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Shanghai 1937: Stalingrad on the Yangtze
At its height, the Battle of Shanghai involved nearly a million Chinese and Japanese soldiers while sucking in three million civilians as unwilling spectators—and often victims. It turned what had been a Japanese imperialist adventure in China into a general war between the two oldest and proudest civilizations of the Far East. Ultimately, it led to Pearl Harbor and to seven decades of tumultuous history in Asia. The Battle of Shanghai was a pivotal event that helped define and shape the modern world.
In its sheer scale, the struggle for China’s largest city was a sinister forewarning of what was in store only a few years later in theaters around the world. It demonstrated how technology had given rise to new forms of warfare and had made old forms even more lethal. Amphibious landings, tank assaults, aerial dogfights, and—most important—urban combat all happened in Shanghai in 1937. It was a dress rehearsal for World War II—or, perhaps more correctly, it was the inaugural act in the war, the first major battle in the global conflict.
Actors from a variety of nations were present in Shanghai during the three fateful autumn months when the battle raged. The rich cast included China’s ascetic Generalissimo Chiang Kai-shek and his Japanese adversary, General Matsui Iwane, who wanted Asia to rise from disunity, but ultimately pushed the continent toward its deadliest conflict ever.
In its sheer scale, the struggle for China’s largest city was a sinister forewarning of what was in store only a few years later in theaters around the world. It demonstrated how technology had given rise to new forms of warfare and had made old forms even more lethal. Amphibious landings, tank assaults, aerial dogfights, and—most important—urban combat all happened in Shanghai in 1937. It was a dress rehearsal for World War II—or, perhaps more correctly, it was the inaugural act in the war, the first major battle in the global conflict.
Actors from a variety of nations were present in Shanghai during the three fateful autumn months when the battle raged. The rich cast included China’s ascetic Generalissimo Chiang Kai-shek and his Japanese adversary, General Matsui Iwane, who wanted Asia to rise from disunity, but ultimately pushed the continent toward its deadliest conflict ever.
310 pages, Hardcover
First published April 15, 2013
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October 1, 2014
Most Chinese take 7 Jul 1937, the day of the Marco Polo Bridge Incident (卢沟桥事变) as the day when China officially went to war with Japan. Immediately after the incident, Chiang Kai-shek found himself out of an excuse to not confront the Japanese on Chinese soil. He decided to make his stand in Shanghai and this book is about that battle, known in the Chinese literature as 淞滬會戰.
At 300 pages, this is a fairly short book by normal standards. The brisk and flowing style adopted by the author made the book an enjoyable read. This book is obviously based on good research and has the merit of showing many good archive pictures. On top of that, it also provides the answer to a question I have had for many years - why do Chinese soldiers that appeared in movies I saw as a child wear German helmets? Does it not make them the bad guys? This book is the only one I have come across that gives a good account of the close relationship between the Chinese government and the Germans, explaining the many German military advisers used by the National Revolutionary Army (NRA) in the 1930s.
The author, Peter Harmsen, is particularly good at articulating scenes of various types (although I suspect that this is helped by my own exposure to the pictures and movies I watched as a child). I would point to two examples, the first one was what went on in the Great World Amusement Centre, taking readers into the place itself, almost helping one to see what various vendors were doing. I thought I could hear the music coming out of the crackling grammaphone. The other, in contrast, was the gruesome fighting scenes of death and destruction. I confess again, that being exposed from young to pictures and movies made of that era has helped me to visualise (maybe inaccurately) what the author described, but that should not take anything away from his ability to attend to the smallest yet important details.
There are however lapses that reduce my enjoyment of the book. The prologue talked about the Xi-an Incident in which Chiang was kidnapped by Zhang Xueliang, the Young Marshal as he was called, in a bid to force Chiang to come to terms with the Communists to fight the Japanese together. For such an important event, I wonder why the author did not mention it by name, and the greater ommission was Zhang Xueliang's name. Yet he would bother to interject his otherwise flowing narrative with stories that seem to come at the wrong time, or which are of no use to the reader. An example of such was the story on Dai Li (pg 145) which interrupted what was an exciting description of the brutal battle that was going on.
The author also made a strange comment on pg 64 about the tragedy of the Black Saturday. This was when the Chinese bombers sent to bomb the Japanese cruiser Izumo dropped their bombs in the most crowded parts of Shanghai instead, killing only Chinese civilians. The author said that 'the tragedy could have been prevented by Japan.' I cannot appreciate the thoughts behind what he said; was he trying to be sarcastic or ironic, or was he really putting the blame on the Japanese? I hope he had not said it.
That said, the perceptive author provided much for a reader to reflect upon.
The first of these was about the city itself. What was Shanghai really like in that era? If there was a 'limited war', I would say that this battle was the most 'limited' insofar as territory is concerned. With Japan's total restrain concerning the International Settlements, one got the surreal sense that the battle could be raging along one side of a fence maiming people indiscriminately, while on the other side, people, safe behind the fences of the International Settlements, watched on. Foreign reporters could still be staying in a five-star hotel that continued to operate as normal.
But 'limited' is also a misnomer in this battle, as with all others involving the Chinese. For Chinese commanders always seemed to believe that there were unlimited Chinese to die. Those frontal attacks against well-entrenched enemies in movies looked like propaganda, only that they were unfortunately accurate (pg 53). No one was called to account for the fiasco of Black Saturday. A captain, who claimed to be involved in it, even gave an interview to the press and tried to explained why it happened (pg 63).
I also could not help noticing that the one thing the that the Chinese Army seemed to consistently do successfully was to withdraw quietly at night from a salient they held in the day. The Japanese sometimes did not even know until days later. The one exception was battle for the Sihang Warehouse where some 425 Chinese soldiers took a last stand against the Japanese. This battle was described very well in the book.
Overall, this book is a good read. Although I have my complaints, these are probably due to my unfair expectations of it being more scholarly when it was written as a 'popular' history book. This book is recommended if for none other reason than there being very few English language works on the war in China during this era.
At 300 pages, this is a fairly short book by normal standards. The brisk and flowing style adopted by the author made the book an enjoyable read. This book is obviously based on good research and has the merit of showing many good archive pictures. On top of that, it also provides the answer to a question I have had for many years - why do Chinese soldiers that appeared in movies I saw as a child wear German helmets? Does it not make them the bad guys? This book is the only one I have come across that gives a good account of the close relationship between the Chinese government and the Germans, explaining the many German military advisers used by the National Revolutionary Army (NRA) in the 1930s.
The author, Peter Harmsen, is particularly good at articulating scenes of various types (although I suspect that this is helped by my own exposure to the pictures and movies I watched as a child). I would point to two examples, the first one was what went on in the Great World Amusement Centre, taking readers into the place itself, almost helping one to see what various vendors were doing. I thought I could hear the music coming out of the crackling grammaphone. The other, in contrast, was the gruesome fighting scenes of death and destruction. I confess again, that being exposed from young to pictures and movies made of that era has helped me to visualise (maybe inaccurately) what the author described, but that should not take anything away from his ability to attend to the smallest yet important details.
There are however lapses that reduce my enjoyment of the book. The prologue talked about the Xi-an Incident in which Chiang was kidnapped by Zhang Xueliang, the Young Marshal as he was called, in a bid to force Chiang to come to terms with the Communists to fight the Japanese together. For such an important event, I wonder why the author did not mention it by name, and the greater ommission was Zhang Xueliang's name. Yet he would bother to interject his otherwise flowing narrative with stories that seem to come at the wrong time, or which are of no use to the reader. An example of such was the story on Dai Li (pg 145) which interrupted what was an exciting description of the brutal battle that was going on.
The author also made a strange comment on pg 64 about the tragedy of the Black Saturday. This was when the Chinese bombers sent to bomb the Japanese cruiser Izumo dropped their bombs in the most crowded parts of Shanghai instead, killing only Chinese civilians. The author said that 'the tragedy could have been prevented by Japan.' I cannot appreciate the thoughts behind what he said; was he trying to be sarcastic or ironic, or was he really putting the blame on the Japanese? I hope he had not said it.
That said, the perceptive author provided much for a reader to reflect upon.
The first of these was about the city itself. What was Shanghai really like in that era? If there was a 'limited war', I would say that this battle was the most 'limited' insofar as territory is concerned. With Japan's total restrain concerning the International Settlements, one got the surreal sense that the battle could be raging along one side of a fence maiming people indiscriminately, while on the other side, people, safe behind the fences of the International Settlements, watched on. Foreign reporters could still be staying in a five-star hotel that continued to operate as normal.
But 'limited' is also a misnomer in this battle, as with all others involving the Chinese. For Chinese commanders always seemed to believe that there were unlimited Chinese to die. Those frontal attacks against well-entrenched enemies in movies looked like propaganda, only that they were unfortunately accurate (pg 53). No one was called to account for the fiasco of Black Saturday. A captain, who claimed to be involved in it, even gave an interview to the press and tried to explained why it happened (pg 63).
I also could not help noticing that the one thing the that the Chinese Army seemed to consistently do successfully was to withdraw quietly at night from a salient they held in the day. The Japanese sometimes did not even know until days later. The one exception was battle for the Sihang Warehouse where some 425 Chinese soldiers took a last stand against the Japanese. This battle was described very well in the book.
Overall, this book is a good read. Although I have my complaints, these are probably due to my unfair expectations of it being more scholarly when it was written as a 'popular' history book. This book is recommended if for none other reason than there being very few English language works on the war in China during this era.
November 17, 2021
China was not ready for war when the Japanese struck Shanghai on August 13, 1937. Despite six years of warning after the Empire of Japan occupied Manchuria in 1931, Chiang Kai-shek’s forces were woefully unprepared for the battle that started World War II in China.
