Chiang resists Kwangtung Army in Manchuria from 1931 - Japan Climbs Down or Doubles Down on War?

If Chiang resists Kwangtung Army in Manchuria from 1931

  • It gives Tokyo an excuse to rein in the Army & militarists get discouraged

    Votes: 27 32.5%
  • It causes an escalation spiral to total Sino-Japanese war right then in 1931-32

    Votes: 56 67.5%

  • Total voters
    83
Somrthing to remember here (especially on whether international pressure could have made Japan yield): One should not underestimate the extent to which the Japanese thought they were in the right!

"I doubt if one Japanese in a hundred really believes that they have actually broken the Kellogg Pact, the Nine-Power Treaty, and the Covenant of the League. A comparatively few thinking men are capable of frankly facing the facts, and one Japanese said to me : “ Yes, we’ve broken every one of these instruments ; we’ve waged open war ; the arguments of ' self-defence ’ and ‘ self-determination for Manchuria ’ are rot ; but we needed Manchuria, and that’s that.” But such men are in the minority. The great majority of Japanese are astonishingly capable of really fooling themselves ; they really believe that everything they have done is right, that the Lytton Commission was misled by Chinese propaganda and that the foreign powers and the League of Nations have likewise been misled into entirely false conceptions of the facts.

"Such a mentality is a great deal harder to deal with than a mentality which, however brazen, knows that it is in the wrong. The great majority of Japanese — and I include intelligent Japanese— do not know that they are in the wrong, and therefore their determination to resist foreign interference is doubly resolute and strong..."

Joseph Grew (US ambassador to Japan 1932-42) Ten Years in Japan, p. 81 https://archive.org/.../2015.176309.Ten-Years-In-Japan...
 

raharris1973

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Somrthing to remember here (especially on whether international pressure could have made Japan yield): One should not underestimate the extent to which the Japanese thought they were in the right!

"I doubt if one Japanese in a hundred really believes that they have actually broken the Kellogg Pact, the Nine-Power Treaty, and the Covenant of the League. A comparatively few thinking men are capable of frankly facing the facts, and one Japanese said to me : “ Yes, we’ve broken every one of these instruments ; we’ve waged open war ; the arguments of ' self-defence ’ and ‘ self-determination for Manchuria ’ are rot ; but we needed Manchuria, and that’s that.” But such men are in the minority. The great majority of Japanese are astonishingly capable of really fooling themselves ; they really believe that everything they have done is right, that the Lytton Commission was misled by Chinese propaganda and that the foreign powers and the League of Nations have likewise been misled into entirely false conceptions of the facts.

"Such a mentality is a great deal harder to deal with than a mentality which, however brazen, knows that it is in the wrong. The great majority of Japanese — and I include intelligent Japanese— do not know that they are in the wrong, and therefore their determination to resist foreign interference is doubly resolute and strong..."

Joseph Grew (US ambassador to Japan 1932-42) Ten Years in Japan, p. 81 https://archive.org/.../2015.176309.Ten-Years-In-Japan...

Good point, I had not thought of it that way.
 

raharris1973

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Well, quick escalation still leads Japan backing down by more than two to one in the poll, but we still had twenty voters for the climbdown option, surely we have among them someone who could sketch out what Japan backing down and gradually regaining self-control over its armed forces would look like in this context.
 

raharris1973

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Well I earlier said I had trouble envisioning what a Japanese stand down might look like. Well, McDo painted a pretty good sketch of it 4 years ago.

It is an interesting idea (if perhaps hard to pull of in practice), because I could see it leading to either more peace or more war. Of the two, I think more peace is the more likely outcome, but either is possible.

Let's say that the Mukden Incident happens as OTL, but the IJA meets heavy resistance and takes serious casualties. (This by itself would require a whole raft of PoDs, but I will ignore it for now as it is outside the scope of this discussion). That alone changes everything. The Wakatsuki government was shocked by the Kantogun acting independently and blantantly disregarding their orders to keep the incident local--they did the exact opposite, acting up and down the South Manchurian Railroad. Wakatsuki himself managed to avoid sending any reinforcements from Japan for some time, but eventually events forced his hand. The attack was enormously successful, with the IJA conquering a huge area quickly and with minimal deaths on their side. In the Great Depression, much of the Japanede public was eager for good news, and many people were, if not in favor of the fighting, pleased by the victories. It is noteworthy that all the major newspapers, even the more left-leaning ones, quickly posted favorable accounts of the fighting. This had not always been the case, say, during the Siberian Expedition. So, what happens if the fighting is tough, and no immediate victories are in sight? In that case, I think everything is different.

