Prelude: The Battle of Changsha

Under the Treads: Changsha 1940

1939 was a year of disasters for the Republic of China. The open intervention by Imperial Japan had rescued the warlords from what had been certain defeat, and as the National Revolutionary Army bled to death from a thousand cuts, the fragile United Front began to tear apart. Following the calamity of the Battle of Wuhan, Generalissimo Jiang Jieshi had disappeared in the rout, and many NRA cadres in the southern coastal regions began to rebel.

After a brief respite in the fall, as the Imperial Japanese Army paused to consolidate and restore its strength in the field, the political situation further deteriorated as Chairman of the Nationalist Government Wang Jinwei further damaged the fractious situation through costly unsuccessful offensives to retake Wuhan and put down rebel NRA generals in Shanghai. This respite was the calm before the storm: Jiang Jieshi re-emerged, uniting the rebel NRA generals and the remaining warlords as “Chief Protector of the Chinese Nation”. The “Reorganized Nationalist Government of the Republic of China” was thoroughly a Japanese client-state, whatever Jiang’s ambitions for the post-war settlement were.

A storm of steel followed as the IJA and the Reorganized NRA launched a series of offensives. In savage fighting, the south-eastern coast was lost, and a dagger thrust advanced up the Yangtze River valley towards the provisional capital of Chongqing. This advance was stopped west of the major city of Changsha by the NRA’s 9th Front under Xue Yue and Zhou Enlai.

This is only a momentary pause in operations. The IJA’s Eleventh Army under General Anami Korechika has begun consolidating and reinforcing for a renewed offensive, strengthened with the arrival of the Reorganized Government’s 4th Army Group.

Zhou, serving as the chief political commissar of the 9th Front, believed that the concentration of units and officers loyal to KMT leftists and the Communist Party in the Changsha region was another strategem by Chairman Wang to divest himself of allies he no longer had any use of. With the Party driven underground in the occupied territories, and its remaining forces decimated in a pyrrhic defense of Chongqing, Wang would emerge the uncontested paramount leader. Zhou further speculated that after the disasters of the past six months, Wang hoped to use a defeat at Changsha as the pretext for capitulation, and save himself by groveling at Jiang’s feet.

The situation would not prove so hopeless. Aid from abroad was arriving from the Communist International. In addition to the vast “humanitarian” food aid arriving from the UASR, thousands of artillery pieces, mortars, anti-tank rifles, grenades, land mines, and trucks were shipped along upgraded rail lines from Soviet central Asia. And in January, the first Soviet troops would arrive in force: the Special Far Eastern Red Banner Army and its commander-in-chief, Mikhail Frunze.

Soviet forces began arriving in earnest in mid February 1940. The soldiers of the 17th Rifle Division arrived unaccustomed to the damp, cool winters of Hunan, and were first reported in action by the IJA on 8 March 1940, where they frustrated an infiltration raid conducted by detachments of the Japanese 24th Division.

Soviet and American forces would continue to stream in through the late winter. At peak strength, the Far Eastern Red Banner Army would field three rifle divisions, two motor rifle divisions and two tank divisions, with a total field strength of nearly 70,000 men, plus additional supporting air elements attached.

The fighting intensified in mid April, as General Anami renewed his offensive. His forces reached a peak strength of 260,000 men, 267 tanks, and 389 artillery pieces, supported by 200 fighters and light bombers. Unfortunately for the IJA, the time needed to refit and resupply had given the defenders valuable time to reinforce the defensive positions southwest of the Xiao and Xiang Rivers. With the timely arrival of Comintern expeditionary forces, Anami had lost the superior correlation of forces.

Nevertheless, he pressed the attack believing that the battered NRA forces, which amounted to nearly three-fourths of the coalition forces at Changsha could not endure superior firepower and the shock power of disciplined Japanese infantry. Estimates of the reliability of Soviet forces greatly varied, but Anami felt that the clashes several years earlier at Lake Khasan demonstrated a fundamental weakness in the Soviet military further exacerbated by the purges.

But whatever the problems the Red Army had, since Frunze’s reactivation the previous year he’d drilled them out of the troops of the Far Eastern Red Banner Army. Soviet infantry met Japanese charges with discipline and counterattacked with equal fervor. And while the Soviets had an equal number of artillery tubes, the higher average calibre was used to great effect to chew up the land into a moonscape.

And the once starving and demoralised troops of the 9th Front had made considerable improvements in the past few months. Now on a steady diet from well supported field kitchens and plentiful deployment of Type C rations, the veterans of the previous losing campaigns had gained considerable combat experience and were eager to get their revenge on the IJA.

Even supported by the Type 97 Chi-Ha tanks of the 3rd Tank Brigade, Anami’s main effort was unable to make significant headway. While tank/infantry cooperation had much improved over the course of the war, the defending Chinese forces now had far more anti-tank rifles and guns. The tanks could no longer run-riot against the infantry, and attritional losses continued to mount, especially from the highly concealable PTRS-39 anti-tank rifle.

Heavy rainfall quickly made life miserable for forces on both sides, and non-combat losses increased from sickness. When air power was available, the IJA’s Ki-27 fighters were heavily outmatched by the American F-28s, and the few available K-43s could not even out the disparity.

