平型关大捷

If you're wondering what the hell that is all about, wonder no more.

The characters above mean Pingxingguan. This was the location of a battle fought between the Japanese and the Chinese.

So, why am I bringing this up? And what the hell do I think I'm doing? Well, Ill tell you...

It occurred to me that I liked doing my history comments. Its not enough to remind people of our past. I want to do it in a chronological way. I want to cover the Second World War (as it more commonly called in other countries). If I really wanted to get going on this I would have started back in 2001. This is the beginning of the Second Sino-Japanese War (Sino is an English Prefix meaning of China...). The first Sino-Japanese War was fought in 1894 to 1895. This war was fought in 8 ½ months over Korea by the Meiji Dynasty in Japan and Qing Dynasty of China. The first war saw a grissly battle known now as the Port Arthur Massacre (to be addressed at a later date).

With the Second War, though it began in 1931, many historians place the beginning of open and aggressive warfare at July 7^th of 1937. By this point, Japan had invaded Manchuria (滿洲) on September 19, 1931 and renamed it Manchkuo (満州国). It also had placed the deposed Emperor Puyi (溥儀) as the ruler of the puppet state there.
On that day in July, there had been the the Lugou Bridge Incident (盧溝橋事變) or also known as the Marco Polo Bridge Incident. The battle involved a white marble bridge of 11 arches located in Fengtai (豐台), a southern suburb of Bejing (then called Beiping). The Japanese parked themselves at the west end of the bridge and practiced whilst the Koumintang (KMT) forces watched.

At dawn of that day, Japan claimed a soldier was missing inside the city and they wanted to search for him. Colonel Ji said "no". General Song, his superior officer, was behind him on this. They felt it may well be a pretext to invasion of Beijing. In fact, that is what it later led to. Matsui sent an ultimatum: Let us in or we will fire within the hour.

On July 8^th, at midnight, the Japanese began to bombard the city. The Chinese reinforced the bridge and with some territorial flux managed to hold the Japanese at the west end. The Japanese later made three demand of the Chinese to a General Zhang Zizhong (張自忠). These were the three demands:

1) The Kuomintang must wipe out all anti-Japanese organizations and halt all anti-Japanese activities inside the cities.
2) The Kuomintang must take all responsibilities of the incident on 7 July.
3) Song, not any other inferior officer of the 29th Army, must apologize.

Zhang it appears was favored by the Japanese. He and Song didn't get along and found himself abandoned in a defenseless Beiping. I don't want to get really into this now but this incident and the subsequant fall of Beiping-Tianjin are one filled with politics and backstabbing. The tactics employed and the choices made are still debated to this day. Beiping fell on July 29, 1937 leaving the North China Plain vulnerable to the Japanese.

While the battle for Pingxingguan took place in late September, there had been a long drawn out battle going on in Shanghai. We'll get to that when it wraps up in November. At Pingxingguan, there were a couple of supply covoys headed for Japanese encampments. They were ambushed by the Chinese. Though there were about 500-600 dead on both sides, it was a victory for China. They also acquired 100 or so trucks and weapons.

Next up, we look at something else notable that led up to World War II: The Spanish Civil War. In addition, I'll try to catch us up on the other events that happened throughout the 30's and the march toward the Second World War. Other historical notes will continue.

On a personal note, this is something I've been considering doing for the past 6-7 months. Ken Burns' documentary and the recent D-Day rebroadcasts have made me more so inclined to do it. I like examining wars because they never really change. The issues we deal with today are the same as they were then.

Take Care.