Season 15, Episode 7: The International Realignment, Part 1
In late May of 1933, by which time it had become abundantly clear that Japan would face no consequences from the international community after its withdrawal from the League of Nations, the Republic of China decided it was high time they cut a deal. Representatives from China and Japan’s respective governments met in the Tanggu district of Tianjin to hash out a path forward together.
Emperor Hirohito had directly ordered the Imperial Japanese Army to end the ongoing conflict over northeast China quickly and explicitly forbade Japanese troops from advancing beyond the Great Wall. However, as we’ve already seen, the Kwantung Army had little difficulty ignoring imperial imperatives with which they disagreed, so this was hardly reliable as a preventative measure. On the Chinese side, Chiang Kai-shek’s generals urged a peace agreement as soon as possible, worried that ongoing war with Japan would give a much-needed respite to the domestic communist insurgency which they were currently fighting.
The demands of the Japanese representatives were extreme. A demilitarized zone would be created spanning 100 kilometers, or 62 miles, stretching from Beijing to Tianjin. Official troops from China’s ruling KMT would be banned from this zone and a Peace Preservation Corps created to keep order. There was a secret clause in the agreement to which the Chinese government agreed that no one who had fought in an anti-Japanese militia during their invasion of Manchukuo would be allowed to serve in the Peace Preservation Corps, but there was no corresponding restriction for Chinese troops which had sided with the Japanese during their two-year incursion. Thus the Peace Preservation Corps became well-stocked with pro-Japanese troops.
The Tanggu Truce, as it came to be known, ended the conflict between Japan and China over the area in northeast China called Manchuria. It was not an absolute capitulation - the Republic of China was not forced to extend diplomatic recognition to Manchukuo - but rather was an acknowledgement of hard facts: Japan controlled northeast China and they weren’t going to withdraw their troops any time soon.
The next year, 1934, the Conference for the Reduction and Limitation of Armaments ended, having made no measurable progress and, considering the aftermath, was pretty much a complete failure. Not only had the organizers failed to get any nations to agree to reducing or limiting their armament stockpiles, many nations were now increasing their arms manufacture and acquisitions more rapidly than before. The bonds of international trust, heretofore represented by the League of Nations, were, at best, fraying dangerously and, at worst, had already snapped like overstretched rubber bands. In the minds of some European national leaders, the question of a second world war was a matter of when, not if. It was a sentiment which Japanese national leaders shared.
While Italy and Germany had succumbed to fascism and now lived beneath the heel of illiberal ultranationalist philosophy, similar movements organized among many of their neighbor states, especially as the Great Depression continued to immiserate their citizenry and sabotage their economies. The nation of Spain, which had been reorganized in 1931 under the constitution of the Second Spanish Republic, was about to have its own fascist takeover, although this would be a much more overt and bloody affair than even the horrors unleashed upon her fascist peers.
Throughout the early 1930s, Spain’s economy actually did not suffer the same level of devastation experienced by most of the rest of Europe. The imperial contraction which Spain experienced in the previous century, as its foreign possessions in the Americas successfully won their independence, had resulted in the Spanish economy becoming somewhat isolated during the early twentieth century. High tariffs and large-scale domestic agriculture meant that the Spanish people were not as reliant on international trade to bolster their own standard of living. They suffered no banking crises, foot shortages, nor massive impoverishment. However, the people of Spain were hardly living in an idyllic wonderworld where everyone held hands and sang around a big campfire. They had experienced many revolutions in the years before their big Civil War of 1936-39; the most recent in 1934 was led by workers’ unions in the regions of Asturias and Catalonia, but this had been brutally repressed. Its traditional establishment was preparing, in the late 1930s, to defend against the encroachments of modernity and stop the nation’s recent trend of adopting a liberal order upheld by a constitution.
The Spanish monarchy had been sidelined and many of its other conservative institutions - churches, large landowners, old money aristocrats - feared that Spain was sliding too far to the left and was destined for a large-scale Communist revolution like Russia’s unless they did something to prevent it. The Elections of 1936 did little to assuage their fears, as the parties which won the majority of seats were left-oriented groups, some of whom were outspoken socialists, communists, and even anarchists. These left parties banded together and formed “The Popular Front,” a coalition which exercised control over the parliament now that they held a majority of seats. The election itself was fraught with violence and when it was over, conservatives decided that the violence would continue.
