CHAPTER 10

International Alarums: Japan and Appeasement

‘A war postponed may be a war averted!’^∗ – Anthony Eden

BETWEEN 1931 and 1939, while facing military aggression committed or threatened by Germany, Italy and Japan, the foreign policy options of the western democracies were reduced to a choice between three dangerous strategies – or traditions – each with historical roots: ‘Appeasement’, ‘Resistance’ and ‘Isolation’. The British tended to favour the well-trodden pathway of Appeasement, a policy based upon ‘moderation’ and conciliation which had served Britain’s perfectly respectable selfish aims throughout most of the preceding century or more. By concessions to the territorial, economic or even ideological ambitions and conceits of powerful potential enemies, Britain hoped to lead their governments away from ‘gangsterism’ (to borrow Anthony Eden’s word for it) and back into the modalities of peaceful international relations which so favoured British ascendency in the world.

‘Resistance’, a policy superficially opposite to ‘Appeasement’, involving steadfast confrontation against aggression, was favoured by France and some elements in the United States throughout most of the inter-war years (although practised more in the breach than in the observance). While Resistance may take ‘peaceful’ forms (for example, economic sanctions or non-recognition of territorial or political change), it carries with it an implication that war (for which France and the United States, as well as Britain, were generally unprepared) is preferable to surrender in matters of immutable principle. Lacking sufficient strength to defeat the forces ranged against them, any policy of British, French and even American resistance to German, Italian or Japanese aggression had to be predicated upon effective rearmament or, at the very least, upon the acquisition of powerful, dependable allies. Failing that, as Prime Minister Neville Chamberlain avowed as late as January 1939, ‘In the absence of any powerful ally, and until our armaments are completed, we must adjust our foreign policy to our circumstances.’^∗ Unfortunately, there were practical difficulties which undermined British and French attempts to rearm or to attract the kind of allies they required: as the British Chiefs of Staff warned their political superiors in December 1937, more than three years after the rearmament programme began and while the greatest crises were yet to befall, it was the risk of a two- or three-enemy war which was of prime concern:

The outstanding feature of the present situation is the increasing probability that a war started in any one of these three areas may extend to one or both of the other two. Without overlooking the assistance which we would hope to obtain from France and possibly other allies, we cannot foresee the time when our defence forces will be strong enough to safeguard our trade, territory and vital interests against Germany, Italy and Japan at the same time… they could not exaggerate the importance from the point of view of Imperial Defence of any political or international action which could be taken to reduce the number of our potential enemies and to gain the support of powerful allies.^†

The underlying difficulty was that by the time the western democracies awoke to the challenge of Japanese aggression in Manchuria during 1931, neither Britain nor France had sufficient means to defend their respective vital interests and the United States plainly lacked the political will to do so. The effects of the economic depression placed severe limitations on the ability of any of the three to make good their military deficiencies. Too little rearmament would be ineffective; too much (or even enough) would bankrupt the soundest European economy. Prominent among the circumstances of the western democracies which differed from those of Germany, Italy and Japan was that the latter were intent upon drawing upon the resources of neighbouring economies through aggression (as in fact occurred in Manchuria, China, Austria, Czechoslovakia, Poland, France, the Netherlands and so forth). If they could be prevented from achieving their objectives, however, the economies of Germany, Italy and Japan were more vulnerable than the better balanced economies of the western democracies. The problem was that an unanswerable rearmament programme (that is, any programme which potential enemies could not match, step by step) would require time – purchased at great expense by international concessions or ignored only at great economic, political or military peril.

Even if governments did their sums correctly, an adequate scale of rearmament, if produced too soon, would doom a nation’s armed forces to obsolescence in time of war. If, contrariwise, rearmament proceeded at an inadequate level or set out to achieve its designed results over too long a period, a crisis might occur or a war indeed might be lost before deficiencies could be overcome. As General Maxime Weygand, Inspector General of the French Army, declared in a review of French defence policy in mid-January 1933, less than a fortnight before Hitler swept to power in the German polls:

If we leave questions of this magnitude without examining or solving them, we shall be led inexorably day by day, under the pressure of budgetary necessities, political influences or international blackmail, to take measures which will gradually drain our national forces of their substance. They will become merely a façade and will not be in a condition to fulfil their mission at the hour of danger.^∗

In Britain, rearmament received its initial impetus first from the Manchurian Incident. Only later, after Hitler’s rise to power, did attention begin to shift towards regarding Germany as the greater peril. In the process, time was lost. Yet the arguments in favour of limiting defence expenditure in the midst of a worldwide economic depression were plain enough, and so it took both the unbridled exercise of Japanese military might in Manchuria and the political changes in Germany to force the British Government to abandon the principle of Winston Churchill’s ‘Ten-Year Rule’, imposed by him as Chancellor of the Exchequer in 1928, ‘That it would be assumed for the purpose of framing the Estimates of the Fighting Services, that at any given date there will be no major war for ten years.’^† Thus while French politicians, who were deaf to the sound of battle on the Asiatic mainland and responded to the economic crisis by actually cutting French expenditure on rearmament, the British authorities took the first steps in the opposite direction, although the faith of the British Treasury in orthodox economic doctrine severely limited the scale of what London attempted. In both countries, resources of skilled manpower, productive capacity and their ability to maintain financial credit abroad were crucial. Throughout the 1930s the French economy teetered on the brink of insolvency while at the same time the intense pacifism of the French public and the volatility of French domestic politics made a nonsense of long-range economic planning and rearmament policy.

The importance of preserving Britain’s purchasing power played a vital role in a country completely dependent upon overseas supplies for its survival: as Sir Warren Fisher, the immensely powerful Permanent Under-secretary of the Treasury (and Head of the Civil Service), pointed out in a paper circulated to the Cabinet with the first Report of the Defence Requirements Committee in April 1934, raw materials and food ‘are only produced within this country in negligible quantities and therefore have to be secured from other countries who will not, of course, give us them, and, when our international purchasing power is exhausted, will not continue indefinite credits to us’.^∗

Judged by orthodox economic standards, not only were financial strength and economic stability seen to be essential in peacetime economic recovery from the great depression but in time of war they would assume even greater significance – as what the British Treasury and strategical authorities termed ‘the fourth arm in defence’, no less important than the three fighting services and ‘without which purely military effort would be of no avail’.^† Although Britain and France felt they had little chance of coming out victorious in a short, sharp war, they believed they stood an excellent chance of eventual success against the military strength (and economic vulnerability) of their potential enemies in a long war. The point was put well by Sir Thomas Inskip, Minister for the Co-ordination of Defence, in December 1937:

The maintenance of credit facilities and our general balance of trade are of vital importance, not merely from the view of our strength in peacetime, but equally for purposes of war. This country cannot hope to win a war against a major power by a sudden knock-out blow; on the contrary, for success we must contemplate a long war, in the course of which we should have to mobilize all our resources and those of the Dominions and other countries overseas… We must therefore confront our potential enemies with the risks of a long war, which they cannot face.^‡

Against Japan, particularly, Britain’s economic advantages were believed for many years to be decisive. With time, however, these ‘advantages’ seemed less obvious and Britain became more and more stretched by the effort to establish the means to defend the Empire against the combination of enemies confronting it. In practice, the arguments in favour of seeking coercion by the application of economic measures short of war were never as attractive as some of its advocates supposed. There were times when the British Foreign Office was inclined towards sanctions, but in general most professional observers shared the view expressed by one in relation to Japanese aggression at the outbreak of the China Incident in 1937, that ‘the principle to be applied to the whole problem is essentially simple: half-measures are far worse than useless and full measures mean war’. ^∗ Equally, a strategy based upon deterrence – involving the threat rather than the use of force – had little to recommend itself to the British or the French if their adversaries were demonstrably better disposed to deter them from using it.

Both the British and French Governments during the 1930s aimed in very different ways to establish adequate defences at what they regarded as the highest level which could be maintained indefinitely. Added to the costs of constructing modern armaments were enormous costs of maintenance, training and manning them. To turn resources of manpower and production towards military ends too soon would adversely affect the reconstruction of national prosperity, social welfare, and all manner of foreign confidence and domestic support. All across the British political spectrum, responsible leaders shared these sources of concern, differing only by degree.

It bears emphasis that in so far as the international alarms of the day were concerned, and Britain’s capacity to respond, the whole machinery of government was held together by finely interlocking networks of committees through which a mere handful of brilliant civil servants and their military counterparts worked hard to educate Ministers and formulate national policy. The British Civil Service and especially its most senior officials, was much better informed than Government Ministers, backbench Members of Parliament, the public and even the press. For the most part, Ministers soon fell in step with their professional advisers in their individual respective Government departments. Above all, however, British military and foreign policy-making initiatives generated within separate departments were filtered and refined by their passage through a structure known as the Committee of Imperial Defence. Underneath the Committee itself were more than a hundred inter-departmental sub-committees of greater or lesser importance or duration, and the membership of most of these sub-committees was composed of officials who genuinely shared a desire to work harmoniously with their opposite numbers in their sister departments or services. Thus debate, ob-structiveness and paper-pushing made it almost impossible for solitary Ministers to carry out measures that lacked the collective support of the system. On the other hand, when there was a common purpose (and reaching that often involved a great deal of personal energy from its contributors as well as a readiness to compromise) the collective efforts that could be harnessed by this system made it the most efficient, although not necessarily the swiftest, governmental powerplant in the world. The significance of this cannot be overstated, for it gave to British policy-making a semblance of rational coherence and intelligence that was missing in other countries. In particular it provided a great contrast with the anarchy that prevailed in dictatorships like Germany or Italy where competing chiefs scrambled to catch their leader’s eye and favours, and it also was the envy of popular democracies like that of the United States where institutionalized ‘checks and balances’ between the executive branch and Congress were an encouragement to continuous guerrilla warfare between independent-minded government departments who were only too eager to ‘leak’ sensitive information that would embarrass one another.

In any event, the personalities who dominated the British political scene during the years leading up to the Second World War did agree, in the words of a warning given the British Cabinet and Committee of Imperial Defence by the Chiefs of Staff, uttered in their 1933 Annual Review of Imperial Defence and repeated at regular intervals thereafter, ‘The accumulation of deficiencies… is very heavy, and if we are to be ready for grave emergencies, a steady increase in certain of our estimates over a number of years is essential.’^∗ The will was there. The two questions of unlimited complexity were What could be done? and Would it be effective?

Not until the late 1930s, with the shock of successive international crises and a growing appreciation of Keynesian theory, did the idea of public borrowing for rearmament gradually become respectable in the absence of viable alternatives: when as British Chancellor of the Exchequer Neville Chamberlain first suggested the idea of a ‘National Defence Contribution’ scheme in his budget speech of April 1937, there was enormous public outcry against this ‘tax on recovery’, and as the value of the French franc and of sterling plummeted, Parliament forced him to abandon the idea on 1 June, only five days after he had become Prime Minister. While subsequent efforts to employ deficit financing proved more successful, the vulnerability of the British and French economies to financial panic fully vindicated their Governments’ concern about financial stability: during the fifteen months between the Austrian Anschluss and the Tientsin crisis in June 1939, more than £300 million worth of gold – 40 per cent of Britain’s total reserves – was lost, and Britain’s balance of trade went into a steep decline as 25–30 per cent of the raw materials imported by the country were diverted to arms production rather than for exports.

