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Osprey Men at Arms #424
The Chinese Army 1937–49: World War II and Civil War
Although the Chinese contribution to Allied victory in World War II (1939-1945) is often ignored, China fought the Japanese Empire for far longer than any other belligerent nation. By the time that the Sino-Japanese War became absorbed into the wider conflict at the end of 1941, Chinese armies had already suffered huge casualties and half the country had been lost. By fighting on with Allied support, China tied down a million Japanese troops. After Japan's defeat in 1945, China was immediately plunged back into civil war between Chiang Kai-shek's Nationalists and Mao Tse-tung's Communists; and the latter's victory in 1949 changed the world for the rest of the 20th century and beyond.
48 pages, Paperback
First published July 13, 2005
About the author
Philip Jowett
45 books9 followersPhilip S. Jowett was born in Leeds in 1961 and has been interested in military history for as long as he can remember. His first Osprey book was Chinese Civil War Armies 1911–49, and since then he has published numerous other titles for Osprey including, The Russo-Japanese War 1904–05, Japan's Asian Allies 1941–45 and Armour in China 1920–1950. He lives in North Lincolnshire, UK.
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Displaying 1 - 2 of 2 reviews
May 30, 2020
The Chinese Army (KMT) was an important allied contributor in the war against Japan, mainly as a punching bag. The KMT had just emerged victorious in the warlord period and was hopelessly outclassed by the more sophisticated Japanese. This book is supposed to give visual structure to the KMT in this period, and in this regard achieves only marginal success due to poor plates and a bloated subject matter - why include the civil war in such a tiny book?
After being advised by the USSR, the KMT received a Nazi German military mission which formed ten élite divisions equipped with the famous M35 German steel helmet. Those divisions would be destroyed in Shanghai and Nanking; a trend for the KMT during the war: armies would be continually raised and crushed throughout the war, ending 1945 with a seemingly strong and well-equipped force that would be routed by the Communists in the final showdown of the civil war.
The greatest problem with this book is "Show, don't tell". The author tries to present the KMT soldier as a salvagable case but the text does not convey this view properly - especially by the ill-judgement of including the civil war. Even fighting the Japanese in Shanghai 500,000 to 200,000 the KMT still managed to lose; with élite German-trained troops notwithstanding.
The armoured forces are discussed this time, with the author claiming the US-trained ones could-maybe-luckily-perhaps be almost an equal to their Japanese enemies, but I am not convinced. Not mentioned is the fact the KMT had 15 Panzer I light tanks for the fight in 1937; it didn't make them much good, but still. The KMT paratroops got only one single photograph with the description hammering yet again the trope and nothing else. Something that could have been mentioned is that some of those paratroopers would hijack a ship from Taiwan and defect to mainland China in the early 1950's.
There is a cronology at the beginning of the book and I was surprised to see the Chinese did manage to beat the Japanese back a few times - even if unskillfully and at great cost. The more manageable time frame was mostly wasted in repetition and a poor grasp of visual representation; making this one of the few Osprey books where photographs are better than the plates. The book also suffers from lack of proper proof-reading, with many typos, lack of spaces and bold where it is due.
The plates are ugly, underwhelming, disproportionate and very repetitive; showing pretty much the same thing over and over again. The style is bad and many figures are just too small to present the bagdes and ranks painstakingly described in the text - sometimes not even present in the illustration - and some of the plates are almost exact copies of others simply to show a badge you can barely see. The author again places the KMT ranking system (half the page) already showed in the previous book (and again in the next) and another half-page written description of the old and new shoulder straps. Those lenghty and overlapping explanations should have been visually represented in the plates, with the actual colors and shapes. Some plates should have depicted only the bust of the soldiers with the head gear and rank insignia - show, don't tell.
The core value of this book is the discussion about the KMT strengths and weaknesses. The KMT units ranged from adequate to very poor (to the point of being useless). The brutal military culture in China gave no reward for victory beside the opportunity for pillaging, and the Chinese peasant soldier had no emotional stake beyond his own immediate unit. Very little changed from the peasant levies of the medieval periods and their mindset is also interesting: courage and endurance were not the qualities looked on to, but rather caution and cunning in an environment riddled with feuds and constant betrayals.
