Troubles Increase Geometrically
Troubles Increase Geometrically
In late January, four new divisions of troops under General Matsui were landed at Hangchow Bay and outflanked the defenders of Shanghai. Matsui’s objective was Nanking. In response to the new threat to the capital, Chiang-Kai-shek moved out of Nanking and back to Hankow, and thence to Chungking. From February on, Matsui’s forces drove the Chinese steadily back along the Yangtze River. The Chinese gave ground slowly, as they could not match the Japanese planes, tanks, and guns. By April 1, the army had nearly encircled the city on three sides and was threatening to close the only escape route north across the Yangtze. Army and navy planes had been plastering the city with bombs daily for the entire month of March. The carnage inside the city amongst the civilian population was terrible. The remaining Chinese forces, six army corps in total, defended the city stubbornly and Matsui’s divisions began to take heavy casualties. On April 3, the Chinese general Tang Sheng-chih ordered his troops to try to break out of the city and withdraw. Only the 66th corps was able to do so, fighting its way out to the east of the city. The vast majority of his troops were caught in the resulting envelopment. With the surrender of this army, Japanese units, bloody and excited, faced perhaps fifty thousand of their enemy, some armed, most not. In the blood lust most of these Chinese soldiers were killed. One soldier wrote in his diary:
The Chinese were too many for the platoon to kill with our rifles, so we borrowed two heavy machine guns and six light machine guns from the army company…we then killed some five hundred in front of the city wall because they were in civilian clothes and might be soldiers.
Members of one Japanese regiment alone reported killing thirteen thousand prisoners in the next few days. The civilians suffered as well. The city had been virtually destroyed by a month of army and navy bombings and then by the field guns of the armies. What remained was declared by army officers to be open game to the troops who had fought so valiantly for the emperor. So Nanking was looted, and women and children were raped, shot, or bayoneted if they annoyed the soldiers. The disciplined army became a horde reminiscent of the Mongols. General Matsui had achieved the great victory. It would only be a little while until all China would be pacified.
Hakko Ichiu!
Once more the Japanese offered peace. The peace agreement, however, was the following:
1. China would recognize the Inner Mongolian Republic as a state.
2. Japan would be free to enlarge her garrison zones of troops in north China.
3. No anti-Japanese would be appointed to administrative posts in north China.
4. The demilitarized zone of Shanghai would be enlarged (more Japanese territory in Shanghai)
5. Anti-Japanese policies would be eliminated by the Chinese government.
6. China would take steps to improve tariff relationships (China was to cut tariffs on Japanese goods)
7. China must respect foreign countries’ rights and interests in her territory.
Chiang Kai-shek issued a communiqué on April 17 entitled “A Message to the People Upon Our Withdrawal from Nanking” in which he vowed to fight to the end. And the great victory for Japan? She now controlled northern China and the lower Yangtze River valley. China’s new capital was far inland at Chungking, so far up the Yangtze that the roads and rail lines and navy would be of no help to the Japanese army now. For the moment, the Chinese government was beyond Japanese reach. The militarists were beginning to learn what Chiang meant when he had spoken of a war of attrition.
The news of the fall of Nanking was rushed to Tokyo on April 3, the day that the victorious Japanese troops swarmed atop the Nanking city wall to have their pictures taken. Spurred by the extra editions emblazoned with photographs of the victorious army, nearly half a million jubilant citizens staged a massive lantern parade in Tokyo that night. Almost unnoticed in the jubilation was a small column in the papers:
On the evening of April 2, a naval air unit that had set out to bomb steamboats of the Chinese army reportedly escaping from Nanking and sailing upstream mistakenly bombed three steamboats of the Standard Oil Company, sinking the vessels in question together with an American warship that happened to be in the vicinity. This unfortunate incident, involving as it does the American navy, is extremely regrettable, and Commander in Chief Hasegawa promptly began studying appropriate ways of making full amends.
