Stilwell and the American Experience in China, 1911-45

by Barbara W. Tuchman

  At the same time a trend of opinion that now discounted Chinese capacity and recognized reliance on it as wishful thinking was running in favor of the Pacific. China remained essential as a base for the B-29s but the supposed advantage of Chinese manpower was beginning to appear nullified by the agonies of trying to mobilize it. Islands and aircraft carriers, now increasingly available, offered to replace the Chinese mainland and promise a shorter and faster campaign. The Pacific strategy was seen as combining eventually with use of Russian air bases and a Russian land offensive in Manchuria.

  The Conference also had a political purpose. Roosevelt was determined that it should be a success from the Chinese point of view. He wanted to lay the ground for settlement of Sino-Soviet relations and of the Kuomintang-Communist schism, so likely to disturb the postwar order. The future of colonies was on his mind and the reassignment of Japan’s territorial conquests was on the agenda. Although Roosevelt’s strong anticolonial convictions ran against a stone wall in Churchill, he looked forward to meeting Chiang Kai-shek and Stalin and was confident he could arrange matters with goodwill at the personal level. He considered it a “great triumph” to be assured by the Moscow Four-Power Declaration that hundreds of millions of Chinese would be on the Allied side in the postwar period.

  For the present he considered that the job in China could be boiled down to one essential: “to keep China in the war tying up Japanese soldiers.” At Tehran he told Stalin this was “our one great objective.” The chronic fear of China’s collapse obscured the fact that self-interest would keep her in the war under any circumstances. She could only regain Manchuria, Formosa and other possessions seized by Japan, as proposed at the Moscow Conference, if she emerged as one of the Allied team on the winning side.

  Roosevelt’s confidence in Chiang Kai-shek was not quite what it had been. He complained to Sumner Welles of the “innumerable difficulties” he had experienced over the past year with the Generalissimo whom he now classified, closer to Stilwell’s version than Chennault’s, as “highly temperamental.” He spoke feelingly of the “corruption and inefficiency” that characterized Chiang’s administration and said he had “no patience with the regime’s apparent lack of sympathy for the abject misery of the masses of the Chinese people.” Nevertheless, however “limited” the Generalissimo’s military vision and “badly as his troops were fighting”—a new admission for Roosevelt—he was the only one who after the war would be able to hold the Chinese people together. “With all their shortcomings,” he told his son, “we’ve got to depend on the Chiangs.”

  Accompanied by John Davies and Colonel Merrill, Stilwell arrived in Cairo on November 20. Seven thousand miles to the east on that day the U.S. Marines landed on the Gilbert Islands, the step that in ultimate effect was to cancel the need for China. Were it given to man to see over the horizon of time, the deliberations at Cairo could have been shorter and certainly simpler; as it was, the conferees proceeded as planned in the known terms of the moment. Everyone looked forward with open curiosity to seeing Chiang Kai-shek. His arrival at the airport, unannounced for security reasons, was not met by Roosevelt or Churchill, with wounding result to the Generalissimo’s pride.

  Roosevelt saw in him “the first real Oriental” he had met, unlike the Western-educated variety whom he knew. Sir Alan Brooke, unfriendly throughout, saw “a shrewd foxy face” like a ferret’s and a leader “with no grasp of war in its larger aspects but determined to get the best of all bargains.” Churchill was impressed by the Generalissimo’s “calm, reserved and efficient personality” but irritated by the exaggerated attention given by the Americans to China’s problems. Roosevelt was “soon closeted in long conferences with the Generalissimo” and insisted on Chiang being present at the opening session of the Conference, thus preventing prior consultation between British and Americans. As a result, Chinese business which in Churchill’s opinion was “lengthy, complicated and minor…occupied first instead of last place at Cairo.”

  China’s aim was acquisition, while the opportunity lasted, of arms and title to former territories, including a bonus in the form of the Bonin Islands east of Japan. The return of Manchuria and Formosa, already agreed on by the Allies, was incorporated in a Cairo Declaration held in abeyance until Stalin could be consulted. More delicate questions concerning Dairen and other former Russian concessions, Hong Kong and relations with Britain, and the problem of the Communists were discussed in Roosevelt’s talks with Chiang and Madame, of which no minutes were kept. Ever since the threatened clash with the Communists in September, American advisers had been anxious to avert Chinese civil war. Some thought that further American aid should be made contingent on a domestic settlement in China on the hopeful theory that pasting over the schism would somehow bring irreconcilable opponents into a workable coalition.

