted its airborne forces, including not only
parachuted infantry but also “air landing” forces, trained to disembark on
airfields that had been seized and secured by the IJA parachuted troops.
Other units, used at Army and Front level to reinforce certain divisions
when needed, included grenadier regiments, cavalry regiments and squadrons,
Imperial Guards battalions, medium artillery regiments, armoured battalions,
antitank companies, colonial infantry brigades, voluntary (Mongolian, Chinese,
Russian, Tibetan and Central Asian Muslim) infantry brigades, heavy artillery
battalions, Special Operations forces and even a camel artillery battery.
The IJA Technical Bureau drew its first plans to built a medium tank as
the main tank of the IJA armoured divisions, in replacement of the S-7 and S-9
tanks, in 1935. The original specifications included a maximun weight of 24,000
kg and a top speed of 35 km/h. After the field tests, the mass production of
the tank, the Sensha (Battle Wagon) model 11 Tsuyoi (Strong), began in
1938 in the workshops of Ishikawajima Heavy Industries. Despite being intended
as the main battle tank of the IJA forces, and proving its worth against
similar Soviet medium tanks of the BT series, its 50 mm gun was insufficient to
deal with heavy armour of the Soviet T-34 tank, and it was replaced by the S-43
Tetsuwan, which could carry a high-velocity 80 mm gun and counted with better
armour.
Despite being obsolete by 1941, the production of the S-11 continued,
first in models with low-velocity 75 mm guns designed for anti-infantry and
close-support work, and later, several designs of keisokosha (light
armoured vehicles, the IJA denomination of armoured personal carriers), combat
engineering vehicles, forward artillery observer tanks, flamethrower tanks,
armoured recovery vehicles, amphibious armoured assault tanks, command tanks,
mine-clearing tanks, and tractors were based on the Tsuyoi’s chassis.
The Tsuyoi’s armour was remarkable: a solid 50 mm plate on the front and
rear, with an additional layer of 20 mm on the front hull: this unusually heavy
rear armor allowed the Tsuyoi to engage enemy tanks while either advancing or
retreating, a quality lacked for most other tank models.
General Characteristics (S-11)
Length: 5.52 m
Width: 2.9 m
Height: 2.5 m
Weight: 22 tons
Speed: 40 km/h (road)
Range: 155 km
Primary armament: 50mm gun
Secondary armament: Two .30 cal machine guns
Crew: 5
The Kurogane (lit. Black Metal) trucks were designed by the IJA
Technical Bureau with the scarcity of adequate roads in Manchuria and the
necessity to transport infantry rapidly to the battle in mind. Produced by the
Kurogane Company (a joit veture of the Ishikawajima Heavy Industries and the
South Manchurian Railway Company) in large numbers (more than 54,000 between
1936 and 1950), the Kurogane, nicknamed Uma (Horse) by the infantrymen,
rapidly became the main troop transport for the IJA, even after the
introduction of the keisokosha (armoured personal carriers) based in
obsolete tank chassis.
They were use extensively in Mongolia
and Siberia, in a variety of body types. The most common types were the K1 and
K2. The K1 was the regular wheeled configuration, counting with light armoured
protection: these wheeled armoured cars were really effective in Chinese
cities. The K2 type was a half-track, a truck with regular wheels on the front
and caterpillar tracks on the back, thus resulting in a vehicle with the easy
handling of a truck and the off-road capabilities of a tank, very useful where
the fighting took place in the rural hinterlands, were the wheeled
configuration could not properly deal with the lack of infrastructure. These
vehicles carried infantry that accompanied tanks. These were particularly
useful in the terrible Mongolian deserts, but in the snowy landscape of Siberia
the K2 type, with skis replacing the wheel, reigned supreme.
This adaptability of the Kurogane, planned originally as a cost-saving
measure, rapidly became a philosophy of design under wartime combat experience,
with latter models of the truck combining modular layouts providing the prompt
conversion of the K-type units into armoured personnel carriers, anti-aircraft
and anti-tank guns (self-propelled), mortar carriers, artillery haulers,
tractors and many other tasks.
The K7H Unryu (Dragon in clouds) was the most successful Japanese
dive bomber. Modelled after the Curtiss F8C Hell-Diver, it was used effectively
against Soviet armour during the Second Russo-Japanese War, allowing the IJA
Air Force to operate effectively in the tactical role: against the Soviet
“defensive lines” of the Siberian Front, the K7H were used sporadically as
“aerial artillery” in combination with artillery, but it was pre-eminently used
against dug-in defensive positions in Mongolia.
The combination of the air arsenals of the Navy and the Army, in the
year 1941, into the Dai-Ichi Koku Gijitsusho (First Air Arsenal), as a
cost-saving measured allowed the Imperial Japanese Navy to create a “sea
version” of the Unryu, known as the Chokai (Sea Bird), to allow
it to strike ships. Although the Chokai was not used in combat by the IJN (it
was outdated by the beginning of the Mandates War in 1965), it was one of the
best-selling planes of the Dai-Ichi Koku Gijitsusho, which found eager buyers
in Europe during the Second and Third Great Wars.
Span: 14.4 mts.
Length: 10.2 mts.
Height: 3.8 mts
Weight: 3,650 kilos max.
Armament: Three 7.7 mm machine guns plus one 250 kg bomb (main) and two
60 kg bombs (secondary)
Engine: Mitsubishi Kinsei 46, 798 kW
Maximum speed: 427 kph.
Cruising speed: 840 kph.
Range: 1472 kilometres
Service Ceiling: 9.3 kilometres
The Treaty of San Francisco transformed Manchuria into a de jure
Japanese protectorate. Among the measures taken by the IJA to protect it was
the creation of a Railroad Militia and the creation of a force of armoured
trains. During the Second Sino-Japanese War, armoured trains were one of the
principal means of defence against Chinese forces in Manchuria, and were
particularly used in the final stages of the conflict. Practically, at least
one train was always on the move along the higher risk areas of the war zone:
naturally, these trains served more as spotters and means of first reaction
rather than real defence because they were poorly armed, and therefore quite
vulnerable.
With growing tension in Northeast Asia, when conflict with either
Mongolia or its Soviet patron appeared imminent, the IJA Manchurian command
decided in favour of the use of armoured trains, and ordered the construction
of 8 armoured trains with three logistical bases: Dairen (main IJN naval base
in Manchuria), Fengtien (main Manchurian Guard base), and Kirin (main IJA base
in Manchuria). In August 1937, three Command Groups Armoured Trains were
constructed under the authority of the IJA Manchurian Command in Tsitsihar, in
the region closest to Soviet/Mongolian territories from which could have easily
originated both ground and air attacks. Moreover, the Railroad Militia (formed
by both Japanese and Manchurian militiamen) was disbanded and replaced by
regular IJA troops. On February 15, 1938, assuming Japan’s imminent offensive
against the URSS, the trains were placed in full war conditions as dictated by
the mobilization act.