By this time the point had been reached where Britain genuinely could do no more: as the First Sea Lord, Admiral Sir Roger Backhouse, wrote in November 1938, ‘The trouble is… that we are now trying to take on more than we are really able to… and we simply cannot produce more than we are doing.’^∗ Britain’s arms factories were working to full capacity, but Treasury comparisons with the national debts per head of population in various countries at July 1939 gave equal cause for concern:^†

	£s
United Kingdom	172
United States	64
France	52
Italy	52
Germany	33
Japan	11

As the Treasury informed the Cabinet, ‘unless, when the time comes, the United States are prepared either to lend or to give us money as required, the prospects of a long war are becoming exceedingly grim’.^‡ When the growing weakness of the nation’s financial position was explained to the Cabinet, Oliver Stanley, the President of the Board of Trade, remarked to his colleagues that ‘There would, therefore, come a moment which, on a balance of our financial strength and our strength in armaments, was the best time for war to break out.^§

From that point of view it was fortunate that war broke out in August 1939. A few months later, at about the turn of the year, the precarious balance between the nation’s impending insolvency and the demands of rearmament was acknowledged by no less an authority than Keynes himself, the very apostle of’deficit financing’. Writing from his chambers in Cambridge University at the invitation of the British Government in December 1939, he warned that unless the United States could be persuaded to back the British war effort not with loans but with outright grants, the United Kingdom would be bankrupt within six months. His letter was intended to galvanize the Americans into taking action to rescue Britain, but it provides stark and unequivocal evidence that the financial control and rearmament programmes of Britain in the pre-war period were by no means so mismanaged, inadequate, ill-conceived or unsophisticated as the majority of the critics of ‘Appeasement’ generally suppose. In time the United States came to underwrite the expenses of British rearmament (although this was accompanied by a liquidation of British investments in the United States). Yet the pre-war administrations of Baldwin and Chamberlain had never been in a position to request, much less to expect, such help from their most powerful potential ally. It was, indeed, by no means facile of the Committee of Imperial Defence to expect that Britain would have to pay its way, and that the maintenance of the financial strength of the Empire was an essential defence requirement.

Constraints upon British and French budgets and rearmament were thus governing factors in their foreign and defence policies which, even divorced (as they could not be) from isolationist sentiment and widespread resolve ‘never to go to war again’, would have made military intervention abroad a lunacy for France after 1936 and a reckless course for Britain before the end of 1939. As Chamberlain’s successor at the Exchequer, Sir John Simon (who had been Foreign Secretary during the Manchunan Incident) summed up Britain’s dilemma a few days after the Anschluss in March 1938:

At the present moment we are in the position of a runner in a race who wants to reserve his sprint for the right time, but does not know where the finishing tape is. The danger is that we might knock our finance to pieces prematurely. ^∗

This brings us to the question of France’s conception of her potential enemies, for we must remind ourselves that France considered herself as a European rather than as an essentially inter-continental imperial power. Home defence against Germany was her paramount concern in the face of which other considerations such as the defence of her overseas territories paled into insignificance. France’s interest was to maintain the somewhat artificially contrived position of French dominance in Europe with which she had been left at the end of the First World War. French hatred and suspicion of Germany, compounded by the failure of the Treaty of Versailles to quell her fears of German resurgence once the United States had withdrawn from active participation in continental European affairs, led France to strive to throttle German aspirations towards the revision or revocation of the most draconian measures embodied in the Versailles Dictat. France therefore adopted every measure it could in resistance to German economic, military and political recovery, and in doing so frantically negotiated mutual reinsurance treaties with most of Germany’s continental neighbours. Ultimately this policy fell in a shambles as the French Foreign Minister was forced to appreciate that

such a policy is not practicable, for it assumes first of all that the participants are, in fact, all allied among themselves. The result of the present situation is not only weakness. It also results in the concentration on France of any attempt made against peace [sic, by Germany only!], France being – and how inadequately – the only link between countries which would be inclined to oppose such an attempt. ^∗

A permanent alliance with Britain – or one with the United States – would have provided the basis for a different policy where trust and mutual respect could have been allowed to develop, but neither of these potential allies was prepared to underwrite French paranoia against Germany no matter how well-grounded it might have been in past experience. Locarno was briefly regarded as a satisfactory first step, but when Britain’s reluctance to commit herself further became clearer, France considered her next best course to be a negotiated marriage of convenience with Mussolini since, without Britain, the French Government believed that the only way to cope with Germany was to gain Italian backing, or at any rate a sufficient improvement in Franco-Italian affairs to permit French military might to focus its undivided attention upon the frontier of Germany. In pursuing this relatively short-lived courtship of Italy, French diplomats found themselves at odds with the British over Abyssinia and unable to prevent II Duce from listening to Hitler’s sweet nothings. Italy scooped up Abyssinia, and Hitler in turn seized his moment – and the Rhineland – while France remained unprepared, irresolute and isolated. In the same way, France tried to avoid involvement in the Manchurian Incident (leaving Britain to shoulder the burden of any action taken by the League of Nations), the Spanish Civil War (where even Leon Blum’s Popular Front Government refused to be drawn into open conflict with Franco), the China Incident (during which the French often echoed the protests of Britain and the United States in Tokyo against Japanese actions but nevertheless successfully dissociated themselves from the two Anglo-Saxon Powers), and the Italian conquest of Albania (which occurred in the immediate aftermath of the German occupation of Prague in the spring of 1939). All these were for France merely distractions from the central issue which was her powerlessness to resist German aggression but her humiliating inability to tolerate it.

In contrast with France, Britain saw herself as the island anchor of a global empire, perhaps the only truly ‘world power’ and certainly unique in placing her ‘imperial interests’ above all others. When the Manchurian Incident broke, the British Chiefs of Staff were joined by the Treasury and senior diplomats in warning Ministers against becoming involved. The British Ambassador in Tokyo cabled that ‘Tension here is so great that a false step might cause the Japanese to take some action which would render war with the Powers almost inevitable.’^∗ The Chiefs of Staff painted a grim picture of the Empire’s vulnerability to Japanese attack, suggesting that ‘the political reaction in India and the various colonies’ should give pause for thought, and quoting with approval the Ambassador’s view that reaching an accommodation with Japan ‘may well entail… fewer military commitments than thwarting her’.^† The Treasury declared ‘that in present circumstances we are no more in a position financially and economically to engage in a major war in the Far East than we are militarily’.^‡ Under these pressures, it is not surprising that the British Government did no more than lend its moral support to the Lytton Report.

When the shock of these events pushed Britain into rearmament, the nation’s strategical authorities naturally concentrated upon the danger of war with Japan, the only first-class military power then threatening Britain’s imperial survival. As technical experts pondered how to deal with Japan, they gradually found themselves forced to consider the question of Germany. By 1934, although still working from the premise of the Chiefs of Staff (as expressed in their annual Reviews of Imperial Defence) that ‘the defence of possessions and interests in the Far East’ continued to come before ‘European commitments’ and ‘the defence of India’ in terms of the balance of strategical risks, the British defence establishment as a whole (in which Treasury and Foreign Office interests were strongly represented alongside their Army, Navy and Air Force counterparts) formally recognized that the danger posed by German rearmament would eventually surpass that of Japan.

The combination of these two potential enemies was so grave that the British Government’s professional defence advisers vehemently opposed making any defence preparations whatever against Italy: there was no way in which Britain and her likely allies were in a position to cope with three enemies at once. Yet no sooner had this doctrine been accepted by the Cabinet than the Abyssinian crisis caught Britain by surprise and brought Italy and the United Kingdom to the brink of war. This, then, formed the background to the Hoare-Laval Pact aimed at nipping the crisis in the bud, and it greatly limited the ability of the British Government to give full vent to the nation’s growing sense of outrage by formulating a programme of economic sanctions or military reprisals against Mussolini’s antics whether in response to the Abyssinian campaign, the operation of Italian ‘pirate’ submarines during the Spanish Civil War in 1937, or the Italian conquest of Albania.

As the Chiefs of Staff warned in 1937 and constantly reminded Ministers thereafter:

The chief danger which imperial defence has to face at the moment is that we are in the position of having threats at both ends of the Empire from strong military powers, i.e., Germany and Japan, while in the centre we have lost our traditional security in the Mediterranean owing to the rise of an aggressive spirit in Italy accompanied by an increase in her military strength. So long as that position remains unresolved diplomatically, only very great military and financial strength can give the Empire security. ^∗

The situation worsened rather than improved. Naturally, the three fighting services vied with one another for the resources which the country could spare on rearmament, and attempts were made to cut through the nation’s tangled defence requirements by applying Occam’s razor: ‘Are we to put Germany or the Far East first?’ wrote the British Air Minister privately to the Minister for Co-ordination of Defence as late as October 1937:

I assume finance precludes our taking both in our stride. No doubt production does, too. It is for the Cabinet to lay down where the great danger lies and where we should concentrate. This of course directly affects both the Admiralty and the Air Ministry. If we have to make provision for the Far East that means a great increase in the fleet. It also means aircraft, which can only be provided in the fairly near future to the detriment of the home position. ^∗

Yet the principal difficulty facing British Ministers and their professional defence advisers was that they simply could not ignore the threat to their imperial security from Japan while dealing with events nearer to the United Kingdom. Much was done to rearm, but the military strength of the British Empire was dissipated by the nation’s inability to focus upon a single potential adversary. Viewed from London, the rearmament efforts of those enemies seemed to outpace those of the British Empire. The leadership of Britain’s potential enemies faced similar difficulties but not over such extended lines of communication.

Underpinning and foreshadowing the foreign policies pursued by the Chamberlain Government during the closing years of the decade lay a revised list of strategical priorities prepared by the Chiefs of Staff in February 1937, and these were scarcely modified before the outbreak of the Second World War: in place of the three-fold liabilities outlined previously, five critical objectives were itemized and ranked in their importance: (i) the maintenance of imperial communications (and that implied good relations with the Dominions as well as a high regard for the welfare of the Colonial Empire); (ii) security of the United Kingdom against German aggression (a modification of Britain’s traditional opposition to the hegemony of any one power in Western Europe); (iii) the protection of imperial interests in East Asia (where concern about Japan’s encroachments had now completely supplanted the worries about Chinese jingoism which had been expressed by British officials in earlier decades); (iv) the stability of the Mediterranean and Middle East (made more difficult first by the expansion of Italian power and more recently by the outbreak of the Spanish Civil War), and (v) the Russian threat to India. In hindsight some of these contingencies appear far-fetched or fantastic. At the time, however, they crippled Britain’s sense of initiative and self-possession.

In the view of His Majesty’s Government, involvement in any other issues could only be risked in the knowledge that it would diminish the nation’s ability to respond or to survive threats to Britain’s vital imperial interests. ‘The broad principles on which our Empire strategy has always been based should not be forgotten,’ warned the Chiefs of Staff (whose expertise no Government could ignore without running appalling risks), ‘nor should the lessons of history be overlooked. The greater our commitments to Europe, the less will be our ability to secure our Empire and its communications.’^∗

It is scarcely surprising, therefore, that formal military pacts and other alliances were often considered but generally ruled out by Britain’s policy-makers, who regarded most such treaties as inflammatory or self-deluding. In the British view, states should be expected to act in their own self-interest. The need was to find the common denominator of self-interest with potential allies that would make formal pacts unnecessary. In the absence of a common basis for such understandings, the prospect of concluding empty alliances with weak and unavailing allies held no charm for the United Kingdom, for while some outsiders saw only the benefits of ‘collective security’, the British Government appreciated only too well that there was rarely security in the collective. Meanwhile the self-governing British Dominions, whose role and influence tends to be underrated, expressed strong and vocal opposition in public as well as in private against any moves which might involve them in another European holocaust. The security of the greater part of the Empire as well as of the majority of the Dominions was threatened more directly by Japanese expansionism than by German or Italian adventurism.