In the quiet moments, the leaders of the coalition forces shared counsel in the command tent, sipping the Tennessee whiskey that the American military liaison Lt. Gen. Harry Haywood was so fond of. Zhou would often prod Frunze into telling tales about the Russian Civil War, which he was more than happy to do.

Frunze himself had the vigor of a man ten years younger. His brown hair, still brushed into his favored flat-top style, had turned silver. His deputy, Zhukov, was his perfect foil. Frunze was stoic and cool-headed. Zhukov was brash and colorful. Both were absolutely fearless under fire, and on more than one occasion they would take personal charge of situations at the front to rally soldiers at the edge of breaking.

Finally, after enduring repeated grinding by the IJA, Frunze revealed his masterstroke on 12 May 1940. The code word “Aurora” was sent by radio, followed by a sudden hellish artillery bombardment at key sectors of the Japanese lines. Soviet infantry followed with a level of aggression that impressed even the officers of Imperial Japan. After a morning of savage fighting, often at bayonet point, the BT-7s of the 21st Mechanised Corps began their penetration in the Japanese rear.

The forces of the NRA joined the attack, pinning down the forces of the Japanese Eleventh Army and their Reorganized Government allies. River crossings were quickly secured, and the tanks moved into the rear, cleaving the Eleventh Army from the Reorganized NRA’s 4th Army Group. As the tank forces moved deep into the rear and began their double envelopment of the 11th Army, the IJA counterattacked with whatever forces it could muster. Infantry riding on the BT-7s in tank desant helped secure the cordon along with truck mobile infantry, but losses were savage on both sides.

By 17 May, the double envelopment was nearly complete, trapping elements of four Japanese divisions in the Changsha cauldron. Not wishing to overextend himself, Zhukov (in operational command of 21st Mechanised Corps), halted the forward advance, giving time for the rest of the infantry to tighten the cordon.

Unfortunately, political manipulation began to undo the hard work. Wang, now drunk with victory, ordered the offensive to continue over the objections of both Zhou and Xue. Frunze’s own command was entirely independent of the Supreme Council of National Defense, but nonetheless tried to help his Chinese allies as best he could while avoiding further attrition. Because the NRA advanced too rapidly, it lost cohesion in the pursuit, and found itself under the guns of Japanese gunboats from Lake Dongting.

General Anami, invested in the city of Changsha itself, used the opportunity to attempt a breakout. With coordination from Reorganized NRA forces outside the Changsha cauldron, Anami was able to escape with some of his forces, though he was forced to abandon most of his remaining heavy artillery and tanks in the breakout.

Changsha was a badly needed major victory for the Republic of China, though it fell short of totally routing Japanese forces in Hunan Province. The IJA lost forty-five thousand men killed or captured, and nearly all the heavy artillery, tanks and trucks in the Eleventh Army. The Reorganized NRA lost a further fifty thousand men killed or captured over the course of the battle; total Co-Prosperity Sphere forces in Hunan Province were depleted by nearly half.

The Republic of China paid a commensurate price for the victory, nearly forty thousand Chinese and nine thousand Soviet soldiers were killed in action or died from their wounds. A further fifteen thousand soldiers, mostly Chinese, would be captured by the enemy.

The diplomatic repercussions of the battle would begin immediately. The Japanese envoy to the Soviet Union Tōgō Shigenori issued a stern diplomatic protest about the presence of Soviet soldiers in the “Chinese rebellion zones” as soon as they were discovered. Soviet Foreign Affairs Commissar sent a communique back demanding to know what Imperial Japanese forces were doing invading the sovereign territory of the internationally recognized Republic of China.

The ferocity of Soviet forces significantly impacted the plans and strategy of the Imperial government. Prince-Regent Chichibu, who had favored along with his allies in the Kōdōha military confrontation with the Soviet Union as part of the Hokushin-ron doctrine, now got cold feet. Integrating China into the Co-Prosperity Sphere was taking far more blood and treasure than expected, even with the Chinese warlords doing the heavy lifting.

Frunze had hoped to increase Soviet involvement into China further following the victory, but coded telegrams arrived as victory was in sight that put paid to that notion. The Soviet Union had been invaded by a coalition of Fascist states led by Germany, and Frunze, along with most of his senior staff, were to be recalled. The Far Eastern Red Banner Army would remain in place, but support for any major offensive operations was now seriously in jeopardy.

Order of Battle - Far Eastern Red Banner Army

Commander-in-chief: General M.V. Frunze
Deputy Commander: General-Lieutenant G.K. Zhukov
WFRA liaison: Lieutenant General Harry Haywood

• Far Eastern Red Banner Army HQ
  • 6th Expeditionary Rifle Corps
    • 17th Rifle Division
    • 44th Kievskaya Rifle Division
    • 50th Rifle Division
  • 21st Mechanised Corps
    • 1st Moskovsko Motor Rifle Division
    • 8th Tank Division
    • 109th Motor Rifle Division
  • 1st Tank Division
  • 15th Aviation Brigade

*[WPA]: Works Progress Administration *[NBI]: National Bureau of Investigation