An armoured train ready for action had, in addition to the railroad
personnel, three officers and a variable number of crewmembers based on the
train’s firepower. At the very most, it would include 25 IJA non-commissioned
officers, and 101 petty officers and ratings. The makeup of the trains varied
over the years, evolving from the experience meantime acquired: the final
layout included 1 locomotive (at one of the two ends), 4 to 6 cars for
anti-aircraft guns (76/40 mm), 2 flat cars for the machine guns (13.2 mm), 1
car for the fire control equipment, 1 car for ammunitions, 2 cars for
additional ammunitions, 1 car for administrative use, 2 cars for housing, 1 car
for the kitchen, 1 car for baggage, 1 car for spare parts, and another
locomotive (at the other end).
By the end of the first phase of the Second-Russo Japanese War, there
were 12 armoured trains with antiaircraft guns, usually statically placed,
assisting the antiaircraft defences in the area where they had been located. In
that role, these were placed in Blagoveshchensk and other important
transportation hubs. Reorganized just before the beginning of the second phase
of the Russo-Japanese War by the Department of Motorization and Mechanization
of the IJA, the armoured trains were divided into light and heavy, depending on
gun caliber. The highest tactical unit was a battalion, consisting of two light
and one heavy armoured trains. It was planned, in the case of a war in China,
that armoured trains would be able to provide good support for land forces,
while in the Siberian and Mongolian theatres, with their poor communications,
they could easily be the core of any task force operating along a railroad.
During the second phase of the Second Russo-Japanese War, armoured
trains intervened several times against Soviet aviation, and after the
reparation of the Trans-Siberian railroad, some of the AA guns were replaced
with heavier artillery, to be used against the bunkers on the Soviet “defensive
lines” in Siberia. By the end of the conflict, however, the 10 armoured trains
in service were relegated to defend railroad junctions as stationary batteries,
due to the devastating effect of Soviet medium bombers in Manchurian railroads.
At the end of the conflict, and since
they were considered just “guns on rail cars”, the IJA was not interested in
the development of new types of of trains, and replaced them with
self-propelled AA artillery (more mobile and cost-effective), all armoured
trains were disarmed and converted to civilian use, except the one placed, with
all its weapons, in the Imperial War Museum in Tokyo.
The continuous upgrading of the Soviet armoured forces during the Second
Russo-Japanese War forced the IJA Technical Bureau to develop an appropriate
response. While the IJATB did not renounce to invest resources in the
development of anti-tank rifles and towed anti-tank guns, it was evident that
these initiatives required too much time, and that the Red Army, under the
relentless pressure of the German Army, was developing its own anti-tank
measures faster that the IJA.
Therefore, and taking a British idea of mounting a field artillery gun
over a Vickers medium tank (know as the “Birch Gun”), the IJATB created the Kikou
Ryohei (armour hunter) Toryu (Dragon Hunter) model 7, as dedicated
and self-propelled anti-tank weaponry. The Toryu was the first
mass-produced KR model, and it was based in the simple yet effective idea of
coupling a chassis of the S-11 Tsuyoi medium tank with a Model 87 field
gun. The gun, with a calibre of 85 mm, was powerful enough to face the deadly
T-34 tanks, and in combination with the magnificent S-25 Tetsuwan became
truly a Soviet commander's nightmare given
form.
Later versions, like the enormous KR-15 Kujira (Whale) with a 122
mm cannon, and designed with a defensive posture in mind, saw action mainly in
the European theatres of the Third Great War, after being sold in large number
to the French, Italian and British armies. However, and despite the benefits of
a lower cost and a lower profile than turreted vehicles, the change of doctrine of the IJA during the 1950s,
calling for a “cavalry” role of the armoured forces, the surge of anti-tank
missiles and the fact that the tanks of the day were more than capable of
handling opponents, meant the end for the Kikou Ryohei models within the IJA:
the last models produced were sold in the 1960s to the Indian and Egyptian
armies.
General Characteristics (KR-3)
Length: 5.52 m
Width: 2.9 m
Height: 2.5 m
Weight: 22 tons
Speed: 40 km/h (road)
Range: 155 km
Primary armament: 50mm gun
Secondary armament: Two .30 cal machine guns
Crew: 5
The Nakayima NK-27 Funryu (Furious Dragon) was the most
formidable ground attack aircraft of the second phase of the Second
Russo-Japanese War, and became one of the most famous planes of the Third Great
War as part of the air forces of the Grand Alliance. Designed originally as a
light single-seat aircraft, it ended the experimental step as a heavier
two-seat (NK-24) with an armoured shell protecting crew, engine, radiators, and
the fuel tank, which commenced to be mass-produced in May 1942. This aircraft
was designed in response to an IJA requirement for a close air support aircraft
that could operate from forward positions on a battlefield, meaning that the
aircraft should be able to operate from relatively rough fields, carry heavy
armour, and be able to loiter over target areas.
Truly dreaded by Soviet tank and transport crews, its initial upgrading
consisted in the addition of 30 mm cannons, with later designs with increased
fuel capacity and wings that were swept back 15 degrees on the outer ends. This
model (the NK-27) became the most common version of the Funryu, and the
one which gained a tremendous reputation among several European armies –with
some units suffering minor upgrades and adaptations– during the Third Great
War.
A total of 3,804 Funryus were produced, almost all of them
NK-27s. Today, a dozen remain, preserved at the Imperial War Museum in Tokyo.
Characteristics (NK-27)
Crew: 2
Length: 10.8 m.
Wingspan: 14.8 m.
Height: 3.80 m
Wing area: 37.2 m²
Weight: 3,010 kg. (empty)
Engines: 1x Mitsubishi Kasei 35
Maximum speed: 468 km/h
Range: 2,960 km.
Service ceiling: 9,040 m.
Rate of climb: 480 m/min.
Guns: 2x 30 mm cannon
The S-43 Tetsuwan (Iron Arm) was a medium tank created by the IJA
technical Bureau (IJATB) as a direct response to the deadly Soviet T-34. The
T-34 definitely outclassed all the existing tanks in the IJA inventory, and its
introduction in the Siberian and Mongolian fronts meant that the parity enjoyed
by the IJA armoured forces until that moment was completely lost.
Instead of losing time and precious resources upgrading the battle
tested but aging S-11 Tsuyoi, until then the medium tank of preference,
the IJATB decide to create a new tank, a “homage” to the T-34, a simple and
clean design, easy to operate, and more important, easy to manufacture.
The S-43 included the T-34’s sloping armour (improving shot deflection
and increasing the apparent armour thickness), the long, over-hanging gun, and
the wide tracks and large road wheels (improving its stability): in short, the
S-43 was a copy of the T-34 with a narrower and lighter turret, a 80 mm armour
thickness and a very important improvement: its main gun was a 80 mm that, even
when smaller than the T-34/85’s gun, counted with a larger propellant charge
and a longer barrel that gave it a very high muzzle velocity, hence giving it a
better penetrating power than the T-34’s gun. The S-43 also carried two
machineguns, one in the front of the hull, the other mounted co-axially with
the main gun in the turret.
The mass production of this tank was immediately ordered, and first
Mitsubishi, and later Mitsui, Sumitomo, Komatsu Seisakuyo, and even the South
Manchurian Railways Company were producing the S-43. A total of 6895 were
built, becoming the workhorse of the Japanese tank corps, and upgraded
repeatedly to deal with the changing threats from enemy forces: it remained the
major Japanese tank until the late 1950s, and its considered the first Main
Battle Tank, a tank class which replaced both medium and heavy tanks in the IJA
inventory.