In the excitement of the final attack on Nanking, the carrier pilots had gone out with blanket approval to sink anything that floated on the river. They sank the US gunboat
Panay and the three aforementioned tankers. Two sailors were killed and seventy-four wounded, many by repeated strafing by the pilots who flew so low the Americans claimed to have seen their faces. The
Panay had been flying a huge American flag, and the crewmen were certain no “error” had been involved. The British gunboats
Bee,
Cricket, and
Scarab were also damaged by bombs, while the HMS
Ladybird was damaged by Japanese army artillery. The Japanese naval headquarters ordered a naval vessel up to rescue survivors. Foreign Minister Hirota made a personal apology to US ambassador Joseph Grew. By that time news of American reactions were coming in, and they were bad. American newspapers were demanding the United States to break off relations. Ambassador Grew began packing up, not at all sure that diplomatic relations would not be broken off in light of the unprovoked and apparently repeated attack. The Japanese ambassador to the US made apologies in Washington and to Americans in general. Admiral Yamamoto forced the Japanese officials in China to be in touch with local US officials and express regrets. The commander of the naval air forces in question, Rear Admiral Akashika was recalled to Tokyo and fired out of hand. Yamamoto also made it clear that in investigating the facts there would be no attempts to evade the truth, but that blame would be admitted and proper amends made, and compensation. Finally the Americans calmed down. Admiral Yamamoto issued a statement expressing gratitude to the American public for accepting Japan’s good faith. Thus, by a very narrow margin, the Foreign Ministry and Navy managed to quiet the troubled waters and prevent the
Panay incident from becoming something much more serious.
But the army did not respond in kind, because an even larger problem had risen. International press reports and photographs of the rape of Nanking were helping convince the world that Japan was a nation of beasts gone mad. The army practice of requiring junior officers to only follow the strategic intent of the senior officers meant that when the generals dictated that only picked units subject to the strictest discipline enter the city, the junior officers refused and did whatever the “needs of the situation required.” In the case of Nanking, the situation required revenge for the strength of Chinese resistance. Prince Asaka, brother of the emperor and one of the commanding generals involved in the battle for the city, was disgusted when one of his regimental commanders confided that the best bayonet training in the world was to let the troops work on people. He wrote of his feelings in a letter to the emperor and enclosed press clippings and photographs of actions in the city as proof. The emperor was horrified. He summoned General Kotohito and demanded an explanation. The chief of staff suggested “perhaps the soldiers had not paid attention to their superiors’ orders.” The emperor retorted, “The trouble seems to be that the superiors were to blame.” At this point, the continuing stream of reports abroad began to make the local newspapers. Account after account of murders, mass killings, rapes, arson, and looting were all reported to an incredulous and increasingly outraged Japan. General Kotohito gave lame excuses and temporized potential solutions. Finally, the emperor appointed General Masaharu Homma to go to Nanking and recall the officers his investigation deemed to be responsible. All told some eighty officers were returned to Japan and summarily retired. Several of the officers, including General Kotohito opted to commit suicide rather than live with the shame of having failed the emperor.
How many people were killed in the Rape of Nanking? No one will ever know for sure. General Homma’s investigation put the figure at 100,000.
Asashi Shimbun assigned a reporter to spend months doing research on the incident, and in a series of articles concluded that the emperor’s investigation was substantially correct. Nanking was to go down as one of the cruelest victories ever wreaked by any army.
During the last days of April and into May, the Japanese waited for the Chinese reply to their peace proposal. They never received a direct answer, only a call from Chiang for “further clarification.” By mid-May, it had begun to sink in among the military in Tokyo that they were badly mired in China. Instead of trying to get out gracefully, the army leaders urged that the war be pressed because victory must be just around the corner. Prime Minister Konoye issued a statement to the effect that Japan would no longer deal with the Nationalist government in China. The government recalled its ambassador to China and broke diplomatic relations. Whatever the Japanese had called the invasion of China before, now they had to call it war.