User talk:Blueshirts/Sino-Japanese War

Republic of China vs Western Europe

Hi there, just stumbled across your thoughts on the Second Sino-Japanese War and felt an urge to respond to one comment. You compare Chiang Kai-shek's hold out against the Japanese from '37 to '41 (since from '31 to '37, the Japanese were not aggressive in their pursuit to conquer the rest of china) to Western Europe's hold out against the German war machine. One important factor in this is geography. China's natural geography makes it an incredibly hard country to militarily conquer. Most of the territory captured by the Japanese was also the most accessible, versus mountainous, etc. Europe, or particularly, those areas conquered by France are mainly flat territories (particularly Belgium, where the Germans drove through to enter France), which make military action far easier to pull off. I think Chiang's forced response to the initial '37 Japanese expansion, the retreat from one capital to another, offers the same example. He drew back until the natural geography assisted in the defense of his nation. Even when Chungking was threatened, Chiang had several cities to fall back to. Where was Paris to fall back to that was not as easily accessible? Throw in a geographic barrier and you have a great change (I.E. English Channel, and the British holding off the Germans from '39 to '44). Not to mention, the country of France is dwarfed by China! This is not a post to demean the Chinese accomplishment, as the Chinese did do much in holding down the Japanese and countering them in East Asia, but to put the geographic differences in perspective. One last example of geography, during the Chinese Civil War, many if not most of the battles between the Communists and the Nationalists took place not in the mountainous region, but in those areas which made battle more accessible. ~ The Rebel At ~ 12:34, 18 July 2006 (UTC)

Thanks for responding (at User_talk:RebelAt#your_comment). You made some very good points, concerning the overall weakness inherent in the Chinese situation for Chiang, most of which I agree with. I think another Western preconception, of which I am guilty of, is that Japan simply became bogged down and over stretched in China. So Japan's incapacity to defeat the ROC was more its own fault than the efforts of the Nationalist army. As for France, honestly, even in the West, we're still making jokes at their expense over their behavior in the Second World War...ahem. Poland is a good/bad example for a prepared Western nation. First, Poland is basically an entire plain, which has made it a central spot for invading countries for at least four hundred years. Second, while Poland did have a good and established officer corps, the level of their military technology was woefully behind most major Western powers. The Poles did not answer the German Blitzkrieg with tanks, but with cavalry (which got wiped out). I still believe that geography was a major assisting factor, but I'm more than willing to adopt your positions on the state of China and apply them appreciatively towards the Generalissimo's efforts. I did research on a topic in the CBI this and last year and learned that when Chungking was threatened, Chiang did not want to move the capital to Kunming, due to the warlord there who might attempt to undermine his position. It gave good insight to the tenuous system that he was at the mercy of. Thanks again for the response and well wishes,~ The Rebel At ~ 19:25, 18 July 2006 (UTC)