Characteristics (S-43)
Length: 8.0 m
Width: 3.0 m
Height: 2.7 m
Weight: 29 tons
Speed: 57 km/h
Range: 180 km
Primary armament: 80 mm gun
Secondary armament: two .30 cal machine guns.
Crew: 5
The S-14 Okami (Wolf) was a light tank designed to provide mobile
firepower in the Siberian front, and it was a design created with the intent of
creating a replacement for the already outdated Tetsuken model, even
when the Okami was developed from the Tetsuken series of light
tank designs. Among its advantages was its high manoeuvrability, reasonable
potency, simplicity of operation, a fully stabilised and very accurate main
gun. Its only disadvantage was the alarming rate of use of fuel.
The S-14 first production models appeared in late 1939, and a year later
the Okami had totally replaced the Tetsuken. The IJA did use the
Okami extensively in combat, using it as a recon vehicle in the Mongolian
front, and in the highly mountainous Siberian front mainly as an assault gun
(in its Okami-B version, with a 105 mm gun), but also in direct combat
against BT Soviet tanks, against which proved to be highly effective with its
80 mm gun. However, after the introduction in massive numbers of the lethal
T-34/85, the Okami suffered from being too light for direct combat, despite the
improvement of its gun with new types of high performance anti-tank rounds. It
was kept, however, as an excellent recon vehicle and in anti-infantry and close
support work.
General Characteristics (S-14)
Length: m
Width: m
Height: m
Weight: tons
Speed: 72 km/h
Range: km
Primary armament: 80 mm gun
Secondary armament: one .50 cal machine gun, one .30 cal machine gun.
Crew: 4
As a result of the German attack against Moscow in August 1942, General
Timoshenko was left with fewer and fewer experienced troops, with the best and
most capable divisions being sent to repulse the German offensive. Although
capable replacements did exist in the Red Army, they were held in Tambov as a
strong reserve against the German offensive, and for fear of a German attack in
the south. Therefore, the reinforcements that were sent against the Japanese
troops in the Siberian front were of poor quality, had insufficient training,
and were armed with inferior weapons, thus leading to further annihilation. The
new divisions that were hastily called up and thrown into battle had not nearly
the time needed to train properly and were subsequently destroyed. Worst of
all, however, was the Soviet leadership’s decision to call up the narodnoe
opolchenie, or “militia divisions.”
Barely trained and ill equipped, these Soviet citizens plucked from the
streets and factories were flung against crack Japanese divisions, with a
massive slaughter as a result after the massive use of chemical weapons by the
Imperial Japanese Army. In addition, severe losses forced the Soviet leadership
to abandon its “class-based” army concept and enlist non-Slavic Soviet
minorities. This produced a problem of language (most did not speak Russian),
while the loyalty of many of these troops was questionable, given years of
cultural alienation and Russian chauvinism. The successful use of massive
chemical attack was followed by the indiscriminate use of these weapons against
the city of Ulan-Ude, that was completely destroyed and de-populated by the
Japanese merciless attack.
The Air Headquarters of the Imperial Army (Koku Hombu) decided to close
the gap between the IJA and the Red Air Force in the field of heavy bombers
after the first phase of the Second Russo-Japanese War. By 1941, the IJA
Technical Bureau and the Nakajima company had developed the R9A Heavy Bomber.
Based in the French Liore & Olivier Leo 45 bomber, and despite being
designed in a great hurry, it entered active service with the IJA Air Force
during the second phase of the Second Russo-Japanese War. This model introduced
the survivability features that were common among French and British bomber
designs, but were almost absent it its Soviet counterpart: self-sealing fuel
tanks and powered defensive gun turrets.
The R9A was never produced in large numbers, due to the constrains
suffered by Japanese war industries during the war, but it was successfully
employed by France’s Armée de l’Air during the Third Great War, during
which it was finally mass-produced (in Japan and France). Due to its good performance
against the URSS, and out of a wish to simplify logistics, the First Air
Arsenal adopted the idea that a large and advanced bomber, carrying big and
heavy bombs, would be expensive on a unit basis, but would also be produced in
much smaller quantities, making the potential economies attractive, plans for
other models were discarded, and Nakajima continued the production of the R9A
(designated the standard heavy bomber) up until 1958.
The average R9A (the IJAAF introduced a few variants and the French and
Italians added others, with the former even creating their own bombers based in
the R9A after they obtained the license) had a crew of 8 men, had a maximum
speed of 467 km/h, a service ceiling of 8534 m, and could deliver 5800 kg of
bombs. Moreover, it had turbocharged engines, ten 12.7 mm machine guns as
defensive armament, and its weight (27,000 kg) made it one of the heaviest
aircraft in the world. Besides, the R9A featured a wing specially designed for
a high aspect ratio, tricycle landing gear, and twin vertical stabilisers. An
important feature of the R9A was its extensive bomb bay, at 10. metres long.
Initially the heaviest bombs carried were 1,800 kg, but against the Siberian
defensive lines, the R9A could carry a single 8 metres long, 10,000 kg, Asukueiku
bomb.
The IJN introduced its own variant, the R9B, which had a sufficient
range to fulfil the need for a long range maritime reconnaissance aircraft, by
1958 had broke numerous world records. In the Mandates War, the R9C, with a
specialised search radar, was introduced, while the R9B were used in a maritime
patrol role, thanks to its very long range, and served as air cover for convoys
going from the Home Islands to the Mandate islands. By then, many of the
original R9As had been converted to R9A-B fuel tankers for aerial refuelling.
Later, R9Bs were converted to R9B-B and R9B-C tankers as well.
Two R9A remain in air-worthy condition, although few flying hours remain
on their airframes and actual flying is carefully rationed. Both belong to the
Imperial War Museum in Tokyo.
The lessons of the Second Russo-Japanese War and the Second Great War
were rapidly assimilated by the IJA High Command. After analysing the
performance of its armoured formations that of the European combatants during
those conflicts, they realized that Shinsenkyo had to overcome several of their
assumptions, especially those about the composition and use of the tank forces.
The IJA had been unable to field heavy tanks, besides some prototypes,
due to wartime constrains and technical difficulties. The High Command had
witnessed how the size, armour and firepower of the tanks skyrocketed during
these conflicts, and by the end of the Second Great War, the Soviet, German,
and French armies were fielding monsters of 50 tons and more, while the IJA was
still tied to the 37 ton S-43 medium tank.
Several groups within the IJA, supported by some politicians and
zaibatsus, were pushing for the creation of a whole new IJA armoured force,
reflecting the same evolution of the Western and Soviet armies. However, the
venerable Jujiro Studies Group, counting with the best information available
about the probable battlefield of the future, determined a completely different
evolution for the Imperial Japanese Army.
The primitive road nets of Manchuria, China, Mongolia, Siberia, and
maybe, south East Asia and the Philippines, financial constrains, the
successful experiences in combined arms tactics during the second phase of the
Second Russo-Japanese War, the offensive mindset of the IJA, the switching to
heavy (defensive) tanks by part of the Red Army and Germany (China’s main
provider or armour), the effective and complete integration of close support
aircraft into the Army structure… all these factors, and more, were used to
establish a new armoured doctrine for the IJA.