Part of the motivation for nationalists who took up arms against this government lay in how alarmed wealthy conservatives became over the behavior of workers in the wake of the Popular Front’s victory. Radical workers soon staged strikes and successfully expelled factory managers in many parts of the country, seizing the means and modes of production for themselves. In the countryside, anarchist farm laborers began organizing collective farms, something which greatly alarmed anti-communists because of Joseph Stalin’s own forced collectivization of the Soviet Union’s agriculture industry. On July 17, 1936, nationalist members of Spain’s military seized control in Morocco, their colonial outpost. Over the following four days, similar seizures occurred throughout Spain proper and it became apparent to the Spanish government that this was not just an isolated series of discontented demonstrations - it was an attempted coup.
The nationalists failed to secure enough early victories to successfully overthrow the Republican government immediately, so what began as a coup attempt soon evolved into a full-fledged civil war. The conflict divided the domestic military roughly in half, though Spain’s Army of Africa, which was around 30,000 strong, went all-in on the nationalist side. Many of the domestic military who sided with the nationalists were officers, which put the Republican government’s forces at something of a disadvantage. Seeing that the need was urgent, the government soon distributed arms to volunteers, especially unions and left activist groups who swelled the ranks of the Republican Army.
The Spanish Civil War would prove to be a very bloody and horrible affair for pretty much everyone involved. The regions of Spain which aligned with the nationalist rebels engaged in acts of terror and atrocity against leftist elements in their communities, especially union leaders and outspoken leftist activists. The regions which aligned with the Republican government also engaged in their own terror against nationalist elements in their area, particularly churches, clergy, local aristocrats, and known conservatives.
The orgy of blood and terror that enveloped Spain would last until 1939, and most other European nations feared that this civil war could spark a larger war across the continent. As a result, most of their neighboring states were very reluctant to get heavily involved. Many nations did get lightly involved, however, selling weapons and sending foreign legions to support their preferred side.
The nationalist rebels naturally received support from Germany and Italy, who saw them as fellow fascists. Republicans received support from Mexico and the Soviet Union. The United States, France, and the United Kingdom continued to extend diplomatic recognition to the Republican government, but took official stances of non-intervention. Volunteers from these nations, both those directly supporting and those trying to steer clear, came to Spain to assist the side of their choice.
The Republican faction had the advantage of international recognition but lacked the ideological cohesion enjoyed by their nationalist foes. Within the Republican ranks were communists, socialists, liberals, anarchists, syndicalists, blue collar union organizers and a variety of other sub-groups which often fell into disagreement amid heated debates. The nationalists were united, by and large, through a knowledge that if they lost this war, they would almost certainly be executed as traitors. They did not have time to debate with one another regarding the finer points of politics, ideals, and societal organization.
Of course, the entire affair is far more complicated than any summary I might compose. If you’d like to learn more about the fine details of the Spanish Civil War, I recommend reading “The Battle for Spain” by Anthony Beevor. For our purposes, it’s enough to acknowledge that the Spanish Civil War was extremely terrible, left much of the nation in utter ruins, and was ultimately won by the nationalist faction, who set up a fascist state to replace the Republican government which they had supplanted. Republican forces which were able escaped into France. Those who were unable to flee either stayed and fought or surrendered. The nationalists engaged in widespread terror against those they suspected of supporting their Republican enemies, killing them en masse with impunity while the liberal international community gaped in horror. Resistance to the fascist government, which was ultimately organized around the dictatorship of Francisco Franco, continued throughout much of fascist Spain’s existence. A rather satisfying portrayal of this resistance can be seen in Guillermo Del Toro’s excellent film “Pan’s Labyrinth.”
Meanwhile, in Japan, the emperor and his advisors looked upon developments in Europe hoping to take advantage of what appeared to be a massive historical power shift. While observers twenty years before had surmised that global political trends favored liberal democracies, in the spring of 1939 it appeared that this assessment was premature and naive. Autocratic dictatorships like Germany, Italy, and now Spain appeared to be on the rise while the liberal democracies floundered under the weight of economic collapse and a lack of will to prevent militaristic violence from effectively carrying the day. While Japan usually looked upon the United Kingdom, France, and other European liberal democracies as its allies, the emperor in particular noted that it might make better sense to ally with nations which Japan perceived as being militarily strong. The fact that these fascist states seemed to hate communists as much as Japan’s own political leaders only made a future alliance more palatable.
