"Chinese Civil War (1911-1949) Books?" Topic

Can anyone recommend good books on this subject?

Osprey's Men at Arms – for a review see here PDF link

Are you wanting Osprey, or something more in-depth historical?

Osprey is a nice start (I will pick up a copy), but I would really prefer something with a lot more in-depth history.

My father's close friend lived through this period. He was the son of a British Sergeant while his mother was Chinese. He was in the Shanghai Militia in 1937, was captured by the Japanese and spent about 8 years in a prison camp, finally being liberated by American ground troops in 1945. Having read the book Sand Pebbles, I found the Civil War period to be fascinating and want to study the entire period.

I believe Nafziger has a book on the warlord period in China.

I have a strong interest in 20th century China and a small library on the subject. Many of the volumes I bought as remainders from academic presses. You may have trouble finding them. I'll try to post about them later. Three books you should find in print are:

Sterling Seagrave Dragon Lady: The Life and Legend of the Last Emperess of China. While Tzu Hsi died before her dynasty was overthrown, revolution became inevitable during her reign.

Sterling Seagrave The Soong Dynasty. "Once there were three beautiful sisters. One loved money. One loved power. One loved China." The three daughters of the banker T. V. Soong married respectively, his protege and successor H. H. Kung, Dr. Sun Yat-sen, and Generalissimo Chiang Kai-shek. They were all important figures in revolutionary China.

Seagrave is an excellent writer. His books are thick, meaty and impossible to put down.

Aisin Gyoro Pu-yi, From Emperor to Citizen. The last Manchu Emperor, "Henry" Pu-yi, wrote his autobiography as part of his 're-education', while a prisoner of the Communists after WWII. Take it with as much or as little salt as you like, it's well written and a fascinating story. This book was the basis for the Bernardo Bertolucci movie The Last Emperor, which you should watch.

Oh yeah. Barbara Tuchman Stillwell and the American Experience in China. Tuchman admired Vinegar Joe and there is much to respect in the tough old bastich, but it becomes evident that, in spite of his years in the far east, Stillwell never understood China. He expected the Chinese to modernize and become good solid citizens of, say, Iowa. In the end Stillwell made a spectacular failure.

This movie is worth taking a look at:

link

I just got China's Wars by Phillip Jowlett for Christmas. Looks pretty darn good.

I should read the Soong Dynasty. My uncle was a sergeant in the Nationalist army and caught shrapnel in his leg. He showed me the scar but didn't tell me much more.

Prince Albert, I await a review.

Vinegar Joe calling Chiang "Peanut" was quite wrong, even if deserved. A modicum of diplomacy might have gone down better.

A recent one that is in print: Harold M. Tanner,The Battle for Manchuria and the Fate of China: Siping 1946 (Indiana UP, 2013). The Chinese film Assembly deals with the late Civil War period and is pretty good.

My impression is that Stillwell never grasped that the Japanese had cut China off logistically from the rest of the world, and that if the Chinese armies used up their remaining supplies in a big, co-ordinated offensive, there could be no re-supply.

In spite of Roosevelt's promises to Chiang Kai-shek, it proved impossible to supply China by air. Stillwell's mission was to re-open the Burma Road so that China could get back into the war. This he could only do in co-ordination with a British-Indian re-conquest of southern Burma. The Burma Road was finally re-opened – in January 1945.

Stillwell also either failed to understand or disregarded the political realties that Chiang had to deal with; the warlord factions within the Nationalist armies that had to be balanced, placated and played off one against another, in order to co-ordinate national resistance to Japanese conquest. In Stillwell's view, a Generalissimo's business was to have his orders obeyed. Stillwell never accepted that there were orders Chiang could not give without provoking rebellion and defection in his armies.

Claire Chennault was another bull-headed fighting officer, who never respected the logistic limitations of the China theater. Chennault's grand air offensives also failed, because they could not be supplied by air.

Because these books are pretty obscure, I'm going to give the fullest possible references on them. They're really worth reading if you can track them down.

Edmund S. K. Fung The Military Dimension of the Chinese Revolution, c.1980, University of British Columbia Press, ISBN 0 7748 0129 8. "The New Army and its role in the Revolution of 1911". This book covers the development of a modern Chinese army under the late Qing dynasty, and how that army rebelled and overthrew the Qing in 1911.