** His army consisted of 176 divisions on paper, but only twenty full-strength (10,000-man) divisions answered directly to him. The others were either fielded by warlords, commanded by generals who ignored Chiang’s orders, or were led by Communists, with whom Chiang had negotiated a shaky truce.
** German military advisors had managed to train and equip some of Chiang’s loyal twenty divisions. But they lacked modern tanks, heavy artillery, a viable fleet on the rivers and coasts, and a modern air force. For example, “of the 600 aircraft officially forming the air force at the start of the hostilities, only 91 were actually ready to fight.” And some of those who did manage to get into the air in the ensuing battle may have bombed more Chinese civilians than Japanese soldiers.
** The Chinese military intelligence service was preoccupied with rooting out Communists and possessed few precious inroads into the city’s large Japanese community.
This grim picture comes to light in Shanghai 1937, Peter Harmsen’s deeply researched account of the long-neglected Battle of Shanghai (August 13 – November 26, 1937). It’s a story of “weeks of combat that would rival the battlefields of the Great War in their pointless waste of human life.”
AN OVERCONFIDENT FOE
To an outsider, a rapid Japanese victory in the 1937 Battle of Shanghai might have appeared inevitable. That Emperor Hirohito and the militarists who commanded the Japanese Imperial government shared that opinion. After all, the country had been building its military into a world-class force for nearly seventy years since the Meiji Restoration of 1868. The Chinese were no match for the mechanized might of the Japanese Army on land and its superiority both in the air and on the water. Unsurprisingly, then, as Harmsen notes, “[i]n their habitual disdain for the Chinese, the Japanese leaders figured that this would be more than enough to deal with the nuisance across the sea.” They expected to take Shanghai within days. “Underestimating the foe was a mistake they were to repeat again and again in the coming weeks and months.”
A DETAILED, WEEK-BY-WEEK ACCOUNT OF THE 1937 BATTLE OF SHANGHAI
Shanghai 1937 casts light on the desperation of the Chinese resistance to the Japanese invasion and on the complex operations of the Chinese Army under Chiang Kai-shek. Harmsen introduces us to the senior generals who guided operations in and around Shanghai, both Chinese and Japanese as well as the German advisers who played such a prominent role on the Chinese side. (Japan and Germany had yet to sign the pact that formed the Axis.)
Harmsen describes the deployment of troops on both sides, allowing the reader to follow the confusing course of the battle by consulting maps included in the book. We learn how Japanese overconfidence forced its generals to request reinforcements from Tokyo at several crucial points in the battle. At times, Harmsen relates the experiences of some of the many European and American expatriates who lived in the city and witnessed the fighting. He draws from contemporaneous journalistic accounts as well. Some passages that illustrate the plight of individual soldiers and the deprivations of the city’s civilian population are poignant and revealing. The 1937 Battle of Shanghai was a human drama of epic proportions.
Overall, though, Peter Harmsen serves up more than I care to know about the Battle of Shanghai. Chinese with ties to the people or places involved or military history buffs may find the account more rewarding. However, the author has done a great service by writing this book. As he notes in the prologue, “Not a single monograph of this crucial encounter is listed among the hundreds of thousands of volumes dealing with World War II and its antecedents.”
DOCUMENTED JAPANESE BRUTALITY
No account of the Japanese invasion of China is complete without acknowledging the inhuman brutality of the Japanese Army. Graphic, stomach-churning examples fill Shanghai 1937. Here, for example, is what one Japanese soldier described after the war: “‘We’d take all the men behind the houses and kill them with bayonets and knives . . . Then we’d lock up the women and children in a single house and rape them at night. I didn’t do that myself, but I think the other soldiers did quite a bit of raping. Then, before we left the next morning, we’d kill all the women and children, and to top it off, we’d set fire to the houses, so that even if anyone came back, they wouldn’t have a place to live.'”
The book also reveals that “Japanese aircraft deliberately machine-gunned and bombed anything that bore the Red Cross.” However, as Harmsen emphasizes, neither side took prisoners. Both summarily executed captured soldiers in short order.
THE LASTING IMPACT OF THE BATTLE OF SHANGHAI
After three months of brutal, back-and-forth combat, “the total number of Japanese military casualties in the battle was 9,115 dead and 31,257 injured. But “the Japanese estimated that China had suffered 250,000 military casualties fighting for the city. . . [T]he Chinese put the number at 187,200. Some even estimated that it was as high as 300,000. No matter the exact figure, the result of the battle was carnage of catastrophic dimensions, which hit Chiang Kai-shek’s best German-trained divisions with disproportionate severity. China took a beating that it would not recover from fully until 1944, after massive American aid.”
ABOUT THE AUTHOR
Google Books notes that “Peter Harmsen, a foreign correspondent in East Asia for two decades, has worked for Bloomberg, the Economist Intelligence Unit, and the Financial Times. A fluent speaker of Mandarin Chinese, Harmsen is also the former bureau chief in Taiwan for French news agency AFP. His book Shanghai 1937: Stalingrad on the Yangtze inspired a US Public Television documentary by three-time Emmy Award winner Bill Einreinhofer, which started airing in the fall of 2018, reaching 80 percent of the American television audience. Harmsen’s work has been translated into Chinese, Danish, and Romanian.” In addition to Shanghai 1937, he has written four other books about World War II in East Asia.
** His army consisted of 176 divisions on paper, but only twenty full-strength (10,000-man) divisions answered directly to him. The others were either fielded by warlords, commanded by generals who ignored Chiang’s orders, or were led by Communists, with whom Chiang had negotiated a shaky truce.
** German military advisors had managed to train and equip some of Chiang’s loyal twenty divisions. But they lacked modern tanks, heavy artillery, a viable fleet on the rivers and coasts, and a modern air force. For example, “of the 600 aircraft officially forming the air force at the start of the hostilities, only 91 were actually ready to fight.” And some of those who did manage to get into the air in the ensuing battle may have bombed more Chinese civilians than Japanese soldiers.
** The Chinese military intelligence service was preoccupied with rooting out Communists and possessed few precious inroads into the city’s large Japanese community.
This grim picture comes to light in Shanghai 1937, Peter Harmsen’s deeply researched account of the long-neglected Battle of Shanghai (August 13 – November 26, 1937). It’s a story of “weeks of combat that would rival the battlefields of the Great War in their pointless waste of human life.”
AN OVERCONFIDENT FOE
To an outsider, a rapid Japanese victory in the 1937 Battle of Shanghai might have appeared inevitable. That Emperor Hirohito and the militarists who commanded the Japanese Imperial government shared that opinion. After all, the country had been building its military into a world-class force for nearly seventy years since the Meiji Restoration of 1868. The Chinese were no match for the mechanized might of the Japanese Army on land and its superiority both in the air and on the water. Unsurprisingly, then, as Harmsen notes, “[i]n their habitual disdain for the Chinese, the Japanese leaders figured that this would be more than enough to deal with the nuisance across the sea.” They expected to take Shanghai within days. “Underestimating the foe was a mistake they were to repeat again and again in the coming weeks and months.”
A DETAILED, WEEK-BY-WEEK ACCOUNT OF THE 1937 BATTLE OF SHANGHAI
Shanghai 1937 casts light on the desperation of the Chinese resistance to the Japanese invasion and on the complex operations of the Chinese Army under Chiang Kai-shek. Harmsen introduces us to the senior generals who guided operations in and around Shanghai, both Chinese and Japanese as well as the German advisers who played such a prominent role on the Chinese side. (Japan and Germany had yet to sign the pact that formed the Axis.)
Harmsen describes the deployment of troops on both sides, allowing the reader to follow the confusing course of the battle by consulting maps included in the book. We learn how Japanese overconfidence forced its generals to request reinforcements from Tokyo at several crucial points in the battle. At times, Harmsen relates the experiences of some of the many European and American expatriates who lived in the city and witnessed the fighting. He draws from contemporaneous journalistic accounts as well. Some passages that illustrate the plight of individual soldiers and the deprivations of the city’s civilian population are poignant and revealing. The 1937 Battle of Shanghai was a human drama of epic proportions.
Overall, though, Peter Harmsen serves up more than I care to know about the Battle of Shanghai. Chinese with ties to the people or places involved or military history buffs may find the account more rewarding. However, the author has done a great service by writing this book. As he notes in the prologue, “Not a single monograph of this crucial encounter is listed among the hundreds of thousands of volumes dealing with World War II and its antecedents.”
DOCUMENTED JAPANESE BRUTALITY
No account of the Japanese invasion of China is complete without acknowledging the inhuman brutality of the Japanese Army. Graphic, stomach-churning examples fill Shanghai 1937. Here, for example, is what one Japanese soldier described after the war: “‘We’d take all the men behind the houses and kill them with bayonets and knives . . . Then we’d lock up the women and children in a single house and rape them at night. I didn’t do that myself, but I think the other soldiers did quite a bit of raping. Then, before we left the next morning, we’d kill all the women and children, and to top it off, we’d set fire to the houses, so that even if anyone came back, they wouldn’t have a place to live.'”
The book also reveals that “Japanese aircraft deliberately machine-gunned and bombed anything that bore the Red Cross.” However, as Harmsen emphasizes, neither side took prisoners. Both summarily executed captured soldiers in short order.
THE LASTING IMPACT OF THE BATTLE OF SHANGHAI
After three months of brutal, back-and-forth combat, “the total number of Japanese military casualties in the battle was 9,115 dead and 31,257 injured. But “the Japanese estimated that China had suffered 250,000 military casualties fighting for the city. . . [T]he Chinese put the number at 187,200. Some even estimated that it was as high as 300,000. No matter the exact figure, the result of the battle was carnage of catastrophic dimensions, which hit Chiang Kai-shek’s best German-trained divisions with disproportionate severity. China took a beating that it would not recover from fully until 1944, after massive American aid.”