Known as the Kihei (Cavalry) doctrine, it called for the
formation of a combined arms (aviation/armour) general purpose combat force, to
be composed by medium tanks used in an encircling, offensive role; accompanied
by some “armour hunter” units, like KRs and infantry with anti-tank guns as a
“body guard” force; light tanks in the recon role; and with organic air support
against the enemy’s armoured forces and defensive positions.
After the approbation of this new doctrine (generally disregarded by
U.S. and European observers –except the British– as an oddity) in 1948, the IJA
trained its troops to fit into this vision, which incidentally, gave priority
to the use of the infantry, something very dear to the IJA. The doctrine called
for the deployment of airborne infantry brigades deployed by tactical
transports and supported by light tanks, in a support role for the main
mechanized formations, with tactical support aircraft covering this force, and
the infantry clearing ahead the terrain of enemy infantry armed with the then
ubiquitous anti-tank shaped-charge rocket weapons. Meanwhile, the Strategic Air
Force would have the opportunity to attack heavily defended positions, well
ahead of the main force, in order to avoid “friendly fire” incidents.
This form of mechanized infiltration warfare, although true to the
Shinsenkyo, meant that the supremacy of the tank, as the “war-winning” weapon,
was discarded in favour of the use of different weapon systems in an integrated
way, better known as “combined arms tactics”: the tanks performing the now
classical offensive breakthrough operations, with powerful aerial and
mechanized infantry forces helping to collapse the enemy lines, cutting the
logistical lines of the enemy, isolating the enemy’s armoured forces and
forcing them to surrender after running out of fuel and ammunition; in
opposition to other power’s doctrine, that called for the development of tanks
as the main anti-tank weapons, and that sought the destruction of the opposing
armoured forces in duels of tank against tank.
Although it was planned to introduce this new doctrine after an initial
experimental phase, the Chinese invasion of Manchuria that started the Third
Sino-Japanese War served as a laboratory for this new concept. Even when the
airborne component was used only sporadically, the ground and air support
components were used extensively, and several variants were tried and
discarded, and by the end of the Third Sino-Japanese War, the cavalry brigade
tank units were composed by a headquarters, 1 light-tank company (10 light
tanks), 3 medium-tank campanies (each with 10 medium tanks and 2 light tanks),
one keisokosha (armoured personal carrier) company (usually composed by
trucks instead of “real” APCs) and a company ammunition train (including 80
trucks, chemical warfare material and 6 reserve light tanks), with air support
and artillery controlled at the divisional level.
The Japanese Army of Manchuria (JAOM), created as a cost-saving measure
after the amalgamation of the New Territories’ Defence Forces, the Manchurian
Guards, the Siberian Borders Guards and the Japanese Army of Mongolia, was the
most formidable armed force in northeast Asia well into the 1970s, and these
same forces also kept the Chinese forces outside Manchuria (and kept an eye
over the Manchurians) for over two decades.
The JAOM in 1974, the year it was disbanded, totalled 380,000 troops, and
was divided in three main branches: Army, Air Force/Air Defense, and Border
Guards, the latter technically under the control of the Colonial
Administration, but in the field were an appendix of the ground forces.
An all motorized force, the JAOM counted with 6 tank divisions, 12
motorized infantry divisions, 6 surface-to-surface missile brigades, 30
artillery regiments, 3 anti-aircraft regiment, 24 air defence regiments, 6
anti-tank battalions, and other support units.
Thanks to the advances in the jet-propulsion field made by the German,
Soviet, French and British air forces during the Second Great War, the Japanese
were able to study several models and, thanks to its cooperation accords (most
of them secret) with the French, the Dai-Ichi Koku Gijitsusho (First Air
Arsenal) was able to shorten the indigenous development cycle of jet
technology, a field were Japan was clearly at disadvantage before and after the
Third Great War.
By 1947, the first models of the Mitsubishi B7N Junyo (Wandering
Falcon) appeared among the IJN naval air squadrons. Originally developed as a
ground attack aircraft, the priority given to the Naval Modernization Plan
forced the First Air Arsenal to develop it as a naval fighter. The first
prototypes flew in December 1947, and appeared in service in 1949. Too late to
participate in the Third Sino-Japanese War, the Junyo (in its B5G and B5T
versions) was used extensively by the Italians in the Franco-Italian War
(1957), but its true value was shown during the Hainan Crisis, during which it
proved to be superior to any aircraft then in the US Navy inventory: with more
thrust and hydraulic ailerons, the Junyo could climb faster and higher, and had
better turning performance and high mach stability, giving it a tremendous
dogfight performance. Later models (B9Y and B11P) were bestsellers editions
with great international success.
General Characteristics (B7N)
Span: 10.05 mts.
Length: 10.45 mts.
Height: 3.35 mts
Weight: 5,122 kilos max.
Armament: Two 23mm cannons plus missiles or 1,200 kilos of bombs.
Engine: Dassault Lavigne turbojet of 6,000 lbs. thrust (built
under license by Mitsubishi)
Maximum speed: 1000 kph.
Cruising speed: 840 kph.
Range: 1100 kilometres
Service Ceiling: 15.5 kilometres
The focus on the Soviet and Chinese fronts since the Second
Russo-Japanese War left the IJN in the uncomfortable position of being forced
to respond to the threat presented by the far larger US Navy and the similarly
composed but technically superior and more experienced Royal Navy in the waters
of the West Pacific and South East Asia. This ungrateful task was faced by the
Imperial Japanese Navy with the study of two proposals, two school of thought, known
as the “Old” and “Young” schools, respectively.
The “Old School” was known by its deep commitment to traditional
doctrines: Japan was supposed to counter the numerical superiority of their
foes with fleets organized around ships of the same class: a fleet of
battleships with light air cover to hunt down the enemy’s capital ships, an
aircraft carrier fleet for power projection against the enemy’s bases, several
fleets composed by cruisers and destroyers for scouting, blockade and transport
task and submarine chaser fleets of smaller units. These conservative officers
insisted that the costly capital ships were the only effective naval weapon
against the nation’s immediate maritime adversaries, the United States and
Britain, its only rivals after the extinction of the Soviet Pacific Fleet and
the Chinese fleet.
However, except in the seas surrounding the Home Islands, Japan could
not maintain naval superiority for long, nor could count on naval allies to
offset the negative impact of earlier commitment to continental affairs. Not
even the readiness of Tokyo to expand, for strategic reasons, its shipbuilding
industry even into the New Territories, was enough to overcome the problems of
financial limitations, competing priorities with the Army and civilian sectors
and the need for development of the New Territories, Manchuria and Mongolia.
As a response, the “Young School”, favoured by the civilian and Army
leadership, called for the defence of the country’s enormous territorial waters
(including the Pacific Mandates), with a combination of submarine and mine
warfare, strong carrier-based and land based naval air forces, task forces
composed by medium ships around aircraft carriers, and coastal defence as the
logical priorities. Decisive encounters of battleships and cruisers, they
argued, were not the norm of the naval combats during the Second and Third
Great Wars, but aggressive submarine raids against the Allies’ shipping aimed
at disrupting their communications, and offensive minelaying operations at
night, deep in enemy waters, tactics used by both Germany and the URSS.
