Battle of Wuhan

On 7 July 1937, the Imperial Japanese Army (IJA) launched a full-scale invasion of China after the Marco Polo Bridge Incident. Both Beijing and Tianjin had fallen to the Japanese by 30 July, which exposed the rest of the North China Plain. To disrupt the Japanese invasion plans, the Chinese Nationalists decided to engage the Japanese in Shanghai, which opened a second front. The fighting lasted from 13 August to 12 November, with the Chinese suffering major casualties including "70 percent of Chiang Kai-shek's young officers." After the fall of Shanghai, Nanjing, which was the capital of China, was threatened directly by the Japanese forces. The Nationalists were thus forced to declare the capital an open city while they began the process of moving the capital to Chongqing. With the fall of three major Chinese cities (Beijing, Tianjin, and Shanghai), there was a large number of refugees fleeing the fighting in addition to the government facilities and war supplies that needed to be transferred to Chongqing. Inadequacies in the transport systems prevented the government from being able to complete the transfer. Wuhan thus became the "de facto wartime capital" of the Republic of China for its strong industrial, economic, and cultural foundations. Assistance from the Soviet Union provided additional military and technical resources, including the Soviet Volunteer Group. On the Japanese side, the IJA forces were drained by the large number and the extent of military operations since the beginning of the invasion. Reinforcements were thus dispatched to boost forces in the area, which placed a strain on the Japanese peacetime economy, leading Prime Minister Fumimaro Konoe to reassemble his Cabinet in 1938 and to introduce the National Mobilization Law on 5 May that year, which moved Japan into a wartime economic state. Importance of Wuhan |alt= Wuhan, located halfway upstream of the Yangtze River, was the second-largest city in China, with a population of 1.5 million in late 1938. The Yangtze River and the Hanshui River divide the city into three regions, which include Wuchang, Hankou and Hanyang. Wuchang was the political center, Hankou was the commercial district, and Hanyang was the industrial area. After the completion of the Yuehan Railway, the importance of Wuhan as a major transportation hub in the interior of China was further established. The city also served as an important transit point for foreign aid moving inland from the southern ports. After the Japanese capture of Nanjing, the bulk of the Nationalist government agencies and the military command headquarters were in Wuhan although the capital had been moved to Chongqing. Wuhan thus became the de facto wartime capital at the onset of the engagements in Wuhan. The Chinese war effort was thus focused on protecting Wuhan from being occupied by the Japanese. The Japanese government and the headquarters of the China Expeditionary Army expected Wuhan to fall, along with the Chinese resistance, "within a month or two." Preparations for battle In December 1937, the Military Affairs Commission was created to determine the battle plan for the defense of Wuhan. After the loss of Xuzhou, approximately 1.1 million men or 120 divisions of the National Revolutionary Army were redeployed. The commission decided to organize the defense around the Dabie Mountains, Poyang Lake, and the Yangtze River against the 200,000 Japanese in 20 divisions of the Imperial Japanese Army. Generals Li Zongren and Bai Chongxi of the Fifth War Zone were assigned to defend the north of the Yangtze, and Chen Cheng of the Ninth War Zone was tasked with defending the south. The First War Zone, located in the west of the Zhengzhou-Xinyang section of the Pinghan Railway, was given the task of stopping the Japanese forces coming from the North China Plain. Finally, Chinese troops in the Third War Zone, located between Wuhu, Anqing and Nanchang, were given the task to protect the Yuehan Railway. After the Japanese occupied Xuzhou in May 1938, they sought actively to expand the scale of the invasion. The IJA decided to send a vanguard to occupy Anqing for use as a forward base for an attack on Wuhan, for its main force then to attack the area north of the Dabie Mountains moving along the Huai River, and to occupy Wuhan eventually by the way of the Wusheng Pass. Later, another detachment would move west along the Yangtze. However, the Yellow River flood forced the IJA to abandon its plan of attacking along the Huai, and it decided to attack along both banks of the Yangtze instead. On 4 May, the commander of the IJA forces, Shunroku Hata, organized approximately 350,000 men of the Second and Eleventh Armies to fight in and around Wuhan. Under him, Yasuji Okamura commanded five-and-a-half divisions of the Eleventh Army along both banks of the Yangtze in the main assault on Wuhan, and Prince Naruhiko Higashikuni commanded four-and-a-half divisions of the Second Army along the northern foot of the Dabie Mountains to assist the assault. The forces were augmented by 120 ships of the Third Fleet of the Imperial Japanese Navy under Koshirō Oikawa, more than 500 planes of the Imperial Japanese Army Air Service, and five divisions of Japanese forces from the Central China Area Army to guard the areas in and around Shanghai, Beijing, Hangzhou, and other important cities, which would protect the back of the Japanese forces and complete the preparation for the battle. ==Prelude==