ABOUT THE AUTHOR
Google Books notes that “Peter Harmsen, a foreign correspondent in East Asia for two decades, has worked for Bloomberg, the Economist Intelligence Unit, and the Financial Times. A fluent speaker of Mandarin Chinese, Harmsen is also the former bureau chief in Taiwan for French news agency AFP. His book Shanghai 1937: Stalingrad on the Yangtze inspired a US Public Television documentary by three-time Emmy Award winner Bill Einreinhofer, which started airing in the fall of 2018, reaching 80 percent of the American television audience. Harmsen’s work has been translated into Chinese, Danish, and Romanian.” In addition to Shanghai 1937, he has written four other books about World War II in East Asia.
March 27, 2020
A decent retelling of the battle between China and Japan in 1937 in Shanghai that was one of the many conflicts between these two countries in the 1930's and the 1940's. It does not quite live up to the title as the author never convinces the reader that the battle of Shanghai was equal to the battle of Stalingrad.
I found much of the information new and Harmsen has included research from both sides as well as very interesting comments regarding the German advisors to the Chinese. The Germans became much disenchanted when their advice was ignored as the Chinese military leaders seemed to be more interesting in saving their equipment and fighting among themselves than fighting the Japanese.
I was hoping to learn more about the International Settlement of Shanghai where colonial powers had separate sections of Shanghai with their own commercial areas, schools and residential homes. However there was little about these fascinating areas in the book. Some of the bombings of the International Settlement are included.
Harmsen does make a strong case for the importance of the Battle of Shanghai within the history of World War II, however the case in my opinion was not quite strong enough.
I found much of the information new and Harmsen has included research from both sides as well as very interesting comments regarding the German advisors to the Chinese. The Germans became much disenchanted when their advice was ignored as the Chinese military leaders seemed to be more interesting in saving their equipment and fighting among themselves than fighting the Japanese.
I was hoping to learn more about the International Settlement of Shanghai where colonial powers had separate sections of Shanghai with their own commercial areas, schools and residential homes. However there was little about these fascinating areas in the book. Some of the bombings of the International Settlement are included.
Harmsen does make a strong case for the importance of the Battle of Shanghai within the history of World War II, however the case in my opinion was not quite strong enough.
January 5, 2025
Shanghai 1937 is a well put together account of the battle for Shanghai which lasted 3 months and brought face to face the armies of Naționalist China and Imperial Japan.
The author does a good job of presenting the battle both from the Chinese perspective and the Japanese one. Parts of Shanghai were also held by Western powers and as such there are lots of eye witness accounts from Western journalists which could literally spectate the ongoing battle from their concession.
The Chinese gambled on an offensive in Shanghai in order to relieve pressure from the beleaguered North. However, the Japanese were superior technologically with a large naval fleet and air force at their disposal. The Chinese army was trained and supplied by Germany with German officers acting as advisers and battle planners.
The book contains depictions of battle from street to street fighting to amphibious landings. But it also presents the suffering of civilians and the atrocities committed by each army.
This was a much needed account of an area overlooked by Western historiography.
The author does a good job of presenting the battle both from the Chinese perspective and the Japanese one. Parts of Shanghai were also held by Western powers and as such there are lots of eye witness accounts from Western journalists which could literally spectate the ongoing battle from their concession.
The Chinese gambled on an offensive in Shanghai in order to relieve pressure from the beleaguered North. However, the Japanese were superior technologically with a large naval fleet and air force at their disposal. The Chinese army was trained and supplied by Germany with German officers acting as advisers and battle planners.
The book contains depictions of battle from street to street fighting to amphibious landings. But it also presents the suffering of civilians and the atrocities committed by each army.
This was a much needed account of an area overlooked by Western historiography.
January 1, 2016
Let me start by congratulating Casemate Publishing's editor. The crystal-clear lay-out of the book does much to integrate eyewitness accounts from the ranks and the International Settlement with the battle narrative. The subtitle "Stalingrad on the Yangtze" sums up nicely the evolution of the actual urban front also.
It is equally misleading: while the battle for Shanghai gave the world a glimpse of the rat's war on the Volga, at least as much time is devoted to the fighting retreat of the Chinese army among the western rice paddies. Here, the similarity points not to the future, but to the attrition of Flanders' fields, a similarity that could've been exploited to greater gain if only the German advisors had not been ignored by their Chinese generals.
Peter Harmsen uses Chinese-language sources on an almost equal footing with English; Japanese works are a handful; yet he lets the rank and file of both sides recount their misery and fear. Alltough the Japanese had their backs against the river in a Sovjet position, they exploited their naval artillery and aviation to an extent where they didn't have to rely on a pincer movement to win. The technical weaknesses of the Japanese army that would shine through in their Pacific operations already make an attendance here, such as 19th-century logistics and loinclothed engineers shouldering foot-bridges.
It is harder to get the measure of the Chinese. Apparently suicidal courage coupled with cruelty to captives was not a Japanese monopoly. Was their grasp on air domination weaker than their foe's ? I hesitate to judge, since the Chinese operated under a unique assumption: the best modern material was to be carefully husbanded and held in reserve for the long-term showdown between the Nationalist Army, the provincial warlords (who controlled over half of the country's manpower) and the Communists. Certainly they had a good eye for tank country. Either way, the free sorties of Japanese airplanes did not just force infantry to march at night, they also had the curious consequences of limiting artillery to dusk salvoes and the frequent relocation of command posts, which did not help the direction of the battle. When Chinese HA/AA batteries did brave the hostile sky, they showed what a more stubborn defence could've accomplished.
Where the text fails, is in showing the devastation of downtown Shanghai as it grew. Not until the aftermath does it become clear just how many civilian dead and material damage 3 months of war caused, despite the presence of a neutral zone.
The political dimension is lightly touched upon. Even if Chiang-Kai-Shek did not purposely prolong the battle to capitalise on the name recognition of the Chinese republic's most familiar metropolis to Western eyes, the Brussels convention is a welcome inclusion, as is the Sovjet-Chinese non-aggression pact (in no small measure thanks to the border incident on the Amur in June) that was supposed to lead to an active Sovjet intervention! In the end, Moscow managed to go down the Vietnam rabbit hole and limited itself to large-scale weapons deliveries. Oddly enough, Harmsen nowhere mentions Sovjet military advisors. The strategic debate waged in the home islands about northern vs southern expansion, so well-known from the introductionary chapters of any one-volume account of the Pacific war, also makes an appareance in the context of troop reinforcements:
at the time, the focus was still on a new Russo-Japanese war, with more troops designated to garding that border than to consolidate and expand the Manchurian colony.
It is equally misleading: while the battle for Shanghai gave the world a glimpse of the rat's war on the Volga, at least as much time is devoted to the fighting retreat of the Chinese army among the western rice paddies. Here, the similarity points not to the future, but to the attrition of Flanders' fields, a similarity that could've been exploited to greater gain if only the German advisors had not been ignored by their Chinese generals.
Peter Harmsen uses Chinese-language sources on an almost equal footing with English; Japanese works are a handful; yet he lets the rank and file of both sides recount their misery and fear. Alltough the Japanese had their backs against the river in a Sovjet position, they exploited their naval artillery and aviation to an extent where they didn't have to rely on a pincer movement to win. The technical weaknesses of the Japanese army that would shine through in their Pacific operations already make an attendance here, such as 19th-century logistics and loinclothed engineers shouldering foot-bridges.
It is harder to get the measure of the Chinese. Apparently suicidal courage coupled with cruelty to captives was not a Japanese monopoly. Was their grasp on air domination weaker than their foe's ? I hesitate to judge, since the Chinese operated under a unique assumption: the best modern material was to be carefully husbanded and held in reserve for the long-term showdown between the Nationalist Army, the provincial warlords (who controlled over half of the country's manpower) and the Communists. Certainly they had a good eye for tank country. Either way, the free sorties of Japanese airplanes did not just force infantry to march at night, they also had the curious consequences of limiting artillery to dusk salvoes and the frequent relocation of command posts, which did not help the direction of the battle. When Chinese HA/AA batteries did brave the hostile sky, they showed what a more stubborn defence could've accomplished.
Where the text fails, is in showing the devastation of downtown Shanghai as it grew. Not until the aftermath does it become clear just how many civilian dead and material damage 3 months of war caused, despite the presence of a neutral zone.
The political dimension is lightly touched upon. Even if Chiang-Kai-Shek did not purposely prolong the battle to capitalise on the name recognition of the Chinese republic's most familiar metropolis to Western eyes, the Brussels convention is a welcome inclusion, as is the Sovjet-Chinese non-aggression pact (in no small measure thanks to the border incident on the Amur in June) that was supposed to lead to an active Sovjet intervention! In the end, Moscow managed to go down the Vietnam rabbit hole and limited itself to large-scale weapons deliveries. Oddly enough, Harmsen nowhere mentions Sovjet military advisors. The strategic debate waged in the home islands about northern vs southern expansion, so well-known from the introductionary chapters of any one-volume account of the Pacific war, also makes an appareance in the context of troop reinforcements:
at the time, the focus was still on a new Russo-Japanese war, with more troops designated to garding that border than to consolidate and expand the Manchurian colony.
May 21, 2020
While the topic of the Japanese invasion of China in the 1930s interests me a lot, this book fell short of my expectations. I did not finish it and put it down ~3/4 of the way through.
I found the writing here to be very dry, arduous, and long-winded. A common problem with many of the history and/or military books I've read.
I found the book poorly formatted as well; it jumps back and forth between too many unfamiliar characters and loses the reader in the weeds early-on.
