Apologies must be offered for the lateness of this review, due to the impossibility of finding time during the recent war for the necessary spadework in the files.
Fb. 12.
UNTUL the outbreak of war in September between the two great factions, Chihli headed by Wu Pei-fu and Anfu headed by Chang Tso-lin, the past year was singularly devoid of interest,, the treaty with the Soviet and agreement with Germany being the only outstanding events apart from the normal brigandage, floods, drought, illicit taxation, violation of treaties and general insolvency. As one looks back over the early months of the year it The irony of the situation was that Chihli preached unification of China by force and Anfu by conciliation, but both used all the force they could muster.. The only thing lacking for war was an excuse. It was found in the ancient rivalry of Chekiang and Kiangsu. Since the days Yuan Shih-kai the rich district} of Shanghai and Woosung, with its immense revenues drawn from the illicit opium trade, had been the appanage of Chekiang, a geographical anomaly which the Nanking Tuchun could not be expected to endure. In December, 1923, the two nearly came to blows over the appointment of Police Commissioner for Shanghai and Woosung and 1924 opened under a heavy threat of war. 'The gentry and merchants. of both provinces worked strenuously to avert a breach' and February 1, with the publication' jointly by Chi Hsieh-yuan (Nanking) and Lu Yung-hsiang (Hangchow) of a proclamation containing the usual suave insincerities, the danger seemed to have passed—the fact, of course, being that Wu Pei-fu's major scheme, as described above, was not ready. On August 16 two generals. Tsang Chi-ping and Yang Hua-chao, hostile to Wu Pei-fu, took refuge from Fukien in Chekiang, and Wu formally called on Lu to expel them. The technical plea for this claim was that the admission of the tw generals constituted a breach of the peace agreement between Lu and Chi of September 1923; and so it apparently was. But war was due in any case and all the easy to see how events all reiterated protestations of gentry through were shaping themselves and merchants were unavailing. for the war. These signs were Even before this date (mid. not lost on observers, but. the AUKust) troops from the north usual hesitancy to attempt for cast of events in China kept) them from drawing the natural inference too confidently.
The first six months were tinguished by the rapid extension of Kiangsu had been concentrating in Nanking and by August 20 or thereabouts Soochow and Quinsan were full of Chi's army.
It is one of the inexplicable things of the war that Chi did manner which upset all notions based on previous experience of Chinese warfare and the casualties on both sides amounted to many thousands, not, as in bygone conflicts, of civilians, but.of soldiers.
Text read from the printed page and cleaned; old type leaves the occasional error.