After about a month's comparative inactive ity following the capture of Kiukiang the Japanese forces have apparently commenced their drive on Hankow, and the next few weeks may see some severe fighting. Up to the present the details of the Japanese scheme jate not wholly clear, but it would seem that {the main attack will"be launched from Hofei in Anhwei, upon Livan, where already a stiff engagement has been entered into, The judvance from Kiukiang to Juichang south of the Yangtze, and the activities north of that river, involving a line running roughly from Wusueh through Kwangtsi,-Hwangmei, Susung, Liangtingho to Taihu, seem now to have been held up; either by the determined [Chinese resistance, in which the latter claim. to have counter-attacked with considerable success, or because it was merely a feint for the purpose of drawing Chinese troops into that area, from some other portion of the Hine, more attractive to the Japanese. With the large forces of Chinese reported to be available in the area before Hankow, and ithe strong defences which it is said have been prepared, it is possible that the Japanese command will indulge in a series of opera~ tions calculated to feel out the strength of the defenders, before selecting which of the several routes available shall be used for' the final drive. thus, to take three examples, there is the possibility of a Japanese drive from the north upon Hankow, that from Hofei southwestwards for the purposes of cutting the Peiping-Hankow Railway, and the drive along the Yangtze where the Japan-jose forces would have the valuable support of their naval artillery. With only these three alternatives the Japanese will be able to ring the changes quite frequently, and it possible that the sudden switch of attention from the north bank of the Yangtze to the movement from Hofei is part of a general /scheme to keep the Chinese command guessing fas where the Japanese command will eventually strike. The claim that the first ithe Hankow lines of defence had been breached by the capture of Juichang does not appear to amount to much, and there is nothing to show that the engagements of the bast week are anything but preliminaries to the major offensive.
It has been reported that established in the: strong rings of defence works which have! been built for the defence of Hankow, there fare no fewer than 800,000 Chinese, and, under' ithe advice of Soviet experts who are reported to have arrived in large numbers, it is possible ING, that these men may be able to offer such a resistance to the Japanese that the capture Jot Hankow will be a matter of very consider-lable difficulty. That depends entirely upon the morale of the Chinese, and the manner which they are handled by the new military advisers. If the former's determination to fight on has been unimpaired by the experiences which they have had during the past year, the world may yet see around Hankow, a repetition of the fighting which took place in the environs of Shanghai last year, but on a much greater scale, and if they were able to prolong the defence so that! the Japanese would be forced into a second winter's campaign, the prospect of which is most unpalatable to them, very far-reaching effects might be obtained: The main desire of the Japanese is still for a quick victory Jand collapse of the Chiang Kai-shek regime, but if the latter and his advisers are able to devise schemes indefinitely postponing that Jevent, the cost to the Japanese may. fully justify the sactiflees which the defence of Hankow must of necessity entail. The Chinese have the benefit of fighting on the {inside Une, and the advantage which the Japanese appear to have in the mechanical transport of troops from one point to another, Seems to some degree to be offset by the comparative shortness of the internal. distances between various portions of the! [Chinese front. Unless some very. startling Jdevelopments occur it should be possible for tie Chinese to offer a very stout and prolong-led resistance to the Japanese, even if the latter chooses to attack simultaneously along {he three routes already suggested, and there:
nothing in the situation as it stands at! Present to indicate any possibility of the [Chinese forces being caught in any sort of {rap which might have a decisive effect upon their ability to carry on the struggle after the contemplated fall of Hankow.
Tt should at' the appropriate moment be possible for the Chinese command {o extricate their forces from their present positions with the same facility as they showed around Shanghai and "Hsuchowfu, and it is quite possible for the Chinese," paradoxically, to inflict a costly victory upon the Japanese, and at the same time preserve their own armies a8 a complete fighting force to continue the struggle after the Japanese have attained their immediate objective. Thus while it is {rue that the Japanese have overrun an Jenormous proportion of Chinese territory, the (Chinese armies have managed to escape anything in the nature of a decisive defeat, and while their casualties have been, and will un-[doubtedly continue to be heavy, the mainten-lance of the armies' integrity, must mean that {the final stage of extensive guerilla warfare }will still remain a possibility. There is, however, the psychological effect of the fall of
Text read from the printed page and cleaned; old type leaves the occasional error.