Anyone interested in a summary of the Battle of Shanghai will find a more succinct and coherent summary on Wikipedia.
I rarely put a book down, but I was not prepared to spend any more time on this one.
2 stars.
I found the writing here to be very dry, arduous, and long-winded. A common problem with many of the history and/or military books I've read.
I found the book poorly formatted as well; it jumps back and forth between too many unfamiliar characters and loses the reader in the weeds early-on.
Anyone interested in a summary of the Battle of Shanghai will find a more succinct and coherent summary on Wikipedia.
I rarely put a book down, but I was not prepared to spend any more time on this one.
2 stars.
September 14, 2025
This ended up on my TBR entirely because it got recommended on the r/askhistorians subreddit (under circumstances I have utterly and entirely forgotten). So I went into this with zero expectations but that it would do a good job of being my history book for the month. Which wasn’t wrong! It’s probably the most dad-ish piece of nonfiction I’ve ever read though, right down to the complete order of battle of every military unit engaged in the titular battle. It’s not a bad book – and is really very readable, never getting too bogged down in the minutiae or technical details – but I ultimately found it disappointingly shallow and lacking in either insight or analysis.
The book’s title gets across its whole deal with admirable efficiency. The book is a story of the Battle of Shanghai that raged for 3 months in 1937, ending with the conquest and bloody occupation of the city by the Japanese Empire. The battle marks the beginning of World War 2 in Asia and the culmination of years of Chinese reunification efforts and military modernization, and is the direct prologue to one of the most infamously savage and bloody atrocities of the 1930s when the conquering Japanese army marched on to the KMT capital at Nanjing. The book has only very limited interest in any of that – this is tactical, military history on the level of detachments and maneuvers. Each major offensive or shift in focus is followed, with helpful diagrams showing lines of advance and defence.
Which are never things I have found particularly engaging, as far as history goes. But the book does do an excellent job getting across the sheer scale and brutality of modern warfare, the way these massive formations of fighting men died by the thousands over hours and days. ‘Battle’ and its connotations almost seems like a misnomer – the number of wars that killed fewer people on either side (let alone civilians) is not at all small.
The author is a journalist, and this comes through loud and clear (a foreign correspondent who did most of the research for the book while living in Taipei, this comes through as well). The prose is always very readable and approachable, with vanishingly few detours into technical or political minutiae, and usually even engagingly written. But it’s never exactly beautiful, and on occasion feels like it’s failing to live up to the subject matter.
Another, and much more laudable, symptom of being written by a journalist is the sheer number of first-person accounts and testimonials that the book is filled with. A key part of the book’s thesis is that the peculiar political situation of Shanghai – where whole stretches of the city were ruled as concessions by neutral colonial powers that neither belligerent wanted to antagonize – meant that we have far more written records of people witnessing the battle in real time (both journalists and civilians who happened to live or had found refuge in the international settlements) than in the overwhelming majority of similar affairs. Combined with the sheer number of surviving soldiers and officers who ended up writing memoirs or giving interviews years afterwards, Harmsen is able to give some ground-level, textured narratives of what living (or failing to live) in different parts of the battle was really like.
The book is very clearly written with an audience of Western non-academics in mind, so it probably shouldn’t be that surprising that the perspective of western journalists, businessmen and colonists (and, more awkwardly, the German military attaches advising most Chinese units) are clearly presented as the most natural and relatable viewpoint to tell the story of the battle through. Still, (and this is admittedly a very low bar) it’s hardly the worst case I’ve seen; there are plenty of anecdotes and bits of drama from the perspective of enlisted men, and a decent amount of attention given to the command decisions and internal intrigue among the Chinese command.
The book (obviously) presents the Chinese side as being the righteous one – it’s pretty even-handed about showing the incidental brutality of modern warfare, and doesn’t pull punches about how no one on either side was taking any prisoners, but it’s really hard to give any sort of even slightly serious history of early/mid-20th-century China that doesn’t make Japan the villain. However, the actual story ends up being a bit of a ‘lions led by donkeys’ narrative – average Chinese soldiers are portrayed pretty heroically up and down the line; the generals and commanding officers on the Chinese side, less so. Even the decision to make Shanghai the chosen battleground is viewed intensely skeptically, the fact that the Chinese intelligence directorate was too busy hunting down and purging communists to establish any sort of spy network among the Japanese is highlighted on several occasions, and the internal politics and personality management (and need for lengthy consensus-building) leads to lost opportunities and the literal deaths of thousands so many times I lost count. Japanese internal politics is of far less interest, and the book’s portrayal of the situation in the Home Islands when it comes up is deeply questionable – though in both cases the book never misses a chance to highlight how the combination of command staff’s unclear or inaccurate view of the situation combined with top-down, hierarchical command structures that discouraged initiative from the ranks dragged out the battle and led to needless, futile deaths.
This is a book that’s essentially 100% narrative and 0% theory. It actively resists much speculation or analysis on the wider or longer-term significance of the battle, and has barely any more time for thinking about why events turned out as they did or how contingent the results were. I am, personally, pretty grateful there was never a chapter-long detail into the precise differences between what rifles the different sides were using or anything, but still. The book is incredibly concerned with what and when, and only grudgingly and peripherally with why and how. There’s an endless succession of (mostly) interesting anecdotes, lots of little bits and pieces of trivia, but the details piled on each other fail to really reveal anything or justify themselves. It’s all meticulously researched and presented, and an excellent dramatization of one episode in a globe-defining theater of the most important war in history I should really know more about. But still – the end result felt like so many potato chips, rather than anything which really changed my perspective in any way beyond pouring more trivia into it. And I just don’t care about the beat-by-beat details of tactical combat to love it for providing them and little else.
The book’s title gets across its whole deal with admirable efficiency. The book is a story of the Battle of Shanghai that raged for 3 months in 1937, ending with the conquest and bloody occupation of the city by the Japanese Empire. The battle marks the beginning of World War 2 in Asia and the culmination of years of Chinese reunification efforts and military modernization, and is the direct prologue to one of the most infamously savage and bloody atrocities of the 1930s when the conquering Japanese army marched on to the KMT capital at Nanjing. The book has only very limited interest in any of that – this is tactical, military history on the level of detachments and maneuvers. Each major offensive or shift in focus is followed, with helpful diagrams showing lines of advance and defence.
Which are never things I have found particularly engaging, as far as history goes. But the book does do an excellent job getting across the sheer scale and brutality of modern warfare, the way these massive formations of fighting men died by the thousands over hours and days. ‘Battle’ and its connotations almost seems like a misnomer – the number of wars that killed fewer people on either side (let alone civilians) is not at all small.
The author is a journalist, and this comes through loud and clear (a foreign correspondent who did most of the research for the book while living in Taipei, this comes through as well). The prose is always very readable and approachable, with vanishingly few detours into technical or political minutiae, and usually even engagingly written. But it’s never exactly beautiful, and on occasion feels like it’s failing to live up to the subject matter.
Another, and much more laudable, symptom of being written by a journalist is the sheer number of first-person accounts and testimonials that the book is filled with. A key part of the book’s thesis is that the peculiar political situation of Shanghai – where whole stretches of the city were ruled as concessions by neutral colonial powers that neither belligerent wanted to antagonize – meant that we have far more written records of people witnessing the battle in real time (both journalists and civilians who happened to live or had found refuge in the international settlements) than in the overwhelming majority of similar affairs. Combined with the sheer number of surviving soldiers and officers who ended up writing memoirs or giving interviews years afterwards, Harmsen is able to give some ground-level, textured narratives of what living (or failing to live) in different parts of the battle was really like.
The book is very clearly written with an audience of Western non-academics in mind, so it probably shouldn’t be that surprising that the perspective of western journalists, businessmen and colonists (and, more awkwardly, the German military attaches advising most Chinese units) are clearly presented as the most natural and relatable viewpoint to tell the story of the battle through. Still, (and this is admittedly a very low bar) it’s hardly the worst case I’ve seen; there are plenty of anecdotes and bits of drama from the perspective of enlisted men, and a decent amount of attention given to the command decisions and internal intrigue among the Chinese command.
The book (obviously) presents the Chinese side as being the righteous one – it’s pretty even-handed about showing the incidental brutality of modern warfare, and doesn’t pull punches about how no one on either side was taking any prisoners, but it’s really hard to give any sort of even slightly serious history of early/mid-20th-century China that doesn’t make Japan the villain. However, the actual story ends up being a bit of a ‘lions led by donkeys’ narrative – average Chinese soldiers are portrayed pretty heroically up and down the line; the generals and commanding officers on the Chinese side, less so. Even the decision to make Shanghai the chosen battleground is viewed intensely skeptically, the fact that the Chinese intelligence directorate was too busy hunting down and purging communists to establish any sort of spy network among the Japanese is highlighted on several occasions, and the internal politics and personality management (and need for lengthy consensus-building) leads to lost opportunities and the literal deaths of thousands so many times I lost count. Japanese internal politics is of far less interest, and the book’s portrayal of the situation in the Home Islands when it comes up is deeply questionable – though in both cases the book never misses a chance to highlight how the combination of command staff’s unclear or inaccurate view of the situation combined with top-down, hierarchical command structures that discouraged initiative from the ranks dragged out the battle and led to needless, futile deaths.
