Japanese-Soviet border conflict
The Japanese-Soviet border conflict of 1938/39 was the result of an attempt by Japan to expand the borders of the Manchuku state further north.
background
Until 1900, Manchuria was under Russian influence . In the course of the Japanese expansion efforts in East Asia, Japan demanded in 1903 a withdrawal of Russian troops from Manchuria and the recognition of Japanese interests in Korea. The following dispute ended in 1904 in the Russo-Japanese War , which Japan won. In 1905 Russia had to evacuate Manchuria, which was returned to China . After the First Sino-Japanese War, Japan had gained Korea as a sphere of influence and was interested in the raw material deposits of Manchuria. In order to bring these raw materials from Manchuria to Korea and to be able to ship them from there to Japan, the South Manchurian Railway was built, which was guarded by the Japanese Kwantung Army . In order to secure the supply of raw materials in the long term, efforts were made in Japan for more political influence in Manchuria. The Mukden incident in 1931, which was presumably initiated by the Japanese themselves, was followed by the Manchurian Crisis , in which the Kwantung Army occupied Manchuria and established the puppet state of Manchukuo there . This occupation was condemned by the USA within the framework of the Hoover-Stimson Doctrine , and the League of Nations protested, but took no further steps.
Japan's efforts to expand in China led to the Second Sino-Japanese War in 1937 . From further expansion plans to the north over the border to the Soviet Union and Mongolia disputes arose over the border course of the Manchuku state.
Counter arguments to Japanese plans to expand towards the Soviet Union
From the point of view of Soviet historiography, the Battle of Chalchyn gol (also Chalcha ; Russian spelling, transcribed: Chalchin-Gol , also Chalchin Gol ) stopped Japan's expansion plans towards the Soviet Union. According to the Soviet view of history, the armed provocations by the Japanese were only the beginning of a large-scale operation. The aim was to eliminate the influence of the Soviet Union on the Mongolian People's Republic and to subject the country to Japanese influence.
The reason for the Japanese-Soviet border conflict , however, was only the unresolved border. The mutual territorial claims, from which neither side wanted to deviate, related to a few kilometers. Multiple armed clashes between mounted Mongolian and Manchurian border patrols gradually led to the expansion of the military conflict, with first the Japanese and then the Soviet side bringing in troops.
The Japanese side supposedly wanted to end the spiral of violence in order not to have to withdraw military capacities from the main thrust in China. The prevailing opinion on the Soviet side was that one had to show the Japanese "once and for all" in order to reject any wishes for annexation .
Despite all the harshness of the Battle of Chalchin Gol, the Japanese had only one front 38 km wide (staggered in several lines), which the Red Army bypassed on both sides (60 km Soviet front width). A serious military invasion would have taken place on a completely different scale. Soviet historians also argue that it was not yet an invasion, but initially only a Japanese test attack, which was primarily intended to provide information about the speed and scope of a Soviet-Mongolian reaction in the event of an invasion.
However, the fighting had the necessary scope to sustainably enforce the disputed territorial claims in the border area. From the Soviet point of view, the Japanese should have realized that an invasion of Mongolia would meet more violent resistance than expected.
Battle of Lake Chassan / Changkufeng incident
When the Japanese Ambassador on 15 July 1938 by the Soviet Union, called their troops from the two heights (высота) Besymjannaja (russ. Высота Безымянная , German nameless height , chin. Shachaofeng ) and Saosjornaja (russ. Высота Заозёрная , German hill behind the See , Chinese: Changkufeng ) on Lake Chassan (approx. 130 km southwest of Vladivostok , Primorye region ), the Soviet Union did not comply with the demands. On July 29th, the first fighting broke out, which the Red Army was able to fend off. However, on July 31, the Japanese made the breakthrough and the Soviet troops withdrew. But since the Soviet Union managed to reorganize and replenish its troops, it launched a counterattack in early August, which forced the Japanese to retreat. The conflict ended on August 11 after the Japanese ambassador asked for peace. This incident is also referred to in the West after the Chinese name as the Changkufeng incident (Japanese chōkohōjiken ).
Battle of the Chalchin Gol / Nomonhan incident
"Nomonhan Incident"
| date | May 11 to September 16, 1939 |
|---|---|
| place |
Chalcha (river) , Mongolian People's Republic
|
| output | Soviet-Mongolian victory |
| Parties to the conflict | |
|---|---|
| Commander | |
|
Georgi Schukow |
Michitarō Komatsubara
|
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The Chalchin Gol river lies in the border area between Mongolia and what was then Manchukuo .
