CHAPTER TWENTY
Happenings from around the World
Excerpt from
The End of the Thirty Years Armistice by Sir Winston Churchill,
King’s College of London, 1958
The dawn of the Year of Our Lord Nineteen Hundred Thirty-Eight proved to be quite eventful for the British Empire. Europe, Africa, North and South America, and the majority of Asia were peaceful and quiet. Only in the Far East was there a disruption in the harmony of the world, as the Empire of the Rising Sun, eager to complete its Asian continental policy and create the Greater East Asia Co-Prosperity Sphere, (and thus greatly increase the size of its own Empire) maintained its efforts against the Kuomintang, the Chinese Communists, and the various regional warlords (Guangxi-Clique being the largest initial impacted) for the vast domains of China.
The Far East
The Chinese Warlords
While many in the world were outraged at the actions taken by the Japanese, the governments of the Great Powers refused to intervene and instead issued condemnations, which Japan either ignored or openly scoffed when such condemnation was received.
While it appeared that the British Empire did nothing other than issue the toothless condemnation and order the evacuation of all non-essential personnel from the Crown’s various diplomatic missions in China, quietly the Empire continued it’s build up of the military. Based upon information provided by sources within the Japanese of Empire, the Crown had come to understand that the Japanese Army had failed to take heed of any of the lessons the West had learned from the Great War, teaching its officers and men that armour, artillery, and aircraft were all subservient to the bold infantry bayonet charge. As one officer was quoted as saying,
“…hand-to-hand combat rather than firepower determines victory or defeat in battle.”
From its own bitter lessons of the Great War, the British Empire knew the fallacy of the Japanese military mentality and welcomed the newest additions to its war fighting capability.
Following the capture of the city of Nanking on the second of February, reports of the Japanese Army’s actions during the capture of the city, namely the looting of the “open” city which resulted in thousands of civilians being raped, maimed or executed, the eyes of the world were once again focused upon the Far East. Many Westerners, mostly missionaries and businessmen, were witnesses to hundreds of atrocities forced upon Chinese civilians by the Japanese Army and voiced their horror to their governments, urging those governments to take some sort of action against the Empire of Japan. The Japanese, upon hearing of the outrage, became themselves outraged. An insult was felt by the Japanese; did not the Western countries go through similar times in their histories when they themselves expanded? As the Japanese League of Nations delegate Yosuke Matsuoka argued,
“And what country in its expansion has ever failed to be trying to its neighbors?”
The Western nations, refusing to accept the Japanese explanation, condemned the Empire of Japan in the form of a League of Nations resolution that declared
“…taking into urgent consideration the question of aerial bombardment and unrestricted warfare by Japanese forces on open cities in China, this body expresses its profound distress a the loss of life caused to innocent civilians, including great numbers of women and children, as a result of such warfare, and declares that no excuse can be made for such acts, which have aroused horror and indignation throughout the world, and solemnly condemns them.”
Two days after the League condemnation being made public knowledge, knowing that despite the League’s words no action would be taken by the West, the leaders of the Chinese Communists and representatives of the Guangxi-Clique warlords signed a truce with the Empire of Japan, which allowed the Japanese army to concentrate its full attention on crushing the Kuomintang.
In Europe, the second day of the second month saw elections that had been forced upon Chancellor Kurt Schuschnigg by internal unrest, resulting in propelling the Austrian Nazi Party into positions of power with in the Austrian government.
Cancellor Kurt Schuschnigg
Now under even more pressure from the Nazis than before, Schuschnigg was forced to appoint members of the Party into his government, namely placing a Arthur Seyss-Inquart as Interior Minister and Edmund Glaise-Horstenau as Defense Minister. With their newly won positions, the Austrian Nazis felt that they had a mandate of the people, and began to clamour for a plebiscite on the independence of Austria or unification with Germany.
Arthur Seyss-Inquart - Leader of the Austrian Nazi Party
Edmund Glaise-Horstenau, Austrian Nazi Party number two man
Within the he British Empire, based upon intelligence obtained by Admiral Sinclair’s MI-6 from sources in side Germany, prepared for not only the referendum to be approved but also for the vote to favor the
“Anschluss Österreich”, or political union of the two German speaking nations.
Admiral Sir Hugh Sinclair - Director of MI-6
In a meeting of the Imperial Intelligence Office during this time, Admiral Sinclair was asked to provide some insight to the leader of Germany. He provided his own report and that of our agent
Intrepid’s. Based upon his own personal study of the man, Admiral Sinclair described Hitler as possessing the characteristics of
"…fanaticism, mysticism, ruthlessness, cunning, vanity, moods of exaltation and depression, fits of bitter and self-righteous resentment; and what can only be termed a streak of madness; but with it all there is a great tenacity of purpose, which has often been combined with extraordinary clarity of vision." Intrepid’s report was of like warning.
“The Fuhrer is not just a lunatic,” Intrepid had said.
“He’s an evil genius. The weapons in his armory are like nothing in history. His propaganda is sophisticated. His control over the people technologically clever. He has torn up the military textbooks and written his own. His strategy is to spread terror, fear and mutual suspicion. In this he is a master to be wary of and must be watched.”
Next: Some more number crunching as the Empire begins to build up it's muscle!