This is a book that’s essentially 100% narrative and 0% theory. It actively resists much speculation or analysis on the wider or longer-term significance of the battle, and has barely any more time for thinking about why events turned out as they did or how contingent the results were. I am, personally, pretty grateful there was never a chapter-long detail into the precise differences between what rifles the different sides were using or anything, but still. The book is incredibly concerned with what and when, and only grudgingly and peripherally with why and how. There’s an endless succession of (mostly) interesting anecdotes, lots of little bits and pieces of trivia, but the details piled on each other fail to really reveal anything or justify themselves. It’s all meticulously researched and presented, and an excellent dramatization of one episode in a globe-defining theater of the most important war in history I should really know more about. But still – the end result felt like so many potato chips, rather than anything which really changed my perspective in any way beyond pouring more trivia into it. And I just don’t care about the beat-by-beat details of tactical combat to love it for providing them and little else.
July 12, 2020
While a general overview of the Shanghai campaign, it is eminently readable and well paced. There are things I wanted to know more about that probably would have bored a general reader and slowed down the book. The weakest section was by far the aftermath of the battle which is woefully glossed over.
July 27, 2025
Solidly researched, well and engagingly written story of the 1937 battles for and in Shanghai and its environs. My greatest niggle is with the author's titular conceit - the hot take that the battle of Shanghai prefigured Stalingrad, as a major show of arms in an urban environment. If he could be bothered to show that it was so, I wouldn't complain, but the actual urban warfare is given rather short shrift here, with the "Lost Battalion" episode doing most of the work. Well, no, sorry, that's not nearly enough to justify the thesis. (Also, having the report of events end with a paltry three pages on the Ra*e of Nanjing feels like a poor decision). Still, a really well-researched book, recommended.
April 24, 2023
A decent history of a battle that has too-long been swept under the rug. A history of the fight for Shanghai, and the way that the war between China and Japan descended into the south China economic heartland. But it has an issue that war histories often have of describing fight after fight, but not giving the book any arc or argument.
May 4, 2023
Fascinating book with a lot of great details. I do wish there were more stories from within Shanghai itself, many of the anecdotes come from the Japanese and Chinese troops stationed in and around the greater Shanghai area. After writing that, I realize they are technically in the city-- so to rephrase that, I would say I wish there were more from civilians.
September 19, 2024
This was an excellent read! I was absorbed from start to finish; the writing is engaging, it puts human experience at the centre of the historical narrative, and it highlights an often and unfairly forgotten battle. Definitely a recommendation for sure!
July 28, 2025
En Occidente, el conocimiento sobre el conflicto chino, especialmente el teatro oriental de la Segunda Guerra Mundial, sigue siendo un vacío abismal. A pesar de que China es hoy una de las potencias más influyentes del planeta, los ojos del Occidente se han mantenido casi ciegos a su historia, especialmente a los horrores que marcaron su lucha contra el imperialismo japonés. Este desconocimiento no es casual: mientras los relatos sobre las grandes operaciones militares en el oeste de la guerra se han repetido hasta el cansancio, la magnitud de lo ocurrido en el frente oriental ha permanecido relegada a las sombras. Solo recientemente, y de manera tímida, Occidente ha comenzado a reconocer la magnitud del Frente Oriental en la guerra entre la Unión Soviética y los nazis. Y China, simplemente, ha sido un teatro olvidado.
Sin embargo, en el otro lado del mundo, en Oriente, la memoria histórica se conserva intacta. En China, la batalla que estamos a punto de revisar es recordada con una claridad que Occidente ha optado por ignorar. El autor Peter Harmsen, en su libro Shanghai 1937: Stalingrad on the Yangtze, resucita esta historia, una que no solo muestra la brutalidad de los combates, sino también el sacrificio y la resistencia de un pueblo que, ante la superioridad del ejército imperial japonés, se vio obligado a luchar con un armamento inferior pero con una determinación férrea. Lo que en Occidente casi no sabemos, es que la batalla de Shanghái de 1937, el famoso "Verdún de Oriente", no fue solo carne contra acero, sino la antesala de lo que vendría, un escenario donde la guerra moderna mostró su cara más horrenda. Y es en este escenario donde se desarrolla una de las tragedias más grandes y menos conocidas de la historia mundial.
Peter Harmsen, periodista y sinólogo especializado en Asia Oriental, entrega en Shanghai 1937: Stalingrad on the Yangtze un relato contundente, sangriento y meticulosamente documentado sobre una de las batallas más olvidadas y, sin embargo, decisivas del siglo XX: la batalla de Shanghái, ocurrida entre agosto y noviembre de 1937, en el marco del conflicto sino japonés. Con una prosa sobria pero evocadora, Harmsen reconstruye esta confrontación no solo como un punto de quiebre bélico en Asia, sino como un preámbulo directo de la Segunda Guerra Mundial.
El escenario: cosmopolitismo al borde del abismo
Harmsen arranca su relato con un retrato impactante de la ciudad de Shanghái: una metrópolis desgarrada por la desigualdad, la ocupación extranjera y el vicio, pero también un polo de modernidad, comercio y multiculturalismo. El autor no se limita a una descripción superficial; pinta la ciudad como una mezcla de decadencia colonial y miseria obrera, con una aristocracia internacional que vive en el confort blindado de las Concesiones, mientras la mayoría china sobrevive en tugurios hacinados.
Shanghái no es solo un telón de fondo: es un protagonista más del drama. Es el París de Oriente y el Chicago de Asia al mismo tiempo, una ciudad donde los diplomáticos se codean con mafiosos, las élites europeas bailan tangos mientras los trabajadores migrantes son reclutados como carne de cañón. Esta tensión entre modernidad, ocupación y resistencia genera una atmósfera casi kafkiana, donde lo grotesco y lo banal coexisten.
Guerra urbana: antes de Stalingrado, fue Shanghái
La tesis de Harmsen es clara desde el prólogo: Shanghái fue, en muchos sentidos, un ensayo general de lo que el mundo vería años después en Stalingrado. Con más de 300,000 muertos y una lucha encarnizada calle por calle, la batalla representa una transformación brutal del concepto de guerra en Asia. Es la primera vez que se aplica a gran escala la guerra urbana moderna en el continente, con trincheras, bombardeos aéreos, francotiradores, artillería pesada y unidades mecanizadas combatiendo en un entorno denso y poblado.
Harmsen nos muestra cómo los generales chinos particularmente Zhang Zhizhong y Zhang Fakui apostaron todo en una defensa simbólica y estratégica que buscaba demostrar a Japón y al mundo que China no se rendiría sin pelear. El libro detalla cómo se movilizaron divisiones de élite, entrenadas por asesores alemanes, como las divisiones 87 y 88, que ofrecieron una resistencia inesperadamente feroz a las fuerzas japonesas. El autor elogia la determinación china, sin romantizarla, dejando claro que fue una decisión política de altísimo costo humano.
El estilo de Harmsen: entre la crónica periodística y la historia militar
Harmsen opta por una estructura cronológica que comienza con los eventos previos al 7 de julio de 1937 la escaramuza del puente Marco Polo y se adentra en la escalada hacia la guerra total. Su narrativa está salpicada de anécdotas, entrevistas, informes militares, cables diplomáticos y testimonios personales que otorgan profundidad y dramatismo al relato.
Lo más notable es el equilibrio que mantiene entre la perspectiva de los altos mandos y la experiencia de los soldados rasos. Así, mientras analiza las decisiones estratégicas del alto mando japonés o de Chiang Kai-shek, también nos lleva a las trincheras, donde los combatientes chinos, mal equipados pero decididos, enfrentan a una maquinaria bélica mucho más avanzada.
En cuanto al enfoque, Harmsen rehúye del maniqueísmo. Aunque no oculta la brutalidad del ejército japonés sobre todo en el camino hacia Nankín, tampoco glorifica a las fuerzas chinas. Expone sin ambigüedades los crímenes de ambos bandos, el uso de civiles como escudos humanos, los fusilamientos sumarios y la propaganda. Tampoco se olvida del rol del crimen organizado, particularmente la participación de la notoria Green Gang en la represión de los comunistas en 1927.
Diplomáticos, periodistas y civiles: la guerra observada
Uno de los mayores aciertos del libro es su inclusión de la mirada extranjera. Shanghái, al estar dividida en zonas internacionales británica, francesa, estadounidense y japonesa, fue el único frente de guerra donde miles de diplomáticos, periodistas, empresarios y turistas occidentales observaron la batalla desde los balcones de sus hoteles.
Harmsen reconstruye con maestría esta paradoja absurda: mientras se bombardeaban barrios enteros como Zhabei, los bares de la Concesión Francesa ofrecían cócteles y música en vivo. Los corresponsales como Edgar Snow o Carroll Alcott se movían entre trincheras y salones diplomáticos, enviando reportes en tiempo real. Esta duplicidad moral de vivir el horror como espectáculo es otro de los hilos que el autor despliega con sutileza, evitando el juicio moralista y dejando que los hechos hablen.
El olvido occidental: una batalla eclipsada
Una de las críticas más acerbas que lanza Harmsen, aunque con tono moderado, es el olvido sistemático que Occidente ha impuesto sobre este episodio. Mientras que batallas como Dunkerque, Normandía o El Alamein han sido inmortalizadas en libros, películas y discursos, Shanghái ha sido arrinconada al pie de página de la historia.
Harmsen intenta revertir ese desdén con datos duros: más de medio millón de combatientes, miles de muertos diarios, cientos de aviones, bombardeos navales, ataques químicos, destrucción total de barrios completos… y sin embargo, una memoria que permanece en gran parte silenciada fuera de China. El autor sugiere que este olvido es también una forma de racismo histórico: la idea implícita de que las tragedias asiáticas, por más brutales que sean, no merecen la misma atención.
Modernidad y nacionalismo en colisión
La batalla de Shanghái también es, en el fondo, un choque entre dos modernidades. Japón, con su nacionalismo imperialista, y China, con su modernización nacionalista impulsada por Chiang Kai-shek y apoyada por asesores alemanes. La guerra se convierte, por tanto, en un laboratorio de ideologías: fascismo japonés vs nacionalismo chino, con el comunismo al acecho, agazapado pero no ausente.