At the end, Imperial Headquarters decided in favour of a compromise plan
that nonetheless favoured the Young School over the strident objection of the
most conservative officers: the financial cost of the Old School’s fleet,
strong Army pressure, and the bitter and exhausting debate in the Diet about
the funding of either program convinced the Cabinet. The innovative Japanese
spirit was focused into getting rid of the old Navy and the creation of a new
era of naval warfare: seven Japanese and no less that twenty foreign companies
entered the design competition for the different components of the new Navy,
including a number of improvements and special features, including the lavish use
of electronic devices during the modernizing and recommissioning of the old
carriers.
Given Japan’s enormous potential and rapid industrial growth, second
only to that of the United States, the expansion of its shipbuilding capacity
and the modernization of the principal old shipyards in Yokosuka and Kobe was
the next logical step, including interesting initiatives, like the construction
of the Yukimura Shipyard at Yukimura (former Komsomolsk), about 450 kilometres
up the Amur River: the location put it out of range of the US Navy aviation and
warships, while at the same time forced the IJN to tow the ships downstream
after launching to be fitted out at coastal shipyards.
The almost brand-new Imperial Japanese Navy, slowly completed during the
1950s, was divided into three naval commands. The Pacific Command was formed
with the larger but still battleship-centered US Navy on mind: it was supposed
to defeat its foes on open sea, while destroying its bases in Hawaii and the
Philippines, occupy Guam and disrupt its communications with China. The
Southern Command was expected to engage British (or French) warships and the
small Dutch and Australian fleets. Finally, the Northern Command’s task was to
prevent the US from landing troops in the Kamuchatsuka Territory and the
Kurils, and to disrupt communications in the North Pacific.
The Mandates War (1965) was the baptism of fire for the IJN: this naval
war, which taught both sides serious lessons about the use of airpower as an
organic part of naval warfare, the effective use of electronics and the useless
of the old big warships against the stealth and lethal submarine forces, was
the end of the Young School’s precious navy, but allowed Japan to retain –maybe
mistakenly– its prestige as Great Power and, ironically, permitted Japan once
again to create a brand new navy, under a radical modernization and expansion
program, achieving a close parity with the victorious US Navy, and by 2005 can
boast the world’s second largest and most modern navy and the largest and most
modern ocean research and fishing fleets.
The geopolitical situation in China forced the Japanese political
leadership to diminish the profile of the IJA in China. Accordingly, the IJA
decided that a force of “volunteers” could be formed to stiffen the Green
Banner Army, the personal armed force of Pai Chun-hsi. Thus, an especial elite
unit, formed around the IJA 3rd Independent Mixed Brigade, was sent
to China from Manchuria to bolster the defences of Nanking.
Originally composed by 3 S-43 companies, an infantry regiment, an
artillery regiment, and an engineer company –all of them motorized– in early
1953 three tactical air support flights were attached, thus becoming the
embodiment the “combined arms” concept. Further upgraded with an additional
company of assorted S-43s and KR-3s and three light tanks companies, the full
title of this brigade was Dai Nippon Teikoku Kihei Shudan (Imperial
Japanese Cavalry Group), but it was better known in Japan by its short from, Kidan.
The origin of the name “Imperial Hussars,” exclusively used by European –and
later U.S.– experts it’s obscure, but the most accepted explanation is that one
of the British military observers in China was the one who christened so the
Kidan, due to a mistranslation of the title of the unit in Japanese.
Used for first time in February 1954 to spearhead the GBA
counteroffensive against the New Nationalist Army, the Imperial Hussars
succeeded in evicting the NNA forces from Nanking, despite the fact of being
heavily outnumbered. However, it became painfully obvious that the Hussars were
ill-suited for anti-partisan duties, and the Hussars were recalled to Manchuria
in September 1954. They reassumed their spearhead role during the brief
Siberian campaign of October-November 1954. The last assignation of the
original Hussars was to serve as an armoured reserve to be kept in Nanking, but
the street battle (March 5-11, 1956) between them in one side, and rebel GBA
forces and demonstrators almost completely destroyed the unit. The survivors
were retired to Manchuria, where the Hussars were disbanded and reorganized as
an armoured brigade.
Later, with the popularisation of the helicopter in the 1960s, the
Hussars were reorganized once again under the concept of “air mobility”: once
again used as an experimental unit, the Hussars were trained to be the arm of
mobility and shock. The new Kidan saw action in Korea, where the the incredible
mobility of the air-mobile assault (with medium and heavy helicopters) proved
to be extremely successful against Korean guerrillas during the Korean
Independence War and against North Chinese armoured units during the border war
with the latter in Manchuria in 1974: the Kidan repeatedly attacked the flanks
of the advancing armoured columns, ambushing them, and then calling the
helicopter gunships to finish off the rest of the column. The Kidan was the
first unit that saw action in both conflicts.
Even when they were technically dragoons, conveying infantry to battle,
the IJA decided to keep for them the honorary title of 1st Armoured Division Kidan,
as a reflection of the past glory of the “Imperial Hussars,” and as a title
that had a good effect on morale and recruitment. In 1976 the 1st armoured
division was reorganized once again, this time adding an armoured infantry
regiment and several other (engineer, NBC warfare, medical, repair) sub-units
to its air-mobile forces. This reorganization, resulting in the combination of
armour (for shock on the ground), air-mobile infantry (heliborne), and air
cavalry (for air support) represented the logical outgrowth of the great
advances in Army mobility and the lessons learned in Siberia, China, Korea and
Manchuria. From then on, the Kidan patrolled the frozen tundras of the Continental
Territories and the scorching deserts of Mongolia until 1987.
The last time the Kidan saw action was in 1983: they, together with the
1st Armoured Infantry Division (Kodan) and the IJN 1st
and 2nd Naval Infantry divisions, were designated the Japanese
Expeditionary Force (JEF) deployed in Oman during the Gulf War: the Kidan
successfully delayed the United Arab Republic’s forces in the town of As-Sib,
gaining time for Iranian and British forces to arrive and thus saving the Omani
capitol, Muscat. In this way, the Kidan kept its tradition of being the first
to fight in behalf of the interest of the Japanese Empire.
Annex
The Japanese Armed Forces
2005
The Japanese defence forces are being subjected to the most dramatic
change in their history since the Korean Independence War. In 1996, the end of
the New Nationalist Party rule over Hainan-China and the subsequent loss of US
influence over the country, the border clashes between Northern and Southern
China, plus the talks on unification between the Far Eastern Republic and the
Russian Empire triggered a re-evaluation of Japan's security requirements.
The Ministry of Defence issued a new White Paper defining Japan’s new
defence policy objectives. These focus on the preservation of peace in Asia and
the Pacific and in other areas essential to Japanese economic activity and free
trade. Japanese security planning was concerned in past years with the threat
of the US substantial force structure in the Pacific Ocean, resulting in annual
increases in Japanese defence spending during the 1980s and 1990s of roughly 6
percent. However, Japanese security strategy is now primarily concerned with
the potential threat of continued existence of the powerful Korean air forces
and an increasingly assertive and economically expanding Russia.