Donald S. Sutton Provincial Militarism and the Chinese Republic: The Yunnan Army, 1905-25, c.1980 The University of Michigan Press, ISBN 0-472-08813-0. This book covers the Yunnan warlords and their forces before and during the early stages of the Chinese Civil War. The Yunnan forces are obscure but significant, because they were frequently either in alliance or conflict with the rump Kuomintang regime that was based in Canton.

James E. Sheridan Chinese Warlord: The Career of Feng Yu-hsiang, c.1966. Stanford University Press, no ISBN. Famous in his day, known as The Christian Warlord and The Moral Warlord, Feng headed a faction called the Kuominchun, with a progressive political program to strengthen China and ensure Peoples' Livelihood. This book covers Feng's conflicts with other warlord factions that ended in his defeat. He eventually reached an accomodation with the Kuomintang and lost most of his personal power.

Gavan McCormack, Chang Tso-lin in Northeast China 1911-1928: China, Japan and the Manchurian Idea, c.1977, Stanford University Press, ISBN 0-8047-0945-9. Chang Tso-lin controlled Manchuria for many years, with the consent of Japan. Chang reached an accomodation with the Kuomintang that allowed him much independence. Eventually the Japanese dispensed with him.

Anthony B. Chan Arming the Chinese: The Western Armaments Trade in Warlord China, 1920-1928, c.1982, The University of British Columbia, ISBN 0-7748-0157-3. What it says on the cover.

Lloyd E. Eastman Chiang Kai-skek's Secret Past: The Memoir of His Second Wife Ch'en Chieh-ju, c.1993, Westview Press, ISBN 0-8133-1825-4. After rising to power in the Kuomintang, Chiang divorced 'Jennie Chen' in order to marry the politically well connected heiress Mei-ling Soong, who became the Mme. Chiang Kai-shek that the world remembers. This is his discarded wife's scandal-mongering memoir of Chiang as a young officer, the stooge and protege of Cantonese gangsters. Good fun.

Irv, nice list.

Indeed. I'm impressed.

Since those were well received, I'll list a few more.

Kemp Tolley, Yangtze Patrol: The U.S. Navy in China, c.1971, Naval Institute Press, ISBN 0-87021-797-6. This book is written entirely from the American POV, the Chinese are scenery that sometimes shoots at the boats. Sand Pebbles stuff. However, this is certainly one of the stories of Republican China.

Ah, the unique musty smell of books fom Progress Publishers, the long defunct propaganda organ of the old Soviet Union. How many years had these volumes sat on pallets in a sagging, rat-infested warehouse before I ordered them?

A. I. Cherepanov, As Military Adviser in China, c.1982, Progress Publishers, no ISBN. Cherepanov served two long tours in China. In 1923 he was sent to Canton to assist with the formation of the Kuomintang's Whampoa Military Academy and National Revolutionary Army. Cherepanov then participated in the NRA's triumphant Northern Campaign of 1926-7, which established the KMT as the central government of China. He was sent packing when Chiang Kai-shek purged the Reds, in order to gain acceptance of his KMT regime by the Imperial powers. Then in 1938, Cherepanov went back to China, to assist with the Sino-Japanese War.

An unreconstructed Stalinist, Cherpanov often blusters and shows little sympathy for Chinese ways, even less than Stillwell. It's unfathomable that reactionary enemies should be co-opted into a revolutionary army, unthinkable that a provincial governor might refuse or evade central government orders, might deploy his forces as much to defend his province from his neighbors as against the common Japanese enemy. In a proper revolution, such reactionaries and feudal seperatists would be shot! And purged! And shot again!

Cherepanov provides a distinctive POV. His writing is sometimes dificult to plow through. If you persevere, he tells another revealing story of Republican China.

Gennady Gubanov, Soviet Volunteers in China 1925-1945, c.1980, Progress Publishers, no ISBN. This is a collection of essays on various topics by different authors. Cherepanov contributes "Under Sun Yat-sen's Banner". I found most interesting S. V. Slyusarev's article "Defending China's Airspace", about the Soviet 'volunteer' squadrons that joined the Sino-Japanese air war beginning in 1937. Again, there is much Stalinist bluster in the various articles, and much marvelling at what a very *foreign* (i.e., primitive, backward, inferior) place China is. But these Russians certainly were there, doing the things they recount.

Vincent, ask and you shall receive: TMP link

Also, another book I have that is pretty neat is "China's Warlords" by David Bonavia. Each chapter focuses on a warlord (organized by region) and goes into some decent detail on them.