War In The Far East, Book 1 by Unknown

Author:Unknown
Language: eng
Format: epub
Tags: HISTORY / Military / Naval
Publisher: Casemate Publishers (Ignition)
Published: 2018-12-02T00:00:00+00:00

In the spring and summer of 1940, Hitler’s armies struck fear and awe into the world, achieving a series of major victories in northern and western Europe with shocking speed. In particular, the six-week campaign to defeat France, Europe’s strongest military power next to Germany itself, was proof to some that the future belonged to totalitarian government. Among them was Matsuoka Yosuke, a diplomat and businessman who took over as foreign minister in a new Japanese government formed in July 1940 under Konoe Fumimaro, who had also been prime minister when the war with China began three years earlier. From the US perspective, it was not a change for the better. Secretary of State Cordell Hull considered Foreign Minister Matsuoka “as crooked as a basket of fishhooks.”54 Matsuoka, on the other hand, was on record as saying that war with the United States was “inevitable.”55

Matsuoka had spent long years thinking about Japan’s future mission in Asia as president of South Manchurian Railway Co. and was known abroad for his desire to remake the international system, which he found to favor the old Western powers. He had been Japan’s strident face to the outside world in Geneva in 1933, when he headed his country’s delegation to the League of Nations and led its departure from the organization. By 1940, he found support for his views in the German successes. “In the battle between democracy and totalitarianism, the latter adversary will without question win and will control the world. The era of democracy is finished and the democratic system bankrupt,” Matsuoka told an American correspondent. He went on to say that “Fascism will develop in Japan through the people’s will. It will come out of love for the Emperor.”56

Mixed with the enthusiasm for being on the side of a victorious Germany was a distinct feeling of dread among decision-makers in Tokyo that Japan might “miss the bus” if it did not act swiftly. There was concern that Germany might use its victory over the Netherlands and France to seize control of the defeated nations’ colonies in Southeast Asia. This was potentially fatal for the Japanese war effort, not least because of rich oil fields controlled by the Dutch in Borneo and Celebes. If access to these areas were suddenly denied, it could paralyze the Japanese Navy, which consumed 400 tons of oil every hour.57 “The construction of the new world order which Hitler advocated will proceed rapidly,” said Satō Kenryō, the officer who had ordered a legislator to “shut up” in the “Damare’ incident and was now dispatched to the army in south China. “If Japan is solely preoccupied with the Sino-Japanese War, Germany will come to East Asia and acquire the territories of Britain, France and the Netherlands, leaving no role for Japan to play in the region. Therefore, Japan has to advance southward quickly.”58

In fact, Germany had very few ambitions in that remote part of the world, and just days after the fall of France it had made clear to

Download

Copyright Disclaimer:
This site does not store any files on its server. We only index and link to content provided by other sites. Please contact the content providers to delete copyright contents if any and email us, we'll remove relevant links or contents immediately.