Old Week
Abstract: Stilwell, who served as the chief of staff of the Chinese theater during the War of Resistance Against Japanese Aggression, was also in charge of the distribution of U.S. aid to China, and was later promoted to four-star general, so how strong was his military talent?
Stilwell, who served as chief of staff of the Chinese theater during the War of Resistance Against Japanese Aggression, was also in charge of the distribution of U.S. aid to China, and was later promoted to four-star general, so how strong was his military talent?
To talk about this topic, we must first talk about Stilwell's experience.
Joseph Stilwell was born in 1883 in Palatka, Florida. In 1900, he was admitted to the Military Academy at West Point. He graduated from the Military Academy at West Point in 1904 and was assigned to serve in the 12th Infantry Regiment in the Philippines. In November 1911, he came to China for the first time and traveled to Shanghai, Xiamen, Guangzhou, Wuzhou, Hong Kong and other places. In August 1919, he entered the University of California, Berkeley to study Chinese. In August 1920, he came to China for the second time as a language officer of the U.S. army stationed in China. From 1921 to 1922, he was borrowed by the International Disaster Relief Committee and successively served as the chief engineer for the construction of the fenyang-jundu highway in Shanxi and the tongguan-xi'an highway in Shaanxi. From 1922 to June 1923, he served in the Military Attaché Of the United States Embassy in China. After returning to the United States, he entered the Fort Benning Infantry School and the Leavenworth Command and Staff College for further studies. In September 1926, he came to China for the third time as a battalion commander of the 15th Infantry Regiment of the US Army in Tianjin, so he met Marshall, who was the deputy regimental commander. In June 1929, he returned to the United States as the head of the tactical department of the Fort Benning Infantry School, and at this time Marshall happened to be the vice principal of the Fort Benning Infantry School, and once again became Stilwell's superior, so the relationship between the two deepened, and Stilwell became Marshall's younger brother - in 1939 Marshall was promoted to chief of staff of the United States Army, the United States did not have the commander-in-chief of the Army, and the Chief of Staff of the Army was the supreme chief of the Army.
In July 1935, Stilwell came to China for the fourth time as a military attaché at the U.S. Embassy in Peiping. In July 1937, when China's all-out War of Resistance broke out, Stilwell successively inspected the war situation in Lanzhou, Taierzhuang, Changsha, Chongqing and other places. In August 1939, he returned to the United States as the commander of the 3rd Brigade of the 2nd Infantry Division, the commander of the 7th Division, and the commander of the 3rd Army.
In December 1941, after the outbreak of the Pacific War, because Stilwell was recognized as a "China master" in the U.S. military — he had served in China many times and spoke Chinese , he was appointed chief of staff of the Allied Chinese Theater of Operations and commander of the U.S. Military in the China-Burma-India Theater in March 1942 — and it was Marshall who recommended him to Roosevelt for this position.
In addition to commanding the U.S. troops in the China-Burma-India Theater, Stilwell's mission was to "command the Chinese troops assigned to him and help the Chinese troops improve their combat effectiveness." When the Chinese side established the Joint Staff of the Chinese Theater, it was clearly stated that U.S. representatives and senior officers in China should accept the moderation of the chief of staff of the Allied Chinese Theater, but the chief of staff of the theater must accept the orders of the commander-in-chief of the theater. That is to say, Stilwell did not have the authority to command the army unless authorized by Chiang Kai-shek. But Stilwell certainly did not want to be such a rubber stamp character, which doomed Stilwell's mission in China from the beginning to end in tragedy. Judging from Stilwell's previous experience, he had no actual combat command experience at all, and naturally did not have any combat achievements to show his military command ability.
In March 1942, the Chinese Expeditionary Force entered Burma to fight, and Stilwell also entered Burma with the Expeditionary Force, although it did not clearly stipulate the relationship between Stilwell and the commander of the Expeditionary Force, but at this time Chiang Kai-shek still had great trust in Stilwell, so that Du Yuming and other expeditionary force generals absolutely obeyed Stilwell's command.
However, in the command of the first operation into Burma, Stilwell blindly obeyed the arrangements of the British army and dismantled the Chinese expeditionary force to take on the flanks and rear cover of the British army, so that the expeditionary force was always unable to concentrate on organizing the battle, so Stilwell was obviously responsible for the defeat of the operation into Burma.
When the Japanese broke through the Allied lines and captured Mandalay, The Commander-in-Chief of the British Army in Burma, Admiral Alexander, ordered a total retreat. At this critical moment, Stilwell ignored Chiang Kai-shek's order to withdraw the expeditionary force to withdraw to the country, and lured luo Zhuoying, commander of the expeditionary force, to order the troops to retreat to India by "getting American equipment and using American equipment to seek promotion and wealth." Stilwell's intention in doing so was clear, because the number of U.S. troops in the Sino-Indian-Burmese theater was small, so he was eager to have a unit under his control to achieve his ambitions. Once the expeditionary force withdrew to India and far away from China, Chiang Kai-shek could not reach it, and he was fully trained by American equipment and training, and naturally became the "shijia army" that he actually mastered.
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But there is no doubt that this order, which was very different from Chiang Kai-shek's order, brought confusion to the command of the expeditionary army and delayed the precious time to retreat. What is even more disgraceful is that after Stilwell gave the order to retreat to India, he immediately left Luo Zhuoying and the headquarters of the commander of the expeditionary force, and fled to India from the path with only a dozen retinues. As a senior general, at the critical moment of organizing the retreat of the troops, he abandoned the troops and only tried to escape on his own, obviously not even the minimum bottom line and martial virtue as a soldier.