Of special concern to Japan was the lingering fear that the Soviet Union would wage a war of revenge against them, potentially targeting their new puppet state of Manchukuo as a war prize. The fact that the fascists were so violently anti-communist made the Japanese leaders believe that they might rely on Germany and Italy in a mutual war against the Soviet Union. Once again the Kwantung Army decided to take matters into its own hands and determine Japan’s foreign policy regardless of the position of its cabinet.
In March of 1936, a few months before the outbreak of civil war in Spain, the Mongolian People’s Republic, a communist state which had taken hold in Mongolia in 1924 thanks to armed support from the Red Army, signed an official Mutual Assistance Pact with the Soviet Union, which would commit either party to help defend the other if they were invaded. Specifically included in this pact was permission for the Soviet Union to station troops within Mongolia. This alarmed the leadership of the Imperial Japanese Army because Mongolia bordered Manchukuo and they feared that the Kwantung Army might be overrun in the case of a joint Mongolia-USSR invasion.
Scrambling for new allies in the face of unifying opposition, the Japanese government opted to join with Nazi Germany in signing the Anti-Comintern Pact, an information-sharing treaty in which Germany and Japan agreed to inform one another of the activities of the Communist International Congress within their respective nations. While most of the treaty was available for public viewing, there was also a secret provision which forbade any signatories from ratifying any treaties with the Soviet Union while the Anti-Comintern Pact was still in effect.
While on paper the Anti-Comintern Pact was merely an intelligence-sharing agreement, the implications on the wider geopolitical sphere were somewhat alarming. China had previously received diplomatic assurance, though no official treaty, that Germany would help defend China in the case of a Japanese invasion. German diplomats in China continued to reassure them that Germany was committed to China’s territorial integrity and would never abandon this commitment. Spoiler alert: they would abandon this commitment, but we’ll discuss that in the next episode.
The German government celebrated their new friendship with Japan and even launched a propaganda campaign aimed at convincing the public that Japan should be considered a friendly nation and potentially a future ally. In Japan, however, reactions were mixed. The newspapers questioned whether Germany was reliable enough to pursue friendly relations with, much less potential future alliance. The Imperial Japanese Army was thrilled at the growing friendship and soon arranged an exchange program so that Japanese officers could learn from their German counterparts. The Imperial Navy, meanwhile, was extremely critical of this growing friendship, largely on the grounds that Japan’s navy remained inferior to the US and UK, and that Germany would be unable to assist them in the case of a future war with either.
Meanwhile, there was trouble in the twenty-two counties in the eastern half of Hebei Province which had been established as a demilitarized buffer zone by the Tanggu Truce to separate Manchukuo from China proper. Thanks to the assurances, lavish gifts, and outright bribes from the Kwantung Army’s top brass, the Chinese leaders in charge of the de-militarized zone gradually adopted a spirit of independence from the Chinese government, and in 1935 declared themselves “The East Hebei Autonomous Zone,” an entirely unwelcome development for the Chinese government but one which they were powerless to avert. The Empire of Japan established good relations with the leaders of East Hebei, who allowed Japan to station troops within their borders to discourage the threat of punitive invasion from China. So much for the “de-militarized” zone.
Meanwhile, the army of the Republic of China was anything but unified in its priorities. Zhang Xueliang and his newly-replenished Northeastern Army were tasked by Chiang Kai-shek with fighting communists in Shaanxi Province. Aided by Yang Hucheng, the commander of the Northwestern Army, both warlords had been assured by Chiang Kai-shek that this assignment would be a cake-walk. The communists had arrived in Shaanxi after a year-long retreat known as “The Long March,” and the KMT-led government believed that this was little more than a mop-up operation - the final nail in the coffin of Chinese communism. Instead of a handful of easy victories and a final triumph for Chinese nationalism, the 170,000 troops under the command of Zhang Xueliang and Yang Hucheng lost several large-scale engagements against the seasoned guerrilla fighters organized under Mao Zedong. Nationalist prisoners taken by the communist forces were given humane treatment and sent back to their commanders in the Northeast and Northwest Armies respectively with a message: it was time for nationalists and communists to stop fighting one another and unify against the Japanese. While the communists were insistent at first that this alliance between themselves and the Northeastern and Northwestern Armies would also fight against Chiang Kai-shek, after a series of secret negotiations with Zhang Xueliang and Yang Hucheng, they agreed that a united front was the best path forward.
