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children as well. Many of the Japanesebelieved that Chinese people were infe-rior to them. This racial hatred againstthe Chinese encouraged Japanese soldiersto act with a level of cruelty rarely seenin battle before.

The Japanese army slaughtered Chi-nese citizens without remorse. The Nan-jing Massacre was so heinous, so brutal,that for years many Japanese refused toadmit that the event had ever taken place.Between twenty thousand and eightythousand women were attacked andmurdered by Japanese soldiers. Japanesesoldiers stabbed Chinese civilians withbayonets, drowned them, burned them,and shot them. The soldiers sometimes

forced people to dig their own gravesbefore shooting them with machine guns.The streets of Nanjing literally ran redwith blood.

Matsui entered Nanjing in triumph,seemingly unaware of the terrible crimescommitted by the Japanese army againstthe people of Nanjing. He said, “Now theflag of the Rising Sun is floating overNanjing, and the Imperial Way is shiningforth in the area south of the Yangtze. Thedawn of the renaissance is about to take

Japanese soldiers approach the Chinesecity of Tinghai in July of 1939 in aneffort to tighten the blockade againstChinese shipping.

84 Samurai, Shoguns, and Soldiers: The Rise of the Japanese Military

In the history of war, few events haveequaled the brutality and cruelty of the

Nanjing Massacre. During the period fromDecember 13, 1937, through mid-Febru-ary 1938, Japanese troops ran wild th -rough the Chinese city of Nanjing, killing,looting, and setting fire to the city. Imme-diately after taking the city, the Japanesearmy gathered ninety-eight thousand Chi-nese soldiers who still remained in Nan-jing. The prisoners were then lined up andmachine-gunned to death, beheaded, ordrenched with gasoline and lit on fire.Japanese soldiers stormed through Nan-jing attacking women, killing shopkeep-ers, and stealing whatever they wanted.

They lit buildings on fire, ignoring thecries of people locked inside them.

Twenty Americans and Europeans st -ayed in Nanjing during the Japanese ram-page. They put up Red Cross flags to marka safe haven in the city’s center and bannedthe Japanese from entering. These West-erners intervened to stop murders, tor-tures, and other atrocities. About threehundred thousand Chinese civilians tookshelter in the Red Cross zone. Anotherthree hundred thousand Chinese died atthe hands of the Japanese during this peri-od that has come to be known as the Nan-jing Massacre.

The Nanjing Massacre

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Militarism Oct 25.qxp:LHE Middle Ages 7x9 10/26/07 10:04 PM Page 85

place. On this occasion, it is my earnesthope that the four hundred million peo-ple of China will reconsider.”35 If Matsuiexpected the Chinese to welcome theJapanese after the crimes committed inNanjing, he was sadly mistaken.

Matsui left Nanjing and returned toShanghai. He remained oblivious to thetruth about the behavior of Japanese sol-diers in Nanjing. Despite what the Japan-ese people believed were major victories,Prime Minister Konoe knew that, as Ishi-wara had warned, Japan’s army was sink-ing deeper and deeper into the quicksandof war.

The Economy of WarWar is expensive for governments but canbe quite profitable for businesses. Soldiersneed uniforms, boots, weapons, ammu-nition, and food. They need transporta-tion, medicine, and payment for theirservices. During the fiscal year 1937–38,the Japanese government gave more than2.5 billion yen to the military. That year,the budget for all of Japan’s government

In every war, incidents occur that are notplanned. Such incidents often result in

collateral, or unintended, damage. In De-cember 1937, as the Japanese advanceddeeper into China, a Japanese artillery reg-iment fired on and seized the British shipLadybird. The night before the army en-tered Nanjing, a Japanese bomb sank theUSS Panay, which was anchored in China’sYangtze River. Both of these incidents wereunintentional. Nonetheless, the British andU.S. governments were outraged.

The Japanese were embarrassed by thesemistakes. It was bad enough that a minorincident like the one at the Marco PoloBridge had escalated into a war with China.Japan did not want to expand its problemsfurther by going to war with powerful

Western nations like the United States andGreat Britain. Japanese naval authoritiesdismissed the commander of their vesselresponsible for the sinking of the Panay,and the Japanese government offered topay the United States for its lost ship.Japanese foreign minister Hirota Kokiissued an apology to the United States: “Iam having a very difficult time. Thingshappen unexpectedly. … We have [dis-missed the officer responsible].”1 The U.S.government accepted Japan’s apology.

1John Toland, The Rising Sun: TheDecline and Fall of the Japanese Empire,1936–1945 (New York: The ModernLibrary, 1970), 49.

Collateral Damage

Chinese civilians watch the Zabei districtof the city of Shanghai erupt in flames following another assault by Japanesebombers in November of 1937.

86 Samurai, Shoguns, and Soldiers: The Rise of the Japanese Military

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