China rested her defense on the guarantees the world had devised for just such a situation: the Nine-Power Treaty, the League Covenant and the newly added Kellogg-Briand Pact signed at Paris in 1928 by which 15 nations including Japan undertook to renounce war as an instrument of national policy, and to agree that the settlement of all disputes “shall never be sought except by pacific means”—except of course in case of “self-defense” and “vital national interest.” China formally appealed to the League five days after the initial attack. Aggression had not yet tested the collective will; this was to be the first major case. Although there was eager sentiment at Geneva for doing something “wonderful” for world peace, no one was anxious to do anything specific. The year 1931 cowered under economic blizzard. Britain, the major Western power in the Far East, was in the midst of political and financial crisis and about to go off the gold standard, the bourses of Europe were trembling on the edge of panic, the Weimar Republic was dying and the United States was sunk in the slough of depression. Japan’s act was indeed embarrassing in view of all the machinery set up to restrain aggression but as the French Premier André Tardieu said, it was “a long way off.”
It seemed immediate and compelling to the American Secretary of State, Henry L. Stimson, an outstanding advocate of disarmament and of the collective effort to outlaw war. As Governor General of the Philippines in 1927–29 and chairman of the American delegation to the London Naval Conference in 1930, Stimson had been closely engaged in the problems of the Pacific. He had seen the London Naval Treaty, outcome of his work, arouse savage resentment in Japan because it prolonged the halt in naval building and the hated 5-5-3 ratio of the Washington treaty for five more years. The wrath of Japan’s superpatriots culminated in the assassination of Premier Hamaguchi who had strongly supported the Treaty and had advised the Emperor to ratify it.
Through Stimson the attack on Manchuria reactivated the United States in world affairs, ultimately with disillusioning result that was to play its role in renewed isolation. Stimson had two objectives in the crisis: to prevent further Japanese expansion on the mainland of Asia as had been the American effort since 1917, and to uphold the system of collective security. But when the League, in the hope of sharing or possibly devolving responsibility on the United States, was prepared to invite ad hoc American adherence to the Council, he shied off, not wishing to find this baby “dumped,” “deposited,” or “left,” as he variously complained in his diary, in or on his country’s lap or doorstep. He wanted Japan to be curbed by the “vigorous judgment” of world opinion, not by the United States alone.
What Japan’s move implied—whether temporary occupation or something more—and whether it represented concerted policy by the Japanese Government or another wild move by the militarists acting through the Kwantung Army, was by no means clear to the West. Through the remaining months of 1931 Stimson acted in the hope that “mobilization of public opinion against Japan” backed by threat of economic sanctions could strengthen the parliamentary parties and lead to the conclusive curbing of the military. Throughout the first four decades of the twentieth century it was always this beckoning figure of the liberal thin man inside the Japanese body politic and the hope of his reemergence that lured American policy. In 1931 who could say whether international condemnation of the Manchurian adventure, backed by threat of sanctions, would strengthen the hand of the moderates or unite Japan behind the superpatriots?
Lacking any stiffening by the British, the “vigorous judgment” of the powers that Stimson hoped for would not congeal. British foreign policy was then directed by the parent of appeasement, Sir John Simon. He was Britain’s foremost lawyer, a man simultaneously cold and unctuous, with a cautious mind, a head too small for his body and a perpetual smirk, who as Foreign Secretary did more to make his country unpopular than anything since the Boer War. Records have since been interpreted to suggest that he too wished to curb Japan, but he gave Geneva the contrary impression and caused Stimson to conclude that Britain would be content to see Japan absorbed in Manchuria rather than competing with British dominance in the Yangtze valley or reaching out toward Australasia or India.