Harmsen muestra cómo Chiang utiliza Shanghái como teatro para ganar legitimidad internacional. Aunque militarmente pierde la ciudad, políticamente gana: por primera vez el mundo presta atención a la lucha china. Este cálculo, trágico y frío, tiene implicaciones profundas: Shanghái se sacrifica como símbolo de resistencia. Es el “Verdún del Este”, como se le llamó.
En lo estructural
A nivel formal, el libro peca a veces de repetitivo, especialmente en las descripciones del avance japonés, y en algunos pasajes se diluye el foco principal al intentar abarcar demasiados frentes. Harmsen también cae ocasionalmente en la trampa del “fetichismo militar”: largas enumeraciones de batallones, divisiones, calibres y maniobras que pueden resultar áridas para un lector no especializado.
Sin embargo, estas digresiones se equilibran con una prosa sobria, bien documentada y una capacidad notable para captar la dimensión humana del conflicto. Harmsen no tiene el tono lírico de un Antony Beevor, ni el pulso narrativo de un Max Hastings, pero compensa con una investigación minuciosa y un respeto palpable por sus fuentes.
Una historia necesaria
Shanghai 1937 no es solo un libro de historia militar: es una autopsia de la modernidad herida. Es el retrato de una ciudad que, como Europa poco después, se desangra en nombre del orden, del imperio, de la nación. Harmsen no glorifica la guerra, tampoco la trivializa; la muestra como lo que fue: un infierno al que se descendió con entusiasmo diplomático, fervor nacionalista y una pasmosa indiferencia hacia la vida civil.
En una época en la que la geopolítica del Pacífico vuelve a tensionarse, este libro adquiere una relevancia inesperada. Nos recuerda que el Este también tiene sus Verdunes, sus Normandías, sus Stalingrados. Que la historia del siglo XX no puede comprenderse en su totalidad sin mirar hacia Shanghái, ese “Stalingrado sobre el Yangtsé” que el mundo prefirió olvidar.
Sin embargo, en el otro lado del mundo, en Oriente, la memoria histórica se conserva intacta. En China, la batalla que estamos a punto de revisar es recordada con una claridad que Occidente ha optado por ignorar. El autor Peter Harmsen, en su libro Shanghai 1937: Stalingrad on the Yangtze, resucita esta historia, una que no solo muestra la brutalidad de los combates, sino también el sacrificio y la resistencia de un pueblo que, ante la superioridad del ejército imperial japonés, se vio obligado a luchar con un armamento inferior pero con una determinación férrea. Lo que en Occidente casi no sabemos, es que la batalla de Shanghái de 1937, el famoso "Verdún de Oriente", no fue solo carne contra acero, sino la antesala de lo que vendría, un escenario donde la guerra moderna mostró su cara más horrenda. Y es en este escenario donde se desarrolla una de las tragedias más grandes y menos conocidas de la historia mundial.
Peter Harmsen, periodista y sinólogo especializado en Asia Oriental, entrega en Shanghai 1937: Stalingrad on the Yangtze un relato contundente, sangriento y meticulosamente documentado sobre una de las batallas más olvidadas y, sin embargo, decisivas del siglo XX: la batalla de Shanghái, ocurrida entre agosto y noviembre de 1937, en el marco del conflicto sino japonés. Con una prosa sobria pero evocadora, Harmsen reconstruye esta confrontación no solo como un punto de quiebre bélico en Asia, sino como un preámbulo directo de la Segunda Guerra Mundial.
El escenario: cosmopolitismo al borde del abismo
Harmsen arranca su relato con un retrato impactante de la ciudad de Shanghái: una metrópolis desgarrada por la desigualdad, la ocupación extranjera y el vicio, pero también un polo de modernidad, comercio y multiculturalismo. El autor no se limita a una descripción superficial; pinta la ciudad como una mezcla de decadencia colonial y miseria obrera, con una aristocracia internacional que vive en el confort blindado de las Concesiones, mientras la mayoría china sobrevive en tugurios hacinados.
Shanghái no es solo un telón de fondo: es un protagonista más del drama. Es el París de Oriente y el Chicago de Asia al mismo tiempo, una ciudad donde los diplomáticos se codean con mafiosos, las élites europeas bailan tangos mientras los trabajadores migrantes son reclutados como carne de cañón. Esta tensión entre modernidad, ocupación y resistencia genera una atmósfera casi kafkiana, donde lo grotesco y lo banal coexisten.
Guerra urbana: antes de Stalingrado, fue Shanghái
La tesis de Harmsen es clara desde el prólogo: Shanghái fue, en muchos sentidos, un ensayo general de lo que el mundo vería años después en Stalingrado. Con más de 300,000 muertos y una lucha encarnizada calle por calle, la batalla representa una transformación brutal del concepto de guerra en Asia. Es la primera vez que se aplica a gran escala la guerra urbana moderna en el continente, con trincheras, bombardeos aéreos, francotiradores, artillería pesada y unidades mecanizadas combatiendo en un entorno denso y poblado.
Harmsen nos muestra cómo los generales chinos particularmente Zhang Zhizhong y Zhang Fakui apostaron todo en una defensa simbólica y estratégica que buscaba demostrar a Japón y al mundo que China no se rendiría sin pelear. El libro detalla cómo se movilizaron divisiones de élite, entrenadas por asesores alemanes, como las divisiones 87 y 88, que ofrecieron una resistencia inesperadamente feroz a las fuerzas japonesas. El autor elogia la determinación china, sin romantizarla, dejando claro que fue una decisión política de altísimo costo humano.
El estilo de Harmsen: entre la crónica periodística y la historia militar
Harmsen opta por una estructura cronológica que comienza con los eventos previos al 7 de julio de 1937 la escaramuza del puente Marco Polo y se adentra en la escalada hacia la guerra total. Su narrativa está salpicada de anécdotas, entrevistas, informes militares, cables diplomáticos y testimonios personales que otorgan profundidad y dramatismo al relato.
Lo más notable es el equilibrio que mantiene entre la perspectiva de los altos mandos y la experiencia de los soldados rasos. Así, mientras analiza las decisiones estratégicas del alto mando japonés o de Chiang Kai-shek, también nos lleva a las trincheras, donde los combatientes chinos, mal equipados pero decididos, enfrentan a una maquinaria bélica mucho más avanzada.
En cuanto al enfoque, Harmsen rehúye del maniqueísmo. Aunque no oculta la brutalidad del ejército japonés sobre todo en el camino hacia Nankín, tampoco glorifica a las fuerzas chinas. Expone sin ambigüedades los crímenes de ambos bandos, el uso de civiles como escudos humanos, los fusilamientos sumarios y la propaganda. Tampoco se olvida del rol del crimen organizado, particularmente la participación de la notoria Green Gang en la represión de los comunistas en 1927.
Diplomáticos, periodistas y civiles: la guerra observada
Uno de los mayores aciertos del libro es su inclusión de la mirada extranjera. Shanghái, al estar dividida en zonas internacionales británica, francesa, estadounidense y japonesa, fue el único frente de guerra donde miles de diplomáticos, periodistas, empresarios y turistas occidentales observaron la batalla desde los balcones de sus hoteles.
Harmsen reconstruye con maestría esta paradoja absurda: mientras se bombardeaban barrios enteros como Zhabei, los bares de la Concesión Francesa ofrecían cócteles y música en vivo. Los corresponsales como Edgar Snow o Carroll Alcott se movían entre trincheras y salones diplomáticos, enviando reportes en tiempo real. Esta duplicidad moral de vivir el horror como espectáculo es otro de los hilos que el autor despliega con sutileza, evitando el juicio moralista y dejando que los hechos hablen.
El olvido occidental: una batalla eclipsada
Una de las críticas más acerbas que lanza Harmsen, aunque con tono moderado, es el olvido sistemático que Occidente ha impuesto sobre este episodio. Mientras que batallas como Dunkerque, Normandía o El Alamein han sido inmortalizadas en libros, películas y discursos, Shanghái ha sido arrinconada al pie de página de la historia.
Harmsen intenta revertir ese desdén con datos duros: más de medio millón de combatientes, miles de muertos diarios, cientos de aviones, bombardeos navales, ataques químicos, destrucción total de barrios completos… y sin embargo, una memoria que permanece en gran parte silenciada fuera de China. El autor sugiere que este olvido es también una forma de racismo histórico: la idea implícita de que las tragedias asiáticas, por más brutales que sean, no merecen la misma atención.
Modernidad y nacionalismo en colisión
La batalla de Shanghái también es, en el fondo, un choque entre dos modernidades. Japón, con su nacionalismo imperialista, y China, con su modernización nacionalista impulsada por Chiang Kai-shek y apoyada por asesores alemanes. La guerra se convierte, por tanto, en un laboratorio de ideologías: fascismo japonés vs nacionalismo chino, con el comunismo al acecho, agazapado pero no ausente.
Harmsen muestra cómo Chiang utiliza Shanghái como teatro para ganar legitimidad internacional. Aunque militarmente pierde la ciudad, políticamente gana: por primera vez el mundo presta atención a la lucha china. Este cálculo, trágico y frío, tiene implicaciones profundas: Shanghái se sacrifica como símbolo de resistencia. Es el “Verdún del Este”, como se le llamó.
En lo estructural
A nivel formal, el libro peca a veces de repetitivo, especialmente en las descripciones del avance japonés, y en algunos pasajes se diluye el foco principal al intentar abarcar demasiados frentes. Harmsen también cae ocasionalmente en la trampa del “fetichismo militar”: largas enumeraciones de batallones, divisiones, calibres y maniobras que pueden resultar áridas para un lector no especializado.
