Susan in NC’s Reviews > Stilwell and the American Experience in China: 1911-1945 > Status Update

“ In America three days earlier Stilwell’s fate was entirely changed by an unexpected development:…George Marshall was appointed Acting Chief of Staff, to succeed to the full position on September 1. With conflict approaching, Marshall’s urgent concern was to replace the Army’s dead wood with men of action and initiative. One of the first two names he sent up for promotion to brigadier general was Stilwell’s.“

“ What really tortured Craigie and Stilwell and many others was the passivity of their own countries in the face of Japanese aggression. Frustration was acute as despotism advanced and the democracies threw it chunks of appeasement to buy themselves the illusion of safety. In addition, Stilwell faced his own depressing professional prospects.”

“Drawing up a balance sheet of Japanese qualities to relieve his feelings in private, Stilwell allowed them six good qualities—industrious, brave, persevering, organized, disciplined, patriotic—as against 26 bad—ranging through arrogant, cynical, truculent, ruthless, brutal, stupid, treacherous, lying, unscrupulous, unmoral, unbalanced and hysterical.”

“ With massive American help in organization, training, equipment and supplies, planning, direction and command, if possible, Stilwell believed the Chinese could fight effectively against the Japanese. The shape of the future was already in his mind.”

“ The rise of international Fascism shaped America’s view of China and the fervent syllogism at its core: democracy was threatened by the aggressor nations; China was under attack by an aggressor nation; therefore China was a democracy and her battle was the battle of world democracy.”

“China’s battle was making an impression on America. Out of sympathy with her resistance or investment in her affairs, correspondents, missionaries…concentrated on the admirable aspects and left unmentioned the flaws and failures….Generalissimo and Mme. Chiang Kai-shek as “Man and Wife of the Year” for 1937 gazed at Americans in sad nobility from the cover of Time, sober and steady, brave and true.”

“ In January 1938 his pressure finally broke through obstructions and he was able to go on the first of many journeys which over the next year and a half were to take him to embattled areas in many parts of China.”

“Stilwell’s vinegar was at a high level during the winter in Hankow, “the bunghole of creation.” He was depressed by the climate, “raw, grey, drizzly, chill,” by China’s situation, by the endless frustrations in the way of carrying out his professional task and by the blank incomprehension at the Washington end.The Chinese War Ministry had refused permission to visit the front and Stilwell could get no… information…”

“Determined to make an example of the capital that would bring the war to an end, the Japanese achieved a climax to the carnage already wrought…Fifty thousand soldiers hacked, burned, bayoneted, raped and murdered until they had killed, by hand, according to the evidence witnessed and collected by missionaries and other foreigners of the International Relief Committee, a total of 42,000 civilians in Nanking.”

“ A week after Stilwell reached Hankow, on December 13, 1937, Nanking fell in circumstances dreadful even for China. During the time bought in the trenches in Shanghai no preparations for the defense or evacuation of Nanking had been made with the result that losses in men and matériel when the capital fell were enormous.”