Stimson himself did not speak for a country ready to back words with a big stick. President Hoover was very worried by the idea of economic sanctions which, unless backed by the ultimate sanction of force, he characterized with some justice as “sticking pins in tigers.” Stimson argued that the risk must be weighed against the “terrible disadvantages” which Japan’s action, if unrestrained, would do to the cause of peace. It must also be weighed against the danger “that Japan was setting on foot a possible war with China which might spread to the entire world.” As Japan moved deeper into Manchuria he grew increasingly concerned at the threat both to world peace and to American interests in the Far East. He believed it would cause “incalculable harm” to American prestige in China if, after long association, America were now to “cynically abandon her to her fate.”
Failing the joint voice of the Nine Powers or of the League or of the Kellogg-Briand Pact, he determined on some form of unilateral action but the best he could do was to dig out of the files Secretary Bryan’s statement at the time of the Twenty-one Demands in 1915 which, re-enunciated on January 7, 1932, came to be known as the Stimson Doctrine of Non-Recognition. It notified Japan and China that the United States “cannot admit the legality nor does it intend to recognize” any arrangement between those countries which impaired the Open Door policy or “the sovereignty, the independence, or the territorial or administrative integrity of the Republic of China” and which might be brought about by means contrary to the Kellogg-Briand Pact to which China, Japan and the United States were parties. The statement was resounding, unequivocal and, as an instrument of restraint, without practical effect. This being apparent, the League two months later accepted a resolution offered by Sir John Simon to concur in the doctrine.
In China a national anti-Japanese boycott was proving so effective that it brought on a Japanese attempt to end it by punitive action at Shanghai, center of the boycott movement. Providing themselves with the usual “incident” as pretext—this time a murdered Japanese monk—they attacked Chapei, the Chinese district of Shanghai, with planes and troops landed from warships. The air raid on Chapei of January 29, 1932, was the first terror bombing of a civilian population of an era that was to become familiar with it. The rain of bombs, the thousands killed, the ruins and wounded and refugees, under the eyes of the foreigners of Shanghai, appalled and alienated Western sentiment. Reminded of the German invasion of Belgium in 1914, Stimson determined not to be another Wilson “who did nothing to show the shame that we felt in regard to Belgium.” Chapei, plus a Japanese declaration that the clauses of the Nine-Power Treaty regarding the integrity of China were obsolete, convinced him that Japan had gone past the point of restraint by half-measures. Yet since punitive measures were beyond his power or the world’s willingness, he had to choose between the inadequate or nothing, and chose the former.
Making a further attempt to obtain British collaboration, this time to invoke the Nine-Power Treaty, he found Sir John “soft and pudgy” and “very cold-footed.” Again Stimson resorted to unilateral warning. He issued a public statement in February declaring the “abiding faith” of the American people in the future of China and reaffirming the principle of the Nine-Power Treaty—that China must be given the opportunity to develop into a “modern and enlightened state.” He intimated to Japan that the Washington Treaties were interdependent and that nullification of the clauses relative to China could be considered as canceling the naval and nonfortification clauses. But it was an empty threat for his country was not prepared for the iron alternative of an arms race. Later, when Stimson was occupied at the Disarmament Conference, President Hoover informed Japan that the United States would not resort to economic sanctions.
The crisis was beginning to expose the soft core of the American commitment: that in underwriting the integrity of Chi
na, America had espoused a policy not sufficiently in her vital interest to fight for. The Open Door had been the triumph of a phrase. Not only had its syllables a superb and simple euphony but it also conveyed an impression of something brave and free, of wide-open opportunity that appealed to two basic American concepts, the frontier and free enterprise. As Hay said of another of his classic formulations, it had “an uncalled for success.” In the long run it enmeshed the United States in that most entangling of alliances—not with a country but with a doctrine. It imposed a sense of obligation to intervene in an issue—the integrity of China—in which American security was not at stake.
