Battle of Shanghai, 1937

How do modern historians view Chiang's decision to commit his best German-trained divisions to fight Japan i Shanghai? In hindsight we know it was a mistake but given when Chiang knew at the time, it seems reasonable.

I am not an expert in the Sino-Japanese War, but from my perspective, Chiang Kai-Shek had two options in fighting Japan. One was a scorched Earth policy of endless retreat and resistance. The second was to score a decisive battle against Japan that would halt their invasion. The Soviet Union faced a similar threat in 1941 when Germany invaded. Stalin ordered every Soviet soldier to fight to the death--and they did. The USSR took huge losses, such as 700,000 (43 divisions) killed or capture at the Battle of Kiev, but delayed the German advance from taking Moscow before winter. The few Soviet units that were allowed to retreat were ordered to burn everything.

China didn't have the advantage of a hard winter to slow down its invaders. If Chiang was going to continually retreat, then it would mean giving up the major popular and industrial centers of the Yangtze river delta. If you're going to set up a decisive battle, what better place to do it than Shanghai where you can count on a large, friendly population to keep your troops resupplied and aid in the house-to-house fighting? Granted, it's by the sea so vulnerable to Japanese naval attack. Shanghai and all the surrounding cities including the capital of Nanjing were worth fighting for. What's the point in having an army if all you do is retreat?

Retreat and resistance has to eventually transition into battlefield victories, like the Soviet Union accomplished at Stalingrad, and the Viet Minh accomplished at Dien Bien Phu. Chiang had been avoiding a major battle with Japan since they first invaded in 1931 during the Mukden Incident. Chiang thought that the Japanese would be over-extended and over-confident by the time they attacked Shanghai.

Furthermore, Chiang had to show the United States, France, and Britain that he was serious about fighting the war in order to get aid. The 1777 Battle of Saratoga during the American War of Independence was an American victory which convinced France that the American rebels were a viable ally. Chiang hoped a strong Chinese performance at Shanghai, regardless of who won the battle, would have the same effect on America, France, and Britain. The Chinese army fought hard and lost, and did gain international sympathy. But America, France, and Britain were still consumed with their economies and militarily unprepared to aid China.

Do you think Chiang made the right decision to make a stand at Shanghai? Why or why not?

Politically he just had to.

Shanghai was the industrial centre and his power base. His administration was already under a lot of internal pressure for failing to resist up north. Retreating without a fight again on his main support base, and China's economic and industrial heartland (at the time) was really going to be political suicide, even if it may prove to be a better military choice.

It was really just a choice of give a good fight in your own backyard, knowing that you may be throwing the cream of your fighting force into the fire and never see them back; Or to continue to preserve and develop your strength, trade time with space, and chose to fight on a more equal footing in the future, however, knowing that YOU will definitely not be the one leading that future victory because you WILL be politically dead after the decision. I guess it was a no-brainer for Chiang.

wtlh said:

Politically he just had to.

Shanghai was the industrial centre and his power base. His administration was already under a lot of internal pressure for failing to resist up north. Retreating without a fight again on his main support base, and China's economic and industrial heartland (at the time) was really going to be political suicide, even if it may prove to be a better military choice.

It was really just a choice of give a good fight in your own backyard, knowing that you may be throwing the cream of your fighting force into the fire and never see them back; Or to continue to preserve and develop your strength, trade time with space, and chose to fight on a more equal footing in the future, however, knowing that YOU will definitely not be the one leading that future victory because you WILL be politically dead after the decision. I guess it was a no-brainer for Chiang.

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Yes, exactly. All of Jiang's decisions regarding the Japanese up to that point was to placate them in order to secure his own political position.

To be honest, when the Japanese were ready to invade Shanghai, there were no good options left. An argument *could* be made for a fighting retreat, but there is no certainty that Nanjing would have fared any better than Shanghai.

What should have been done was to fight and bog down the Japanese when they were steam rolling northern China. An extremely ill-equipped NRA held out for months against Japanese aerial and artillery bombardment, and even managed to score significant victories. If Jiang had given them proper support, he could have stopped the Japanese advance right there.

