Stilwell and the American Experience in China: 1911-1945

by Barbara W. Tuchman

The dominant group among the Communists was equally unwilling to try for a settlement. Though numerically inferior in armed forces, they counted on economic collapse accelerated by guerilla warfare to bring down the Government. In contrast to the Kuomintang, they were organized, Marshall noticed, from the grass roots up “with the strength that gives them in public support.”

On October 1, 1946, Marshall notified the Generalissimo who had launched an offensive toward Kalgan that he would discontinue mediation unless a basis for agreement with the Communists were found without delay.

As Secretary of State, Marshall remained convinced that the Kuomintang could not win the civil war without American military intervention. To this he was steadily and unalterably opposed, nor was there any public sentiment calling for it. Under the rising heat of political pressure, demands for every other kind of help were strident. Arms sales to the Nationalists were resumed, various missions were sent and $400,000,000 of economic assistance was extended by the China Aid Act of 1948. Denounced by the Communists as a useless prolonging of the civil war, this aid was used to generate a wave of anti-American feeling in the weary populace. Chiang’s forces under “the world’s worst leadership” (in the words of General Barr, chief of a new Army Advisory Group) lost crucial battles; entire divisions defected to the Communists; economic chaos increased popular detestation of the discredited Kuomintang. In October 1948 the Generalissimo declared that the salvation of Asia depended on China and he hoped “the American people and their statesmen will dedicate their lives to this task.” Madame came to Washington to ask for a new aid program of $3 billion over three years and a declaration of American determination to defeat Communism.

In December 1948 the Communists took Hsuchow, “the place generals must capture to control the sky.”

In great things, wrote Erasmus, it is enough to have tried. Stilwell’s mission was America’s supreme try in China. He made the maximum effort because his temperament permitted no less; he never slackened and he never gave up. Yet the mission failed in its ultimate purpose because the goal was unachievable.

John then shuffles over and addresses the Engineer as Hsien sheng or Before Born, an honorific title suggesting that the person addressed is older, hence presumably more learned and entitled to respect on account of seniority.