Today, Japan’s security planning focuses on six different classes of
future conflict scenarios that could require a Japanese military response.
These are: regional conflicts not touching Japanese vital interests; regional
conflict touching Japanese vital interests; attack on Japanese territory;
fulfilment of bilateral defence agreements; peace and international law
enforcement operations; and resurgence of a major threat against the Imperial
Homeland.
Even when Japan’s basic national security strategy hasn’t changed much
in the last three decades, Japan’s defence policy is still evolving. In 1998,
the government developed another White Paper on defence. Building on the
directions established earlier, the paper reinforced the priority of
conventional over nuclear forces and specified three primary policy objectives:
ending conscription and the development of a professional military force;
continuing to modernize major military equipment; and reducing cost by 30
percent to defence production (over a six year period).
The FY 2005 (April 2005-March 2006) Japanese defence budget is expected
to increase by 1.2 percent and this rather flat trend in defence spending is
expected to continue into the near future. Japan’s defence budget, at around US
$48 billion, is the world’s third largest behind the Russian Empire and the
U.S.
Imperial Japanese Navy (IJN)
The Imperial Japanese Navy is the largest branch of the Japanese armed
forces, the largest Navy in Asia and equal in power to the U.S. Navy. Includes
flotillas of submarines, surface ships, mine countermeasures forces and three
task groups, plus a land-based Naval Air Force and the Naval Infantry forces.
It numbers 256 combatant ships: 5 nuclear powered missile submarines, 24
nuclear powered multipurpose submarines, 32 diesel-electric submarines, 3
nuclear powered multipurpose aircraft carrier, 1 helicopter carrier, 1 cruiser,
37 destroyers, 41 frigates, 12 patrol ships, 45 mine countermeasures ships, 20
landing ships, and 35 missile craft; as well as 10 combatant ships in reserve,
including one multipurpose aircraft carrier, 2 submarines, 2 destroyers and 5
minesweepers. This list does not include the submarine “second fleet”, obsolete
but still usable, and an undisclosed number of midget submarines, primarily
employed as a marine diver delivery vehicle, intended for use in diversionary
attacks against anchored shipping.
The Strategic Ocean Command has a subordinate squadron of SSBN's, and
counts with 3,150 persons, including 1,500 in SSBN crews and 1,650 in command,
control and support entities.
There are three carrier battle groups, with an order of battle usually
formed by a carrier, five destroyers, six frigates, four SSNs, and ammunition,
oiler and suplly ships. The first CBG is under the Pacific Ocean Command, based
in Tokyo and the Nanyo-retto prefecture, the second under the East China Sea
Command, based in Okinawa and the Vietnamese port of Da Nang, and the third one
in Trincomalee under the Indian Ocean Command. Other ships can be assigned to
these groups from the Northern Waters and Sea of Japan commands or the
reserves.
Operationally subordinate to the IJN Northern Waters (Sea of Okhotsk and
northern Pacific) Command is a submarine flotilla and a flotilla of surface
ships, consisting of two divisions of frigates, a division of destroyers and a
division of minesweepers/hunters.
Subordinate to the IJN Sea of Japan Command is a flotilla of submarines,
a division of destroyers, a formation of mine countermeasures forces, a flotilla
of patrol ships and a division of training ships.
The Continental Flotilla river and coastal patrol forces and assets in
the Urakawa and Kamuchtasuka prefectures and based in Suzu. The Straits Task
Force is a cruiser-centred fleet numbering up to 9 combatant ships (5
destroyers and four frigates) and small combatants, based in the Vietnamese
port of Cam Ranh Bay.
The strategic sea-based nuclear forces are represented by 4 Fuso-Class
SSBN's transferred to the Navy during 1974-1985. To augment the Japanese
deterrent force, two submarines of a new class, Kongo, are being built, one has
been completed and construction of another one is planned. This will permit
increasing combat capabilities of strategic sea-based nuclear forces by 1.5
times.
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IJN Kongo
nuclear-powered SSBN, 1999. |
The lead SSBN, Kongo, was commissioned in 1996. An order for a second
submarine of this series (Hiei) was placed in 1999 and commissioning is planned
for 2006, and an order for building a third one was placed in 2000.
By the end of the 2010's it is envisaged concluding work on the design
project of a new-generation nuclear powered multipurpose submarine displacing
4,000 tonnes and equipped with a vertical launcher for antiship missiles; she
will have greater speed and running depth, a lesser noise level and the newest
sonar and navigation equipment. Commissioning of the first submarine is
expected in 2014. It is planned to operate diesel powered submarines of the Ise
(12) and Hyuga (12) classes in the order of battle until the end of the next
decade.
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IJN Ryuho
and Soryu carriers. |
Japan is giving serious attention to upgrading naval carrier forces. At
the end of 2002 its order of battle was augmented by the nuclear-powered
carrier, Ryuho, which replaced the obsolete carrier Akagi. According to a
Ministry of Defence representative's statement, the decision to build a second
such ship, commissioned in early 2003, was made in order to ensure continuity
of work at the Tottori Yard. She is expected to be commissioned in 2006 to
replace the carrier Soryu.
The helicopter carrier Hiryu fulfils training ship functions in
peacetime. In a period of threat she can be refitted as a landing ship capable
of sealifting up to 700 infantrymen. It is proposed to decommission her in
2007. It is expected to decommission the cruiser Furutaka the same year and
replace it for a new carrier.
Destroyers are represented by the
following ships: 27 Minekaze-Class and 2 each Sawakaze, Okikaze, Shimakaze,
Yakaze and Hakaze classes. Japan’s long tradition of building the finest
destroyer force in the world is well exemplified by these ships. Frigates are
the most numerous ships of the IJN. Among them are 25 Usuki-Class, 5
Fumisuki-Class, 6 Kikusuki-Class and 5 Minasuki-Class.
Plans for IJN development envisage
construction of new Yusuki-Class frigates, intended for replacing Usuki-Class
frigates. By 2010 it is planned to build a total of 10 such ships. These fast,
yet sturdy vessel armed with torpedo tubes and missiles, have been continuously
developed throughout the 1980s and early 1990s. Over a period of several years
it is planned to decommission three Fumisuki-Class frigates. Joint development
with Australia and Vietnam of a new design-project frigate with a displacement
of 6,200 tonnes is envisaged. Four such ships, the first to be commissioned in
2006, will be built under the agreement. Mine countermeasures forces include
Kuma (25) and Tama (20) classes minesweeper/hunters. All the patrol ships and
all the missile crafts belong to the Hatsuzakura and Hatsushima Classes
respectively.
Much has been written about the
IJN's submarine “second fleet” in reserve. Officially decommissioned, it’s a
well-known fact that this reserve, the world's third-largest submarine force
accordingly with some sources, while considered obsolete, could be effective
against commercial vessels and for laying mines.