Chiang Kai Shek lost the battle but achieved a political and strategic/tactical victory to some degree. Strategically, China historically was always conquered from North to South with few exceptions. a full-scale battle in the North would develop to be in China’s disadvantages and the Japanese’s advantages in the long term. the battle of Shanghai was staged to divert the Japanese attention from the North, and midway into the battle, the Japanese had 80% of its forces in the small city of Shanghai and 20% in the vast North.

Politically, the Shanghai campaign was the event that united the people and the considered unreliable provincial armies to the KMT government in the long war against the Japanese. Chiang’s central government troops contributed 50% of troops and the provincial armies the other 50% to the campaign. almost every notable provincial army deployed troops to Shanghai. the CCP was supposed to send several regiments there too but later chickened out for some reason. nevertheless, China's disunited and infighting armies were finally united together as one determined fighting force against the Japanese invaders, and that is the only way which China could survive and win the war. it boasted the KMT, the army and the people's morale tremendously.

Internationally, the world was alerted to this battle. but Chiang’s hopes for the powers’ mediation on behalf of China or for them to adopt measures to sanction Japan did not happen until much later. the powers’ aid to China was too little and too late too.

the main setback for China was the military causalities were too huge in Shanghai, and the KMT never really recovered from these devastating losses for the rest of the war. but Chiang and nobody could realize or predicted the war would last as long as 8 years.

lightspeed said:

Chiang Kai Shek lost the battle but achieved a political and strategic/tactical victory to some degree. Strategically, China historically was always conquered from North to South with few exceptions. a full-scale battle in the North would develop to be in China’s disadvantages and the Japanese’s advantages in the long term. the battle of Shanghai was staged to divert the Japanese attention from the North, and midway into the battle, the Japanese had 80% of its forces in the small city of Shanghai and 20% in the vast North.

Politically, the Shanghai campaign was the event that united the people and the considered unreliable provincial armies to the KMT government in the long war against the Japanese. Chiang’s central government troops contributed 50% of troops and the provincial armies the other 50% to the campaign. almost every notable provincial army deployed troops to Shanghai. the CCP was supposed to send several regiments there too but later chickened out for some reason. nevertheless, China's disunited and infighting armies were finally united together as one determined fighting force against the Japanese invaders, and that is the only way which China could survive and win the war. it boasted the KMT, the army and the people's morale tremendously.

Internationally, the world was alerted to this battle. but Chiang’s hopes for the powers’ mediation on behalf of China or for them to adopt measures to sanction Japan did not happen until much later. the powers’ aid to China was too little and too late too.

the main setback for China was the military causalities were too huge in Shanghai, and the KMT never really recovered from these devastating losses for the rest of the war. but Chiang and nobody could realize or predicted the war would last as long as 8 years.

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The Battle of Shanghai directly resulted in:

- the irrecoverable loss of NRA's most elite divisions
- the Nanjing Massacre
- the forced relocation of the ROC capital

Everything can be spun into a victory if you really want to. Hell, the Ming even spun the Tumu Crisis into a victory. I guess Jiang was a bit more competent than the Zhengtong Emperor.

solarz, what would have been a better choice for Chiang Kai-shek as the Japanese army approached Shanghai? If stiff resistance caused the Japanese army to commit the Nanjing Massacre, then wouldn't a massacre of that scale have been inevitable sometime during the war as China eventually rallied its troops and held its ground?

lightspeed said:

Chiang Kai Shek lost the battle but achieved a political and strategic/tactical victory to some degree. Strategically, China historically was always conquered from North to South with few exceptions. a full-scale battle in the North would develop to be in China’s disadvantages and the Japanese’s advantages in the long term. the battle of Shanghai was staged to divert the Japanese attention from the North, and midway into the battle, the Japanese had 80% of its forces in the small city of Shanghai and 20% in the vast North.

Politically, the Shanghai campaign was the event that united the people and the considered unreliable provincial armies to the KMT government in the long war against the Japanese. Chiang’s central government troops contributed 50% of troops and the provincial armies the other 50% to the campaign. almost every notable provincial army deployed troops to Shanghai. the CCP was supposed to send several regiments there too but later chickened out for some reason. nevertheless, China's disunited and infighting armies were finally united together as one determined fighting force against the Japanese invaders, and that is the only way which China could survive and win the war. it boasted the KMT, the army and the people's morale tremendously.

