Seige of Nanjing

[Domoviye]

A book I read recently about the Rape of Nanjing had the author, Iris Chang at the end saying that the Chinese army should have stayed and fought in Nanjing.
Ms. Chang admitted that the Chinese army would have been defeated, but that the benefits would have outweighed the loses. Basically by slowing down the Japanese the remaining Chinese army could have built better defensive lines in the West. The Japanese would have lost more men and supplies which they needed elsewhere. The Chinese may have won a moral victory if they could have held out for any length of time. And finally the number of Chinese soldiers and civilians that would die in the siege wouldn't be much more than were killed in the Rape of Nanjing.
So for people who have more Chinese Military knowledge than I do, how long do you think a Chinese army trapped in Nanjing could fight for, and how much of an effect would it have in the Sino-Japanese War?

 

[Typo]

Chiang thought and tried this -exact- thing at Shanghai and it didn't exactly work out great

 

[Cook]

If they had stayed, the Chinese Army would have been encircled and exterminated along with the civilian population of Nanking (It was generally spelt that way at the time).

Chiang Kai-shek gave ground to buy time and save his Army, in this he was correct. The war in China was long, far longer than the Pacific War of World War Two. Through it all the Japanese sought a decisive battle that would finally destroy Chinese resistance and end the war, while Chiang Kai-shek was able to deny them this and continue to fight back.

 

[Hendryk]

Chiang thought and tried this -exact- thing at Shanghai and it didn't exactly work out great

Well, actually it did sort of work out, in the sense that it showed the world that China was ready to stand and fight rather than roll over, as most other countries--not just Japan--expected it to do. The problem is that Jiang Jieshi could only pull it off once. His army was in the process of being reorganized around a core of German-trained, German-supplied divisions, and those were sacrificed in the battle of Shanghai. Having lost them he had to fight the rest of the war with second-rate troops, many of which were of dubious reliability since their commanders were former warlords whose allegiance came and went.

 

[tallwingedgoat]

The defense of Nanjing had two serious problems. One was Chiang over stretched his forces at Shanghai against the recommendation of his staff. He thought the West would intervene and the war would end in eight months. By the time Shanghai fell, his army no longer had the manpower, morale and materiel to defend Nanjing.

The second problem was the Faulkenhausen war plan was itself based on outdated thinking. The German general had planned to use WWI strategy of containing the Japanese through "China's Hindenburg Line" half way between Shanghai and Nanjing. However eastern China was not Belgium. There were rivers and lakes which made fixed defenses inappropriate, especially given China's shortage of artillery. The best defense under the circumstances should have been a mobile defense. The money wasted on building the lines would have been better used buying artillery pieces.

So had Chiang committed less troops to Shanghai and revised his war plan, he could have held out much longer. After the destruction of his forces at Shanghai however, it was foolish to defend Nanjing and all but one of his staff advised him to abandon it. The only general to endorse the idea was put in charge of the city's defenses but ran off when he realized his mistake and abandoned the city to its fate.

The smartest thing to do should have been to evacuate the civilian population. Instead the army sealed the civilians in to facilitate their own retreat. No order was issued to open the city gates as the last coherent units withdrew. Truly a disgraceful chapter.

 

[JamesHunter]

Evacuation is the only option so the only moral victory possible is to save the civilians, in the end the only real option for China was to husband what little it had left and settle in for the long war (arranging an accident for Mao and trying for true peace with the communist might have helped in the long run, but China had more immediate problems I guess).

 

[Typo]

Well, actually it did sort of work out, in the sense that it showed the world that China was ready to stand and fight rather than roll over, as most other countries--not just Japan--expected it to do. The problem is that Jiang Jieshi could only pull it off once. His army was in the process of being reorganized around a core of German-trained, German-supplied divisions, and those were sacrificed in the battle of Shanghai. Having lost them he had to fight the rest of the war with second-rate troops, many of which were of dubious reliability since their commanders were former warlords whose allegiance came and went.

ummmm no it didn't because the west didn't do crap for China afterward

 

[marked56]

if they stayed and fought,wouldent the japanese have killed EVERYONE once they finally took it?

 

[Admiral Matt]

ummmm no it didn't because the west didn't do crap for China afterward

That happens not to be the case.

 

[Typo]

Ok fine, it didn't do anything nearly worth the amount of losses sustained until 1941

 

[Markus]

I´m also sceptical. The Japanese had much more firepower -says a bit about how bad the NRA was in the heavy weapons department, doesn´t it- and they could have replaced the lost equipment, the Chinese could not have.