With China’s appeal still pending, the League faced the uncomfortable necessity of living up to the Covenant. The problem of how to restrain, or failing restraint, how far to condemn Japan without driving her out of the community of nations disturbed and bewildered the powers. The various pretexts and legalizations Japan raised always left a case to be argued. To investigate the facts the Lytton Commission was sent to Manchuria. Meanwhile fighting had spread. A Manchurian leader, General Ma Chan-shan, emerged to cause the Japanese trouble. At Shanghai a brave and unexpectedly effective resistance by the Chinese 19th Route Army, virtually defying Chiang Kai-shek, drew the Japanese into a fight they had not counted upon. Having all they could handle in Manchuria, they were glad of an excuse to withdraw from Chapei on the basis of peace terms arranged by the local foreign powers.
The Mukden Incident had by now gathered self-propelling consequences. Between February and May Japanese ultranationalists successively murdered the Finance Minister, the head of the Mitsui industrial empire and Premier Inukai whose assassins were army officers in uniform. Giving way to a series of national governments, his death marked the end of the political party system. In Japanese opinion Stimson was the evil agent of events, responsible for the world’s misunderstanding of Japan and for ill feeling in the United States. Japanese publicists began speaking of an “Asiatic Monroe Doctrine” and suggesting that any attempt by the United States to interfere with Japan’s “destiny” in Asia would be cause for war. Anticipating an unfavorable report by the Lytton Commission, Japan challenged it in advance by according de jure recognition to Manchukuo in September.
The Lytton Report was submitted in October. Though phrased as decently as possible in the pale hope of saving enough face for Japan to make it possible for her to accept it, the report unavoidably found that Japan had acted in violation of the treaties and that the two pillars of her case, “self-defense” and “self-determination,” were unsupported by the facts. It recognized that a return to the status quo ante was not feasible and it recommended an autonomous administration under restored Chinese sovereignty with special provision for Japan’s economic interests. Through long debate on adoption of the report, the League endeavored somehow to escape the pincers of the dilemma closing in on it: whether to condemn aggression, which was likely to force Japan into a break with the West and a back-to-Asia policy; or to paste over the episode by some legitimatizing formula that would keep the League’s structure, if not its purpose, intact.
With the Lytton Report lying on the table no escape was possible. It was adopted in February 1933 and on the following day, after a speech of passionate self-righteousness and warning by the Japanese delegate, Japan withdrew from the League. To underscore her defiance and the futility of international words without teeth, Japanese troops took over Jehol, another province north of the Wall, and then crossed over into Hopei, where they established a demilitarized zone 30 to 40 miles wide between Peiping and Tientsin into which Chinese troops could not enter without Japanese consent. Here this phase of Japan’s destiny came to a halt for the time being, legalized by the Tangku Truce negotiated with, or imposed upon, the Chinese Government. It was accepted by Chiang Kai-shek, who, in the same month that the Japanese invaded Hopei, launched 250,000 of his best troops in a fourth Bandit Suppression campaign against the Communists in the south. He had made the same choice as his predecessor, Prince Kung, Regent at the time of the Taiping Rebellion, who said the rebels were a disease of China’s vitals, the barbarians an affliction only of the limbs.
The Manchurian crisis left China’s integrity henceforward dependent on the size of the bites Japan could digest. It brought about the supremacy of the military in Japan, but this was an internal process which would have taken the same course even if Japan’s fellow-nations had not condemned her action. It left the elaborate structure of the Washington Treaties a hollow shell and exposed the weakness of the collective will. The League, the Nine-Power Treaty and the Kellogg-Briand Pact, separately or together, had not been enough. Between desire for collective security and its implementation the gulf was now painfully apparent. Men began to doubt whether any action short of force could deter a nation from aggression it had determined on. After the Manchurian crisis the nations found themselves, as Stimson confessed, “baffled and pessimistic.”
