Japanese have no luck. Just when they were starting to dish up again the well-worn story that Marshal Wu Pei-fu was coming forth from retirement as the saviour of his country—though this time in the more modest role of Commander-in-Chief—the veteran dies. It is typical of his obstinacy and of the trouble he has given them all along, and one would almost be inclined to think that he had died on purpose to spi them, For with Mr, Wang Ching-wei's government continually hanging fire, in fact receding ever further into the mists of doubt and the Japanese military authorities in China were badly in need some such name as that of Wu Pei-fi for home consumption, if only to gloss over their present political difficulties and to gain time, until they had formulated some fresh "immutable policy.
'The story, emanating from Japanese sources in' recent weeks, that the Marshal had thought belter of his former refusals seems to have been devoid of all foundation, Tt was, at most, a piece of whhful thinking' on their part. From circles close to the hat, ip to the end, he was as Marshal, one Is given to understand
determined as ever not fo take any part in-a government under Japanese {ulelage and continued 10 insist uarantecs for complete freedom of action in matters of finance, army and foreign policy 'There has, of course, been the usual crop of rumours ay' to his having come to a violent end. Indeed, the first reaction of the man-in-the-street Peiping, when told the news, ws who killed him?" Nor is this entirely strange, seeing that his. death was very sudden, the Marshal having been' iit only two. or three days. There seems, however, little doubt that he really did die natural death, fag Is reported, from blood poisoning, due to a septic tooth. Indeed, it is dimeult to see who would have want ed to do away with him. The Tapanese most certainly not Chungking. government, ov was "no particular friend thers, For as I as he was alive and kept on refusing, he provided them with an excellent text Well, there you ai ven Wu Pel-tu, you ea, won't work with the Japanese."
Japanese Theorists 'That the Japanese put their money on Marsha! Wu and continued to be-Hieve in him despite repeated rebutts is typical, of which we have had many' similar instances. during the "China Incident." Japanese military gentlemen are great' theorists and fence having found a theory which its in with their wishes—I¢ not with foets—continue to drive it to death, ho matter what difficulties and dis: appointments such theory may create for them in practice.
Tu this particular case their theory overlooked one very. imporfint fact One of the reasons why Marshal Poi-f was so. popular among. his countrymen during the days of his power in the twenties was, because he was regarded as a true patriot who Was yoing fo save China from Japanese domination, Had he not, amid. the frenzied plaudits of emo: tional students, overthrown the notorious Anfu Parly which had prac tically sold out to the Japanese And when the Marshal was in. his cups, Which happened occasionally: in those far-off days, he used to boast of how. after he had settled up with Marsha! Chang Teo-lin and had united China, the was going to drive the Japanese out of Manchuria, But much was to happen to him afore then: two overwhelming defeats, the second, by the Kuomintang, of sich a decisive character that Wu was never able to recover and stage a come-back. Naturally he was ne over of the Kuomintang, for the rest of his life, seeing that' they had put an end to his military and poli-Hieal career, But that he sh vid for that reason love and admire the Japanese, wae the kind of mistake that only the Lawrences of Nanchou-Kuo and. similar Japanese Theorists could make. A China without either Sapanese or Kuomintang rule was the China that Wu Pel-fw had always envisaged and was {0 continue to envisage to the very end of his life. away the enemy. This example of military strategy has a favour of the civil wars of the "twenties in which Wu took a leading part, and which were mostly conducted on commer-lal and Gnaneial principles rather than according (0 the dictates of mi-hilary strategy. And in those two branches of knowledge Wu was certainly woefully deficient, Yet he was an exception in those civil war times, when Chinese officers.
their regiments from behind. For Wu was a firstelass dighting-man, and in many a serap. in Szechuan fand Hunan he fought, sword in hand, at the head of his troops, Indeed, that was how he ended in his last Aght at Wuchang. when he had. be dragged forcibly from the midst of the melee by some of his followers. But that was the whole trouble, Marshal Wu regarded s hand-to-hand serap as the main pert of a general's job. Of military organization and Strategy, in the modern sense, he would not appear to have had the most elementary notion, During the war with Chang Tso-lin in 192) Wu Peltu had massed his large army round Shanhaikuan on the Great Wall. When Feng hsiang who commanded his left-wing ratted to the other side and marched back to Peiping, Wu had more than enough troops to have held back Chang Tso-lin on the Wall and to have moved back quickly himself by rail with a superior force and crushed Feng. But he had got his armies 30 hopelessly mixed up and the railway line x0 completely. blocked, that he was unable to move and simply went pieces.
Exactly the same thing Tappened is Tost fight against the Nationalists in 1926 at' Wuchang. He rushed across the Yangtze with a small part of his force, while his main army was stil! coming down the Poking-Hankow line by train. When hho was defeated and forced to recross the Yangtze, he was unable} {o rally his forees strung out in hope-ess confusion all along the railway. Marshal Wu had a very considerable portion of human vanity. and. obstinaey, which prevented him from, ever listening to any of his expert advisers, Chinese or foreign. And there Is nothing in his military career warranting the belief that he would have had the faintest chance of suc if he had commanded the Chinese armies aguinst the Japanese modern military" machine.
Text read from the printed page and cleaned; old type leaves the occasional error.