Internationally, the world was alerted to this battle. but Chiang’s hopes for the powers’ mediation on behalf of China or for them to adopt measures to sanction Japan did not happen until much later. the powers’ aid to China was too little and too late too.

the main setback for China was the military causalities were too huge in Shanghai, and the KMT never really recovered from these devastating losses for the rest of the war. but Chiang and nobody could realize or predicted the war would last as long as 8 years.

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Let's not forget the Xian Incident which happened at the end of 1936 saw some of Chiang's own men essentially put him under house arrest until all major Chinese factions agreed that Chiang could continue leading China if he prioritized fighting Japan over fighting other Chinese factions. The Battle of Shanghai was the first major engagement between Chinese and Japanese forces since the Xian Incident.

PanAsian said:

Let's not forget the Xian Incident which happened at the end of 1936 saw some of Chiang's own men essentially put him under house arrest until all major Chinese factions agreed that Chiang could continue leading China if he prioritized fighting Japan over fighting other Chinese factions. The Battle of Shanghai was the first major engagement between Chinese and Japanese forces since the Xian Incident.

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before the Xi’an incident, Zhang Xueliang didn’t know that the KMT and the CCP were involved in detailed peace talks, and by late 1936, they had agreed in principle to the final terms. in the end, Zhang Xueliang was just a sacrificial pawn who foolishly played hero in the grand scheme of things and dug his own grave.

there were 22 major campaigns in the anti-Japanese war, and they determined the outcome of the war. China achieved 11 victories, claimed 3 tactical victories and suffered 8 defeats. overall, the KMT army performed admirably and well enough, against the formidable Japanese army, which was rated very highly by military experts and ranked among the top 5 armies in the world then.

Geographer said:

solarz, what would have been a better choice for Chiang Kai-shek as the Japanese army approached Shanghai? If stiff resistance caused the Japanese army to commit the Nanjing Massacre, then wouldn't a massacre of that scale have been inevitable sometime during the war as China eventually rallied its troops and held its ground?

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Like I said, by the time the Japanese were in a position to mount an invasion of Shanghai, there were no good options left. Your question is much like asking what the best treatment should be for a terminal stage cancer patient. Given such a narrow parameter, any suggestions of better alternatives would only be speculation.

However, given the course the anti-Japan war took, I think it's pretty clear that if Jiang had seriously committed his forces to stopping Japanese advances in northern China, the Japanese would not have been able to ravage as much of China (and other parts of Asia) as it was able to. Japanese resources were limited, and it was not able to keep up its offensives for long in the face of stiff Chinese resistance.

As for the Nanjing massacre, it's circumstances were unique, even in the course of such a brutal war. It was not Chinese resistance that caused it, because otherwise they should have targeted Shanghai instead. On the contrary, like many other criminals, they committed their crime because they saw an opportunity to do so. The KMT government was in full panic mode when the Japanese approached its capital. Entire divisions of NRA soldiers deserted and dissolved into the civilian population. This gave the Japanese a sense of superiority and swelled their ego to a point that they no longer considered the Chinese as fellow human beings. This is why the massacre happened.

Chiang Kai-shek avoided direct resistance to Japan from 1931-1937 because he feared it would trigger a full scale invasion of China, which China was in very poor shape to fight. Moreover, he feared the Communists were a greater long-term threat than Japan. Do you think that if Chiang had committed his full army to fighting Japan in 1931 that Japan would not have invaded China?

The balance of forces between China and Japan was just as imbalanced if not more so in 1931 than 1937. Nobody knew that Japan planned a full invasion and colonization of all China in 1931. There was a huge risk to launching a full scale defense war against a more powerful enemy if that enemy has limited goals that could be enlarged. In the Korean War: the Communists almost lost the whole peninsula when they gambled and bet everything on conquering the South. The South had no desire to conquer the North, but when Kim Il-Sung tried to change the status quo, he nearly lost everything. That was Chiang's mindset: the Japanese occupation of Manchuria was bad but starting an all-out war could make things a lot worse.

The Japanese considered Chinese (and all other non-Japanese Asians) to be lesser races long before 1937. In fact it was the stiff Chinese resistance at Shanghai that shocked them. I've read that the Nanjing Massacre was partly a desire for revenge at taking so many casualties in Shanghai and partly to shock China into surrendering since Nanjing was the capital. Racism was a big contributor, but as you said the Nanjing massacre was unique even for the long, brutal war.