Comments by "August Hayek" (@hayek218) on "The Armchair Historian"
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Lambert2191
This is the series of the events:
1. After Nazi surrendered, Churchill kept on pushing Truman to hold Potsdam meeting immediately in a hope to end the WWII as soon as possible. However, Truman kept on postponing it until the first test of the ABomb on July 16, 1945. The first Potsdam meeting was postponed until July 17.
2. US found that Japan started negotiating to surrender through Soviet in June 1941, to which MacArthur said to the General Staff Office that the War is over. The resolution for starting to negotiate the terms of surrender through Soviet was passed on June 22, 1945.
3. "Unconditional surrender” that Truman strongly insisted, is a military term used for an army and not for a country. It has no definition in the International Law, and thus bewildered not only Japan but everyone else including US law philosophers, US generals like Eisenhower, or even Churchill.
4. Joseph Grew, the former ambassador to Japan, knew from his experiences and suggested to Truman on May 28, 1945 that if US agreed to keep the Emperor, Japan would surrender immediately.
5. Both Eisenhower and Stimson agreed to Grew's idea and to proposed it to the President on July 20, 1945. MacArthur also wrote that the Japanese would fight til the last person if US would not promise to preserve the Emperor. Only Barns, who newly came to the office on July 3, 1945, disagreed and opposed.
6. Six out of all the seven Five Star Generals were against the use of ABombs, even LeMay.
(against: MacArthur, Nimitz, Eisenhower, Leahy, LeMay, Arnold)
7. Preservation of the Emperor was included in the final US official proposal for the condition of Japan's surrender.
8. However, on the way to Potsdam on Augusta, Barns succeeded in persuading Truman to remove the clause on the Emperor. Grew, Stimson and others were not on the ship.
9. Truman heard the ABobm test was successful on July 16, 1945 during the Potsdam meeting.
10. Stimson arrived at Potsdam after the Abomb test, and asked Truman to re-include the clause of preserving the Emperor. But Truman very strongly opposed to the idea and refused by saying "you can go home if you do not like it."
11. At the meeting in Potsdam, Truman asked Stalin, when Soviet would invade Japan. Stalin replied August 15. (Japan had a non-aggression pact with the Soviet. But in Yalta, FDR secretly agreed with Stalin to break the pact and invade.) Truman wrote on this day's dairy that if Soviet aggress, Jap will end.
12. The Potsdam declaration was issued July 26, but it was not signed by Soviet, delaying the sign by the Japanese.
13. On the same day, July 26, Truman gave a command to drop the first ABomb on the earliest clear day after August 3.
14. Just before Soviet's invasion, US dropped the ABombs, on August 6 and 9, 1945. On hearing this news, Soviet started invading Manchuria on August 9, sooner than the previously planned date by breaking the non-aggression pact.
15. The Japanese did not even know what the bombs were, but they surrendered when they found Soviet started invading Manchuria.
16. Truman said on US TV that they used the ABombs that they "invested" so much money.
17. US intervened treating patients at hospitals for collecting medical data.
18. The Emperor Hirohito was not prosecuted in the Tokyo Tribunal, and he stayed as the Emperor. The position of the emperor was also kept in the new constitution which was illegally (by International Law) forced by the US. So the whole hustle about the preservation of the Emperor did not mean anything at all in the end.
19. In his memoirs, Truman wrote "Japanese are beast. So are treated as."
20. A famous book, "Just Wars and Unjust Wars," written by a prominent US political philosopher at Harvard, Michael Walzer, condemns the use of atomic bombs as crimes. This book is used as a must-read text book at West Point today.
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@It is what it is
Lytton’s report:
Right or left, and Great Powers or Japanese, they more or less all agree that the report written by the Lytton Commission was thorough and good, but except for its conclusion. The report literally says that just about everything Japan said is right, and respects all its rights in Manchuria. But in its conclusions, it suggests the Manchukuo to be under the control of the League of Nations.
Of course, the League of Nations was heavily controlled by the Great Powers and the members of Lytton Commission were all commanders of European countries, so in a way, this conclusion was understandable. But for the Japanese it was not acceptable. At the time, the Japanese politicians were pacifists and the Kwantung Army was aggressive. But it was really the media that fueled the whole thing everyday.
One of the communists and a Soviet spy arrested in the Sorge Incident was a Japanese journalist, Hotsumi Ozaki, at the leading newspaper company, Asahi Shinbun, who was executed in jail. He was also a brain to the Prime Minister Konoe, but previously he stationed in China as an analyst of Asahi for the Manchurian Railway.
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MJBull515
The Atomic bombs were not needed for the Japanese to surrender and US knew it. But still they used them as human experiments. This is clearly shown in the following sequence of events:
1. After Nazi surrendered on May 7, 1945, Churchill kept on pushing Truman to hold Potsdam meeting immediately in a hope to end the WWII as soon as possible. However, Truman kept on postponing it until the first test of the ABomb on July 16, 1945. The first Potsdam meeting was postponed until July 17.
2. On May 8, US summoned Japan to accept “unconditional surrender."
3. However, the "Unconditional surrender” that Truman strongly insisted, is a military term used for an army and not for a country. It has no definition in the International Law, and thus bewildered not only Japan but everyone else including US law philosophers, US generals like Eisenhower, or even Churchill.