The only potential ally strong enough to warrant Britain adopting a policy of ‘Resistance’ against Japanese aggression, the United States, exhibited a marked unwillingness to take a full share of the risks. Although sympathetic to Britain’s plight, the United States had no wish to become involved in war unnecessarily. Notwithstanding public statements to the contrary, dating from posturing by the American Secretary of State at the time of the Manchurian Incident, Henry L. Stimson, right up to the period of the Munich Agreement and on to the outbreak of the European War in September 1939, the United States privately rebuffed repeated British overtures for consultation and collaboration against all three of the main potential enemies facing the British Empire. While Roosevelt used various incidents as a means of ‘educating public opinion’ to their common danger, Chamberlain’s gradual appreciation that ‘it is best to count upon nothing from the Americans but words’ expressed only the simple truth.^† On the other hand, as the Chiefs of Staff forecast in February 1939, in the kind of three-enemy war which by then looked the most likely prospect,

The British Empire would be threatened simultaneously in Europe, the Mediterranean and the Far East by an immense aggregate of armed force, which neither our present nor our projected strength is designed to meet, with France as our only major ally. The outcome of the war would be likely to depend on our ability to hold on to our key positions and upon other powers, particularly the United States, coming to our aid.^∗

Under the circumstances, the thought was harrowing.

If Japan was isolated economically, diplomatically and militarily during the first two and a half years of the Sino-Japanese War, the position of the British Empire was scarcely more enviable. Unlike the United States, the British had vital interests in the Far East. Those interests stood directly in the path of Japanese expansion. Japan could not hope to operate in China without appropriating the use of British-owned railway stock, interfering with British control over Chinese maritime customs and the salt gabelle, upsetting British merchant trading monopolies, and in many other ways disturbing Britain’s nearly 50 per cent share in Chinese commercial affairs, a level of investment worth perhaps £500 million at 1937 prices.

Meanwhile Japan had been making itself conspicuously disliked by the classes which had no interest at all in residing in East Asia, but made their living at home in trade. For them, Japan mattered simply because of its commercial policy. In the thirties, this became increasingly competitive. To avoid its national destitution and starvation, Japan balked at nothing in efforts to increase its exports. Under this compulsion, it became notorious as the country hunting for markets, successfully snapping up the old markets of older countries, ruthlessly underbidding, successfully dumping.

Japan, in short, was feared and disliked by everybody in an established position in world trade, who saw its activities with dread. This dislike of Japan for commercial reasons was carried over into an irrational anti-Japanese prejudice. Feeling tilted over and became pro-China and anti-Japan; it was reinforced by a modish fashion among the intelligentsia for all things Chinese. Nevertheless, commercial competition was at the root of the sentiment.

Though feeling was shifting among even local businessmen from being pro-Japanese to being pro-Chinese, the British were resolved to go to great lengths to preserve their formal neutrality. All eyes in Britain were on the European continent. Through it all, however, as we have seen, there remained a constant and interdependent preoccupation in the cloisters of Whitehall with the strategical threat posed by all three of Britain’s potential enemies: Germany, Italy and Japan. Their hesitations and preoccupations were rooted in an understanding of the world as it was, which was not the world that impatient amateur strategists and wishful thinkers thought it ought to have been.

The day was long past when Britain could afford to defend all her territorial and commercial outposts, and now for the first time in their history the British were confronted by a first-class threat to the eastern half of their Empire, while facing a similar threat in Europe. British defence experts had long anticipated that, in the absence of a two-hemisphere fleet, the next world war could bring about the downfall of the British Commonwealth of Nations at the hands of Japan and Germany: ‘Australia, New Zealand, India, Burma, the rich colonies east of Suez and a vast trade would be at their mercy, and the eastern half of the British Empire might well be doomed,’ predicted the Defence Requirements Committee. ^∗ Since Britain could not afford to build the forces required to give her real protection, it followed that unless sufficient allied support could be found, Britain would have to reach some kind of settlement with Germany or Japan. It was argued at the time that more economies in defence expenditure could be made by adjustments with Germany than with Japan; successful appeasement of Germany would do much to solve Britain’s Far Eastern crisis.

Britain’s peril in the Far East was one of diplomatic as well as strategical isolation. During July and August 1937 the State Department excused itself from participating in British initiatives to mediate the Sino-Japanese conflict and offered the lame excuse that it did not want the Japanese to feel ‘that there is any form of collusion’ between the British and Americans. The British wanted something far more definite: a commitment on the part of the United States to share all the risks of a firm policy in the Far East.^† At first the British toyed with the idea of imposing sanctions against Japan in the early days of the war, but Chamberlain came to regard sanctions with deep loathing: in view of Japan’s unbroken string of victories, ‘economic sanctions are not likely to be effective in time to stop the war, and the experience of the Abyssinian affair shows that if unsuccessful they would leave behind them an evil legacy of ill-will and suspicion’, he wrote in October. Suppose that Britain, America and the Netherlands East Indies imposed sanctions: ‘If the sanctions seemed likely to become really effective Japan would be rendered desperate. Suppose she then made a sudden or unexpected attack on the possessions of one of the three sanctionist countries?’ Were the other two Powers likely to defend the nation which was attacked? Chamberlain had his doubts, since on 5 October 1937, the very day of Roosevelt’s famous Quarantine Speech calling for the isolation of aggressors, Under-Secretary of State Sumner Welles had informed the British that ‘this country intends not to be drawn into any armed conflict’.

Chamberlain was convinced that ‘the only way in which the war could certainly be brought to a close at once would be by the expressed determination on the part of… the U.S.A. and H.M.G. to use an overwhelming force to bring compulsion on Japan’. Since the United States specifically rejected all offers to bring Japan to her senses by ‘superior sea force’, Chamberlain reluctantly concluded that Britain could take no risks on the strength of Roosevelt’s rhetoric alone: ‘In the present state of European affairs with two dictators in a thoroughly nasty temper, we simply cannot afford to quarrel with Japan, and I very much fear, therefore, that after a lot of ballyhoo the Americans will somehow fade out and leave us to carry all the blame and the odium.’ The Government’s chief advisers in the departments concerned were agreed on this point. The Foreign Office, for instance, described British efforts to build an Anglo-American front as a ‘sorry failure’; the defence departments had no confidence in Britain’s ability to impose sanctions against Japan at a time of great European uncertainty and no assurances of American support; the Treasury view was summed up tersely by its permanent head, Sir Warren Fisher, who remarked: ‘However much we denuded European waters our fleet could not hope to defeat Japan in her waters. And we should be at mercy in Europe. The U.S.A. would fail us at the critical moment even in the Far East. Still more would she fail us in our consequential danger in Europe.’

Although tempted time and again to dispatch the British battlefleet to Singapore, on each occasion Britain backed down because American support could not be secured and Britain could not afford to present Japan with any economic or naval challenge that might involve Britain in a single-handed naval war. The strafing of the British Ambassador in China, Sir Hughe Knatchbull-Hugessen, in August 1937; the repeated aerial and artillery bombardment suffered by British enclaves in China; Japanese abuse of British property and interference with trade: all of these created a succession of nasty but minor incidents. Similarly, there were incidents between the Americans and the Japanese, which stirred up the blood of the Americans and the hopes of the Chinese. The war was fought at Shanghai in a vastly overcrowded place, and inevitably the bystanders were hit. But the Americans, the British and the French in the area were divided about their policy, and nothing much was done.

Then in mid-December 1937, Japanese Army and naval forces attacked five western warships on the Yangtze: the H M S Ladybird and H M S Bee were damaged and the USS Panay was sunk. That rogue Japanese Army artillery officer. Colonel Hashimotō Kingorō, whom we have already encountered and who was now in charge of the invasion forces at Wuhu, had ordered his guns to open fire on the two British gunboats passing upstream: long afterwards it was confirmed at the Tokyo War Crimes Trial that his intention was to provoke a war with Britain that would lead to the eradication of British influence from China. On the very afternoon of Hashimoto’s initiative, the USS Panay, an American gunboat, was bombed and sunk after successive attacks carried out by nine Japanese naval fighter aircraft, twelve dive bombers and three high-level bombers. Whether some of the Japanese commanders desired to frighten the United States away, or whether the bombing was a mistake, remains a matter of historical controversy. Those aboard the Panay were convinced that the identity of their vessel was clear to the attacking aircraft; however, the attack was carried out by three inexperienced group commanders who had arrived from Japan only eight days before. According to a post-war account by one of the attack leaders, the Panay Incident was simply a blunder from start to finish, one which horrified all the Japanese concerned when the facts became known. Reports from the survivors suggested that far from trying to render assistance, the Japanese made every attempt to hunt down and destroy those who had escaped from the vessel, who underwent a harrowing ordeal before they finally reached safety. In the same incident, moreover, two other British gunboats had also been attacked from the air but fortunately had escaped injury. The Japanese forces involved had exhibited great persistence in following up all of these attacks, and the Ladybird, the Bee and the other two British gunboats were fortunate to escape the fate of the Panay.

The British Government, like the American, was infuriated by the affair. At first, Prime Minister Neville Chamberlain was prepared to take any action – including a resort to force if necessary – to halt further Japanese erosion of western interests in China. Despite the risk that such an act might precipitate a pre-emptive strike by Japan, the British battlefleet was prepared to depart for Singapore. The United States Navy was in a war fever after the Panay affair, but American policy was in disarray. Roosevelt refused to take any parallel or identical action with Britain which would involve the threat or use of naval power, and he unilaterally accepted Japan’s formal apologies and a $2 million indemnity without prior consultation with Britain. Taken by surprise, there was hardly anything that the British could do in the circumstances.

The Americans, however, were not insensible to the need for some sort of collaboration if events like these were to continue. The Incident gave ammunition to those in the United States Navy who wanted to develop Anglo-American naval collaboration against the Japanese, and so Roosevelt, who fondly recollected his own part in such contacts during the First World War, had a few private words with the British Ambassador at the White House, accepted a long-standing offer by the British, and sent Captain Royal Ingersoll of the United States Navy War Plans Division to London for clandestine naval staff talks at the beginning of the new year. These discussions provided an opportunity for the two navies to do little more than exchange opinions rather than to coordinate policies because the Americans divulged little information and refused to make any strategical commitments of any kind. The tone of the conversations was tentative and speculative; as the British had expected, the Americans were friendly but finally had to admit that the United States Navy was not nearly so ready for war as the Royal Navy: the most that the Americans could offer at this stage was to consider the possibility of cooperating in a long-distance naval blockade of Japan to take place after the next incident. Early action, in short, was ruled out, although these conversations were to become only the first of many.