  The military discussions occupied three days and the fate of the Burma offensive was darker at the end than at the beginning. The plan drawn by SEAC for the naval and amphibious action that Chiang insisted on (because he believed it would draw off the Japanese from heavy reaction to the land offensive) provided for capture of the Andaman Islands off the Burma coast. Its code name was BUCCANEER. The land offensive proposed for the British called for establishment of a bridgehead over the Chindwin and an airborne landing at Indaw on the railway to Myitkyina without further specified objective. Large numbers of troops and landing craft were scheduled to ensure the guaranteed victory that Mountbatten believed the theater required.

  Stilwell summarized both operations as “abortions.” They did not go anywhere or lead anywhere. They would show activity, satisfy Chiang’s naval requirement and engage the enemy up to a point. Chiang was not told the actual objective of the Bay of Bengal operation, only that there would be one. Apart from leading nowhere, the main flaw of BUCCANEER was the disinclination of the British chiefs, especially Churchill, to undertake it, for reasons tangled in the dispute over the Second Front in Europe. Churchill did not want to do OVERLORD—the cross-Channel attack—either, preferring the peripheral approach through the Mediterranean aimed at the soft underbelly. He wanted to use the landing craft necessary for BUCCANEER for an attack on Rhodes with the object of bringing Turkey into the war. He always had on hand an option that could be proposed to avoid another course of action he did not like. Marshall intensely disliked the Rhodes proposal which would “burn up our logistics right down the line” and detract from OVERLORD on which American sights were fixed. The American chiefs were determined to carry out BUCCANEER in order to fulfill the promise to Chiang Kai-shek and thus bring in the troops from Yunnan without whom Stilwell’s campaign could not open the back door to China. Marshall and King had been deeply impressed by Chiang’s approval of Stilwell’s program; they believed it represented a change of attitude that ought in no event to be discouraged.

  Marshall’s advocacy was bruised by the Chinese performance. Chiang Kai-shek was grasping and alienated sentiment in spite of the efforts of Madame who, not satisfied that the official interpreter conveyed “the full meaning of the thoughts the Generalissimo wishes to express,” retranslated every statement made by or to him. He kept insisting that simultaneously with the campaign in Burma, and regardless of conflicting logistics, deliveries over the Hump must be maintained at 10,000 tons a month, and he insisted on an increased number of transports to assure this. Marshall, who considered the transports already assigned to the Hump as harmful to operations in Europe, reminded the Generalissimo in an angry outburst that these were American planes, personnel and matériel, that China must fight to reopen the Road if she wanted more matériel, and that there would be no further increase in transports: “There must be no misunderstanding about this.”

  At the session of November 23, when Stilwell was about to make China’s presentation, he received a message from the Generalissimo telling him not to do so, that Chiang himself was coming, which was followed by several more messages canceling and reinstating his intentions. Meanwhile Anglo-American d
iscussions of the Burma campaign, with Sir Alan Brooke in the chair, grew acrimonious. “Brooke got nasty and King got good and sore. King almost climbed over the table at Brooke. God, he was mad. I wish he had socked him.”

  In the afternoon Chiang and his generals came. “Terrible performance. They couldn’t ask a question. Brooke was insulting. I helped them out.” When, in the presence of the three chiefs of state, the Chinese were asked questions about the Yunnan force which they could not answer, Stilwell replied for them. Madame, the only feminine presence among all the uniforms, dressed in clinging black satin printed in golden chrysanthemums, with black tulle bows in her hair and on her open-toed shoes, did her best to distract attention with movements of studied gracefulness and glimpses through the slit skirt of a shapely leg. Brooke, the type of Englishman who considered a foreigner something to be snubbed and if nonwhite to be stepped on, pressed the embarrassed Chinese further, asking for their view of the plan of campaign which had previously been given them to read. There ensued, according to his account, “the most ghastly silence,” followed by the Chinese “whispering together in a state of excitement,” after which a spokesman announced, “We wish to listen to your deliberations.” As the first such meeting the Chinese had attended, one in an alien context and language and overwhelming in gold braid and brass, it was not an experience in which they could easily shine.