PM Wakatsuki does not face, or does not feel himself to face, immense public support for the fighting, and does not feel himself bound to send massive reinforcements. That means that the Kantogun is stuck with what they already have in Manchuria, plus whatever they can shake loose from the Chosengun (although the Chosengun is more apt to listen to Tokyo, especially in a case were the fighting is not going well). This necessarily limits the scale of the fighting. Further, here Wakatsuki has more leves of power to use. If the war is not immediately successful and popular, I am sure at least one major newspaper will choose to tactfully support Wakatsuki's government. If they are really brave, they might tell what they knew about the true nature of the bombing of the railroad. That would probably lead to some sort of public investigation, which may-just maybe-lead to suggestions for reforming the military somewhat. Even if it does not, it will damage the reputation of the army, which in the period between 1924 and 1931 was at something of a low ebb anyway. I expect the Privy Council will side with Wakatsuki in a case where hardline hotheads in the army seem to have lead the nation into a fight that is not going well, and if they seem to lack clear public support. In that case, Wakatsuki's government can survive, which likely means much better ties with the other great powers. If the Privy Council actually supports elected government officials, that itself is a big blow against the rise of the Militarists.

If all of the above happens, then I expect the fighting would remain quite small scale and limited. The peace would, I think, likely resemble the peace agreement following the First Whanghai Incident in 1932. China would likely agree to some humiliating terms about not stationing troops within x kilometers of the railroad, maybe not stationing troops above a certain number in the region as a whole (signed as well by whatever local warloads remain standing), Imperial Japan likely gets expanded rights to station troops, probably some language committing the local Chinese government to suppressing anti-Japanese activities, and of course some language reiterating existing Japanese economic rights in Manchuria. What we would not see, I think, is any attempt to establish Manchuria as an independent state.

As I said before, I think a lack of easy victories changes everything. It is easy to look at the support the Militarists got from a solid chunk of the Japanese public in 1931 and assume these sorts of ideas already had a large base of support outside the military. But I think that is looking at it the wrong way; I think to a large extent the successful and seemingly easy conquest to a large extent created that base of support. It was, after all, the depths of the Great Depression. The government seemed unable to do much, and anyway the previous few years had seen not a few corruption scandals. So when the IJA, or portions of it, pulled off the conquest of Manchuria, it was more than just a bit of good news. It was a decisive strike action in a society that seemed beset by problems. Even more to the point, as they went from victory to victory, inflicting disproportionate losses on forces that greatly outnumbered them, they seemed not just decisive but actually competent. Japan had been attacked, but the brash new breed in the army was fighting back quickly and well, despite whwhat corrupt cowards in Tokyo thought. (Keep in mind, this is not majority opinion, but merely what a supporter might have said). But all of that rests on quick and easy victories. Imagine instead a slogging fight, with no clear result. Imagine one or more newspaper printprints the truth about what happened, secure in the knowledge that the government will support them. Now, instead of decisive, effective patriots, it is all too easy to paint the leaders of this action was corrupt schemers, as bumblers who lied to get into a fight they are too stupid to quickly win. It is quite a different image. I also think it changes the calculus of how the Militarists themselves will act, how brave they will be, if they have less public support. How independently they would act was still sort of up in the air at this point. As I said before, the Kantogun blantantly ignored orders not to expand the fighting at the very start of the incident. And yet, later when they planned an offensive into southern Manchuria and the aarmy minister under Wakatsuki ordered them to cancel it in order to create a buffer zone between Manchuria and China proper in advance of proposed peace talks, they obeyed nd halted. That phase of operations only went forward after the Wakatsuki government fell. So it is possible that a lack of public support would cause even a lot of thetrue believers in Manchuria to act differently .

All in all, I think this could lead to a scenario in which 1928 or 1932 style conflicts occur between Chinese and Japanese forces, but total war is avoided. Would be interesting to flesh that TL out, I think.

Anyway, those are my initial rambling thoughts. My phone is almost dead, but if I hve time later, I will flesh out my idea of an earlier war scenario.
 

raharris1973

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Looking at the early war alternative, I wonder if being deeply committed to a full war with China from 1931 or 1932 would result in postponement or cancellation of Japanese naval construction from 1932 to 1937?
 
Alternatively, we could use the 1932 Shanghai Incident as the casus belli.
I wonder how an earlier Second Sino-Japanese War would affect the already turbulent and putsch-ridden Japanese political stage. I'd wager that it'd not change much, to be honest.
 

raharris1973

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Alternatively, we could use the 1932 Shanghai Incident as the casus belli.
I wonder how an earlier Second Sino-Japanese War would affect the already turbulent and putsch-ridden Japanese political stage. I'd wager that it'd not change much, to be honest.

Good point. I guess if Chiang throws the full weight of the Central Army into the Shanghai fight of 1932. (Which is logistically easier for him to do than to visibly aid resistance in Manchuria), Japan may feel backed into a corner and ends up escalating.

I agree with your hunch it would not change internal Japanese politics much. It might just accelerate the settlement of 1936, which I read as the Army stops putsching and assassinating but gets its way on all policy preferences without resistance.
 
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