Incident at the Marco Polo Bridge

Incident at the Marco Polo Bridge

Part of: Second Sino-Japanese War

date	July 7, 1937
place	Marco Polo Bridge , 15 km southwest of Beijing
output	Armistice on July 8th

Parties to the conflict
China	Japan
Commander
Song Zheyuan	Kan'ichirō Tashiro

The Marco Polo Bridge incident on July 7, 1937 was a firefight between soldiers of the Imperial Japanese Army and the National Revolutionary Army of the Republic of China . This event is widely believed to spark the Second Sino-Japanese War .

Naming

The incident is known internationally by many different names. In addition to the name Incident at the Marco Polo Bridge or Marco Polo Bridge Incident , which is common in Western literature , the name Battle of the Lugou Bridge or Battle of Lugou Bridge is also used.

In China, three main names are used for the incident.

• Incident of July 7th ( Chinese   七七事變  /  七七事变 , Pinyin Qīqī Shìbiàn )
• Incident at the Lugou Bridge ( Chinese  盧溝橋 事變  /  卢沟桥 事变 , Pinyin Lúgōuqiáo Shìbiàn )
• Incident of July 7th at the Lugou Bridge ( Chinese  七七 盧溝橋 事變  /  七七 卢沟桥 事变 , Pinyin Qīqī Lúgōuqiáo Shìbiàn )

In Japan, like the fighting that followed, the incident was initially referred to as the Northern China Incident ( Japanese j 事變 , Kahoku jihen ) and, after the fighting spilled over to Shanghai, the Chinese Incident (Japanese 支那 事 変 , Shina jihen ). The spelling 支那 ( Shina ) was a derogatory term for the country derived from the western term China. However, since this name was later used for the entire conflict, later in Japan the name Incident at the Rokō Bridge (Japanese 盧溝橋 事件 , Rokōkyō jiken ) prevailed for the battle at the bridge , with Rokō as the Japanese pronunciation for Chinese Lugou .

procedure

On the evening of July 7th, a company of Japanese troops stationed southwest of Beijing began a night maneuver in the direction of Longwangmiao, north of the Marco Polo Bridge . According to different specifications sounded between 22:30 and 23:40 shots from the direction of the river Yongding River . After they stopped, a roll call found that one soldier was missing. He was reported as possibly killed or abducted by the Chinese to the next higher authority. When the soldier reappeared after a short time, they failed to report this as well, which is why the battalion staff demanded that the units of the nearby Chinese 37th Division be allowed to search the garrison town of Wanping for the missing person. However, after this was refused, the Japanese staff ordered the storming of the place, which failed due to the numerical inferiority of the Japanese and ended in skirmishes that lasted until the morning of July 8th. A truce was negotiated between local Chinese and Japanese forces later that day.

Speculation about the origin of the shots

It could not be clearly established who had fired the shots on the river on the night of July 7th to 8th, 1937, whether they were aimed at the Japanese or whether they were live ammunition at all. In the meantime, four possible scenarios in particular are being considered:

• A shot went off by accident from the weapon of a fallen Japanese soldier of the company.
• Chinese Communist Party provocateurs fired at the Japanese to cause a major incident to weaken the national Chinese Kuomintang .
• The shots were ordered by Chinese warlord Feng Yuxiang to provoke an incident that would push the Kuomintang and communists in China to work together again as they did in the first united front .
• The military intelligence service of the Kwantung Army stationed in northern China provoked the incident.

consequences

The first reaction to the incident came from the CCP Central Committee on July 8th with a declaration calling on all Chinese to resist the Japanese aggressors. The speed with which this declaration was published is taken by some historians as an indication that the Communists either provoked the incident or at least knew about the provocation.

The Japanese government under Prime Minister Konoe Fumimaro reacted hesitantly to the news of the battle, but was fundamentally convinced not to allow the situation to escalate further, since Japan was not equipped for a full-blown conflict in China. In contrast, there was the Kwantung Army, which had already developed a strong initiative during the Japanese occupation of Manchuria and which felt ready for the fighting to escalate.

So it came about that on the one hand Japanese and Chinese officers agreed on talks about a ceasefire, on the other hand the Japanese general staff worked towards the dispatch of further divisions from Chosen and Japan. The latter was finally able to prevail with the argument that the few Japanese troops in northern China were in acute danger and that the conflict would not expand.

The Japanese increase in troops and the relocation of more Chinese troops to the area eventually led to the outbreak of new fighting, which over time escalated into the Second Sino-Japanese War.

literature

• Dieter Kuhn : The Republic of China from 1912 to 1937: Draft for a political event history (=  Würzburg Sinological Writings ). 3rd, revised and expanded edition. Edition Forum, Heidelberg 2007, ISBN 3-927943-25-8 ( PDF, 5.34 MB - 2 volumes, 726 pages).
• Thomas Weyrauch: China's neglected republic. 100 years in the shadow of world history . tape 1: 1911-1949 . Longtai, Giessen 2009, ISBN 978-3-938946-14-5 .