Commonwealth and Foreign
CHINA'S ARMIES IN BATTLE
By H. ROSINSKI
AMIDST the mist of uncertainties that surrounds the reopening of the Sino-Japanese conflict one stands out in supreme clarity : that the outcome of thy: struggle will depend—decisively although not exclusively— upon the extent to which Chiang Kai-shek has hitherto succeeded and will continue to succeed in keeping a sub- stantial part of his forces intact.
Without an army to oppose the Japanese in the open field Chinese resistance would speedily collapse politically no less than militarily. Politically, because the delicate and recent fabric of Chinese national cohesion imperatively demands such a force as a rallying-point and symbol of resistance. Militarily, because without such a force to occupy the main Japanese armies and force them to concen- trate in their turn, the large-scale guerilla tactics so loudly advocated by many adherents of the Chinese cause would speedily break down—as the Spanish guerillas in the Penin- sular war would have done without Wellington's army to support them.
At the beginning of the conflict the total strength of the Chinese armies was computed at the impressive figure of 1.65 to 2 million men ; but the majority of them consisted of provincial forces generally of very poor quality, not more than 7oo,000 men in all being under the effective control of Chiang Kai-shek and of these less than half again constituting fully trained modern units. It was these 16 crack "Central Divisions" (3o0,000 to 350,000 men) drilled with such conspicuous success during the last years by the German Military Mission, which formed the backbone of the Chinese resistance and the only forces capable of opposing the Japanese at anything approaching equal odds ; as for the other half of Chiang's own forces, their fighting value varied within wide limits, the worst units being in no way better than the average provincial troops.
More grave even than this deficiency in the training of the Chinese forces was their totally insufficient equipment with modern arms : artillery, aircraft, tanks. Even of Chiang's own crack divisions only six (some 8o,000 to 120,000 men) were fully equipped according to modern standards, the other ten being inadequately provided for even with artillery ; while of the provincial forces only Yen hsd Shan's Shansi troops were fairly well equipped with artillery at all, the others having little more than machine-guns and trench mortars to oppose to the overwhelmingly superior fire power of the Japanese. Nor was this lack of the indispensable prerequisites of modern warfare confined to the field of armament proper. The fact that the otherwise fairly efficient Shansi troops were so handicapped in the co- ordination of their movements by their officers' lack of watches that they had to resort in the end to the time old stratagem of simultaneously lighting beacons, illustrates best perhaps the almost inconceivable difficulties with which the Chinese commanders had to contend in the direction of operations.
These immense differences in the training and equipment of the Chinese armies account, to a large extent, for the widely different opposition with which the Japanese forces met in their advance. At Shanghai the brunt of the fighting was first borne by the core of Chiang's " Central Forces," some 200,000 men, including all his best divisions, but by October already these had been so far exhausted that less well trained sections of his troops and some of the better (Kwangsi) provincial divisions had to be brought into the front line, and on the retreat to Nanking the defence of the " Hindenburg Lines " between Soochow and Yangtse had to be entrusted to contingents of even lower fighting value, promptly resulting in their complete collapse. The remaining divisions of Chiang's central forces, less well equipped than those on the Shanghai front, were employed to stiffen the defence of the North-West. Two or three of them succeeded in holding up three Japanese divisions for nearly two weeks before the Nankao pass, but narrowly escaped destruction when the provincial forces on their flanks gave way before a Japanese manoeuvre. Again, when in the first days of October the Japanese had managed to out- manoeuvre the defence of the Yenmen pass, composed of Shansi troops and part of the Red Army, further " Central Divisions " rushed up to Yuanping, in North Shansi, suc- ceeded in stemming their advance for nearly five weeks. Next to the " Central forces " the three red divisions under Chu-Teh, composed of some to,000 veterans of the Red Army and about twice as many new recruits, have proved to be the most serious obstacle to the Japanese in the Shansi campaign. Too poorly equipped to withstand a regular attack, they more than vindicated their reputation for guerilla warfare, destroying bridges, railway lines and attacking Japanese trucks and even whole aerodromes.
Of the regular provincial forces, the Kwangsi troops from the extreme South are generally accounted as the best, second only to Chiang's own forces. Well-disciplined and smartly groomed—despite their thin cotton uniforms and straw hats —and adequately supplied with rifles, not at all a common occurrence with provincial troops, they have greatly dis- tinguished themselves during the last stages of the struggle before Shanghai and in the defence of Nanking, and at the moment form, together with some of the remnants of the " Central Divisions," the core of the defenders of Suchow. Next to them rank the troops of the two great northern war- lords of Shansi and Shantung, Yen hsd Shan and Han Fu-chu. Very poor, on the contrary, in fighting value have proved themselves the divisions from the rich inland province of Szechuan, who at the defence of the Niangtzekuan pass fled wholesale into the mountains, only a small remnant remaining with their leaders. An observer describes their entrance in Nanking as follows : The Szechuan troops, however, were a sorry sight. With bare feet and naked legs they were so ragged as not to be distinguished from the poorest Kulis. Some soldiers armed with rifles went in front, followed by others carrying their baggage on poles. No knapsacks, no horses, no carts. Several of the porters broke down and had to be roughly shaken up with blows by their officers."
The first round of the conflict has left the forces of the Chinese Government severely shaken, though by no means decisively defeated. Above all, Chiang's own crack divisions have suffered terribly in the struggle before Shanghai and in view of the appalling and inexcusable lack of all humani- tarian care for the wounded cannot at the best have preserved more than half of their original strength. Thus the brunt of the fighting will fall more and more upon the shoulders of the better provincial troops of whom the bulk (Shansi and Kwangsi divisions) seems to have escaped destruction and is now being reinforced by the five fairly good Shantung divisions of Han Fu-chu and some 12 divisions (?) from Kwangsi. In addition large drafts of conscripts from the interior, Yunnanese, Szechuanese, Hunanese are being concentrated and trained, so that the figures given by the Chinese of some 9o0,000 men in the front line and 800,000 in progress of training are not incredible. Yet if the numbers of China's armies are thus in process of being restored, the deterioration in quality, in par- ticular through the lack of officers, is most painfully evident, and has recently found expression in Chiang Kai-shek's announcement of a change in his strategy towards a long-drawn retreat into the interior.
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