Meanwhile, the American public watched newsreel footage of the attack on the Panay, taken by a camera team aboard the gunboat while the Japanese aircraft had pressed home their attack, and as details of the Incident emerged and the findings of the US Naval Court of Enquiry were reported in the press, these powerful graphic images became firmly linked in the public mind with the outrages against the Chinese civil population at Nanking. The Americans were confirmed in their anti-Japanese frame of mind. The tide was running in support of the China lobby which was made up of businessmen, scholars, philanthropists, former missionaries, and other specialists on Asia. Eventually the China lobby was to become one of the powers in the land, but that time had not yet arrived.

The next incident happened sooner than anyone expected. Before IngersoU could return to Washington, DC, two British policemen were murdered by Japanese soldiers at Shanghai in early January 1938. Once again, Britain, with an irate Neville Chamberlain at the helm, went to the brink of war: the fleet might have been dispatched to the Far East within days, and for a brief moment the will to take such drastic action was manifest. Washington was contacted again. But the Americans, as before, declined to advance one step or give any assurances: indeed, they suggested rather archly that Britain would do well to concentrate on dangers nearer to English shores. Pricked, nay, deflated, by this rebuff and afterwards distracted by the steady increase in European tension in the nine months preceding the Munich Conference at the end of September 1938, the British lost heart. Apart from an ill-judged intervention by Foreign Secretary Anthony Eden (the balance of whose mind was deeply disturbed for some weeks prior to his resignation on doctor’s orders in February 1938), the British made no more serious efforts to attract American support against Japan prior to the outbreak of the European War. Confrontations between Japan and the Occidental Powers emerged during 1938 at Shanghai, Tientsin and along the Yangtze, not to mention the Changkufeng Incident on the Korean border with the Soviet Union, but it was evident that the Konoye Cabinet in Tokyo, then preoccupied with the prosecution of its war in China, was doing its best not to antagonize any of the third Powers unnecessarily. The only development that was particularly dangerous occurred when Japanese troops seized Canton in October 1938, following a timetable which the British had known about several weeks before Munich. At this point there was a grave risk that a war might have started through the injudiciousness of local Japanese commanders on the doorstep of Hong Kong. But the Japanese were careful, and the British, who recognized that they stood no chance whatever of rescuing the fabulously wealthy Crown Colony by any defence measures they might take in the event of hostilities, were no longer prepared to respond to anything less than extreme provocation. Without American cooperation, Britain felt powerless against the two most aggressive nations of the world.

The United Kingdom Government also explored the possibility of gaining assistance from the only other make-weight power who might have supplemented rather than dissipated Britain’s ability to resist aggression in Europe and East Asia: the Soviet Union. When the Manchurian Incident took place, Soviet land and air forces were the most powerful in the world and were generally regarded as unified and well-commanded. At that time, however, it was unimaginable that the United Kingdom would ever welcome Soviet assistance in establishing a common defence against Germany. The prospect of Soviet naval assistance in enforcing sanctions against Japan was equally uninviting. Politically unreliable and even hostile, the Soviet Union made no secret of its ambition to export the Bolshevik Revolution abroad, and that was reason enough to avoid taking Moscow into British confidence on military as well as on political matters, particularly when the consequences of any collaboration between the two powers would be bound to heighten international tension and war fever. Britain’s potential enemies were already aware, after all, that they were liable to a Soviet attack if their backs were turned; clear evidence of British complicity in a policy of ‘encirclement’ would have forced Britain’s enemies to attack or face destruction. By the time Britain was morally certain that she was unlikely to be able to avoid war within the more or less immediate future, Stalin’s great military purges were believed – almost certainly rightly – to have disembowelled the Soviet armed forces. From the end of 1936, therefore, Britain could not anticipate any help from the Soviet Union in the struggles ahead, although London was quite prepared to welcome whatever help Moscow might provide of Russia’s own accord after the outbreak of hostilities.

As for an alliance with France, during most of the 1930s the general opinion in Whitehall regarded that prospect as having little to recommend it. A few francophiles, notably within the Foreign Office and War Office, took exception to this view, but on the whole the cost of a ‘Continental Commitment’, which would have been the inevitable consequence of any meaningful alliance with France, was not regarded as commensurate with imperial self-preservation at a time when the globe was dominated by a loose alignment of great potential enemies. Even before the advent of Hitler to power, that commitment would have required of Britain the creation of an army incomparably larger than what those responsible for Britain’s defence believed the nation could afford at a time when Britain already was fully stretched to meet what experts in Whitehall regarded as the Empire’s minimum requirements in naval and air forces. London’s objective in Europe as in East Asia was rather to foster international economic development and peaceful political evolution. Should Britain find itself at war with Germany, no one believed that France would stand aside. Just as Britain did not expect to dictate to the French how to deploy their huge land forces and whatever small British contingent might join them, so the British did not accept that the French would have any choice but to accept British direction when it came to war at sea. Premature disclosure to Paris about British naval war plans would only shock the French (and possibly lead to leaks of information) after the French appreciated Britain’s resolve to abandon the naval defence of the Mediterranean to the French in order to dispatch the British fleet to the Pacific if Japan joined in the fighting as Britain expected. In maintaining her freedom of action for as long as possible, Britain gained rather more than she lost by delaying prior consultation with France about the forging of some kind of common strategy. Imperial defence had to come first. In fact, what the newly appointed Deputy-Chief of the Naval Staff, Admiral Cunningham, found to his amazement just after Munich was that apart from war plans against Japan, ‘there were no naval plans at all’!^∗

The French, however keen to make an alliance with Britain, saw British imperialism as an obstruction to the development of a positive programme of opposition to German aggressive designs. At best the French regarded Britain’s imperial defence priorities as a flimsy excuse for inactivity which had the effect of feeding Germany’s boundless appetite and development while abandoning the possibility of playing any constructive role in policing the peace of Europe (although not the world) in support of France: as Edouard Daladier, the French Prime Minister at the time of Munich, confided several months afterwards to the American Ambassador in Paris, ‘England had become so feeble and senile that the British would give away every possession of their friends rather than stand up to Germany and Italy.’^† By contrast France, as the sympathetic contemporary historian Arnold Wolfers wrote in 1940,

may initially have acted only from fear of another German invasion, [but] her policy of security had led her to become the champion of the status quo and of the entire order of Central as well as of Western Europe. Her anxiety was, therefore, that of a nation with responsibilities truly continental in character and extent.^‡

When in December 1938 the French looked round and counted the divisions which Appeasement had ‘lost’ to them (or so they felt) in Central Europe, they derided Britain’s precious forces and demanded of her ‘un effort du sang.^§ Shamed and made desperate by events, Britain soon obliged. France did not.

The setting in of the war in earnest brought a decisive change in the attitude of the westerners. Sentiment, which among some classes in Britain, for example, had for some time been anti-Japanese, hardened; and it spread throughout most sections of the people, at least of those, admittedly a minority, who thought it necessary to take a view about such a distant part of the world.

The change was marked in the early period of the China Incident. Westerners with foreign contacts, especially the businessmen resident in the Far East, had on the whole been well disposed to Japan. Japan professed to be the champion of foreign business interests. It claimed to be taking steps – in putting down bandits, in removing the Chinese officials who were the bane of traders – which the other countries had taken it upon themselves to do from time to time in the past and which they would have continued to do had they the resolution to stand up for their interests without regard for distractions elsewhere. Chinese xenophobia was the enemy of all who had to do with China. And, for a long while, Japanese action received a great deal of sympathy from certain sections of westerners.

This view continued to be held, at least until the China Incident merged with the Second World War. Not only a section of the business world but many of their diplomatic and military counterparts maintained their regard for Japan. They became progressively smaller in number as the years passed, but they still remained powerful in influence. They thought that no comparison was possible between the Japanese – clever, energetic, industrious, above all disciplined and punctual – and the Chinese, who, if they were clever, had all the faults which went with political impotence; who were corruptible, were voluble in justifying the inexcusable, were argumentative without being convincing to many of the western representatives whose opinions mattered in the propounding of their respective national responses to the developing East Asian Conflict. These westerners, from the less admirable specimens to some very astute observers indeed, liked the Japanese way of life, Japanese discipline and Japanese customs: though it should be noted that most of the things they admired were regarded by educated Japanese, who had continued to revere many standards from their past, as vulgar. They liked the solidity of the buildings in western style which the Japanese had put up. Some of the westerners even felt that the Japanese had very sensible ideas about the status of women. A few of its would-be admirers understood the genius of Japan to be aesthetic, non-intellectual, and non-acquisitive, were inclined to excuse the dramatic passions within Japanese society as but redeemable manifestations of temporary enthusiasms, and, taking the culture as a whole, saw that while it cultivated the art-forms of force it strove to avoid the necessity of any resort to arms. These considerations, however, were merely the contentious reflections of the few, and were of no concern to pragmatists.

Of great significance was the fact that the admirers of Japan were not unchallenged among the guardians of western interests in the East. A rival section of western residents in Treaty Ports had backed the rise of the new China. From among these there was, it is true, not at first a strong condemnation of Japan. Most of these people felt, secretly if not openly, that China had been moving too fast and too far, and that chastisement by Japan would bring it to reason. A series of murders and outrages had occurred in previous years: and Nanking did its cause no good by obvious deception and the pretence that it could not unravel the circumstances.

Western businessmen were less far-sighted, less impersonal than their Governments. They had also a sense of racial superiority, although some had abandoned it in the case of Japan, since the Japanese had demonstrated that they could not be pushed around. Business was conscious of the great advantage of living in concessions under an extra-territorial régime. It lamented the fact that negotiation had begun for their abolition, and that many concessions had already been surrendered: it saw itself vitally threatened. There were some men of vision among them, who looked ahead and saw the future; but these men were rare. American businessmen in spite of their general liberalism and of the pro-Chinese sentiment of many of their countrymen, were endowed with more than their share of the same temper as their European counterparts.

However, as the great offensive of the Japanese began to take shape and its direction passed from the Japanese civilian, whom the western businessmen used to know, into the hands of arrogant generals, with whom they did not feel at home, they began more and more to change their minds. The fear grew that it was the Japanese, not the Chinese, who would chase them out of the concessions. Japan was spending its blood and treasure to make China into a place fit for a person to live in; but the Japanese intended that it was to be a Japanese businessman, an agent of the Mitsui and the Mitsubishi, not the foreigner – whom the Japanese regarded as more undesirable than the Chinese. The western traders or industrialists saw that if they lost the protection under which they were living, they would not have a very long tenure of life. By controls, by subsidies, by taxation, by withholding permits to move their capital and profits out of the country, Japan would be able to drive them away in a brief time, and in less than ten years, perhaps, the concessions would be no more.

Thus the change of attitude had become almost universal, and the businessmen of the West who regarded the East were as anxious as the Chinese when in July 1937 the fighting began in earnest. At least they could console themselves that there was an end for the time being to the negotiations for the return of the concessions. The Chinese defence of Shanghai happened before their eyes, and the destruction which the Sino-Japanese conflict threatened to bring upon that city outraged more than it terrified westerners who witnessed it. An epitome of western reactions to this earliest phase of the war can be found in a succession of reports sent to London by the Commander-in-Chief of the China Station, Vice-Admiral Sir Charles Little, who watched the battle from his flagship. Reviewing the harrowing events of October 1937, he wrote of ‘inexcusable carelessness and lack of control of subordinates, the use of modern weapons which have outstripped in their rapid evolution the until recently medieval brains that try to control them’.^∗ A month later, as the Japanese moved forward to lay siege to Nanking, Sir Charles remained preoccupied by the lessons of the battle at Shanghai:

Depressing and nerve-wracking as the active military operations carried on round the defence perimeter… have been for the British community at Shanghai, they have always clung to the idea, fostered by the events of 1927 and 1932, that as soon as the ‘cease fire’ was sounded, somehow or other ‘business as usual’ would be the order of the day.