The Chinese soldier was always in trouble and when he wasn't chased by the Japanese soldiers and Chinese puppet troops, he had to contend with the Communists and with his own paucity of resources in a squalid country. It was also common for Chinese soldiers to be absorbed by the victorious armies when defeated (the cadres could be killed, though) and the KMT also lost many men that way, especially in 1948. Not mentioned in the book is that the long suffering peasant soldier of the KMT would still be braving enemy fire as far as 1953 against the UN forces in Korea.
The narrative is very laborious to read, plagued by repetition, padding and a narrow focus on uniform details - how many times do we need to read about puttees and shoes? I got it the first time. Might as well just make a footwear section of one paragraph. The constant repetition left out far too much, such as the US-KMT relation, the KMT occupation of northern French Indochina and the island battles up to 1950.
The lack of unity would be the KMT's undoing, especially with their abusive relationship with the Americans. The author describes the incompetent General Stilwell as "the logical choice", which is ludicrous. He was awfully unfit for the job, having served behind a desk up to that point and lacking strategic vision; he and his second in command (who was recommended sacking and court-martial by Stilwell's successor) would have been easily banished from commanding even a cleaning working party if they were in North Africa or France. Stilwell also kept holding Lend-Lease material from the Chinese as blackmail and used the Chinese as cannon fodder throughout the war against the KMT's best interests.
The KMT also had the problem of taking cities in Manchuria that were stripped clean of industrial machinery by the Soviets; sort of karma really, since the KMT occupied the Tonkin in French Indochina and refused to leave until reaping the profits of the poppy production there. Not to mention that the KMT also interned the French forces that shot their way through the 800km of jungle from Tonkin to China, in a running battle with the Japanese, as if the French were enemies and not allies. The KMT march to occupy the Tonkin was also painfully slow - they took three months to march on foot - and the Viet Minh had time to build their cadres, terrorize the population and to capture Japanese weapons. All of which they kept doing with the KMT there, with the addition of buying weapons from those very troops.
The subject is interesting and the author is knowlegeable on the subject matter, but the true "face of battle" endured by the KMT soldier remained elusive amid constant detours to appease modellers. The author devotes adequate space for weaponry and tanks (albeit wasted in those awful plates) and the discussion of the motley supply the KMT had. Thankfully, the author sticked to Wade-Giles, so the reader can more easily follow through the narrative. The photographs are high quality and the first half of the book is compelling. The author also published longer books on the subject such as "Soldiers of the White Sun: The Chinese Army at War, 1931-1949" (208 pages) and "China's Wars: Rousing the Dragon 1894-1949" (400 pages).
After being advised by the USSR, the KMT received a Nazi German military mission which formed ten élite divisions equipped with the famous M35 German steel helmet. Those divisions would be destroyed in Shanghai and Nanking; a trend for the KMT during the war: armies would be continually raised and crushed throughout the war, ending 1945 with a seemingly strong and well-equipped force that would be routed by the Communists in the final showdown of the civil war.
The greatest problem with this book is "Show, don't tell". The author tries to present the KMT soldier as a salvagable case but the text does not convey this view properly - especially by the ill-judgement of including the civil war. Even fighting the Japanese in Shanghai 500,000 to 200,000 the KMT still managed to lose; with élite German-trained troops notwithstanding.
The armoured forces are discussed this time, with the author claiming the US-trained ones could-maybe-luckily-perhaps be almost an equal to their Japanese enemies, but I am not convinced. Not mentioned is the fact the KMT had 15 Panzer I light tanks for the fight in 1937; it didn't make them much good, but still. The KMT paratroops got only one single photograph with the description hammering yet again the trope and nothing else. Something that could have been mentioned is that some of those paratroopers would hijack a ship from Taiwan and defect to mainland China in the early 1950's.
There is a cronology at the beginning of the book and I was surprised to see the Chinese did manage to beat the Japanese back a few times - even if unskillfully and at great cost. The more manageable time frame was mostly wasted in repetition and a poor grasp of visual representation; making this one of the few Osprey books where photographs are better than the plates. The book also suffers from lack of proper proof-reading, with many typos, lack of spaces and bold where it is due.