The border disputes concerned the lower reaches of the river, which runs from north to south, is 130 m wide and flows relatively quickly. The Japanese claimed the river as Manchukuo's western border , while the Soviet Union claimed a 15 km wide strip of territory on the east bank for Mongolia. 25 km to the east is the town of Nomonhan , which - especially in Japan - also gives its name to the conflict ( ノ モ ン ハ ン 事件 , Nomonhan jiken , German Nomonhan incident ).
When a cavalry unit of around 70 to 90 soldiers from the Mongolian Revolutionary People's Army grazed their horses in the disputed area on the east bank of the river on May 11, 1939 , they were driven away by Manchukuo troops . When a few days later a larger unit of Mongolian soldiers marched into the area, the forces from Manchukuo were no longer able to drive them out. Therefore, the Japanese 6th Army of the Kwantung Army was called in to help, which dispatched a reconnaissance force.
The area was unsuitable for serious military action as there was no infrastructure or transportation. The Japanese only had a small railway line with low capacity to transport troops and equipment to Nomonhan, where there was only a very small train station. The remaining 30 km to the front had to be covered on an unpaved road.
From the Soviet or Mongolian side, the transport options were even worse. The next railway station was about 350 km away. At the beginning, when the conflict slowly escalated, the Red Army deployed a railway battalion to build a railway line to the front. As a result, the Japanese side had few military forces at the source of the conflict, which they could hardly supply with food and certainly not enough ammunition, while the Soviet Union was able to provide many times more troops and combat technology (especially artillery) as well as ammunition. The superiority of the Red Army was threefold in terms of artillery with additionally superior quality of the weapons, twice in terms of troop strength and the Soviet tanks had nothing to compare qualitatively with the same quality.
Josef Stalin had a plan drawn up to expel the Japanese. After the Soviet and Mongolian troops were concentrated, the Japanese faced a superior force. In the first serious confrontation, eight officers and 97 soldiers died, one officer and 33 soldiers were wounded. The Kwantung Army now considered the area too insignificant to sacrifice more troops.
After the Soviets and Mongols attacked some Manchukuo units in minor skirmishes in June, the local commander of the Kwantung Army, Lieutenant General Komatsubara Michitarō, received permission to evict the invaders. On July 1, the Japanese started their operations and managed to cross the river until they were brought to a halt by the Soviets on the evening of July 2. Stalin had meanwhile installed Zhukov as commander in the Far East, who after three days of heavy fighting with his tanks pushed the Japanese back across the river. While he was secretly preparing a major offensive, his troops acted as if they were merely building a line of defense. With poorly encrypted radio messages, more and more material was requested for the construction of bunkers and loudspeakers spread the noise of steam rams. At the same time, under cover of night, Zhukov brought up tanks for reinforcements and had them carefully camouflaged.
On July 23, the Japanese attacked again but could not break through the Soviet line of defense. They had missed the fact that Zhukov had increased his troops to 58,000 men, around 500 tanks and 250 aircraft. After three hours of artillery bombardment, Zhukov launched a surprise attack with tanks, aircraft, infantry and cavalry on August 20 at 05:45. The Japanese had nothing to counter this with their outdated vehicles. Their artillery also had no armor-piercing shells. The outdated tactics and equipment of the Japanese resulted in a blatant defeat.
The Japanese defense doctrine of the time stipulated that the position had to be defended with heavy fire and that the discharge had to be awaited. This was very successful against ill-equipped Chinese troops, but the Soviet tanks broke through the lines, trapping two divisions, and wiping out the other troops.
An attempt to break out failed on August 22nd. Since the troops refused to surrender, the Japanese 6th Army was completely wiped out by August 30th.
On September 16, both sides signed an armistice and agreed on the existing borders. For the victory, Zhukov received the “ Hero of the Soviet Union ” award for the first time (out of a total of four times) .
Fought on the Japanese side (the Japanese 6th Army):
- 2 tank regiments (approx. 60 tanks with short-barreled 37 mm cannon)
- 4 artillery divisions
- 3 infantry divisions
- 3 cavalry brigades
- 200 planes
Fought on the Soviet-Mongolian side:
- 19 infantry divisions or motorized infantry divisions
- 11 cavalry divisions
- 15 artillery divisions
- 7 aviation divisions
- 18 tank battalions
- 13 battalions with armored vehicles
The Soviet-Mongolian troops were led by:
- 1 front rod
- 2 army staffs
- 2 corps staff
The outcome of the fighting was predetermined by the asymmetrical balance of power. A Japanese division was destroyed before the armistice was signed.