Additionally, the IJN counts with
its own amphibious force: the Naval Infantry. As such, they are required to be
trained to work in different terrains and environments, from the cold,
mountainous conditions in Northern Japan, to the hot arid regions of central
Mongolia and to the dense tropical jungles of South East Asia. The Naval
Infantry’s primary wartime missions would be: to seize and hold strategic
straits or islands, to make sea-borne tactical landings behind enemy lines, and
defend coastal installations and naval bases. Naval Infantry's amphibious
doctrine calls for battalion(s) to conduct a simultaneous heli- and hovercraft-borne
assault against a beachhead, with the heliborne element attempting to envelop
the defenders. Heavier, tank-reinforced naval infantry battalions constitute
the second echelon, and are intended to expand the beachhead seized by the
first echelon. Depending on the scale of the operation, a third echelon
consisting of regular IJA forces units may also be used.
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Naval
Infantry armoured personnel carrier. |
All Naval Infantrymen are required
to undergo what is recognized as one of the longest and most demanding infantry
training regimes in the world. This is undertaken at the Imperial Naval
Infantry Training Centre at Naha, Okinawa. Also, a large proportion of the
training is carried out on the rugged, inhospitable terrains of Urakawa and
Vietnam. Their training is a series of tests of fitness, endurance and military
professionalism which have remained virtually unchanged since the eve of the Korean
Independence War.
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IJNI
fighting vehicle. |
The Naval Infantry counts with
90,000 active and 10,000 reserve members in 2003, organized into six divisions
and six brigades. Naval Infantry had its own amphibious versions of standard
armoured vehicles and tanks used by the Imperial Japanese Army. The Naval
Infantry has 26 landing ships: 2 Matsu-Class, 4 Momo-Class, 6 Take-Class and 14
Ume-Class. It is proposed to increase the combat capabilities of amphibious
landing forces by replacing Ume-Class dock landing ships with three new
Take-Class amphibious transport docks. The first already has been commissioned
and orders for building a second and third were placed in 2003.
The question of creating a
multipurpose landing ship (displacement 15,000-20,000 tonnes) to support the
Naval Infantry is being studied. According to preliminary data, the ship will
be able to take aboard a Naval Infantry subunit up to a battalion in size
(600-800 persons) with transportation assets and weapons. There will be a
command post aboard for command and control of force operations and a sick bay
for 100 persons. Besides, with seventy-five units, Japan had the world's largest
inventory of air-cushion assault craft; and many of the Japanese merchant
fleet's ocean-going ships could off-load weapons and supplies in an amphibious
landing.
One of the divisions of the Naval
Infantry –the Coastal Missile Defence Force– is exclusively dedicated to
defending naval bases from attack. In 2004 the CMDF operated naval
surface-to-surface missile launchers and coastal artillery along the approaches
to naval bases. A large number of surface combatants, including light frigates,
missile attack boats, submarine chasers, guided missile combatants, amphibious
craft, and patrol boats of many types, also participated in coastal defence.
As a third component, the
land-based Naval Strategic Air Force is the modern avatar of the old Strategic
Air Force of the 1940s and 1950s. It is divided into five air fleets
subordinated to the Imperial High Command, in order to cover specific theatres
of military operations (Asia, the Pacific and the U.S.) and yet retain the
flexibility to reallocate aircraft as necessary during wartime. The strike
assets of these air fleets include some 165 operational Kyokko bombers,
the most modern operational bomber in their inventory. The Kyokko can perform
various missions, including nuclear strike, conventional attack, antiship
strike, and reconnaissance. Its low altitude dash capabilities make it a
formidable platform to support military operations in Asia and the Pacific.
Additionally, the Kyokko can be equipped with a probe to permit in-flight
refuelling so that it can be used even against the continental U.S. if
sufficient tankers are available.
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Two kinds of operations are
conducted by the IJN for the purpose of defending Japan: securing maritime
traffic and securing Japanese territory. For Japan, which relies on foreign
countries for the supply of almost all energy and food, the influence to
national life is quite serious in case that maritime traffic is cut off. It can
also be said that the impact to the world economy is significant in such case.
Therefore, the IJN must be able to secure maritime traffic against attack by
enemy submarines, surface ships and aircraft by effectively combining each
operation such as surveillance, escort and defence of ports and straits. In
case of aggression which aims at territorial occupation, it is necessary to
stop it at sea in order to prevent direct damage to the Imperial Homeland
territory.
The large volume of coastal commercial fishing and maritime traffic
limits in-service sea training around the principal islands, especially in the
relatively shallow waters required for mine laying, mine sweeping, and
submarine rescue practice. So, trainings are executed principally in the
Nanyo-retto prefecture. The IJN maintains four ocean-going training ships and
conducted annual long-distance on-the-job training for graduates of the
one-year officer candidate school.
In the assessment of the command element, the Imperial Japanese Navy is
capable of performing its assigned missions with existing forces and assets.
Plans for its development envisage a further build-up of combat potential with
consideration of the country's interests in the South China Sea and the Indian
and Pacific oceans.
Imperial Japanese Army
The Imperial Japanese Army (IJA) operates
under the command of the Chief of the Army Staff, based in the city of
Ichikawa, east of Tokyo. Although allotted 625,000 slots (including the IJAAF)
for uniformed personnel, in 2004 the force was maintained at about 80 percent
of that level (with approximately 500,000 personnel) because of funding
constraints and the emphasis in the development of the Naval Infantry.
The IJA consists of sixteen armoured
divisions, fifteen armoured infantry divisions, two mountain and two airborne
brigades, four combined brigades, five training brigades and two artillery
brigades with three groups. Meanwhile, the IJA Air Force, also known as the Koku
Kantai (the Air Fleet), is the major aviation arm of the Japanese armed
forces, maintaining 83,000 personnel and approximately 930 aircraft in 2005.
Front-line formations include six ground-attack squadrons, fifteen interceptor
squadrons, fifteen fighter squadrons, two bomber squadrons, two reconnaissance
squadron, eight transport squadrons, plus two helicopter brigades with
thirty-four squadrons, and four antitank helicopter platoons.
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IJA S-64
tank, Karafuto. |
Intended to deter attack or repulse an
invasion, the IJA is divided into seven regional armies, each containing three
to five divisions, antiaircraft artillery units, and support units. The
largest, the Continental Army, is headquartered on Urakawa (former
Vladivostok), is responsible for the defence of Japan’s continental territories
and the Kamuchatsuka Special Prefecture, and it counts with five divisions,
plus the mountain and airborne brigades. The Northern Army, headquartered on
Toyohara (Karafuto), has four divisions and artillery, antiaircraft artillery,
and engineering brigades. The Northeastern Army and the Eastern Army,
headquartered in Sendai and Ichikawa, respectively, each has three divisions.
The Central Army, headquartered in Itami, has three divisions in addition to a
combined brigade located on Shikoku. The Western Army, with two divisions, is
headquartered at Kengun and maintains a combined brigade on Okinawa and another
in Nanyo-retto.
Because of population density on the
Japanese islands, only limited areas were available for large-scale training,
and, even in these areas, noise restrictions were a problem. The IJA tried to
adapt to these conditions by conducting command post exercises and map
manoeuvres and by using simulators and other training devices. Furthermore,
live firing training is conducted in the Urakawa and Northern Karafuto
prefectures, where such restrictions cannot diminish the value of combat
training and troop morale.
