Stilwell and the American Experience in China, 1911-45

by Barbara W. Tuchman

  The message adopted the tone of a headmaster to a sullen and incorrigible schoolboy. It repeated all the arguments that Stilwell had tried to get through the “hickory head”: that the courage and sacrifices of the Yoke forces would be in vain unless they were reinforced and supported and allowed to go on to complete the opening of the Burma Road; that a withdrawal behind the Salween was exactly what the enemy was striving to cause; that if Chiang broke off the action “we will lose all chance of opening land communications with China and immediately jeopardize the air route over the Hump. For this you must yourself be prepared to accept the consequences and assume the personal responsibility.” The telegram continued:

  I have urged time and again in recent months that you take drastic action to resist the disaster which has been moving closer to China and to you. Now, when you have not yet placed General Stilwell in command of all forces in China, we are faced with the loss of a critical area in east China with possible catastrophic consequences….The advance of our forces across the Pacific is swift. But this advance will be too late for China unless you act now and vigorously…to preserve the fruits of your long years of struggle and the effort we have been able to make to support you….

  I am certain that the only thing you can now do to prevent the Jap from achieving his objectives in China is to reinforce your Salween armies immediately and press their offensive, while at once placing General Stilwell in unrestricted command of all your forces. The action I am asking you to take will fortify us in our decision and in the continued efforts the United States proposes to take to maintain and increase our aid to you….It appears plainly evident to all of us here that all your and our efforts to save China are to be lost by further delays.

  There was nothing in this that was not justified; the fault lay in failure to think through the implications. It made no sense to send a message of implied unfitness to rule to a chief of state unless it was backed by readiness to cease investing support in him. In the absence of such readiness the message was a crippled ultimatum from which the senders must inevitably retreat.

  Stilwell, to whom the message was addressed for delivery, not unnaturally took it as evidence of decisive firmness in Washington. It seemed to him that “FDR’s eyes have been opened….At very long last he has finally spoken plain words and plenty of them with a firecracker in every sentence….A hot firecracker.” As senior officer in Chungking it was his duty to deliver a message from the President to the Generalissimo in person. Had he wished to avoid being the bearer of offense to a head of state whose consent he needed, and with whom he had to collaborate, he could easily have stretched a point and given the message to Hurley to deliver. But the sharp wording in the President’s name, so clearly suggesting disrespect, encouraged him to abandon restraint. Moreover the message had been sent to him, not to Hurley, with no accompanying instructions or evidence of desire to cushion the impact. All the anger and contempt he had accumulated through two and a half years of being thwarted in his profession and mission by Chiang Kai-shek’s determined nonperformance came to a head when Chiang announced his intention to withdraw from Lungling. When Stilwell read the President’s message demanding for him “unrestricted command” of all China’s forces, he leapt at the chance to plunge it into the Peanut’s heart.

  He ordered a Chinese translation made and took it to the Huang Shan residence where Chiang was in conference with Hurley, Soong, Ho Ying-chin, Pai and others on the terms of Stilwell’s proposed command. Before entering the conference room he sent for Hurley and showed him the text. Hurley’s diplomatic instinct counseled softening and he offered to paraphrase the terms verbally for the Generalissimo. This was just what T. V. Soong, Madame and other transmitters had been doing in the past and what the personal delivery procedure was designed to prevent. Stilwell refused, took it in himself, and as he wrote afterwards with rather horrid satisfaction, “handed this bundle of paprika to the Peanut and then sank back with a sigh. The harpoon hit the little bugger right in the solar plexus and went right through him.” Chiang read the Chinese version with no show of emotion, looked at Stilwell and said, “I understand,” and after sitting for a moment in silence, jiggling one foot, closed the meeting. “What! No teapots? No, just a calm silence. I got out promptly and came home. Pretty sight crossing the river: lights all on in Chungking.”

  Afterwards in a letter to his wife he elaborated his relish in verse of the kind he had once composed about the “Ambastardor.” It deserves to be buried but, on the principle of warts-and-all, cannot be.

  I’ve waited long for vengeance—

  At last I’ve had my chance,

  I’ve looked the Peanut in the eye

  And kicked him in the pants.

  The old harpoon was ready

  With aim and timing true,

  I sank it to the handle

  And stung him through and through.

  The little bastard shivered,

  And lost the power of speech.

  His face turned green and quivered

  As he struggled not to screech.

  For all my weary battles,

  For all my hours of woe,

  At last I’ve had my innings

  And laid the Peanut low.

  I know I’ve still to suffer,

  And run a weary race,

  But oh! the blessed pleasure!

  I’ve wrecked the Peanut’s face.

  To Chiang Kai-shek the message was unquestionably a shock. His wrath after the meeting was reported to have been tremendous and it did not take him long to recognize the implications. He knew he could not accept the American demand made in such terms without opening the way to his own discard. If the Americans succeeded in imposing Stilwell on him against his will, they might do likewise in the matter of the Communists. Gauss was not the only one who saw this leading to the possible collapse of the Kuomintang. The issue had to be met. Guided by Soong’s realistic advice, Chiang did not think the United States would abandon him and he was prepared to bring it to the test. The message of September 18 gave him the excuse he was waiting for. According to T. V. Soong he said it canceled his promise to give Stilwell the command.