The Battle of Wuhan was preceded by a Japanese air strike on 18 February 1938 that was known as the "2.18 Air Battle" and ended by Chinese forces repelling the attack. On 24 March, the Diet of Japan passed the National Mobilization Law, which authorized unlimited war funding. As part of the law, the National Service Draft Ordinance also allowed the conscription of civilians. On 29 April, the Japanese air force launched major air strikes on Wuhan to celebrate Emperor Shōwa's birthday. The Chinese, with prior intelligence, were well prepared. The battle was known as the "4.29 Air Battle" and was one of the most intense air battles of the Second Sino-Japanese War. After the fall of Xuzhou in May 1938, the Japanese planned an extensive invasion of Hankou and the takeover of Wuhan, and intended to destroy the main force of the National Revolutionary Army. The Chinese, on the other hand, were building up their defensive efforts by massing troops in the Wuhan area. They also set up a defensive line in Henan to delay the Japanese forces coming from Xuzhou. However, the disparity in Chinese and Japanese troop strength caused that line of defense to collapse quickly. In an attempt to win more time for the preparation of the defense of Wuhan, the Chinese opened up the dikes of the Yellow River in Huayuankou, Zhengzhou on 9 June. The flood, now known as the 1938 Yellow River flood, forced the Japanese to delay their attack on Wuhan. However, it also caused around 500,000 to 900,000 civilian deaths by flooding many cities in northern China. ==Major engagements==

Air war and pre-emptive strikes On 18 February 1938, an Imperial Japanese Navy Air Service (IJNAF) strike-force composed of at least 11 A5M fighters of the 12th and 13th Kōkūtais, led by Lieutenant Takashi Kaneko, and 15 G3M bombers of the Kanoya Kokutai, led by Lieutenant Commander Sugahisa Tuneru, on a raid against Wuhan engaged in battle with 19 Chinese Air Force I-15 fighters of the 22nd and 23rd Pursuit Squadrons and 10 I-16 fighters of the 21st PS, all under the overall command of the 4th Pursuit Group CO Captain Li Guidan, as well as several more mix of Polikarpov fighters of the Soviet Volunteer Group. The 4th Group fighters would claim at least 4 of the A5Ms, and the Soviet group claimed no less than 3 of the A5Ms shot down. Both the Japanese fighter group commander, Lieutenant Kaneko, and the Chinese fighter group commander, Captain Li, were killed in action in the battle. A largely-intact A5M fighter plane that was downed in the battle was recovered with a damaged engine, and it was the second intact A5M to be recovered, repaired, and flight-tested in the war, the first recovered-intact A5M having been one downed by Colonel Gao Zhihang during an air battle over Nanjing on 12 October 1937. On 3 August 1938, 52 Chinese fighters, with 20 I-15s, 13 I-16s, 11 Gloster Gladiators, and 7 Hawk IIIs intercepted at least 29 A5M fighters and 18 G3M bombers over Hankou. The former Guangxi warlord air force pilot Zhu Jiaxun and his squadron-mate, He Jermin, along with the Chinese-American fighter pilots Arthur Chin and Louie Yim-qun, all flying the Gladiators, would claim at least four of the A5Ms to be shot down that day. Battles of Madang and Jiujiang On 15 June, the Japanese made a naval landing and captured Anqing, which signaled the onset of the Battle of Wuhan. The capture Anqing's airbase enabled Japanese aircraft to assault Jiujiang, a major riverine port and railroad junction one hundred miles upstream. On the southern bank of the Yangtze River, the Chinese Ninth War Zone had one regiment stationed west of Poyang Lake and another stationed in Jiujiang. To prevent a Japanese assault on Jiujiang, the Chinese had built defensive fortifications at Madang, including artillery emplacements, naval mines and bamboo river booms. The Chinese garrison of the Madang river fortress repelled four Japanese assaults, but suffered casualties due to intense bombardment from Japanese ships on the Yangtze, as well as poison gas attacks. Due to a ceremony at a local military school by Li Yunheng (李韞珩), the overseeing general for the Madang defense, most of the Chinese officers responsible for Madang's defense were absent. Thus, only three battalions from the second and third marine corps and the 313th regiment of the 53rd division took part in its defense, totaling no more than 5 battalions. Moreover, when the 167th division stationed in Pengze was ordered by War Zone commander Bai