What followed was an attempted coup. In mid-December of 1936, Chiang Kai-shek arrived in the city of Xi’an, the capital of Shaanxi Province, to review the troops. Zhang Xueliang and Yang Hucheng promptly placed him under arrest. For the next two weeks, uncertainty reigned in China as Zhang Xueliang sought to persuade Chiang Kai-shek to call a temporary truce with the communists in order to form a united front against further Japanese incursions. Meanwhile KMT-led armies began to gather near Xi’an and it was feared that fighting between Republican armies would break out at any moment. Eventually, Zhang Xueliang was forced by circumstances to give Chiang Kai-shek a severe ultimatum: either agree to the new united front with the communist guerrillas, or be killed. Chiang Kai-shek finally relented and agreed to suspend the Chinese civil war in favor of forming a united front against the Japanese.
The Xi’an Incident, as it was later called, was of course far more complex than this and includes intervention by Stalin to prevent the outright execution of Chiang Kai-shek, but the outcome was the formation of the Second United Front against the Japanese, who would justify this newfound unity with a new incursion against Chinese sovereignty.
On the evening of July 7, 1937, a group of Japanese soldiers departed from their garrison at Fengtai to conduct military drills and exercises. What happened next is not entirely clear, but we know that these soldiers began exchanging fire with Chinese defenders of the walled city of Wanping, which lies about ten miles, or sixteen kilometers, south of Beijing. There was a soldier from the Japanese group who had gone missing and supposedly his commander believed he had been kidnapped and taken to Wanping. That soldier later appeared, however, claiming that he had been suffering from a stomachache and wandered away in the dark. A very plausible theory regarding his actual whereabouts is that he was visiting a nearby brothel, but we don’t know for sure.
The Japanese troops, meanwhile, attempted to breach Wanping but were driven back by a stalwart defense. The Japanese commanders issued an ultimatum to the city, demanding to be allowed entry to the city so that they might investigate what caused the shooting to start in the first place. He gave a timetable of two hours, which the Japanese spent gathering reinforcements and moving artillery into position to support their attack. Around 5 am on July 8, shots were fired and a battle commenced. The ensuing battle of Beijing-Tianjin is considered the first conflict of the Second Sino-Japanese War, which would technically mark the beginning of World War II in east Asia, though some consider the proper starting point to be the Mukden Incident. Regardless of when it started, it was now under way.
The initial incident that sparked this new, terrible war, took place near the Lugou Bridge, which is usually called the Marco Polo Bridge in western sources because Marco Polo described it in his famous book. Thus it is often referred to as the Marco Polo Bridge Incident.
The civilian government of the empire of Japan, meanwhile, convened an emergency session on July 8, desperately trying to find a way to avert further bloodshed and bring the military to heel. However, while they were busy with diplomatic maneuvering, the Army General Staff ordered reinforcements from the Kwantung Army and the Chosen Army, which was garrisoned in Korea. On July 11, the fighting and the impending deployment was paused when the leader of the Japanese Northern China Area Army began negotiations with his Chinese counterparts alongside Japanese diplomats. After a week’s negotiation, the two sides came to terms but the Imperial Japanese Army continued with its deployment schedule, claiming that the Chinese were insincere in the negotiations.
After some additional attempts at diplomatic resolution, the fighting at Wanping resumed in late July. At the same time, the Imperial Japanese Navy supported the incursion by attacking the port city of Tianjin and forcing Chinese troops in that city to withdraw. Seeing that this was not like the Tianjin Incident and that this time the Japanese seemed determined to fight a war he absolutely wanted to avoid, Chiang Kai-shek ordered the withdrawal of Chinese troops to Baoding, which lies about one hundred fifty kilometers, or ninety-three miles, southwest of Beijing. This withdrawal likely saved many of the lives of his soldiers, but effectively abandoned Beijing to Japanese seizure.
As a result, the Imperial Japanese Army seized Beijing and by the end of the year had established a puppet state which they hoped would supplant the Republic of China. The newly-founded Provisional Government of the Republic of China had even less legitimacy than the government of Manchukuo, if that was possible. As 1937 came to a close, the Japanese public celebrated the victories of their brave soldiers on the mainland as the vision of a unified east Asian empire under Japanese suzerainty seemed to be taking shape.
Next time, we will discuss the further developments of the Second Sino-Japanese War as well as the conclusion of the Spanish Civil War and subsequent activities in Europe which brought about the beginning of the Second World War.