  The problem he and Soong now faced was how to formulate the cancellation without seeming to blame the President whom they could not afford to alienate for fear of risking Lend-Lease. While T.V. applied his skills to this task, the Generalissimo, in his unpredictable way, imperturbably accepted Stilwell’s plan for the defense of Kweilin. Pai Ch’ung-hsi was delegated to go down to superintend the execution. He brought the good news to Stilwell on September 20 and mentioned, as another sign of progress, that the commander of the 93rd Army had been executed—to “encourage the rest,” as Stilwell noted in the words of Voltaire.

  He had learned by now of the Generalissimo’s wrath but neither he nor, despite his ex post facto explanations, Hurley, considered at the time that this was definitive. The Kweilin development appeared encouraging and Stilwell thought he was in a strong position because he assumed a sticking point had been reached in Washington. To break the deadlock over the appointment he offered a new set of proposals on September 23 in which he undertook to go to Yenan to negotiate the Communists’ acceptance of the Central Government’s authority and of military command exercised through himself. According to these proposals the Communist troops would be employed north of the Yellow River out of contact with Government troops. American arms and equipment were suggested for only five divisions. “This will knock the persimmons off the trees!” exclaimed Hurley confidently and went off to present the paper to the Generalissimo.

  He met with a shock. Chiang presented him not merely with refusal of the command post but with a formal demand for the recall of General Stilwell.

  Chiang was a man no less persistent than Stilwell in pursuit of an objective. He had made up his mind to be rid of a presence that was a continuing indictment of himself and his regime. If he was Stilwell’s incubus, Stilwell was his goad. Their past as well as future rela
tionship was in the scales. At bottom was the principle contained in the issue between Chennault’s program and Stilwell’s: one offering to let the American air arm fight for China, the other proposing to enable the Chinese to fight for themselves. Had it been within the Generalissimo’s power or philosophy to adopt Stilwell’s program for reform of the army, he would have had the combat efficiency available to resist the Japanese offensive of 1944 and, quite possibly, to overcome the Communists in the clash that was to come. That opportunity had now gone by, nor is it likely that the Generalissimo either recognized or regretted it. His concern was to remove the source of a pressure he could not tolerate.

  He now felt able to take the risk because the presence of Hurley and Nelson reassured him of continued American support. The Chinese were delighted with Hurley whom they found congenial and amenable and who provided the channel Chiang wanted for communicating his views and desires without going through Stilwell and Gauss. In addition, Nelson had drawn up an impressive program of American support for China’s postwar economic reconstruction and had promised the Generalissimo, or, through the hazards of interpreted conversation and wishful listening, had given the impression that he promised him, control of Lend-Lease. This was an important factor in the developments.*2

  Through two long sessions on the day Chiang voiced his demand for Stilwell’s recall, Hurley did his best to dissuade him from a decision that meant a failure in part of his own assignment. But Chiang had found his ground and stood on it with the same granite immovability he had displayed when kidnapped at Sian. The problem of blame was solved by placing it all on Stilwell. By personally delivering the President’s message he had put Chiang in the position of his subordinate—according to Chiang. The G–mo said Stilwell had disobeyed him by refusing to order the attack on Bhamo and he would have a mutiny on his hands if he gave Stilwell command of the army. His reasons were elaborated in an aide-memoire which charged that Stilwell “had no intention of cooperating with me but believed that he was in fact appointed to command me,” that he was “unfitted for the vast and complex duties which the new command will entail” and that his appointment would do “irreparable injury” to Chinese-American military cooperation. It assured the President that Chiang was still ready to appoint an American to command the Chinese armed forces and to make other important changes that would contribute to “harmonious” operations. “T.V. undoubtedly wrote the thing,” was Stilwell’s comment.

  From this point on, during negotiations that continued for another three weeks, the only person certain of the outcome was Chiang Kai-shek. He was in a weak position but he had absolute firmness of intent while the United States had all the advantages except firmness of intent. To the participants caught in it, the situation was not that clear. Hurley who still wanted to be Ambassador was inclined to accept the Soong-Chiang thesis that Stilwell’s act of delivery was the blameworthy cause and so reported to Roosevelt on September 25. Hurley also listened receptively when Soong expressed his and the Generalissimo’s belief that Stilwell himself was the author of the insolent message which, according to this theory, he had suggested to Washington and arranged to have sent back in the President’s name. This was an omnipotence Stilwell would have been happy to possess.