Of course there are exceptions and far-seeing people realise, as I am afraid it is the regrettable truth, that with Japanese domination, added to the blocking of the Yangtse and the reduction of trade at all the Treaty’ ports, the troubles of Shanghai are only really commencing. It is already evident that with their narrow-minded, petty-fogging ideas, the Japanese mean to assert their rights, qua rights, in the Settlement, to possess themselves of everything they possibly can Chinese or destroy it and to squeeze and hinder the Foreigner.

With a broader outlook on the future and a magnanimous policy towards Foreign interests the Japanese are in a position to gain for themselves the respect and almost the gratitude of Foreigners, to their ultimate great advantage. For the Japanese though, such a far-sighted course is impossible!^†

The Chinese did not lose hope of entangling foreign powers, including Britain, in the war as it moved through its successive stages. In August 1937, as the events took place that Sir Charles Little witnessed, two Japanese aircraft, perhaps unaware of who was their prey, machine-gunned from the air a motor car on the way from Shanghai to Nanking. In it was Sir Hughe Knatchbull-Hugessen, known as ‘Snatch’, the then British Ambassador in China. He was seriously wounded, and for a few days this nearly fatal accident, to which we have already alluded, caused an electric tension. But the British could do little more than protest, given that the Japanese military and civil authorities were plainly horror-struck by the event (and that none concerned was as keen to report the circumstances of the ‘accident’ as eagerly as they were prepared to offer the British financial compensation for it). The incident was closed by an exchange of notes that were meant to save everybody’s face. (Sir Hughe thus goes down in history as a diplomat who was nearly murdered and started a war. ‘Snatch’ is remembered also as the Ambassador in Turkey who had the plans of the Second Front filched by his valet who gave them to the Germans. Fortunately, the Germans could not credit their good fortune and assumed that false information was being planted on them.)

Moreover, that succession of incidents to which we have already referred involving Japanese attacks pressed home against western gunboats on the Yangtze, followed by the Rape of Nanking after barely six months of warfare, raised western discomfort to an acute level, purging for a time whatever cynicism the western businessman and his guardians might have striven to cultivate.

Western military and diplomatic observers nonetheless never lacked confidence in their ability to act far more objectively than their business compatriots in dealing with the Chinese and Japanese. The great western financial and commercial houses of the East, together with their trading associations and other pressure groups, ceaselessly plied their Government contacts with local tittle-tattle, opinions and representations. This certainly helped to condition the attitudes of western consular staff towards individual Chinese and Japanese personalities with whom they came into contact. The indomitable moral and physical courage of these merchant princes in the face of Japanese discrimination, persecution and threats cannot but excite one’s admiration, and their correspondence, preserved in the records of the China Association, the Swire Archives and elsewhere, like the Fugger newsletters of the sixteenth century, offer historians useful insights into the local conditions experienced by agents of the various companies. Broadly speaking, the foreign tycoons in China showed far more fortitude than, say, the British community in Malaya or Burma. But western businessmen, like their missionary counterparts, had a negligible influence upon the course of the evolving western strategical relationship with Japan and China during these years.

The British Ambassador in Tokyo, Sir Robert Craigie, fought out a battle on what should be British policy towards the war with Sir Archibald John Kerr Clark Kerr, the successor to Knatchbull-Hugessen in China. Clark Kerr had spent most of his career in the Middle East, North Africa and in a cluster of South American banana republics. He was what can be delicately described as an acquired taste. He also had pronounced left-wing views, which were in favour of Britain supporting China on grounds of plain international morality. China was weak, was being bullied, and, he thought, should be protected. On this, at least, he had the advantage of reflecting the sentimentality of most of the western democratic nations of the day.

Craigie, in Tokyo, possessed one of the keenest intellects in the British diplomatic service of his day. He was fully convinced of the benefits which Britain had derived from the Anglo-Japanese Alliance, as long as this had existed. He saw the best hope in working for a revival of the spirit of Anglo-Japanese friendship which had marked the period of that Alliance. He was to a great extent conditioned by his lifelong knowledge of naval affairs (his father and both grandfathers had been admirals in the Royal Navy). His expertise in British naval arms control policy formulation was unsurpassed: he had been involved with the subject ever since attending the Washington Naval Conference, and he knew that throughout the years since the First World War its ultimate success or failure had always turned upon the (in)security of the various powers in the Pacific region. Moreover, he came to his duties in Tokyo after having served with distinction as Head of the American Bureau of the Foreign Office: he knew the political temperature of Washington, better than almost anyone in Whitehall, and his career was strongly influenced by his marriage to a Southern belle. He had also spent a sufficient period of service in the British Department of Overseas Trade to have reinforced his better than average sensitivity to Britain’s commercial interests abroad. Although a man of his calibre would have made quite an impact upon the relation of the British Empire to the China Incident in any event, he was able to give effective voice to the pro-Japanese views of the British Embassy.

Unfortunately for Craigie, his critics made capital of the extent to which he made use of contacts served up to him by his military attaché, Major-General F. S. G. Piggott: Whitehall wits coined the word ‘Pig-gottry’ to describe those who shared the general’s peculiarly romantic view of Japanese history. There is no doubt that Piggott’s uncritical adulation of Japanese militarism did much to undermine his Ambassador’s effectiveness at home.

The divergent views of the two British representatives, at Chungking and at Tokyo, inevitably clashed with vigour in the telegrams and reports. Those who took part in this conflict were convinced that the issue was of first importance. They did not fail to recognize that the attention of London was often otherwise engaged, and that their respective views were not treated very seriously within the Foreign Office. Yet in higher circles still, within the apparatus of the Committee of Imperial Defence and the Cabinet itself, the views of both men, but especially of Craigie, commanded attention. Time after time, however, they mainly contributed to a palpable sense of unease, malaise and vacillation: and so for the most part the voice of one or the other was used to nullify that of his opposite number.

Although Britain continued to adopt a policy considerably stiffer in the Far East than in Europe, there were major attempts to reach a limited understanding between Britain and Japan in the summer of 1938. In part these discussions, which were held in Tokyo between Ambassador Sir Robert Craigie and Foreign Minister Ugaki Kazushige, dealt with a formidable list of outstanding claims and complaints against Japanese behaviour detrimental to British interests in China. The Japanese countered this list with a demand that Britain should cease to support Chiang Kai-shek and should ‘cooperate’ with Japan in developing China. The British flatly refused to accept these suggestions, and the talks led to no significant improvements in the situation. Failure to reach an agreement led to an undermining of moderate elements in the Japanese Cabinet and the fall of Foreign Minister Ugaki, a man genuinely well disposed towards the Western Powers.

By 1939, as the clouds of war darkened steadily over Europe, many businessmen in East Asia recognized that their bright day was over: and that, once the Treaty Port system was disbanded, it would not be set up again. In this year there was a humiliation of occidental businessmen and other residents in Tientsin which profoundly affected the climate of official opinion in western capital cities. The European War was about to begin, although there were hopes in many quarters that Hitler as well as Mussolini could be deterred from further aggression. The British Government seemed preoccupied with that, and so far as the ever-speculative press reports of the day could discern, there was little faith or hope that the British authorities were prepared to do much for their countrymen in Shanghai or Tientsin.

In fact, however, the long-standing friction between the Japanese and the British at Tientsin escalated into a major international incident. To some extent the French Concession in the city was also drawn into the affair. Over the past few years, the diplomatic storm created during the Tientsin Crisis has become recognized as an important development in the breakdown of order that accompanied the China Incident and preceded the European War. Between June and August 1939 it even threatened to become the proximate cause of the next world war. From the perspective of Anglo-Japanese relations, the Tientsin affair was regarded – by all of the countries concerned – as far more serious than the machine-gunning of the hapless British Ambassador to China at the outbreak of the China Incident, or even the Japanese air attacks and artillery bombardments directed against British gunboats on the Yangtze in December 1937. Indeed, the only Anglo-Japanese confrontation during the China Incident which really compares with that at Tientsin was the Burma Road dispute in the darkest days of 1940 (to which we shall return in due course). Nevertheless, its peaceful outcome, coupled with the outbreak of the European War only a week and a half after pressure upon the British and French Concessions at Tientsin was relaxed by the Japanese, has led many historians to overlook or to doubt that both Britain and Japan had been determined to stand fast if the diplomatic negotiations failed or in case a direct military clash had ensued. In particular, Japanese commanders at Tientsin, as well as military and civilian leaders in Tokyo, assumed that London was bluffing in issuing warnings that the British fleet – or at any rate a major part of it – might depart for the Pacific if the situation deteriorated. A closer examination of the evidence, however, leads to completely different conclusions. So important are the wider implications of this struggle that it is worth examining in some detail.

First, the reader must appreciate that the whole issue pivots around what Britain planned to do in case of war. As is now widely known, Britain’s contingency plans long envisaged the immediate dispatch of the main fleet to Singapore in the event of hostilities against Japan. The risks attendant in actually taking such a step were self-evident, and it is a common error to conclude that there was never much danger that the British Government would ever have been willing to take such a course, unilaterally, whatever the provocation. In the end, private reservations within the minds of military planners may exert a powerful and perhaps decisive influence in the formulation and execution of national defence and foreign policy. There is some truth, after all, in the cynical view that the art of contingency planning – in which the defence services contrive to establish plausible justifications for the construction of the most formidable forces which they feel their political masters can be persuaded to underwrite – is altogether a different matter from putting into execution operations which planners privately regard as wholly unrealistic. Not surprisingly, there were acrimonious differences of opinion within the British Foreign Office, the War Office, and – most importantly of all – the Admiralty during the period that culminated in the Tientsin Crisis. During the eight months between Munich and the unexpected eruption of the Tientsin dispute in June 1939, there occurred two ‘palace revolutions’ within the Admiralty. The importance and depth of these ‘revolutions’ and their effect upon British strategical policy towards Japan during the Tientsin affair are comparable in significance to the eclipse of the Kōdō Group in Japan on the eve of the China Incident.

