Short History of World War II - James L. Stokesbury [19]
If that were not enough, the Japanese decided to force China into abandoning her boycott by direct action. In late January of 1932, 70,000 Japanese troops landed at Shanghai in China, and drove the Chinese Army out of the city. There was great consternation among the Powers as they tried to protect their international settlements in Shanghai. Finally, the Japanese found they had bitten off more than they could manage. The Chinese fought back, the diplomats went to work, and the Japanese pulled out in May, after China had given up the boycott.
The army was not satisfied yet, however. Reactionaries assassinated the Premier at home, soldiers moved to the fore in the cabinet, and in 1934, Japan announced a virtual protectorate over Chinese foreign relations. Two years later, young officers attempted a coup; though several were executed, they succeeded in getting rid of most of the civilian ministers of the government. Japan joined Germany in the Anti-Communist Pact that came to be known as the “Axis.”
Finally, in July of 1937, what is known in Japanese history as “the China Incident” began. Once again it was precipitated by soldiers on night maneuvers. This time there was an exchange of shots near the Marco Polo Bridge north of Peking. Chinese troops were alleged to have fired on Japanese units. The Japanese Army responded with a full-scale invasion of China. Fighting spread rapidly along the entire length of the China-Manchukuo border. Before the month was out, the Japanese had taken the ancient Chinese capital of Peking, as well as the port city of Tientsin. In the late summer, they attacked Shanghai and, after fierce resistance by the Chinese, took the city. They then advanced up the Yangtze River valley, driving the Chinese before them, resorting to heavy bombing and machine-gunning of refugees to clear the way. They imposed a naval blockade on the coasts of the rest of China. In December, they attacked British and American ships and sank the United States river gunboat Panay. The second Chinese capital, Nanking, fell before Christmas. The rest of the world watched in dismay and horror, and in this part of the globe, although it never was declared, World War II had already begun.
4. The Unknown Quantities
HITLER HAD ASSESSED Great Britain and France as weak; they were not disposed to challenge his reassertion of German power. Mussolini followed suit. In the Far East, Japan had taken the line that she, and she alone, would dominate the affairs of east Asia; the imperial powers were decadent and they were far away. Neither Germany and Italy on the one hand, nor Japan on the other, paid a great deal of attention to the two potential giants, Russia and the United States.
Hitler especially was a European politician, continental in his outlook, understanding little of the sea, and extraordinarily ignorant of the United States. More surprising, in view of his anti-Slav and anti-Communist views, was his ignorance of Russia. Perhaps the difficulty lay less in ignorance than in the fact that, in the thirties, both Russia and the United States were free-floating variables as far as world affairs went. The potential was there; what either might do with it was nearly impossible to assess.
Russia was the more immediate of the two. It was impossible even to look at a map of Europe without sensing something of the immensity of Russia. Yet so little was known in the rest of the world of Russia’s strength and attitudes that she remained an unknown element. That was equally true of her government.
The old Tsarist government of the Romanovs had made great contributions to the Allied victory in World War I. Time and again through the war, they had launched offensives