  It was a measure of his low estimation of Chiang that in the face of an official demand for his recall he went on trying to obtain command of China’s armies. He wanted it not as a means of his own aggrandizement but as a means to scourge the enemy. In the midst of war against a still formidable opponent, the defeat of Japan was his primary concern. He was intent on obtaining the authority that would enable him to launch the long-planned counteroffensive toward the coast. As always his mind would not accept an impossibility though he knew it to be one. He explicitly stated to Marshall on September 26 that Chiang had no intention of making further efforts to prosecute the war, and that “Anyone who crowds him toward such action will be blocked or eliminated.” Yet he went on trying to crowd him. Chiang had reversed himself backwards and forwards so many times in the past that there was reason to suppose he might do so again. He had not, as Stilwell learned, informed the National Military Council or even Ho Ying-chin of his demand for Stilwell’s recall which suggested that he was leaving room for another maneuver depending on Washington’s reaction. That this was awaited in obvious anxiety was indicated by Soong’s “highly nervous and disturbed condition.”

  On September 28 Stilwell offered a compromise, suggested by Lin Wei who did not know about the demand for recall but thought that if the issue of Communist participation were dropped the Generalissimo would agree to give Stilwell the command. Stilwell proposed this to Ho Ying-chin, offering to defer the Communist role for the time being and concentrate on organizing and preparing a force drawn from the NCAC, the Y and the Z groups which could “take the offensive within six months.” This was exactly the crowding he knew the Generalissimo would not tolerate but it had to be proposed for how else, as he saw it, were the Japanese on the mainland to be defeated?

  In Washington the Generalissimo’s renewed demand for Stilwell’s recall went straight to the weak link in the American position. This lay in the fact that Marshall had pushed the President into taking a position that Roosevelt did not really believe in. Roosevelt had let himself be pushed partly because of his disillusion with Chiang since Cairo and his anger at the long refusal to move the Y-force, partly because Stilwell had proved himself an accomplisher, and finally because he did not know what else to try. There is nothing in wartime like recalcitrant allies for creating quandaries. But he was not now prepared to impose an American commander against the express wishes of a chief of state. That would be impossible to reconcile with his own part in rescinding the unequal treaties and restoring China’s sovereignty. Resting on Chiang’s stated readiness to appoint another American, the President was willing enough to back down on Stilwell. Marshall definitely was not but while they were struggling over the matter an unofficial version of the President’s attitude was conveyed by Hopkins to Kung at a dinner party and immediately telegraphed to Soong on October 1.

  Whatever Hopkins may or may not have said, the conclusion Kung telegraphed was that since it concerned the sovereign right of China, the President intended to comply with the request for the recall of Stilwell. As soon as he had discussed it with Marshall and solved the problem of a successor, he would make his reply to the Generalissimo. This was what Chiang and Soong had been waiting for and all that they needed. The Generalissimo at once closed his own lines of retreat by announcing his intention to dismiss Stilwell to the Standing Committee of the CEC.*3 Proceedings of the Committee, which met regularly Monday afternoons, were strictly secret and usually took from three days to a week to circulate but an account of the session of October 2 was leaked to Gauss on the same day, doubtless on purpose so that it could be reported back to Washington and close off any other lines of retreat.

  Speaking heatedly and banging the table the Generalissimo had insisted that General Stilwell “must go” and that all Lend-Lease must come to him for distribution. He said that an American commander, if there was to be any, would be allowed to have contact only with the Chinese forces put at his disposal by the Generalissimo. Although he was grateful for the abolition of extrality and the Exclusion Act, the Americans were now trying to infringe on China’s sovereignty in another way. “This is a new form of imperialism; if we agree we should be nothing but puppets; we might as well go over to Wang Ching-wei.” He repeated that he was not going to compromise on a matter of sovereign rights. He complained that Stilwell had disobeyed orders in refusing to advance on Bhamo and had boasted that if he went to Yenan he could get the Red Army to cooperate, but he would never be permitted to go to Yenan “until the Communists submit to my orders.” The G–mo told the meeting not to fear in case the Americans should now withdraw aid. “We can get along without them…we can still stand on our feet in four provinces.”

  Although there was much murmuring only one member of th
e Standing Committee ventured a reply. He said Stilwell might be the best man they could get “who understands China and the ways of the people” whereas a new man might be worse “because the usual American is not so considerate and he may want things done quicker and he may be more brusque.” That at least was a unique tribute.

  As soon as he learned of Chiang’s speech to the Standing Committee and of Hopkins’ disclosure (which Soong took pains to report to Hurley), Stilwell knew the struggle was close to an end although the official American reply was still awaited. That day he wrote farewell letters to the leading Chinese commanders who had served under him and warned his wife to prepare “to have me thrown out on the garbage pile.” The President’s yielding was to him the decisive factor. “If Old Softy gives in on this as he apparently has, the Peanut will be out of control from now on.”

  As if to confirm the sliding of the ground from under him, Merrill came in that night from the Quebec Conference with a summary of disinterest in the China theater. He reported that the statements of Admiral Nimitz and others about the need for bases on the China coast were purely a cover for “our real operations” (the coming assault on the Philippines); that all plans for operations against the Japanese assumed no action by China beyond containing some enemy forces on the mainland; there was no intention “to get mixed up on the Continent with large U.S. forces”; and in final epitaph, that General Handy of OPD admitted that by now the “Stilwell mission was primarily political and that not much in the way of real action by the Chinese was hoped for.” In this acknowledgment was the true end of Stilwell’s mission; recall was but the form it took.