Everyone remembers the passage of Lotus BleuLes Adventures of Tintin, Volume 5: The Blue Lotus where Mitsuhirato announced a call that "Chinese bandits blew the way" (of course it comes from misinformation), but less known historical basis of what Hergé described in his comic strip (Manchurian incident) which was in 1931 paving the way for the conquest of the province by the Japanese in northern China.
Everyone knows the photograph of the Yalta conference in 1944 that brings together the three "greats" of the war against the powers of Laxe, but the image of the Cairo Conference in November 1943 when Churchill and Franklin D. Roosevelt are in the company of Chinese Chiang Kai-shek himself and his wife, the charismatic Song Mei-Ling, to discuss the war and the future fate of Japan is much less known.
Finally, everyone has heard of the Chinese civil war between nationalists and communists until the second victory in 1949 on the continent; but the leaders of both camps, Mao Zedong and Chiang, rarely adds Lucifer of Chinese politics, Wang Jingwei, an heir of Sun Yat-Sen who was during World War to dissent among nationalists and sengager on track hated collaboration with Japan (before dying in 1944) considering that cétait for his country the best way to arrange the future (his relatives were themselves draw a parallel with Vichy).
This book historian Oxonian Rana MitterA Bitter Revolution: China's struggle with the modern worldâ been extremely critical success in the Anglo-Saxon countries since its publication in English in 2013, and is easy to understand why reading: an impressive knowledge his subject, Rana Mitter joined a great sense of historical narrative and a remarkable ability to understand the motivations of parties.
The book offers first, lindique as its title, making us aware of this: always considered a minor dopérations theater, China has succeeded in sacrifices dimmenses price and never resigned themselves to capitulation, to stop for a very long period 500,000 Japanese combatants allegedly decisive on other fronts. The history of the Sino-Japanese war is that of bitter defeats, massacres, lost cities (Beijing and Tianjin and Shanghai and Nanjing and Wuhan and Guangzhou), but it is also that of a spirit of resistance which should not falter . If we follow Rana Mitter, Japanese navaient not plan a victory in great style, beyond Beijing: but from the time the Government of the Republic of China was mixed to resist, it was necessary that he pays the price. The war would have fifteen million dead, not to mention the refugees in many more.
Book Second challenge: assessing the role played by war in the emergence of China as we know it. If Chiang Kai-Shek had wanted to do a kind of war of the identity of Chinese crucible (not a war "in" China, but "of" China), the war itself was to emphasize the divisions between rival generals who obeyed him quavec reluctance, and she had to leave her battered and unpopular regime, even if it proved victorious -against all odds. The war, tomb of Kuomintang, which won only naurait then losing to the Communists themselves sétaient finally strengthened? Historians discuss how Rana Mitter engages in a partial rehabilitation of Chiang presented as an authentic patriot (his newspaper is widely quoted and is a crucial source of the book), although Dombre areas of policy are not ignored as the terrifying decision to destroy the dikes of the Yellow River to delay (nimporte at what human cost) Vorsprung Japanese. Communist side Rana Mitter shows how through the worst Maoist regime are already in place to Yan An, despite the tempting retrospective idealization of this heroic period.
Irony of history, how Rana Mitter restores a positive role to nationalist coincides with a shift in the appreciation of Chiang in China: the rhetoric that it had to be the enemy of yesterday and incompetence embodied absolute evil, succeeds the dune appraisal time more nuanced (but still interested) in times when the combination of Beijing with Taiwan is on.
Finally the book to return to the ambivalent relationship to Western China on the road to emancipation (thus learns how would end the concession system in Shanghai, an important step in the birth of a sovereign Chinese state everywhere on its own territory). After one fought the Japanese for years in general indifference, China found itself after Pearl Harbor the same side as the United States, but in dune "poison covenant." The weakest of the allies, China is never seen in London and Washington as a full partner, Chiang direct dialogue with the leaders of the independence movement in India irritates the English: and it is as if the disappointment at poor military performance of China often sajoutait conviction which could not somehow play a greater role condescension that would leave traces. The chapter on lexpédition Burma, much more due to General Stilwell debacle Quà Chiang himself, is particularly edifying.
Nobody would withdraw from the history of the Second World War the Soviet soldiers who died at Stalingrad only because of Stalin's crimes. Whatever the judgment of Chiang and Mao, Rana Mitter invites us eloquently integrate the board the Chinese soldiers who fell in the Battle of Taierzhuang, US pilots lescadrille "flying tigers" came to China's rescue, crimes war committed OF LIFE AND DEATH NankinCITY as civilian victims of the bombing of Chongqing.