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In May 1933, the same month as the Tangku Truce, Stilwell’s tour at Benning came to an end accompanied by just such an episode of infuriating bureaucracy as General Wells meant when he wrote of those actions that develop the “pain in your soul.” Joe Jr.’s graduation from West Point was to take place within two weeks but owing to the need of officers to staff President Roosevelt’s emergency creation of the Civilian Conservation Corps, routine leave between posts was canceled. Every officer was required to report directly to his next station and could not go off duty for any reason. All Stilwell’s requests for delay, including, as a last resort, one to General Douglas MacArthur, then Chief of Staff, were turned down. Prevented from attending his eldest son’s graduation from his own alma mater, the father was left with what ire can be imagined. He naturally laid the blame on that man in the White House. Mrs. Stilwell and her second daughter, “Doot,” represented the family at West Point while Stilwell set off for his new post in California in the car with the two youngest children and Nance and the dog. He arrived after a week of driving to find his predecessor still in place, no orders awaiting him and nothing for him to do. A telegram from Win on the day of Joe’s graduation, sharpening the fact of his absence, made him write, “Well, this puts a final touch on my disgust with the machine.”
After a period just short of four years at Benning, from which Marshall had departed in 1932, Stilwell had grown restless, to the point of describing his own departure as “Escape from Bondage.” He had not wanted to put in for the upper-level staff course at the Army War College, even though it was the acme in status, and when his colleague and fellow-Infantry officer Omar Bradley applied for it, Joe said to him, “Brad, why do you want to go to the War College to learn to do what you don’t want to do anyway?” He had been unsuccessful in obtaining foreign service for his next detail, but the War Department had satisfied his second preference for “any duty on the West Coast” by assigning him to San Diego to train the Organized Reserves of the IXth Corps Area. Although the duty was disappointing, it had the advantage of bringing the Stilwells closer to their property at Carmel where they intended to build a home.
During the two years while he was at San Diego Stilwell did his best in another teaching job to transfer the principle of realistic field exercises to the Reserves. In a time of isolationism, enthusiasm for military training was not high. Men from office and salesroom on two-week duty did not offer Stilwell the most professional material but he knew they were the country’s resource in war and as one of them said, “He took us seriously. He was probably the best man we ever had.” By bringing together the various components of the Army in the area to train together and by giving common-sense instruction in the real tasks of command, he aroused the men’s interest. “We have never received better instruction than we are now receiving,” one group stated in a resolution of appreciation.
Privately Stilwell was bored and discouraged. He felt that if the War Department thought no more of him than to put him in this kind of job, he could not, at fifty-one and n
ot yet a full colonel, look forward to a military career of much promise. “There will never be a single work of history with me in it,” he wrote in a personal summing up. Many times “disgust with the machine” had brought him to the verge of retirement and he now began to discuss the possibility seriously with his family. The house at Carmel, built in 1934 at a cost of $27,000 with money from the stocks left to him by his father and to Win by her mother, was ready and Stilwell hoped to live on savings, retirement pay and what work he could find to employ his talents as a teacher. In the gloom of the depression, however, the outlook was dim and held him back from taking the plunge into retirement precipitously. Colonel Marshall was similarly fretting at this time in a post with the Illinois National Guard. Angry at the stagnation in the promotion system, Marshall wrote to a friend in 1934 that he was “tired of seeing mediocrity placed in high position with brilliance and talent damned by lack of rank to obscurity.”
At a low point for Stilwell, the opening came. Previously he had never thought of himself as eligible for the post of military attaché because it had always required a private income. But in 1934, in order to extend its choice of qualified officers, the War Department added an expense allowance to the post. At once friends in the Department queried whether he wanted the appointment to Peiping (where the Legations remained) and, given his qualifications, easily obtained it for him. Although a military attaché’s duties are assigned by MID, he serves as a member of the diplomatic mission. Receiving his appointment from Secretary of State Cordell Hull in January 1935, Stilwell found himself, of all things, a diplomat, but that misfortune was bearable for the sake of return to China. “How intensely interesting the international situation is in the Orient at this time,” a fellow-officer wrote in a letter of congratulations. “No one can tell how soon we may be mixed up in that situation.”
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