In every war political considerations have always over-ridden military necessity, and so in China, up to the present, the major battles have been fought on ground that greatly favoured the mobile mechanized Japanese forces. At the commencement of hostilities, with China's new-found unity, it would have been politically unwise to abandon valuable strategic points without a struggle.
"The vocal Chinese patriots clamoured for resistance, and battles they had to have, though military experts were sure that China's relatively ill-equipped forces (lacking in artil-Jory and tanks) had no chance on the level plain and advised withdrawal to the hills, where armoured vehicles could not penetrate.
These political considerations, how-evi wrong as they were from a military point of view, have had the effect of improving Chinese morale. It was found in battle that Japan's army was not invincible, as had been presumed, while at Taierchwang on April 7, the Chinese troops rose to heights of undreamed-of tenacity and courage when they routed two Japanese divisions after a 16-days battle, Gen. Chiang Kai-shek is not likely to abandon Hankow without a struggle. This region lends itself to his new scheme of defensive tactics. The great city of Hankow lies at the confluence of two rivers and two railways; 10,000-ton vessels can reach it in the summer. It is ringed with hills; 150 miles north of it the railway leaves the plain and runs towards it through a range of hills that circle to the Yangtze.
Text read from the printed page and cleaned; old type leaves the occasional error.