Sin embargo, estas digresiones se equilibran con una prosa sobria, bien documentada y una capacidad notable para captar la dimensión humana del conflicto. Harmsen no tiene el tono lírico de un Antony Beevor, ni el pulso narrativo de un Max Hastings, pero compensa con una investigación minuciosa y un respeto palpable por sus fuentes.
Una historia necesaria
Shanghai 1937 no es solo un libro de historia militar: es una autopsia de la modernidad herida. Es el retrato de una ciudad que, como Europa poco después, se desangra en nombre del orden, del imperio, de la nación. Harmsen no glorifica la guerra, tampoco la trivializa; la muestra como lo que fue: un infierno al que se descendió con entusiasmo diplomático, fervor nacionalista y una pasmosa indiferencia hacia la vida civil.
En una época en la que la geopolítica del Pacífico vuelve a tensionarse, este libro adquiere una relevancia inesperada. Nos recuerda que el Este también tiene sus Verdunes, sus Normandías, sus Stalingrados. Que la historia del siglo XX no puede comprenderse en su totalidad sin mirar hacia Shanghái, ese “Stalingrado sobre el Yangtsé” que el mundo prefirió olvidar.
December 14, 2014
We are all hopefully familiar now with the Rape of Nanking, (if not, please read the terrific book by Iris Chang) and this book complements it well. The Rape of Nanking occurred in December 1937, and the Battle of Shanghai, the first major battle of the war between China and Japan, took place from August to November 1937. If you are not familiar with the rivers, streets and neighborhoods of Shanghai, this book would probably rate 3 stars for you because you wouldn't have a full sense of how things are unfolding. (Watching the documentary "Shanghai Ghetto" may help with that, and it also contains footage of the battle.)
To me, there were a few major blunders of conservatism in the Chinese defense of the city. First, they were too concerned with protecting their heavy artillery and did not place it close enough to the enemy, making it dreadfully ineffective. The Chinese soldiers were considered much more expendable, and high spirits and valor gave way to fear and nihilism. Reinforcements came from other provinces and were somewhat lost in such a foreign city (the most foreign-influenced in China, in fact) with such a foreign dialect. Second, the Shanghainese, as a somewhat colonized people, were much too careful in their protection of the International Concession. As even the Japanese did not want to rile European and American powers, had the Chinese been more willing to fight through the International Concession they might have gotten an upper hand.
The prolonged fighting (Chaing Kai-Shek probably should have called for retreat much earlier) served to get the Japanese incredibly angry and seemed to make them adrenaline junkies whose greatest high came from brutal murder of individuals. By the time they got to Nanjing, rape was also added into the mix. Many Japanese soldiers were encouraged to try beheading-by-sword as an experience they could take home from the war, and even more horrifically, most soldiers were not very good at it their first few times.
As with John Rabe in Nanjing, there are some interesting Europeans involved in the Battle of Shanghai, about whom I learned through this book. The first is Alexander von Falkenhauser, a German general and assistant to Chaing Kai-Shek, whose goal had been to reform the Chinese army. I am fascinated by the strong alliance between Germany and China in the early 20th Century which got disrupted by Germany's alliance with Japan, which then forced China to become allied with the USSR by default, even though the Soviets provided arms but little intellectual support or investment in China's success at modernization. (If anyone can recommend a good book on the German-Chinese bond, please do so in the comments, thanks!) The Chinese were very supportive of Falkenhauser when he was tried as a Nazi war criminal for deporting Jews while he administered occupied Belgium from 1940-44, after he too had done time in Dachau. He appears to have led a strange and ambiguous life, with much incident.
Another interesting European was the one-armed Jesuit, Robert Jacquinot de Besange, who established the Shanghai Safety Zone for civilian residents which was recognized by both sides of the war. Subsequent safety zones were established in Nanjing (led by John Rabe), Hankou, Zhangzhou and Shenzhen. These safety zones saved thousands of Chinese lives and were incorporated into the Geneva Convention.
To me, there were a few major blunders of conservatism in the Chinese defense of the city. First, they were too concerned with protecting their heavy artillery and did not place it close enough to the enemy, making it dreadfully ineffective. The Chinese soldiers were considered much more expendable, and high spirits and valor gave way to fear and nihilism. Reinforcements came from other provinces and were somewhat lost in such a foreign city (the most foreign-influenced in China, in fact) with such a foreign dialect. Second, the Shanghainese, as a somewhat colonized people, were much too careful in their protection of the International Concession. As even the Japanese did not want to rile European and American powers, had the Chinese been more willing to fight through the International Concession they might have gotten an upper hand.
The prolonged fighting (Chaing Kai-Shek probably should have called for retreat much earlier) served to get the Japanese incredibly angry and seemed to make them adrenaline junkies whose greatest high came from brutal murder of individuals. By the time they got to Nanjing, rape was also added into the mix. Many Japanese soldiers were encouraged to try beheading-by-sword as an experience they could take home from the war, and even more horrifically, most soldiers were not very good at it their first few times.
As with John Rabe in Nanjing, there are some interesting Europeans involved in the Battle of Shanghai, about whom I learned through this book. The first is Alexander von Falkenhauser, a German general and assistant to Chaing Kai-Shek, whose goal had been to reform the Chinese army. I am fascinated by the strong alliance between Germany and China in the early 20th Century which got disrupted by Germany's alliance with Japan, which then forced China to become allied with the USSR by default, even though the Soviets provided arms but little intellectual support or investment in China's success at modernization. (If anyone can recommend a good book on the German-Chinese bond, please do so in the comments, thanks!) The Chinese were very supportive of Falkenhauser when he was tried as a Nazi war criminal for deporting Jews while he administered occupied Belgium from 1940-44, after he too had done time in Dachau. He appears to have led a strange and ambiguous life, with much incident.
Another interesting European was the one-armed Jesuit, Robert Jacquinot de Besange, who established the Shanghai Safety Zone for civilian residents which was recognized by both sides of the war. Subsequent safety zones were established in Nanjing (led by John Rabe), Hankou, Zhangzhou and Shenzhen. These safety zones saved thousands of Chinese lives and were incorporated into the Geneva Convention.
September 4, 2015
A dress-rehearsal for WW2
Given the contemporary rise of China, the focus has rightly fallen on China's past, and how the country came to be where it is today.
Key to that history is the history of nationalist China under Chiang Kai Shek, and Communist China under Mao Zedong, two men, who between them, would shape China's future, for better or for worse.
Shanghai 1937, is but a chapter in that long struggle between Mao and Chiang, and an epic tale it is too boot.
Incensed at Imperial Japan's Kwantung army running amok in Northern China (annexing Chinese territory at will) and having finally been persuaded to bury the hatchet with Mao, and unite China against Japan's aggression, Chiang decided to make a stand against the Japanese at Shanghai.
In many ways, Chiang's hand was forced. A savage battle would lose him many of his best trained divisions, but reluctance to stand up to Japanese aggression would potentially lose him his political base.
What followed was a bloody precursor to the epic street battles of Stalingrad 5 years later.
Harmsen does a great job of chronicling the background, the bloody battles, the courage of the Chinese, and highlights China's unlikely ally, Germany, providing assistance in the form of military advisors.
At times it reads like a thriller, and was hard to put down.
A great book for any student of Chinese history.
Given the contemporary rise of China, the focus has rightly fallen on China's past, and how the country came to be where it is today.
Key to that history is the history of nationalist China under Chiang Kai Shek, and Communist China under Mao Zedong, two men, who between them, would shape China's future, for better or for worse.
Shanghai 1937, is but a chapter in that long struggle between Mao and Chiang, and an epic tale it is too boot.
Incensed at Imperial Japan's Kwantung army running amok in Northern China (annexing Chinese territory at will) and having finally been persuaded to bury the hatchet with Mao, and unite China against Japan's aggression, Chiang decided to make a stand against the Japanese at Shanghai.
In many ways, Chiang's hand was forced. A savage battle would lose him many of his best trained divisions, but reluctance to stand up to Japanese aggression would potentially lose him his political base.
What followed was a bloody precursor to the epic street battles of Stalingrad 5 years later.
Harmsen does a great job of chronicling the background, the bloody battles, the courage of the Chinese, and highlights China's unlikely ally, Germany, providing assistance in the form of military advisors.
At times it reads like a thriller, and was hard to put down.
A great book for any student of Chinese history.
August 11, 2015
Very informative on the prewar to WWII. It was interesting that for all the western mythos about the Japanese, the Japanese were saying the same things about the Chinese esp the part about not surrendering and fighting to the death. The battle environment of Shanghai was very similar to Stalingrad. Good read on a little know area of fighting (to Westerners at least) prior to WWII. Lot of people say this was the start of WWII I would agree.
April 18, 2016
American schools really need to give more detail about the Japanese actions of WW II. Well done history of the battle of Shanghai.
Read
March 25, 2016A good, relatively unbiased text about the Battle of Shanghai and the start of the Second Sino-Japanese War.
January 20, 2022
"𝑻𝒉𝒆𝒓𝒆 𝒊𝒔 𝒏𝒐 𝒇𝒍𝒂𝒈 𝒍𝒂𝒓𝒈𝒆 𝒆𝒏𝒐𝒖𝒈𝒉 𝒕𝒐 𝒄𝒐𝒗𝒆𝒓 𝒕𝒉𝒆 𝒔𝒉𝒂𝒎𝒆 𝒐𝒇 𝒌𝒊𝒍𝒍𝒊𝒏𝒈 𝒊𝒏𝒏𝒐𝒄𝒆𝒏𝒕 𝒑𝒆𝒐𝒑𝒍𝒆."