The two bodies that actually made Britain’s war plans, the Chiefs of Staff and their Joint Planning Sub-Committee, began a sweeping re-evaluation of their strategical assumptions shortly after Munich. The basic assumption underlying their traditional ‘Appreciation’ of what to expect in case Britain became involved in hostilities in East Asia was no longer remotely tenable – that is, the idea that ‘The European situation makes us entirely confident that European Powers will remain strictly neutral, and will not take advantage of our commitments in the Far East to prejudice our interests in other parts of the world.’^∗

Certainly the Admiralty needed no prompting by anyone before reconsidering Britain’s basic naval strategy. Admiral Chatfield, Britain’s Chief of Naval Staff from the beginning of the decade, had never wavered in his determination to protect the East Asian half of the Empire with the main fleet in any war against Japan. However, he lost most of his influence over the Admiralty when he replaced the unfortunate Sir Thomas Inskip as Minister for the Co-ordination of Defence after Munich. The new Chief of Naval Staff, Sir Roger Backhouse, wasted no time in clearing the Admiralty of his predecessor’s predilections by reorganizing key Admiralty departments. The Plans Department he left intact, but he invited Admiral Drax, the brilliant and acerbic former Commander-in-Chief, Plymouth, to advise the Admiralty on war plans as an independent voice before moving on to be principal ADC to the King (Backhouse’s own previous posting). Drax shared the rising discontent of many senior line officers and relished his new appointment. Within a short period, he effectively smashed axioms which had governed naval policy for many years. Writing in mid-January 1939, Drax observed:

In our war plans, so far as I can ascertain, no details have been worked out for any offensive operations of major importance either by the Home or Mediterranean fleets… I venture the opinion that, if Japan joins our enemies, we should incur very great risks to the heart of our Empire if we dispatch our fleet too early to the Far East. The only hope for the Far East is, not to get active help from America (that, alas, is asking too much) but at least to persuade the USA to move their whole fleet to the Pacific in order to ‘keep the Japs guessing and delay their entry into the war.^†

These views coincided with Backhouse’s own. The new Chief of Naval Staff thought the Japanese fleet was too powerful to oppose while Britain was refitting her older vessels and behind schedule in building new ones, particularly if Britain should have to fight Italy as well as Germany in the West. That seems plain enough to us, but it was a radical notion at a time when Britain’s Navy was the strongest afloat. With the significant exception of the Director of Plans, Captain Danckwerts, who clung to Britain’s traditional policies and was roundly rebuked by his superiors, sentiment within the Admiralty shifted behind the First Sea Lord in opposing the dispatch of the fleet to the Far East.

Meanwhile, higher authorities dealt with the implications of Far Eastern naval strategy. They met to consider a new appraisal prepared by the Joint Planning Committee (including the errant Captain Danckwerts) on behalf of the Chiefs of Staff Committee (including Admiral Backhouse). The document was called the 1939/40 European Appreciation.

In late February 1939 the Chiefs of Staff endorsed the Joint Planning Sub-Committee’s draft. When it reached the Committee of Imperial Defence (on which Ministers sat with the most senior officials responsible for the Empire’s security), the Ministers were stunned. For the first time, the strategical authorities had provided the Government with a grand review of a war against Japan, Germany and Italy in combination, no holds barred. The distinction which hitherto had existed between a European War and a Far Eastern War was blurred to an extent which was quite novel. Even were peace between Britain and Japan maintained, British interests in East Asia would soon wither away during a general European War. If Japan stayed out, the force of Anglo-French naval and economic power would be superior to that of Germany and Italy, but enemy army and air forces would surpass those of the Allies. Even so, once any European War began, a significant proportion of Britain’s military and air strength would have to be diverted immediately to the Pacific and to staging points along the route there as a precaution against Japanese attack. Moreover, as the Chiefs of Staff already were aware, air squadrons in the East must have the latest types of aircraft: notwithstanding critical shortages of modern aircraft in Britain’s metropolitan forces, nothing less would suffice against Japan.

If Japan formally entered the war alongside Italy or Germany, a British fleet strong enough to hold Japan must proceed to East Asian waters at once: again, no half-measures would contain the Japanese. This finding, too, coincided with what the Chiefs of Staff themselves had declared in recent advice to an Expert Committee on the Defence of India (which Chatfield had chaired): ‘We feel it right to point out that, while by force of circumstances we are bound to take risks in assessing the minimum defence requirements in certain parts of the Empire, we should not be justified in doing so at Singapore.’^∗ It followed that in the light of more recent developments, including the Japanese occupation of Hainan and the Canton area of South-East China (surrounding Hong Kong), ‘any alteration to our general naval plan of operations is unlikely. Far from any probability that naval dispositions can enable us to dispense with the military and air force requirements [in Malaya], their presence becomes all the more essential.^†Nevertheless, once the fleet departed for the Pacific, Anglo-French control in the Mediterranean could be expected to vanish after a short struggle. German and Italian influence over South-East Europe would mushroom. Enemy access to oil and other essential supplies in the western theatre would be greatly facilitated. The Middle East would tumble into the Axis camp. Thus the attitude of Japan would determine the degree of British ascendency or retreat throughout the Mediterranean and Middle East. If the war escalated into a three-enemy rather than a two-enemy conflict, then Anglo-French forces, alone, stood no reasonable hope of victory without the intervention of other Powers, particularly the United States.

When the Committee of Imperial Defence considered the European Appreciation in late February 1939, the First Lord of the Admiralty, Lord Stanhope, revealed the first signs of the change of heart in naval circles by suggesting that perhaps one or two capital ships would be enough to deter Japan from any adventure against British territory, considering Japan’s own fear of attack by Russia or the United States. Prime Minister Chamberlain hesitated. Chatfield managed to stave off changes in policy for the moment. A select Strategical Appreciation Committee (SAC) was established to examine the Appreciation further.

From the first meeting of the SAC, an open feud existed between Backhouse and Chatfield. Chatfield argued that Britain’s position had not deteriorated so much that it was impossible to protect the East Asian interests of the Empire. True, Italy was now regarded as a probable enemy in addition to Japan and Germany, but that was less important. Admiral Backhouse, however, thought that this made a tremendous difference. Britain’s modernization was lagging. The Japanese fleet was fully modernized. Would any squadron that Britain might send be ‘capable of acting as a deterrent’? Backhouse now called into question the very idea of a Far Eastern squadron, but Chatfield remained adamant: even if Britain found herself at war against all three potential enemies, ‘We should have to send a fleet to the Far East… If we sent seven [capital] ships, that would still leave us with six at home, which, with the seven French capital ships, would be a reasonable force. We must do this, or risk the Empire.’^∗

At this point, William Strang, representing the Foreign Office at the SAC, interjected that France had not yet heard officially of Britain’s intention to send any fleet to the Pacific in certain eventualities. On the contrary, France had been told that Britain’s contribution to the common cause would be mostly by air and sea. In French eyes the decisive theatre was Europe. Backhouse seized upon this as an additional reason for trying to knock Italy out of the war at the start, a complete reversal of previous strategy. This tipped the balance. The War Office and Air Ministry were enchanted by the prospect of an easy victory over Italy, and the SAC agreed that the French should be told that in the event of war an early offensive was envisaged by Britain against Italy with French cooperation. The SAC also decided ‘that it is undesirable, if it can be avoided, to make any further communications to the Dominions as to the limitation in the size of the fleet’ that might be sent to the East in case of trouble with Japan. These recommendations were condemned by Chatfield, who continued to demand political solutions that would avoid war against all three enemies at once. But if world war was inevitable, then he would prefer to abandon the Mediterranean rather than Britain’s imperial obligations in East Asia: ‘It would be better to lose the Empire by fighting than by default,’ he said grimly. ‘In the first case it would be an honourable defeat; in the second case it would be a disgrace.^†

As Minister for the Co-ordination of Defence, Chatfield ordered the Admiralty to present their views in writing to the SAC. This formal demand caused uneasiness in the Admiralty: they were uncertain what the SAC – and particularly Chatfield with his formidable mastery of naval affairs and political infighting – would do with the Admiralty’s reply. Backhouse’s new Deputy Chief of Naval Staff, Sir Andrew Cunningham, therefore emphasized that strategical circumstances could change rapidly: it might not be wise to commit the Admiralty to any specific policy ‘until we are able to judge how the war is going’.^‡

Taking a less cautious view, one in keeping with his maverick position, Admiral Drax wrote a detailed account of measures which he believed met the twin threats of war in Europe and in East Asia. Although he expressed a willingness to send a small detachment of ships to the Pacific at the outbreak of hostilities against Japan, he set two tests to establish whether any major transfer of forces should take place:

(a) that our main fleet in the Far East can do more towards rapidly winning the war than if it is kept in Europe;

(b) that the ‘holding force’ we have sent East is failing to maintain its object, and therefore there is real danger that the Japanese may shortly do us some vital damage.^∗

In Admiral Drax’s estimation, neither precondition was liable to occur within the first six months of war. He closed with an emphatic warning: Britain’s unconditional policy to send the main fleet to the Pacific in the event of a conflict with Japan ‘constitutes a grave danger to the Empire and might easily lead to its complete ruin’.^†

Drax’s memorandum did impress the Admiralty: that much is clear. His detailed but bold proposals encouraged the First Lord to complain that the nominal Director of Plans, Captain Danckwerts, ‘seems to afford the Navy no opportunity of helping to win the war and to be purely defensive’.^‡ Backhouse himself went so far as to write in an internal Admiralty minute that ‘It would certainly be very serious if Singapore fell to the Japanese but it would not necessarily mean, in my opinion, the loss of our Eastern Empire for all time.’^§ He preferred to stress the shattering effect which the loss of Egypt and Suez would have upon British prestige round the world. Backhouse’s thoughts and those of the new men he had brought into power with him departed so radically from Britain’s traditional naval strategy that the Admiralty decided to return the vaguest possible written answers to Chatfield and the SAC. It was an old and favourite tactic of the Admiralty when faced with outside threats to its authority. Even Lord Chatfield found himself unable to grapple with a policy which was so non-committal. In oral explanations, the Admiralty convinced the SAC – and more importantly convinced Neville Chamberlain – that it was time to abandon in all but name Britain’s long-standing guarantees of naval protection to the Pacific Dominions against Japan.

It should not be supposed, however, that the victory of Backhouse’s men in this, the first of our two ‘palace revolutions’, was totally convincing. A gulf continued to exist between the Admiralty and the Far Eastern experts at the Foreign Office, where G. G. Fitzmaurice (an admiral’s son) complained that the Admiralty displayed ‘such a fatuous degree of complacency and ignorance of Far Eastern realities that sometimes I think we ought to let them know’.^∗ The Permanent Under-Secretary at the Foreign Office, Sir Alexander Cadogan, privately called Admiral Cunningham ‘King Half-wit’ and Stanhope an ‘exhibit’.^†

The War Office, too, raised doubts about the new course set by the Admiralty, criticizing a recent paper from the Admiralty which suggested that Japan would rather bide her time and digest China than launch an unprovoked war against Britain. The War Office disagreed: ‘Japan has been led on politically by her expanding military objectives until she is uncertain where to stop both politically and militarily. It is not certain what the extent of her present object is, as the Japanese are themselves uncertain how far to go.’^‡Notwithstanding the recent recommendations by the SAC, the War Office insisted that ‘Our general policy is already fixed – to retain our hold on Singapore at all costs and to do what is possible to protect our interests in China. This should be a sufficient guide to our actions whatever course Japan may adopt.’^§ Clearly, remarks such as these demonstrate something of the extent of the residual influence of the Chatfield or Far Eastern school. The revival of that faction a month later, therefore, may seem less surprising in view of the fact that in the Foreign Office, in the War Office, and even in planning circles at the Admiralty itself, there remained a well of sentiment throughout this period which tapped a sense that Britain had to defend imperial interests in East Asia more or less irrespective of dangers elsewhere.

Meanwhile, the extra naval power which it was now policy to use in Europe, once the Committee of Imperial Defence and the SAC had agreed to ignore the risks of war against Japan, momentarily appeared to offer a chance for changing the European strategical balance. Against Italy, in particular, the fleet might enable Britain to deal Mussolini such devastating blows that he could not survive. Before this prospect was recognized as an illusion, British defence planning grew increasingly muddled during the spring and summer of 1939, and Ministers took political decisions, such as Britain’s new commitments to states already on the brink of collapse in Central Europe and the Balkans, without the benefit of sound strategical advice.