However, 7 of the last 9 divisions of the expeditionary force were withdrawn to The Country according to Chiang Kai-shek's orders, and only the remnants of the new 38th And 22nd Divisions were withdrawn to India, and then based on the remnants of these two divisions, plus the supplementary troops transported through the Hump Route, the Indian Army was established in Ramga, India, and Stilwell also became the commander-in-chief of the Indian Army as he wished. However, he was not satisfied, and he was bent on transforming the indian army into a unit that was completely obedient to his own orders, so on the grounds of "the low quality of Chinese officers," he demanded the removal and replacement of all officers at and above the battalion level of the army stationed in India, and all of them were replaced by American officers.
This is obviously to transform the indian army into a colonial army similar to the foreign gun brigade in the past, and at the same time it is also a gross violation of China's sovereignty, which was naturally opposed and resisted by all the officers of the army stationed in India, and ultimately failed to achieve it, and the US officers at all levels who had come to Ramga had to be changed to liaison officers.
In the subsequent counter-offensive to northern Burma, Stilwell reused the mediocre and incompetent Merrill and Bertno, resulting in the slow progress of the campaign, especially in the Battle of Myitkyina, missing the fighter plane to capture Myitkyina in one fell swoop, resulting in the Battle of Myitkyina being delayed for 100 days, and the casualties naturally multiplied.
On the battlefield, the command is not careful, and the little care is used to plan and rob the Chinese army - this time it is not only the Indian army with only 2 divisions, but the supreme command of the entire Chinese army with hundreds of divisions!
To this end, he deliberated, and even did everything to this goal, not only to hook up with local powerful factions in various places, but also to contact the Eighth Route Army in Yan'an, on the condition of providing American aid and materials, and asking the Eighth Route Army to accept his command. He then blackmailed Chiang Kai-shek by providing U.S. aid to Yan'an. Do not think that he is sincerely pro-Communist, purely using the Eighth Route Army as a pawn in the game with Chiang Kai-shek. Of course, the Eighth Route Army is not stupid, even if it has the equipment aided by the United States, it is impossible to completely obey him, and even if the National Government has always adhered to the principle of independence and self-determination, it will still completely obey Stilwell's orders. If Stilwell thought that he could control the Eighth Route Army with US aid, he would be too naïve and naïve, and his understanding of China would be too superficial.
In the end, Stilwell used US President Roosevelt in September 1944 to force Chiang Kai-shek to surrender the command of the Chinese army, which eventually caused a fierce backlash from Chiang Kai-shek, who did not hesitate to break with the United States and demand that Roosevelt remove Stilwell, and Roosevelt naturally would not completely tear his face for Stilwell and China, so he had to recall him to the United States.
Stilwell slipped away from China, and Marshall naturally had no light on his face, so he and Chiang Kai-shek formed a bond. Later, when the contradictions between the Kuomintang and the Communists were mediated after the victory of the War of Resistance, they intentionally or unintentionally overthrew the Kuomintang; then, after the outbreak of the civil war, they instigated the imposition of an arms embargo on the Kuomintang government. Most obviously, during the Civil War, the head of the U.S. Military Advisory Corps, Major General Badavi, a small role that is not well known, was the commander of the U.S. 7th Infantry Division during the Korean War in 1950, and a division-level officer came to serve as the head of the Chinese Advisory Group, which was too low a rank. In contrast, Gallen, general adviser of the Soviet Military Advisory Group during the Northern Expedition, whose real name was Bryucher, was one of the first five marshals of the Red Army in 1935; the two general advisers of the German Military Advisory Group in the 1930s, Seckert and Falkenhausen, Seckt was known as the "father of the Wehrmacht", a first-class general, and Falkenhausen was a major general. In contrast, Marshall sent Major General Badavi as the head of the advisory group, and what attitude is not clear?
Back in Stilwell, before leaving Chongqing, he told the famous American journalists in Chongqing, Bai Xiude and Brooks Atkinson, that he had been squeezed out by Chiang Kai-shek. Atkinson immediately wrote a press release and published it in The New York Times, before Stilwell had returned to the United States. Through this article, Stilwell portrayed the incident as "the simple and sincere Americans were defeated by the machinations of the evil, cunning Asians," thus winning the sympathy of the American people who did not know the truth.
Stilwell rested in the United States for a while, and in June 1945, through the connections of his old superior macArthur in the Philippines, he succeeded Lieutenant General Buckner, who had just died, as commander of the 10th Army, which was taking part in the Battle of Okinawa, and the 10th Army was tasked with eliminating the remnants of the Japanese army on okinawa without difficulty. Just two months after he took office, Japan was defeated and surrendered.
In October 1945, he became chairman of the Quartermaster Equipment Committee. In January 1946, he became commander of the 6th Army. He died on October 12, 1946, at the Lightman Army Hospital in San Francisco, at the age of 63.
Throughout Stilwell's life, his performance on the battlefield can be described as lackluster, and the performance of fleeing with his troops in Burma is even more disgraceful. As far as his military command ability is concerned, it is basically the backward and antiquated tactics of the First World War, so some people evaluate Stilwell's military ability, that is, the level of the infantry company commander in the First World War, which is somewhat harsh, but quite in place. The defeat of the first expedition to Burma and the slow progress of the subsequent counter-offensive in northern Burma were not unrelated to Stilwell's command. There is no new military idea such as keeping up with the rapid development of large depth and great detours, air-ground joint assault. Such military command ability, in World War II, compared with many brilliant celebrities, said that mediocrity is to lift him. As for his various performances in seeking command of the troops stationed in India and the Chinese army, they are ugly and clumsy, completely for his own selfish interests and do not care about the overall situation of the war. Therefore, he was able to climb to the high position of a four-star admiral, and it seemed that Old Zhou could hardly see any other superiority except for his personal relationship with Marshall.
(The picture of this article is from the network)