The Red Army suffered very heavy losses in armored vehicles and tanks. The Japanese were very strong in the defensive battle and psychologically well prepared. The Soviet army command recognized that advancing with armored units and armored technology without simultaneous support from infantry and artillery can result in very high losses.
losses
On the side of the Japanese army , 30,000 soldiers were involved in the conflict, of which, according to Japanese figures, 8,440 died and 8,766 were wounded. The Red Army had deployed 57,000 infantrymen, 498 tanks and 346 armored vehicles and said 9,284 men were wounded or killed. However, after the collapse of the Soviet Union in 1991, documents were released indicating a far larger number of 23,926 soldiers (6,831 killed, 1,143 missing and 15,952 wounded) as casualties.
consequences
As a result of the conflict, the Japanese tried to expand their territories further south and continued the Second Sino-Japanese War on a massive scale until the Pacific War broke out. In addition, the outcome of the Battle of Chalchin Gol ensured that Japan did not attack the Soviet Union in order to support the allied German Reich , as Adolf Hitler had actually expected after the Three-Power Pact . On April 13, 1941, Japan and the Soviet Union signed a neutrality pact . Nevertheless, the situation was better for Hitler at the start of the Eastern campaign on June 22, 1941, as many Red Army troops remained tied up in this area, as further attacks were feared. It was only through known radio messages from agent Dr. Richard Sorge in August 1941, the Red Army was able to withdraw many parts of its Far East Army, which was well-equipped for the winter war, and deploy it to the European theater of war. After the attack on Pearl Harbor , the Red Army was able to free more soldiers and use them in the Battle of Moscow .
On August 8, 1945, fighting broke out again with Operation August Storm , when the Soviet Union kept the agreement reached at the Yalta Conference to start the war in Europe in the Far East and attack Japan and its allies 90 days after the end of the war. The Red Army complied with this to the day and started the operation with over a million soldiers - two days after the atomic bombing on Hiroshima . After the area was occupied, it was returned to the Republic of China by the Soviet Union in 1946 , in accordance with the Allied War Aims ( Cairo Declaration ) .
literature
- Chiyoko Sasaki: The Nomonhan Conflict. The Far East Prelude to World War II. University of Bonn, 1968. Phil. F., Diss. November 6, 1968.
- Rainer Göpfert: The undeclared war on Lake Chasan and on Chalchin Gol. Flieger Revue Extra No. 4, Berlin 2004, Möller, ISSN 0941-889X .
- The Japanese writer Haruki Murakami built reports on the Japanese-Russian border conflict into his novel Mister Aufzugvogel (1994, German 2000).
- Konstantin Simonow : Companions in arms. ( Товарищи по оружию. Culture and Progress, Berlin 1967; German translation by Otto Braun ).
- Alvin D. Coox : Nomonhan. Japan Against Russia, 1939. Stanford, Stanford University Press, ISBN 0-8047-1835-0 .
- Alvin D. Coox: The Anatomy of a Small War: The Soviet-Japanese Struggle for Changkufeng / Khasan, 1938 , Greenwood Press, 1977, ISBN 0-8371-9479-2 .
- John Erickson: The Soviet High Command. A Military-Political History, 1918-1941. Routledge, 2001, ISBN 0-7146-5178-8 .
- Edward J. Drea: Nomonhan. Japanese-Soviet tactical combat, 1939. Combat Studies Institute, Fort Leavenworth 1981, Leavenworth papers; 2.
- Onda Shigetaka: 人間 の 記録 ノ モ ン ハ ン 戦 ( Ningen no kiroku. Nomonhan-sen. ) Tokuma Shoten, Tokyo 1977.
- Christopher D. Bellamy, Joseph S. Lahnstein: The new Soviet defensive policy: Khalkhin Gol 1939 as case study . Ed .: US Army War College. Carlisle September 1990 ( dtic.mil [PDF; accessed on August 2, 2018]).
- Stuart D. Goldman: Nomonhan, 1939. The Red Army's Victory that Shaped World War II. Naval Institute Press, Annapolis 2012, ISBN 978-1-59114-329-1 .
- Jonathan Haslam: The Soviet Union and the Threat from the East, 1933-41: Moscow, Tokyo, and the Prelude to the Pacific War , University of Pittsburgh Press, 1992, p. 208, ISBN 978-0-8229-1167-8 .
See also
Web links
- CCTV documentation: Memories of Nomonhan (English)
- Japanese Forces in Outer Mongolia Nomonhan Incident June - September 1939. (PDF) http://usacac.army.mil/ , accessed December 19, 2017 .
Individual evidence
- ↑ Cf. Antony Beevor: The Second World War. Munich 2014, p. 25f.
- ↑ Cf. Antony Beevor: The Second World War. Munich 2014, p. 26.
- ↑ See Katsu H. Young: The Nomonhan Incident. Imperial Japan and the Soviet Union. In: Monumenta Nipponica , Vol. 22, No. 1/2 (1967), pp. 82-102.