- 𝑯𝒐𝒘𝒂𝒓𝒅 𝒁𝒊𝒏𝒏
.
The book is about Battle of Shanghai in 1937 fought between Republic of China and Empire of Japan at the beginning of second Sino-Japanese war. The situation escalated after Marco Polo bridge incident. Though it was known that Japan had superior Army, Air Force and Navy, Chinese resistance surprised them. And it was after 3 months that they could claim victory. Although the battle was won, the war continued till the Japanese surrendered after atomic bombs were dropped and Soviet invasion of Manchuria.
The Chinese leadership hoped that Western powers would intervene and it was one of the reasons they kept pouring in troops in Shanghai which was popular internationally. This might have been sound politically but it didn't make sense militarily. The fierce Chinese resistance was helped by the natural obstacles which helped in preparing defenses and that prolonged the battle.
All the strategy, tactics and leadership could be presented in different manners but the ultimate sufferers in any war are common people. The human cost is too great to turn your eyes away. Despite laws POW's were killed by both sides. Soldiers shot themselves instead of getting captured. Also, while Japanese committed arson, loot and raping, the Chinese while retreating poisoned wells, burnt buildings and crops. Ultimately civilian population was left with nothing.
All this just makes me wonder " When will humans learn?" And the answer is "Probably Never."
- 𝑯𝒐𝒘𝒂𝒓𝒅 𝒁𝒊𝒏𝒏
.
The book is about Battle of Shanghai in 1937 fought between Republic of China and Empire of Japan at the beginning of second Sino-Japanese war. The situation escalated after Marco Polo bridge incident. Though it was known that Japan had superior Army, Air Force and Navy, Chinese resistance surprised them. And it was after 3 months that they could claim victory. Although the battle was won, the war continued till the Japanese surrendered after atomic bombs were dropped and Soviet invasion of Manchuria.
The Chinese leadership hoped that Western powers would intervene and it was one of the reasons they kept pouring in troops in Shanghai which was popular internationally. This might have been sound politically but it didn't make sense militarily. The fierce Chinese resistance was helped by the natural obstacles which helped in preparing defenses and that prolonged the battle.
All the strategy, tactics and leadership could be presented in different manners but the ultimate sufferers in any war are common people. The human cost is too great to turn your eyes away. Despite laws POW's were killed by both sides. Soldiers shot themselves instead of getting captured. Also, while Japanese committed arson, loot and raping, the Chinese while retreating poisoned wells, burnt buildings and crops. Ultimately civilian population was left with nothing.
All this just makes me wonder " When will humans learn?" And the answer is "Probably Never."
February 1, 2018
A good overview what what one might call, along with the Spanish Civil War, a precursor conflict to World War II. Shanghai was the second phase of the Second Sino-Japanese War, which had begun in 1931 with the "Mukden Incident" and lead to the Japanese occupation of Manchuria and domination of Northeast China. In 1937, the Chinese decide to open another front by attacking the Japanese in Shanghai, to satisfy national pride and show the world Chinese were willing to fight. But the battle went poorly for China, which was not prepared for modern war, particularly its aerial component. Tens of thousands of Chinese troops were lost in futile frontal assaults and trying to hold hopeless positions. Chinese civilians suffered greatly, too, and not only from the horrors of war: Japanese brutality toward became a byword in this conflict. This is not a happy story, for China loses Shanghai and this leads to the atrocity of the Rape of Nanking. But it is a good introduction to a theater of war little remembered by Americans. I read the Kindle version, which was well-formatted and cleanly edited. Highly recommended.
June 28, 2022
Interesting, easy read, but probably not a good introduction to the Chinese-Japanese conflict before and during WW2.
A lot of context is missing, maybe the author thinks you should be familiar with some information, but I wasn't. What was the (Chinese) Peacekeeping Force? More details on the 1932 skirmishes would've been nice. How did the International Concession come to be? Also, what happened afterwards? Maybe Chiang's decision to throw his best troops in the meat grinder affected his capacity to fight the communists after 1945? The book zooms in on the 3 month campaign, with many first hand stories from the fighting (and many Chinese and Japanese sources), but I felt there wasn't enough info to connect that part of history to what happened before or after. There's a short mention of the rape of Nanjing in December 1937, but not much about what happened after. I guess if you only care about this campaign, you should be fine.
Also an interesting read in the days of the Russian invasion of Ukraine. The atrocities from Ukraine aren't as bad those in the book I think, but still, a grim reminder of the dark forces that war unleashes on people.
A lot of context is missing, maybe the author thinks you should be familiar with some information, but I wasn't. What was the (Chinese) Peacekeeping Force? More details on the 1932 skirmishes would've been nice. How did the International Concession come to be? Also, what happened afterwards? Maybe Chiang's decision to throw his best troops in the meat grinder affected his capacity to fight the communists after 1945? The book zooms in on the 3 month campaign, with many first hand stories from the fighting (and many Chinese and Japanese sources), but I felt there wasn't enough info to connect that part of history to what happened before or after. There's a short mention of the rape of Nanjing in December 1937, but not much about what happened after. I guess if you only care about this campaign, you should be fine.
Also an interesting read in the days of the Russian invasion of Ukraine. The atrocities from Ukraine aren't as bad those in the book I think, but still, a grim reminder of the dark forces that war unleashes on people.
July 18, 2017
- I'm glad someone wrote a book ab this because this was something I never knew about
- Semi-misleading title: the parallel to Stalingrad makes it sound like they lost loads of men, but it was a successful feat of human endurance that turned the tide of the war. Only one of those two points is true. I will let you guess which one.
- I've learned that I enjoy the micro study of history much more than the macro day-to-day study. I liked the last chapter that looked at the bigger reasons why the outcome was the way it was.
- One of the criticisms I read ab this was that the author was v hard on Chiang Kaishek. However, this isn't the first time I heard of Chiang Kaishek's incompetence so it didn't really bother me. Confirmation bias, I guess
- I enjoyed the pictures and the intimate individual stories very much.
- Semi-misleading title: the parallel to Stalingrad makes it sound like they lost loads of men, but it was a successful feat of human endurance that turned the tide of the war. Only one of those two points is true. I will let you guess which one.
- I've learned that I enjoy the micro study of history much more than the macro day-to-day study. I liked the last chapter that looked at the bigger reasons why the outcome was the way it was.
- One of the criticisms I read ab this was that the author was v hard on Chiang Kaishek. However, this isn't the first time I heard of Chiang Kaishek's incompetence so it didn't really bother me. Confirmation bias, I guess
- I enjoyed the pictures and the intimate individual stories very much.
This entire review has been hidden because of spoilers.
November 4, 2021
My first real foray into the Sino-Japanese war (2nd I think), or IMO the start of WW2. This book follows the battles around Shanghai. It has good detail, and the maps are decent. Plenty of anecdotal stuff from participants as well. I found it easy to read, which is a plus for me. The authors writing style left me wanting to continue, even when I had to set it down. Definitely recommended for anyone interested in this portion of WW2.
January 29, 2022
Pretty good book. However, the author forgot that Chiang Kai Shek at first did not want to fight the Japanese as he was more interested in fighting and killing communist members, and not waiting to be stronger in order to do so. He was kidnapped and placed under house arrest until he agreed to work together with the communist to fight the Japanese. That was when he really started fighting the Japanese.
July 10, 2022
A history not often told of
This was a great book going into detail of many of the Japanese and Chinese battles for Shanghai in 1937. It shows what life was like before and during the war. It has a personal side to it showi how awful the war was and the many atrocities committed by soldiers on both sides. I hadni realized there was this much fighting before WW II and how much of an international presence was maintained by other countries in Shanghai.
This was a great book going into detail of many of the Japanese and Chinese battles for Shanghai in 1937. It shows what life was like before and during the war. It has a personal side to it showi how awful the war was and the many atrocities committed by soldiers on both sides. I hadni realized there was this much fighting before WW II and how much of an international presence was maintained by other countries in Shanghai.
April 4, 2023
Shanghai 1937
A factual historical account of one of the major battles during Japanese invasion of China prior WW-2. I found this book interesting, but difficult to follow at times.
The leadership of both armies made several mistakes and miscalculations causing the many deaths of soldiers on both sides as well as civilian casualties. The total number of Chinese civilian deaths well never be known.
Highly recommended reading for anyone who is interested in
WW-2.
A factual historical account of one of the major battles during Japanese invasion of China prior WW-2. I found this book interesting, but difficult to follow at times.
The leadership of both armies made several mistakes and miscalculations causing the many deaths of soldiers on both sides as well as civilian casualties. The total number of Chinese civilian deaths well never be known.
Highly recommended reading for anyone who is interested in
WW-2.
September 4, 2017
Thought it was well researched and written. I would have liked better and more detailed maps so that I could follow troop movements. This battle was a prelude to what would engulf the whole of the pacific. World leaders had good warning. Japanese tactics were revealed and the problems of Chinese leadership foretold the coming of a Communist China.
September 18, 2017
This was good history on shanghai and the Japanese attacking China. Was sad to see such a disarrayed army who couldn’t fight together. And that there was a war that the foreigners were left a lone and only the locals were targeted so that japan wouldn’t have other enemies. I also didn’t know the Germans were so integrated into the Chinese army.
September 12, 2020
This was a disappointment, with how few English-language books there are on the second Sino-Japanese War, I feel like I should just be grateful for anything I come across, but I just couldn't bring myself to finish this. Bland writing style, haphazardly approach, all in all it didn't feel worth my time.
April 15, 2021
Really impressive archival and primary source work. Did a good job of shedding light on a brutal conflict many know nothing about. Was missing the high level overview other books are able to provide. Got a bit lost in unit numbers & numbers at times while not being able to understand the space or severity of the conflict.
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