The plates are ugly, underwhelming, disproportionate and very repetitive; showing pretty much the same thing over and over again. The style is bad and many figures are just too small to present the bagdes and ranks painstakingly described in the text - sometimes not even present in the illustration - and some of the plates are almost exact copies of others simply to show a badge you can barely see. The author again places the KMT ranking system (half the page) already showed in the previous book (and again in the next) and another half-page written description of the old and new shoulder straps. Those lenghty and overlapping explanations should have been visually represented in the plates, with the actual colors and shapes. Some plates should have depicted only the bust of the soldiers with the head gear and rank insignia - show, don't tell.
The core value of this book is the discussion about the KMT strengths and weaknesses. The KMT units ranged from adequate to very poor (to the point of being useless). The brutal military culture in China gave no reward for victory beside the opportunity for pillaging, and the Chinese peasant soldier had no emotional stake beyond his own immediate unit. Very little changed from the peasant levies of the medieval periods and their mindset is also interesting: courage and endurance were not the qualities looked on to, but rather caution and cunning in an environment riddled with feuds and constant betrayals.
The Chinese soldier was always in trouble and when he wasn't chased by the Japanese soldiers and Chinese puppet troops, he had to contend with the Communists and with his own paucity of resources in a squalid country. It was also common for Chinese soldiers to be absorbed by the victorious armies when defeated (the cadres could be killed, though) and the KMT also lost many men that way, especially in 1948. Not mentioned in the book is that the long suffering peasant soldier of the KMT would still be braving enemy fire as far as 1953 against the UN forces in Korea.
The narrative is very laborious to read, plagued by repetition, padding and a narrow focus on uniform details - how many times do we need to read about puttees and shoes? I got it the first time. Might as well just make a footwear section of one paragraph. The constant repetition left out far too much, such as the US-KMT relation, the KMT occupation of northern French Indochina and the island battles up to 1950.
The lack of unity would be the KMT's undoing, especially with their abusive relationship with the Americans. The author describes the incompetent General Stilwell as "the logical choice", which is ludicrous. He was awfully unfit for the job, having served behind a desk up to that point and lacking strategic vision; he and his second in command (who was recommended sacking and court-martial by Stilwell's successor) would have been easily banished from commanding even a cleaning working party if they were in North Africa or France. Stilwell also kept holding Lend-Lease material from the Chinese as blackmail and used the Chinese as cannon fodder throughout the war against the KMT's best interests.
The KMT also had the problem of taking cities in Manchuria that were stripped clean of industrial machinery by the Soviets; sort of karma really, since the KMT occupied the Tonkin in French Indochina and refused to leave until reaping the profits of the poppy production there. Not to mention that the KMT also interned the French forces that shot their way through the 800km of jungle from Tonkin to China, in a running battle with the Japanese, as if the French were enemies and not allies. The KMT march to occupy the Tonkin was also painfully slow - they took three months to march on foot - and the Viet Minh had time to build their cadres, terrorize the population and to capture Japanese weapons. All of which they kept doing with the KMT there, with the addition of buying weapons from those very troops.
The subject is interesting and the author is knowlegeable on the subject matter, but the true "face of battle" endured by the KMT soldier remained elusive amid constant detours to appease modellers. The author devotes adequate space for weaponry and tanks (albeit wasted in those awful plates) and the discussion of the motley supply the KMT had. Thankfully, the author sticked to Wade-Giles, so the reader can more easily follow through the narrative. The photographs are high quality and the first half of the book is compelling. The author also published longer books on the subject such as "Soldiers of the White Sun: The Chinese Army at War, 1931-1949" (208 pages) and "China's Wars: Rousing the Dragon 1894-1949" (400 pages).
October 6, 2018
An nice introduction to the various factions active during this period, while the book is a little thin only 48 pages in total it contains a great amount of photographs and artwork based on uniforms worn during this era
Displaying 1 - 2 of 2 reviews