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IJA
self-propelled howitzers in Mongolia. |
The IJA adopted the concept that ground
force units to be deployed in peacetime should be deployed in conformity with
Japan's geographical characteristics in a well-balanced way so that they can
implement systematic defence operations from the outset of aggression in any
part of Japan, and be able to counter-attack when ready.
Since the days of the Third Sino-Japanese
War, the IJA has adopted a combined arms approach for its ground forces, with
the regiment as the basis of each division, and with each regiment combining
various types of forces, including combat units, such as infantry, armoured and
artillery units, combat support units and logistical support units. There are
two classes of regiments: the armoured infantry regiments and the armoured
regiments.
Each IJA armoured infantry regiment is an all-arms unit with half the numerical strength of brigades in Western armies, having a strength of 2,000 men. Each regiment is equipped with 41 battle tanks, 3 reconnaissance tanks, 100 armoured personnel carriers, 6 130mm heavy assault guns, 19 122mm self-propelled howitzers, 19 self-propelled mortars, 19 automatic grenade launchers, 5 self-propelled anti-aircraft guns, 5 surface-to-air missile batteries, 100 light anti-aircraft and 300 light anti-tank weapons together with the engineer, NBC warfare, medical, repair and other supporting sub-units. A IJA armoured regiment is organised along similar lines, excepting the overall composition: it has three tank battalions rather than one and one armoured infantry battalion instead of three. Its other sub-units are exactly the same. The strength of an armoured regiment is 1,300 men. An IJA armoured infantry division, with a total of 13,000 men, contains besides the infantry regiments, several sub-units with the most varied functions and capabilities. Each armoured infantry division counts with: -A headquarters staff.-A communications battalion-A reconnaissance battalion-A close support aircraft battalion (providing tactical support for the infantry)-An independent tank battalion (for the protection of the divisional headquarters)-A tank regiment-Three armoured infantry regiments-An artillery regiment (all pieces self-propelled)-An anti-aircraft (SAM) regiment-An anti-tank battalion -An engineer battalion-A NBC warfare battalion -A transport battalion -A repair battalion -A medical battalion -A helicopter flight. An IJA tank division is organised in the same way as an armoured infantry division, except that it has three tank regiments rather than one and one armoured infantry regiment instead of three. The IJA four combined brigades are composed by two regiments of armoured infantry each, and its purpose is to serve in the fortified areas built along the most threatened sectors of the continental Japanese borders. The two mountain brigades are troops specially trained to operate in the hard terrain of the continental territories: each one is composed by two “light” infantry regiments, meaning that their “armoured” regiments are entirely composed by reconnaissance tanks and heavy helicopters, and their artillery is mainly small self-propelled howitzers. Two divisions have honorary titles as reflection of their past glories.
The 1st armoured division is know as the “Imperial Japanese Cavalry
Group” (Dai Nippon Teikoku Kihei Shudan, or Kidan), and its part of the
Continental Army. Despite the fact that it was formed in 1953, well after the
formation of the original 1st armoured division, the Kidan
was the first armoured division created under the Kihei (cavalry)
doctrine, and after covering itself with glory during the War of the Generals, during
which it devastated several division of the New Nationalist Army, the IJA
reassigned to the Kidan the 1st armoured division title, and formed
the core of the Japanese continental forces, known then as the Japanese Army of
Manchuria. The Kidan is composed by three helicopter regiments, an armoured
infantry regiment, a light armoured regiment, a Rakkasan (parachuted)
regiment and several other (engineer, NBC warfare, medical, repair) sub-units
to its air-mobile forces. Its basic task, similar to that of the Naval
Infantry, is the ground support of the land and sea operations aimed at seizing
the enemy’s important installations from the air, disorganisation of the
reserves’ movement and destruction of the enemy logistics. It is prepared to
fight both from the air and on the ground, in typical tasks of air assault
forces and a counter-attack force in case of the hostile intrusion in
combination with regular IJA forces.
The other division with a honorary title is the 1st armoured
infantry division. Known as the Imperial Guard Division (Dai Nippon Teikoku Konoe
Shidan, or Kodan), is the force in charge of the defence of the Emperor and
the Imperial Family, and by extension of the capitol. The Imperial Guard had
its origins in the select group established by Emperor Meiji in the
neighbourhood of Tokyo in his youth. After seeing action in innumerable battles
during the wars fought by Japan in the XX century, the Kodan was awarded the
designation as 1st armoured infantry
division. Organized to bludgeon any attack into the heavily urbanized Tokyo
landscape, its battle and reconnaissance tanks have been replaced by
helicopters, thus becoming an heliborne force. The Kodan is also part of the
Rapid Reaction Force, together with the Kidan and the Naval Infantry.
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IJA AF Nakajima NK-24 multi-role
fighter. |
As an integral, yet specialized, part of the IJA, the IJA Air Force is
divided into a number of major units: the Air Army
Command, Flight Support Command, Flying Training Command, Air Developing and
Proving Command, and Air Matériel Command. The Flight Support Command is
responsible for direct support of operational forces in rescue, transportation,
control, weather monitoring, and inspection. The Flying Training Command is
responsible for basic flying and technical training. The Air Developing and
Proving Command, in addition to overseeing equipment research and development,
is also responsible for research and development in such areas as flight
medicine. The Air Army Command has continental, northern, northeastern,
eastern, central, and western regional headquarters that coincide with the six
IJA armies’ headquarters, plus the Southwestern Composite Air Division based at
Naha on Okinawa and the Southeastern Composite Air Division based at Garapanu
on Saipan.
.
The IJAAF maintains an integrated network
of radar installations and air interception direction centres throughout the
country known as the Basic Air Army Ground Environment in order to provide Air
Defence, which is already the most technologically advanced strategic air
defence network in the world. The air defence assets include a large number of
strategic air defence systems with capabilities against aircraft flying at
medium and high altitudes, early warning and surveillance systems (including
1,500 air defence radars –both in the ground and shipborne– and last-generation
airborne warning and control system, AWACS, aircraft); surface-to-air missiles
(SAMs, both strategic launchers and nearly 2,000 tactical launchers); and
approximately 225 air defence interceptor aircraft are dedicated to strategic
defence. An additional 100 interceptors assigned to the IJAAF could be drawn
upon for strategic defence missions. Collectively, these assets present a
formidable defence barrier.
International commitments
Despite the fact that it is not integrated into the South East Asia
Defence Alliance military structure, Japan is a pivotal security partner for
the members of the SEADA. While its defence policy is marked by independence,
its military capabilities complement those of the Alliance. With their role in
dissuasion, prevention, projection, and protection, the Japanese armed forces
are global, nuclear, conventional, and unconventional, and are being
transformed to become significantly smaller, restructured, and more
professional.
Japan plays an important role in defending democratic interests and also
compares favourably with other allies in terms of defence policies as well as
levels of spending sufficient to maintain a capable and credible force. Perhaps
most noteworthy is the considerable involvement of Japan in an effective
nuclear and conventional defence posture as part of its strategy and that of
the SEADA. Despite often distinctive views on collective defence and
international security, Tokyo has consistently demonstrated a solid political
and military position.