Chongxi to march swiftly along the highway to reinforce the defenders, divisional commander Xue Weiying (薛蔚英) instead asked his direct superior commander Li Yunheng for instructions. Li Yunheng ordered Xue Weiying to take a harder-to-navigate path to avoid Japanese bombers. Reinforcements thus arrived too late, and Madang fell after a three-day battle. Chiang Kai-Shek immediately ordered a counterattack, offering a 50,000 yuan reward for the units responsible for the recapture of the fortress. On June 28, the 60th division of the 18th Corps and the 105th division of the 49th Corps successfully retook Xiangshan and were awarded 20,000 yuan, but could not make any further progress. Once the Japanese army attacked Pengze, the Chinese units turned to defense. After the fall of Madang, there were some two hundred thousand Chinese troops under the dual command of Xue Yue and Zhang Fukui in the Jiujiang-Ruichang area. The Japanese first captured the city of Pengze, but were met with resistance at Hukou, for which they deployed poison gas again in a five-day battle. During the break-out, there were not enough boats to evacuate the auxiliary soldiers of the defending 26th division from Hukou, and only more than 1,800 out of the more than 3,100 non-combat soldiers were taken in by the division. Most of the more than 1,300 missing soldiers drowned trying to cross the Poyang Lake. The Japanese reached Jiujiang two weeks after the fall of Hukou. Chinese defenders tried to resist the Japanese advance, but were too disorganized and uncoordinated to repel the Japanese 106th Division. Jiujiang was captured on the 26th after a five-day battle. The decision to retreat by the Chinese forces came too suddenly for the civilian population to be evacuated, leaving many behind at the mercy of the Japanese occupiers. against the city's civilian population. Male civilians were indiscriminately executed alongside any POWs who had failed to retreat in time, whilst women and children were raped en masse. In addition, many of the city's urban districts and suburban villages were deliberately razed, including the city's ceramics factories and maritime transportation system. As many as 90,000 civilians were massacred by the Japanese army in and around Jiujiang. Manning Tianjiazhen were thousands of China's best troops from the Central Army, including experienced veterans from the Battle of Shanghai. The army commanders and division commanders were all graduates from the Whampoa Military Academy. The Japanese attacked Tianjiazhen primarily by land, but suffered from poor supply lines and attacks by Chinese guerrillas. To overcome the Chinese defenders, the Japanese resorted to deploying large amounts of poison gas, which proved to be their only decisive means of achieving victory. Following the fall of Tianjizhen, the Japanese continued to attack westwards by capturing Huangpo on 24 October and rapidly approaching Hankou. Dabie Mountains In the north of the Dabie Mountains, the Chinese 3rd Army Group of the Fifth War Zone stationed the 77th Army of the 19th Corps and the 51st Army in the Liuan and Huoshan regions in Anqing. The 71st Army was tasked with the defense of Fujin Mountain and Gushi County in Henan. The Chinese 2nd Group Army was stationed in Shangcheng, Henan and Macheng, Hubei. The Chinese 59th Army of the 27th Corps was stationed in the Yellow River region, and the 17th Corps was deployed in the Xinyang region to organize the defensive works. The Japanese attacked in late August with the 2nd Army marching from Hefei by two different routes. The 13th Division, on the southern route, breached the Chinese 77th Army's defensive line and captured Huoshan, when it turned towards Yejiaji. The nearby Chinese 71st Army and the 2nd Group Army made use of their existing positions to resist, which halted the Japanese 13th Division. The 16th Division was thus called in to reinforce the attack. On 16 September, the Japanese captured Shangcheng. The defenders retreated southwards out of the city and used their strategic strongholds in the Dabie Mountains to continue the resistance. On 24 October, the Japanese occupied Macheng. The 10th Division was the main force in the northern route. It breached the Chinese 51st Army's defensive line and captured Liuan on 28 August. On 6 September, it captured Gushi and continued its advance westwards. The Chinese 59th Army of the 27th Corps gathered in the Yellow River region to resist. After ten days of fighting, the Japanese crossed the Yellow River on 19 September. On the 21st, the Japanese 10th Division defeated the Chinese 17th Corps and 45th Army and captured Lushan. The 10th Division then continued to move westward but met a Chinese counterattack east of Xinyang and was forced to withdraw back to Lushan. The Japanese 2nd Army ordered the 3rd Division to assist the 10th Division in taking Xinyang. On 6 October, the 3rd Division circled back to Xintang and captured the Liulin station of Pinghan Railway. On