These new undertakings seriously compromised Britain’s already weak position in East Asia. While attention remained focused upon Europe, Britain’s newly revised global strategy – which depended upon an ability to maintain a naval offensive in the Mediterranean from the outbreak of war – began to fail its first major trial at Tientsin.

Although Britain and France had squabbled with Japan over complex local difficulties at Tientsin almost since the start of the China Incident in July 1937, the situation had remained deadlocked due to gross mishandling by both sides. To bring further pressure upon Britain (and, indirectly, France), the Japanese had imposed a makeshift blockade in mid-December 1938, curtailing entry and exit and restricting commercial traffic between the British Concession and the outside. These measures continued until General Kuwaki, the Japanese Army commander at Tientsin, was replaced by the relatively pro-British Lieutenant-General Honma Masaharu, who had been the Japanese military attaché in London at the height of the Manchurian Incident. In early February 1939 Honma temporarily relaxed the controls, much to the relief of the British.

Then, in the first week of March, Honma’s soldiers began erecting barricades and live-wire entanglements, completely surrounding the British and French Concessions. Ostensibly this was in self-defence, counteracting the activities of ‘anti-Japanese’ elements operating from the relative safety of the Concessions. The British and French troops were brought to combat readiness.

Although weak in military terms, morale remained high in the British Concession. Evidently the French garrison was equally resolute. Brigadier A. H. Hopwood, Officer Commanding the British Forces in Tientsin, tried to improve the static defences of the British Concession and was determined to stand fast over British rights no matter what consequences might ensue. The War Office was sympathetic to Hopwood’s stance and – astonishingly – derived some comfort from the view that ‘What will weigh with the Japanese… is not the degree of strength of the local garrison but the fact that if they start a fight it means war.’

If Honma was proving an unpredictable quantity in his new role as commander of the Japanese Garrison at Tientsin, so were his two immediate superiors. It was more than coincidental that the original blockade in December 1938 had occurred as General Sugiyama Hajime became Commander-in-Chief of the North China Area Army in place of General Terauchi (who went back to Tokyo to rusticate as a ‘Supreme War Councillor’). Sugiyama’s second-in-command, Major-General Yamashita Tomoyuki, likewise, had been appointed Chief of Staff of the North China Area Army only recently, and in high Japanese circles it was known that he had little care whether war with Britain resulted or not. This uncompromising attitude, in fact, was welcomed by the War Ministry and by the Army General Staff in Tokyo, who reasoned that Britain would try to avoid war but in any event posed no serious obstacle to Japan. At worst, war with Britain would align Japan with Germany at a moment when a European War already seemed imminent.

The next stage occurred when the manager of the Japanese-sponsored Federal Reserve Bank at Tientsin, who had just been appointed Superintendent of Customs, was assassinated by a Chinese terrorist. After being invited by the municipal authorities to assist, the Japanese helped to conduct a series of searches throughout the Concession. A number of arrests were made, and it was in the course of these that four Chinese detained by the British were accused by the Japanese of complicity in the deaths of three Japanese soldiers. Without conclusive proof to substantiate these charges, the matter languished until June, by which time Honma had grown weary of Britain’s failure to comply with Japanese demands. The Japanese insisted that all four of the suspected terrorists should be surrendered to them. The Japanese also required that the British should hand over the precious silver reserves which the canny Kuomintang Government had deposited in British banks within the Concession: acceding to this Japanese demand not only could be expected to demoralize the morale of Chiang Kai-shek’s supporters but might also have precipitated a catastrophic collapse in the value of his régime’s currency and a strengthening of the Japanese puppet régime headed by Wang Ching-wei. Pressed to accept these and other radical demands, the British, perhaps predictably, refused: and in consequence the Japanese imposed a close blockade of the British Concession on 14 June 1939. People still went in and out but at the cost of an exhausting wait and a humiliating body search of men – and women – by the Japanese Army. A smile of appreciation went through Asia, even in countries which approved of China and were against Japanese militarism. The Japanese, it seemed, were effectively putting down the mighty from their seats, and scattering the proud. The Taipans, as the heads of firms were called, could not see their way ahead through the gloom. Perishable food stocks fell to 10 per cent of normal supplies, and rice disappeared altogether. At the same time, the Japanese Foreign Ministry demanded a reversal of key British policies concerning the China Incident as Japan’s price for lifting the blockade. Ugly anti-British demonstrations were staged in Tokyo with official approval and with the active connivance of the Metropolitan Police (acting on instructions from the powerful Japanese Ministry for Home Affairs). Reports reaching London suggested that the police might allow the British Embassy to be stormed by mobs. Even moderate organs such as the Oriental Economistabruptly reflected this darkening mood. London was unclear whether those orchestrating these events wished to force Britain into war or merely into a humiliating loss of prestige (on the evidence of Baron Harada Kumao and Marquis Kido Koichi, it appears that Japanese honour would have been satisfied by minor British compromises in June but that a month later the situation was too exacerbated to allow for any simple resolution of the crisis).

Britain responded to the Tientsin Crisis in three ways. First, diplomatic exchanges were begun at Tientsin, later extended to formal exchanges between Ambassador Sir Robert Craigie and Foreign Minister Arita Hachirō. Eventually these conversations covered all major points of friction between the two countries. Second, to the despair of Britain’s strategical advisers, the issue of commercial and financial reprisals against Japan was reopened in Whitehall. Third, the Tientsin Crisis made a nonsense of Britain’s recent changes in defence strategy, which, as has been seen, were predicated upon the assumption, now, that war would begin in Europe and then spread to East Asia rather than the other way round.

Although Japanese policy was not as monolithic and unambiguous as London supposed, Britain’s first reactions to Honma’s blockade verged upon panic. ‘Pug’ Ismay, Secretary to the Committee of Imperial Defence, privately informed Lord Hankey’s son, Robin, at the over-wrought British Embassy in Warsaw, that ‘For the moment all our eyes are on Tientsin instead of Danzig.’^∗ The Foreign Secretary, Lord Halifax, closeted himself with his advisers: ‘Had to spend half the day holding H[alifax]’s hand,’ wrote Cadogan in his diary on 15 June.^† When Halifax emerged, he met with Prime Minister Chamberlain and Lord Chatfield to discuss the question of retaliation and dispatching a battle squadron to the Pacific. The Commander-in-Chief, China Fleet, had cabled that ‘Tientsin may develop into a case of giving in to such an extent that we virtually lose the Concession or of making a casus belli. I have never before suggested I required reinforcements but am reluctantly forced to the conclusion.’ He asked for ‘a squadron of two or three capital ships accompanied by a cruiser squadron and a destroyer flotilla’ to augment his slender forces.^∗

The Cabinet Committee on Foreign Policy was advised by the Foreign Secretary that

the present situation at Tientsin has revealed the policy of the Japanese to eliminate or vastly diminish British interests and prestige in China as a means to the attainment of her long-term objective of establishing her control over the whole of East Asia and the formation of a closed economic bloc between Japan, China and Manchuria, which would in turn place her in a position at some later stage to pursue ambitions to southward at the expense of the British Empire.^†

Lord Halifax went on to inform his ministerial colleagues that ‘the situation with which we are faced has reached an acute stage, and whereas up to date we have been able to allow our future course of action to wait upon events, the necessity to do something to counter the Japanese plan has now become imperative’.^‡ Oddly enough, the Foreign Office rejected a policy of inaction on the grounds that it would weaken Britain’s political position relative to Germany and Italy as well as against Japan.

At the behest of the Prime Minister, Chatfield asked the Chiefs of Staff for advice, admitting that ‘we can only strengthen our position in the Far East by weakening our position in Europe and therefore the main decision is a political one’.^§

At first sight, it might appear that the answers to Chatfield’s questions were plain enough after the Government’s recent acceptance of the naval strategy promoted by Backhouse and Cunningham. However, at the beginning of June, before the arrival of the warnings from the Commander-in-Chief, China Fleet, there began another major shift of power in the Admiralty which had the effect of enhancing the influence of the Admiralty’s Plans Division. Now gravely ill, Backhouse retired in June as First Sea Lord and was replaced by the more traditionalist Sir Dudley Pound, while Admiral Tom Phillips, a former Director of Plans and an adherent of the Far Eastern School, became Deputy Chief of Naval Staff, relieving Admiral Cunningham, who went out to take Pound’s place as Commander-in-Chief of the Mediterranean Fleet. Significantly, Danckwerts remained Director of Plans, and Drax, who had left the Admiralty to become ADC to the King at the beginning of April, no longer counter-balanced the orthodoxy of the Plans Division. All of this meant that difficulties which Chatfield had encountered with his immediate successors at the Admiralty might now be overborne. Certainly Chamberlain himself did not now regard the case against dispatching the fleet as unanswerable. The lesson to be derived from this is that policies cannot be divorced from personalities.

Haltingly, over the next few weeks, the issues became clear: the Tientsin Crisis threatened the very survival of British influence in East Asia; the Empire could not abandon its position there; only the dispatch of naval reinforcements to the Pacific would deter the Japanese; any fleet sent to the Pacific must be able to accept a main fleet action against the whole Japanese fleet if pressed; the dispatch of such a battlefleet to the East would involve the abandonment of Britain’s naval control in the Mediterranean. No efforts must be spared to reach a compromise with the Japanese in the Craigie-Arita talks, but orders were issued that the fleet must be ready for immediate service in August in case events turned for the worse.

There were soon indications that Hitler might be taking advantage of the Tientsin Crisis. Henry Pownall, the War Office’s chief planning officer, recorded in his diary, ‘Things are beginning to thicken at Danzig. Rather earlier than we thought, but it may be that the Tientsin affair has caused Hitler to accelerate his tempo.’ ^∗ It was also clear that the Germans were seizing upon the propaganda value of the Tientsin dispute in efforts to persuade the Japanese Government to conclude a military alliance with Germany, and there were reports from Egypt that the Germans were interpreting the incident ‘to show that Orientals can insult Englishmen with impunity and that the British Empire is too enfeebled to react. Effect on Oriental mind is most damaging.’^†

In the weeks after suggestions voiced by Admiral Pound opened the way to a reconsideration of a large fleet movement to the Pacific in the event that the negotiations with Japan failed to produce a satisfactory result, the second tide of changes continued to roll through the Admiralty in the wake of Admiral Backhouse’s departure. The new Deputy Chief of the Naval Staff, Tom Phillips, used his influence in efforts to sweep away Admiral Drax’s formulations. Drax’s genius and daring earns our respect, and he had a natural flair for battle action. Tom Phillips, although perhaps equally gifted, was a complete contrast: a thorough master of detailed staff-work, who, in between appointments in the Admiralty’s Plans Division during 1930–32 and 1935–8, had served as Chief of Staff and Flag Captain to the Commander-in-Chief, East Indies, during 1932–5, where the prime mission had always been to move out to Singapore in case of trouble with Japan. It is hardly surprising, therefore, that Phillips now maintained that the Tientsin emergency proved the importance of re-articulating key elements in Britain’s traditional naval strategy:

1. Make it clear that we cannot have three fleets.

2. Point out that Home Waters are vital and a sufficient force must always remain there.

3. If a fleet is sent to the East, it must be of sufficient strength.

4. As a corollary to the above, if the situation arises, H M G will have to choose between the Far East and the Eastern Mediterranean – this choice must depend upon circumstances and the progress of the war and must be made at the time, e.g., is Singapore invested, etc.