4. US found that Japan started negotiating to surrender through Soviet in June 1941, to which MacArthur said to the General Staff Office that the War is over. The resolution for starting to negotiate the terms of surrender through Soviet was passed on June 22, 1945 in Japan WITHOUT atomic bombs.
5. Joseph Grew, the former ambassador to Japan, knew from his experiences and suggested to Truman on May 28, 1945 that if US agreed to keep the Emperor, Japan would surrender immediately.
6. Both Eisenhower and Stimson agreed to Grew's idea and to proposed it to the President on July 20, 1945. MacArthur also wrote that the Japanese would fight til the last person if US would not promise to preserve the Emperor. Only Byrnes, who newly came to the office on July 3, 1945, disagreed and opposed.
7. Six out of all the seven Five Star Generals were against the use of ABombs.
(against: MacArthur, Eisenhower, Arnold, Nimitz, Leahy)
8. Preservation of the Emperor was included in the final US official proposal for the condition of Japan's surrender.
9. However, on the way to Potsdam on Augusta, Byrnes succeeded in persuading Truman to remove the clause on the Emperor. Grew, Stimson and others were not on the ship.
10. Truman heard the ABobm test was successful on July 16, 1945 during the Potsdam meeting.
11. Stimson arrived at Potsdam after the Abomb test, and asked Truman to re-include the clause of preserving the Emperor. But Truman very strongly opposed to the idea and refused by saying "you can go home if you do not like it."
12. At the meeting in Potsdam, Truman asked Stalin, when Soviet would invade Japan. Stalin replied August 15. (Japan had a non-aggression pact with the Soviet. But in Yalta Conference held from February 4 to 11, 1945, FDR secretly agreed with Stalin to break the pact and invade in return for some parts of Japan.) Truman wrote on this day's dairy that if Soviet aggress, Jap will end, meaning that if Truman used Abombs BEFORE August 15, his purpose for use would be something other than ending the War.
13. The Potsdam declaration was issued July 26, but it was not signed by Soviet, delaying the sign by the Japanese. It was Truman that refused the signature by Stalin.
14. On the same day, July 26, Truman gave a command to drop the first ABomb on the earliest clear day after August 3.
15. Just before Soviet's invasion, US dropped the ABombs, on August 6 and 9, 1945. On hearing this news, Soviet started invading Manchuria on August 9, sooner than the previously planned date by breaking the non-aggression pact.
16. The Japanese did not even know what the bombs were, but they surrendered when they found Soviet started invading Manchuria, because with almost no power to fight back even against US, they could not hold a two-front war; Japan did not have other route than through Soviet for negotiating the terms of surrender.
17. Truman said on US TV that they used the ABombs that they "invested" so much money.
18. US intervened treating patients at hospitals for collecting medical data. In some cases, they let patients die without treatment to collect intestines for studies back in US.
19. The Emperor Hirohito was not prosecuted in the Tokyo Tribunal, and he stayed as the Emperor. The position of the emperor was also kept under the new constitution which was illegally (by International Law) forced by the US. So the whole hustle about the preservation of the Emperor did not mean anything at all in the end.
20. In his memoirs, Truman wrote "Japanese are beast. So are treated as."
21. A famous book, "Just Wars and Unjust Wars," written by a prominent US political philosopher at Harvard, Michael Waltzer, condemns the use of atomic bombs as crimes. This book is used as a must-read text book at West Point today.
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Manchuria:
Historically the people in the northern part of China were always militarily stronger than the Han Chinese as they were good at riding horses. That is why the southern Chinese built the Great Wall of China. Manchuria was never ruled by the Han Chinese, and it was a land of Manchurians (Jurchens) or their relatives like Mongols. Though the Han Chinese were allowed into the land towards the end of the Qing Dynasty, this region was one of the least populated area in today’s China.
However, though as simple as it seems, the issue surrounding the region was so complex that even the Lytton’s report said that the complication is unparalleled like none in the world, and that nobody is entitle to judge anything unless fully aware of the situation.
The Great Game:
The Great Game came eastward all the way to the Far East. They even fought Crimean War in Kamchatka Peninsula. As such, for the Japanese in Edo Era, Russians were the biggest threat, appearing in Hokkaido every now and then and at one point taking over Tsushima. Even after the Meiji Restoration, with Nicholai II calling himself the Commodore of the Pacific, they were always eager to expand into the Pacific Ocean.
Russia had Vladivostok, but its port freezes during the winter. That is why they had set an eye to the Yellow Sea and Liaodong Peninsula where there are some good ports at which today’s North Sea Fleet of People's Liberation Army Navy is stationed.
Thus Russians led the Triple Intervention so that Japan had to return the peninsula which they obtained after the Sino-Japan War. But soon after the return, of course Russia bribed their way to buy rights from Qing for the Chinese Eastern Railway to the Peninsula. The British and the US were concerned about this since if it connects to the Trans-Siberian Railway as planned to be completed in 1904, the Soviet’s advantage in material transportation to the Far East could change the balance of power in the region, handing over Soviet the mastery of sea in the Pacific.
That is why Russo-Japan War broke out in 1904 with the help of the British and the US. That is why the southern part of the Chinese Eastern Railway was taken by the Japanese in the Treaty of Portsmouth with the mediation by the US.
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