the 12th, the Japanese 2nd Army captured Xinyang and moved south of the Pinghan Railway to attack Wuhan, together with the 11th Army. Fighting in Guangzhou The continuing stalemate around Wuhan and the continued influx of foreign aid to Chinese forces from ports in the south made the IJA decide to deploy three reserve divisions to pressure the naval shipping lines. It thus decided to occupy the Guangdong port by an amphibious landing. Because of the fighting in Wuhan, a significant portion of Chinese forces in Guangzhou had been transferred elsewhere. As such, the pace of the occupation was much smoother than expected, and Guangzhou fell to the Japanese on 21 October. The loss of the Guangzhou area meant the loss of the main supply line of foreign aid to central China—the two railways linking Kowloon to Guangzhou and Guangzhou to Wuhan. Thus, the strategic value of Wuhan was greatly diminished. The Chinese Army, hoping to save its remaining forces, thus abandoned the city in October. The Japanese Army captured Wuchang and Hankou on 26 October and captured Hanyang on the 27th, which concluded the campaign in Wuhan. ==Use of chemical weapons==

According to Yoshiaki Yoshimi and Seiya Matsuno, Emperor Shōwa authorized by specific orders (rinsanmei) the use of chemical weapons against the Chinese. During the Battle of Wuhan, Prince Kan'in Kotohito transmitted the emperor's orders to use toxic gas 375 times, from August to October 1938, despite the 1899 Hague Declaration IV, 2 - Declaration on the Use of Projectiles the Object of Which is the Diffusion of Asphyxiating or Deleterious Gases, Article 23 (a) of the 1907 Hague Convention IV - The Laws and Customs of War on Land, and Article 171 of the Versailles Peace Treaty. According to another memorandum discovered by the historian Yoshiaki Yoshimi, Prince Naruhiko Higashikuni authorized the use of poison gas against the Chinese on 16 August 1938. A resolution adopted by the League of Nations on 14 May condemned the use of toxic gas by the Imperial Japanese Army. Japan made heavy use of chemical weapons against China to make up for its lack of numbers in combat and because China did not have any poison gas stockpiles of its own to retaliate. Japan used poison gas at Hankou in the Battle of Wuhan to break Chinese resistance after conventional Japanese assaults had been repelled by Chinese defenders. In the battle of Guangji, the Japanese Army's large-scale use of poison gas resulted in the Chinese Army suffering more than 2,000 casualties. Many of the affected troops were killed as Japanese troops with gas masks charged into their positions while they were incapacitated. In total, as many as 13,410 Chinese troops suffered from the effect of poison gas during the battle of Wuhan, including 4,342 who died. Rana Mitter wrote, "Under General Xue Yue, some 100,000 Chinese troops pushed back Japanese forces at Huangmei. At the fortress of Tianjiazhen, thousands of men fought until the end of September, with Japanese victory assured only with the use of poison gas. Yet even now, top Chinese generals seemed unable to work with each other at Xinyang, Li Zongren's Guangxi troops were battered to exhaustion. They expected that the troops of Hu Zongnan, another general close to Chiang Kai-shek, would relieve them, but instead Hu led his troops away from the city." Japan also used poison gas against Chinese Muslim armies at the Battle of Wuyuan and the Battle of West Suiyuan. ==Aftermath==

After four months of fighting, both the Chinese Air Force and the Chinese Navy were decimated since the IJA had captured Wuhan. However, the main Chinese land force remained largely intact, and the IJA was significantly weakened. The Battle of Wuhan bought more time for Chinese forces and equipment in Central China to move farther inland to the mountainous fortress of Chongqing and lay the foundation for an extended war of resistance. Wuhan and Hubei Province now provided the Japanese with new airbases and logistics to support the massive "joint-strike force" terror-bombing campaign against Chongqing and Chengdu under the codename Operation 100. After its fall 1938 victory in the Battle of Wuhan, Japan advanced deep into Communist territory and redeployed 50,000 troops to the Shanxi-Chahar-Hebei Border Region. Elements of the Communist Eighth Route Army soon attacked the advancing Japanese, inflicting between 3,000 and 5,000 casualties and resulting in a Japanese retreat. The IJA advance in central China was slowed down significantly by multiple battles around Changsha in 1939, 1941, and 1942. No more major offensives were launched until Operation Ichi-Go in 1944; between 1942 and 1944, limited Japanese offensives were mounted for the sole purpose of training recruits. The Chinese managed to preserve their strength to continue resisting the weakened IJA, which reduced its capability to respond to rising tensions between Japan and the Soviet Union at the northeastern borders. ==See also==