Army, New War?

Of China's 4,480,992 square miles, Japanese forces held:

This week: 620,107

Week ago: 616,750

Month ago: 565,000

Year ago: 500,000

Japanese brought a new army to the Shanghai sector of the war last week. Hitherto they have bitten at the Shanghai peninsula exclusively along the northern edge of its tip. Last week they landed forces along the southern edge under cover of thick fog. Surprised Chinese battled the Japanese landing parties hand-to-hand, but the Son of Heaven's troops gained a solid footing, preparatory to Japanese efforts to nip off Shanghai from the rest of China by closing pincers from the North and South, now that Japan's frontal attack has failed to take Shanghai for 13 weeks. This week 39 Japanese destroyers and shallow draft gunboats were bombarding the Shanghai peninsula's southern coast and the Japanese landing force, variously estimated between 5,000 and 25,000 had advanced to within 15 mi. of Shanghai.

Two land planes with British markings flew over Japanese positions last week. The British could offer no explanation, saying there were no British land planes nearer than Hong Kong. Japanese resentment, ignited fortnight ago when the British permitted 377 Chinese soldiers to escape to the British lines (TIME, Nov. 8), was at snapping point.

Amid this tension, Japanese officers, who said they would like to attend last week the funeral of four British soldiers slain by stray shells fortnight ago, were refused permission by the British. Chinese officers were permitted to attend and a swarm of Chinese students dashed through Shanghai streets cheering and waving banners inscribed: "LONG LIVE OUR BRITISH FRIENDS!"

Morale of the Chinese troops continued excellent, but Shanghai's foreign military observers had begun to speak of a probable Chinese G. H. Q. decision to evacuate the whole Shanghai peninsula and this week the evacuation began while jubilant Japanese pounced without resistance upon sectors which for three months have been bitterly contested. The chief technical advisers of the Chinese G. H. Q. are German officers who during the World War served under Ludendorff and Hindenburg. Last week Colonel E. Ott, Military Attache of the German Embassy at Tokyo, had come to Shanghai and was perspiringly explaining to vexed Japanese staff officers how it happens that Adolf Hitler, friend and pact-maker against Communism with Japan though he is (see p. 23), has not pulled out from under the Chinese General Staff its German advisers.

According to Colonel Ott. the Japanese ought to be glad that these German officers have not been replaced by Soviet military experts, and anyhow the German Republic which preceded the Nazis unfortunately gave up the extraterritorial rights of Germans in China. Therefore, perspired Colonel Ott, the Nazis today dare not antagonize the Chinese who could turn around and crack down in their native courts upon Germans any day--whereas U. S., British, French and Japanese citizens in China still are protected by their precious "extraterritorial rights."

The large, continuous Japanese advance in North China was still unchecked last week. In bleak, snow-dusted mountain regions remote from the chattering press typewriters of Shanghai, Japanese overwhelmed Changte on the Peiping-Hankow Railway, the largest city taken since the fall of Shihkiachwang, and rolled westward to the north gate of Taiyuan, the capital of Shansi. Much of this advance was against Chinese troops of the former Communist armies and Tokyo papers headlined "RED ROUT."

The Japanese commander, Lieut. General Seishiro Itagaki, while his motorized divisions roared over a Chinese strategic highway built by famed "Model Governor" Yen Hsi-shan of Shansi, announced: "We are pursuing the disorganized Chinese troops so fast that they are unable to reform their lines in the strong positions which they had prepared earlier in anticipation of their retreat."

Paradoxically, the approach of sub-zero weather in Manchukuo and adjoining Soviet territory was considered by experienced Far East military observers a point in favor of a Japanese-Russian clash in this region soon, not a point against. The intense cold will freeze the swamps and marshlands of the Soviet-Manchukuo frontier solidly enough to permit tanks and armored cars to operate over what in decent weather would be virtually impassable. For some time it has been noticed that Japanese troops at Shanghai consist mainly of soldiers aged 30 and upwards, the younger and hardier troops of the Son of Heaven being elsewhere. This week Japan was said to have over 200,000 of her best-equipped forces in Manchukuo, partly to cow and suppress native insurgence and uprisings against the Japanese--of which, apparently, there is plenty --partly, in case one more war breaks out in the Far East because it is getting too cold to be fit weather for man or beast-- just right for mechanized warfare.

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