  When the session had been brought to an unhappy close, Brooke sneered to Marshall, “That was a ghastly waste of time,” and afterwards recorded that it was “thanks to him and the American outlook that we had to suffer this depressing interlude.”

  Stilwell spent the evening helping the Chinese to prepare questions for the next day and briefing Madame for a lunch meeting she was to have with Marshall. He wrote out notes for her to use in arguing the case for American divisions. Before the afternoon meeting, the Generalissimo again changed his mind twice about attending; he came but asked Stilwell to present his views. Understandably dissatisfied with the short objectives of the SEAC campaign, he vacillated about committing the Y-force on this basis, while at the same time insisting on increased ATC deliveries.

  In this impasse Roosevelt sent Mountbatten, the charmer, to try to explain realities to Chiang and secure his promise to cross the Salween; “a welcome change,” as Stilwell wrote, “from me trying to fix it up.” Through Madame as interpreter, Mountbatten worked hard to convince the Generalissimo that extra planes were simply not available. Chiang maintained a bland insistence on 535 transports. “The President will refuse me nothing,” he told Mountbatten. “Anything I ask, he will do.” In a last effort Mountbatten said that even if that many planes could be found, it would be impossible to meet the Generalissimo’s demands for the Hump and at the same time mount the airborne assault on Mandalay that he wanted before the monsoon. At this point a prolonged colloquy ensued between Chiang and his wife until, responding to the query in Mountbatten’s raised eyebrows, Madame turned to him and said, “Believe it or not, he does not know about the monsoon.”

  It was an enlightening proof of some of Stilwell’s difficulties with the G–mo. The monsoon was the governing fact of life and of war in Southeast Asia. But Chiang Kai-shek was ruler of the Middle Kingdom and Chinese in his Middle-Kingdomness. China has no monsoon; ergo, he knew nothing of it.

  On the afternoon of Thanksgiving day, November 25, Stilwell, escorted by Marshall went to see Roosevelt to present his argument for American troops and an American command in China. First on his mind was the post of “Field Chief of Staff,” the source of future crisis. This appeared first in the notes he prepared for the interview under the heading “Ask FDR.” He listed five components of the post: manpower, executive authority, U.S. troops, Chinese-American command and retention of command over the X-force with addition of one corps. In the notes he wrote, “No matter what Peanut agrees to, if something is not done about the Chinese high command the effort is wasted.” He planned to tell the President of the need for a new War Minister to replace Ho Ying-chin or a “thorough reorganization” of his department or, echoing Dorn’s last cry, underlined, “Americans take over the first 30 complete and operate them.”

  This time he made a genuine effort to explain the needs of the situation as he saw it. He felt the President heard him with “little attention.” He broke into Stilwell’s discourse to talk about the Andaman Islands, and in reply to the request for U.S. troops he offered to send a brigade of Marines to Chungking because, as he said, “Marines are well known. They’ve been all over China, to Peking and Shanghai and everywhere. The Army has only been in Tientsin.” This remarkable irrelevancy, almost on a level with Chiang Kai-shek’s ignorance of the monsoon, suggests there may be a special failure of communication in dealing with heads of state. Or perhaps it was the President’s circuitous way of denying American combat troops for China. He did, however, agree, without a definite target date, to equip the 90 divisions, more from a desire to give Chiang Kai-shek something to show for his journey than from belief in a reformed Chinese Army. Stilwell considered this one of the “sure” commitments of Cairo. The Chinese, without ever producing 90 consolidated divisions, were to pursue it as a commitment for years.

  Roosevelt did have positive ideas about the future. Stilwell recorded the President’s plan for Indochina after the war: three commissioners, British, Chinese, American; “NOT TO GO BACK TO FRANCE!” As to his own proposals he drew a heavy line through them in his notebook and wrote, “N.B. FDR is not interested.”

  During the interview the President reported that the Generalissimo after a private talk had now accepted the SEAC plan of campaign for Burma and agreed to send in the Y-force. At 9:00 that evening Stilwell received a call from Hopkins summoning him back to the residence where he learned that as of two hours ago Chiang had withdrawn his consent. “My God. He’s off again.”

