Dedicated with filial affection
to
PAUL MYRON WENTWORTH LINEBARGER
United States Judge in the Philippines,
Counselor to and Biographer of President
Sun Yat-sen, Formerly Legal Adviser to
the National Government of China
[FOREWORD]
To the cynic, two nations clasped in murderous embrace yet nominally living in peace with each other might well be one of the miracles of our century. No less miraculous has been for many the tenacity of Chinese resistance to Japan's invasion ever since the first bullets whizzed through the night near the Marco Polo Bridge southwest of Peking early in July, 1937. The undeclared war has spread disaster through an area larger than that immediately affected in Europe's battles from 1914 to 1918; hundreds of thousands have died in action; for months China's capital has been in the hands of the enemy. But China is not on her knees.
The explanation is simple. For the first time in her history, China fights as a nation. More is involved than can be attributed to Generalissimo Chiang K'ai-shek's personal leadership or the strategic and organizational services rendered, until his recent recall to Germany, by Alexander von Falkenhausen, chief of staff of the Turkish armies during the World War. A people without allegiance to its government and without faith in itself would have been incapable of braving the ordeal of retreat, massacre, and occupation as successfully as have the Chinese. That China fights today as a nation is no small tribute to the National Government of the Kuomintang established at Nanking in 1927. How long she will be able to fight as a nation is a question to be answered only by reference to the national mentality and political institutions which have emerged since the collapse of the Manchu Empire in 1911-1912. It is the purpose of this volume to appraise the record of China's republican era.