5. All references to a ‘flying squadron’ in the East to be omitted.^∗

One might recall these words when the time comes to consider the fate of the singularly unfortunate detachment of two battleships that Phillips was destined to command in December 1941, sunk by the Japanese off the coast of Malaya only two days after the outbreak of the War in the Pacific.

Throughout July came conflicting reports on the advantages or not of taking retaliatory steps against Japan. The British Senior Naval Officer at Tientsin told London that he wished to mount armed guards with Lewis guns aboard all British vessels in his area, with authority for ‘forcibly preventing stopping and boarding’. He remarked, ‘Armed conflict might result from [the] above, but it is considered that opposition would not be serious and that incidents would remain local.’^† The British military, naval and air attachés in Tokyo, however, were far better informed. They strongly opposed provoking even slight clashes during this sensitive period, and in a joint message to London they agreed.

In the event of our inability to meet Japanese desires at forthcoming conference resulting in increased Japanese pressure and further inimical action against our interests in the Far East, we are convinced that Japanese military and naval confidence, reinforced by present exacerbated state of public opinion, is such that retaliatory action on our part is more likely to act as an incentive to open hostilities on their part, than as a deterrent.^‡

With such reports in mind, London came under great pressure to increase British land and air forces in the Far East. The Chairman of the Chiefs of Staff, Sir Cyril Newall, indicated that his Committee now ‘were mainly exercised about the situation in the Far East. The prospect of a successful outcome to the [Craigie-Arita] negotiations did not appear very hopeful.’^∗ In the end, combined pressure by the Chiefs of Staff, Admiral Chatfield in his capacity as Minister for the Co-ordination of Defence, and Sir Robert Vansittart as a spokesman for the Foreign Office, proved irresistible: the Committee of Imperial Defence voted to give Malaya two squadrons from Metropolitan Bomber Command, two further RAF squadrons from India, together with an Indian Army infantry brigade and support units.

On 24 July Neville Chamberlain announced in the House of Commons that Craigie and Arita had reached a formula which might lead to improved understanding with Japan and thus permit the two countries to negotiate a settlement of the Tientsin dispute. At once, it is true, these negotiations eased what the Prime Minister called ‘the stripping, searching and slapping’ of British residents in Tientsin, but even he recognized that ‘The attitude of the military in China itself, especially at Tientsin, Peking and Shanghai, remains intolerable, provocative and offensive.’^† The anti-British demonstrations in Tokyo showed signs of abating somewhat, but no one could predict what changes might lie in store should the pace of negotiations falter and so exasperate the Japanese even more.

The ensuing suspense grew so palpable that on 2 August 1939 the British Chiefs of Staff discussed whether full war precautionary measures should be taken. They finally decided that further reinforcements should be sent to East Asia without delay if conditions deteriorated – but not yet. Much would depend upon whether the reinforcements had to meet the demands of a Far Eastern emergency or to act as a barrier against the spread eastwards of tension now arising in Europe. Either way, the next few weeks might prove critical.

Across Whitehall on 2 August, Lord Halifax was informing the Cabinet that ‘the situation in the Far East was now causing him more anxiety than the position in any other part of the world’.^‡ When one considers that Britain was then only one month away from war against Germany, the Foreign Secretary’s remarks gives one pause for thought. Halifax explained that Japan insisted that general policy matters concerning the whole gamut of Anglo-Japanese affairs should be reviewed during the Tokyo conversations about Tientsin. These wider issues, originally excluded at Britain’s request, might lead to an open breach in relations between the two countries. Since Sir George Sansom, in whose wisdom Halifax placed complete confidence, counselled that Japan merely wished to extort the best possible terms from Britain at the Conference, the Foreign Secretary suggested that Britain could afford to harden her approach to the Japanese. If relations continued to worsen so that further action became necessary, then Britain should denounce her commercial treaty with Japan – as America had done when the Craigie-Arita formula was announced. This would allow Britain and Japan to conduct further negotiations over a twelve-month period of grace and, in the Foreign Secretary’s estimation, would be less likely to provoke military reprisals than an embargo (which would probably evolve into a naval blockade). Two days later, speaking in the Commons, Neville Chamberlain warned the world not to assume that Britain was incapable of establishing decisive naval superiority over Japan in the Pacific: ‘we have such a fleet here, and in certain circumstances we might feel it necessary to send the fleet out there. I hope no one will think that it is absolutely out of the question for such circumstances to arise.’ One can make of these words what one will. Not surprisingly, the mood in the Foreign Office verged on black despair: a member of the over-worked Far Eastern Department recalled afterwards that several of his colleagues collapsed under the strain. As far as the British Government was concerned, the outcome of the Tientsin Crisis, whether compromise or Pacific War, was up to Tokyo: in the face of Japanese blustering, the British Government had decided to stand fast. Nevertheless, judged by their own usual assumptions, normally cautious figures in the British Government responded to the threat of war in 1939 with apparent irrationality, a predisposition to bring matters to a head regardless of consequences. Although the country was better armed now than at any time since the end of the First World War, the international situation was virtually beyond hope of repair, and the dread prospect of a three-enemy war loomed dead ahead. In contrast to the winter of 1938–9, the later summer of 1939 was remarkably devoid of useful speculation about the strategical consequences of Britain’s perilous course. The defence authorities, particularly the Admiralty, nevertheless remained worried about what effect the Tientsin Crisis might have upon the European situation. New operations plans written following Britain’s strategical shifts in the spring of 1939 had not been received by British commands overseas when the Tientsin Crisis first blossomed in June. Out of necessity, the Navy temporarily suspended their new operations plans and returned to their earlier war plans for the fleet (based largely upon the 1937 Far East Appreciation by the Chiefs of Staff, which had been discarded as obsolete by the country’s strategical and political authorities in the spring of 1939). While high-level policy concerning the future dispositions of the fleet remained undecided, up-to-date amendments to the Naval War Memorandum (Eastern) were not even sent to the Com-mander-in-Chief, China Station, until 15 June (the day after the Tientsin blockade was imposed by the Japanese) – and even then these were suspended for a day on 20 June while the policy questions hung in the balance. Relevant modifications to the Naval War Memorandum (European) were sent to naval commanders abroad only on 4 August. Therefore the actual fleet instructions in the hands of Britain’s naval commanders overseas during most of the summer of 1939 remained predicated upon a task which the Admiralty wanted to abandon as hopeless only a few months before – the dispatch of the fleet to Singapore in the event of a conflict with Japan.

Finally, on Friday, 4 August 1939, British naval commanders worldwide were told how the Admiralty planned to distribute British naval forces if Japan joined the Axis in a world war against Britain and France. In essential respects, Britain’s new plan conformed to suggestions which Chatfield had made at the worst of the initial Tientsin war scare. Indeed, it departed little from Admiral Pound’s reaction to Chatfield’s criticisms of the position taken by the Chiefs of Staff at the beginning of the crisis. In short, it meant a return to Britain’s traditional posture, since it envisaged that control of the Mediterranean by the Royal Navy might be sacrificed in order to send the main fleet to Singapore while retaining a smaller force of six capital ships in Home Waters to contain the Germans. The new plans stopped short, however, of reviving one vital doctrine which the Chiefs of Staff had led the Government to abandon in the spring, namely, that there must be no hesitation in reinforcing Britain’s imperial position in East Asia at full strength to the detriment of Britain’s position in the Mediterranean. The ultimate strength of Britain’s Far East Fleet would depend upon political decisions that Ministers could take only after war was joined.

As it happened, these developments during the China Incident forced London to choose either to accept the risk of Japanese belligerency against the British Empire without making proper provision for it, so that Britain could wage an intensive war against Italy with no immediate regard for the consequences in East Asia and the Pacific, or, alternatively, to reserve the forces believed necessary to resist Japan, renewing efforts to ensure that Italy was kept out of the German camp permanently. Notwithstanding ominous news that German-Italian Naval Staff talks were taking place throughout the summer, the grave crisis at Tientsin forced the British to adopt the second course. After having dallied with the idea of pre-emptive action against Italy in the event of war against Germany, London now chose appeasement rather than confrontation with Italy. This attitude persisted beyond the Tientsin Crisis because the success of the policy could be seen. A result was that upon the outbreak of war against Germany, the British Government’s latest thinking on the future distribution of British naval forces worldwide showed the degree to which strength in the Mediterranean had been reduced to skeletal proportions compared to the size of battlefleet once contemplated for a Mediterranean offensive.

The two power-shifts, or ‘palace revolutions’, in the British Admiralty during 1939 demonstrate beyond peradventure that, at least in relation to the threat of war against Japan, national policy evolved around the actual strength of Britain’s defence system and the views of Britain’s strategical authorities. These same two revolutions also show the limits of the influence of strictly military factors: outside developments in Europe, especially the Nazi-Soviet Pact and the crisis over Danzig, ultimately proved far more important and seem to have developed without too central a regard in London for Britain’s imperial defence liabilities in East Asia and the Pacific.

By the end of August 1939, international conditions had undergone a complete transformation, and Tokyo was reeling in confusion. The Japanese Foreign Minister, Arita Hachiro, was ready to reach a limited agreement with Britain despite the power of the Army, but on 21 August the Craigie-Arita Conversations were suspended at Britain’s request. Britain’s resolute defiance of Japan might have uncovered the instability and weakness of Japan in any event, and it is worthwhile remembering that Japan had to consider the consequences of Roosevelt’s decision to abrogate the Japan-US Treaty of Commerce and Navigation at the height of the Tientsin Crisis, a matter which was reason enough to make Japan pause. As it happened, both of these events occurred while Japan was suffering serious military reverses in its major border conflict with the Soviet Union at Nomonhan, and thus the startling announcement of the Nazi-Soviet Pact on 23 August, which completely undercut the foundations of the Anti-Comintern Pact, constituted a final blow which no government in Japan could have survived. Under this succession of shocks, the Hiranuma Cabinet fell in Japan, and both the immediate danger of an Anglo-Japanese War and the prospect of substantial gains for Japan from the European crisis abruptly receded.

Nevertheless, the Tientsin affair is immensely important in the story of the approach of the Pacific War, for it marked the end of two centuries of British dominance in East Asia. Above all, the Tientsin Crisis was the last time Britain independently defied Japan without the clear prospect of active American intervention. An Anglo-Japanese war was averted only narrowly in 1939 – and perhaps only by the coincidence of outside events. Never again did Britain maintain any illusions about exerting decisive influence in East Asia. With the outbreak of war in Europe, western authority passed irretrievably from Britain to the United States. In some ways Tientsin was an embarrassing hiccup in Britain’s imperial responsibilities, which Britain did try to ignore after the spring of 1939. Ultimately, Britain did concentrate upon Europe rather than upon the Far East. Yet it is important to establish that Britain, however muddled, was neither bluffing nor blustering at Tientsin, and that the momentous collapse of British influence in East Asia which followed the outbreak of war in Europe was nothing short of cataclysmic, even if the effects of that cataclysm could not be assessed fully until the summer of 1940.

Before leaving the Tientsin Crisis behind, one should appreciate the restraint shown by the Japanese Garrison at Tientsin. In the last analysis, they could have seized the British and French Concessions at Tientsin at any time. It must have been tempting. The consequences of such a simple step hardly bear thinking about.