  The next morning a body of generals consisting of Mountbatten, Stilwell, Arnold, Somervell, Wheeler, Stratemeyer (the new Air Force commander for CBI) and Chennault descended upon the Generalissimo. “John Liu green with fright because we were three minutes late. Shang Chen peering out the door with ashen face and trembling knees. What a life for those boys. Scared witless all the time.” Chiang went back to insisting on his 10,000 tons a month but was talked into again agreeing to the campaign by his assembled visitors—or so they thought. Before leaving for China the following day he reversed himself once more and told Stilwell to stay and protest and hold out for the airborne assault on Mandalay and 10,000 tons. Meanwhile Roosevelt and Churchill and the European contingent had left for Tehran while Stilwell was to wait for their return and a final decision. “So where are we?” he wondered, and concluded that War by Committee left the executors out on a limb. “Louis [Mountbatten] is fed up on Peanut,” he noted, “As who is not?”

  That was a fair summary, confirmed by Mountbatten’s diary. The Conference, he wrote, was the first experience for Roosevelt, Churchill and the Combined Chiefs of negotiating with Chiang Kai-shek, and “They have been driven absolutely mad.” The Generalissimo had cause to feel the same way, for in fact the British and Americans had never reached a firm decision or even agreement on the campaign they expected him to join. He had all along insisted he would not reenter Burma without a major amphibious campaign to commit the British, and from past experience Chinese trust in the word of the Western nations was small. He had reason for his doubts for in fact Churchill considered that the President had promised an amphibious operation in the Bay of Bengal over his objections, and recorded in his own minutes that he did not consider himself obligated.

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  In private conversation Marshall told Stilwell at Cairo how in September he had been ready to offer him the choice of giving up China and taking the Fourth Army and asked him what his decision would have been. Stilwell recorded no reply except the private one, “I’ve got to shovel.” He accepted a scolding for the scathing language he used at his headquarters in referring to the Generalissimo, which his staff o
fficers promptly peddled all over China. Stilwell promised to reform and two weeks later, as Marshall afterwards said, had gone back to his old ways.

  While the Tehran meeting was in progress he plunged into sightseeing, flying to Jerusalem and also up the Nile to Luxor, site of ancient Thebes, visiting the tombs of Rameses and Tutankhamen and the temples of Karnak and recording with absorbed interest all he saw, at greater length in his diary than he gave to the Conference. “I am a sucker for antiquities and this is where they are,” he wrote to Win. “I could spend months wandering around here….If it hadn’t been for this stupid conference I probably never would have seen these things”—on balance a not unreasonable order of priorities.

  Two developments at Tehran crystalized the results of Cairo. These were Stalin’s insistence on OVERLORD plus ANVIL (the coordinated landing in southern France) as soon as possible and his reiteration of the statement made earlier to Harriman and Hull at Moscow in October, that Russia would join the war against Japan as soon as Germany was defeated. Although Churchill fought hard for Rhodes and Turkey, American and Russian support of OVERLORD carried the day.*2 This promptly supplied Churchill with the excuse to cancel BUCCANEER and use its landing craft for southern France. He refused positively to do both, especially since, in his view, the Russian promise to enter the war against Japan eliminated the need for a campaign in China or a major effort to support China. BUCCANEER would be wasted. The prospect of Russia’s entry, he maintained, changed everything.

  Roosevelt was no less impressed by the promise which, though known before Cairo, evidently carried more weight when repeated at the summit by Stalin in person. Coming on top of the discouraging encounter with the Chinese, it raised the possibility of a substitute for China both as wartime partner and afterwards. Fresh from disappointment in Chiang Kai-shek, Roosevelt was the more anxious to find in Stalin a strong fourth corner of his postwar design. He once said to Ambassador Bullitt, “I think that if I give him everything I possibly can and ask nothing of him in return, noblesse oblige, he won’t try to annex anything and will work with me for a world of democracy and peace.” He believed that by cooperating fully and amicably with Stalin on such matters as OVERLORD, and meeting legitimate demands such as access to a warm-water port like Dairen, he could bring the Soviet Union wholeheartedly into the planned league of united nations. In the cordial mood of a historic meeting he formed the conclusion that Stalin was “getatable” and could be drawn into postwar cooperation for common aims. Responding to toasts at Churchill’s birthday dinner on November 30, he said, “We have proved here at Tehran that the varying ideals of our nations can come together in a harmonious whole.” In this presumed harmony the problem of China began to seem less urgent.