Fateful Choices: Ten Decisions That Changed the World, 1940-1941

by Ian Kershaw

  26. John P. Fox, Germany and the Far Eastern Crisis 1931–1938. A Study in Diplomacy and Ideology, Oxford, 1982, ch. 10; Hartmut Bloß, ‘Deutsche Chinapolitik im Dritten Reich’, in Manfred Funke (ed.), Hitler, Deutschland und die Mächte. Materialien zur Außenpolitik des Dritten Reichs, Düsseldorf, 1978, pp. 419–23.

  27. Sheffield University Library, Wolfson Microfilm 431, Diary of Marquis Kido Koichi (American translation of extracts for use in the Tokyo War Crimes Trials), doc. no. 1632BB (1), 22.8.39. For Kido, see Bix, pp. 370–1; and Toland, The Rising Sun, p. 79.

  28. Iriye, Origins, p. 81; Nish, p. 231.

  29. Iriye, Origins, pp. 83–4.

  30. James William Morley (ed.), The Fateful Choice. Japan’s Advance into Southeast Asia, 1939–1941, New York, 1980 (translated essays by Hosoya Chihiro on ‘Northern Defence’, Nagaoka Shinjiro on ‘Economic Demands on the Dutch East Indies’, Hata Ikuhiko on ‘The Army’s Move into Northern Indochina’, Nagaoka Shinjiro on ‘The Drive into Southern Indochina and Thailand’ and Tsunoda Jun on ‘The Navy’s Role in the Southern Strategy’, based upon Japanese documentation), p. 121.

  31. Gordon, pp. 92–3; Misawa Shigeo and Minomiya Saburo, ‘The Role of the Diet and Political Parties’, in Borg and Okamoto, Pearl Harbor as History, pp. 321–4.

  32. Shigeo and Saburo, pp. 324–6; Gordon, pp. 126–31, 162–73, 187–9.

  33. Gordon, p. 333.

  34. Gordon, p. 193.

  35. Shigeo and Saburo, pp. 326–7.

  36. Eugene Sathre, ‘Communication and Conflict: Japanese Foreign Policy leading to the Pacific War’, unpublished Ph.D. thesis, University of Minnesota, 1978, pp. 43–50.

  37. The above all based upon Nobutaka Ike (ed.), Japan’s Decision for War. Records of the 1941 Policy Conferences, Stanford, Calif., 1967, pp. xv–xix. See also Butow, pp. 149–50.

  38. Ike, p. xviii; F. C. Jones, Japan’s New Order in East Asia. Its Rise and Fall, 1937–45, Oxford, 1954, pp. 7–9.

  39. Nazli Choucri, Robert C. North and Susumu Yamakage, The Challenge of Japan before World War II and After, London/New York, 1992, p. 165.

  40. Bix, pp. 10–11; Jones, pp. 11–12.

  41. Lesley Connors, The Emperor’s Adviser. Saionji Kinmochi and Pre-War Japanese Politics, London, 1987, pp. 186–99.

  42. Iriye, Origins, pp. 86–7, 99–100.

  43. Yoshitake Oka, Konoe Fumimaro. A Political Biography, Tokyo, 1983, pp. 10–13. For a brief description of Konoe’s early career and the development of his ideas, see also Seiichi, pp. 66–8.

  44. Oka, pp. 36–8.

  45. Toland, The Rising Sun, p. 73.

  46. Oka, pp. 46–7; Murakami Hyoe and Thomas J. Harper (eds.), Great Historical Figures of Japan, Tokyo, 1978, p. 299.

  47. Oka, pp. 75, 78.

  48. Bix, pp. 344–6.

  49. Oka, pp. 84–5. In a proclamation on 1 August 1940, Matsuoka Yosuke stated that ‘our present foreign policy is to establish the Greater East Asia Co-Prosperity Sphere’, which was ‘the same as the New Order in East Asia Sphere or the Security Sphere, and its scope includes southern areas such as the Netherlands Indies and French Indo-China; the three nations of Japan, Manchuria and China are one link’. Achieving this would ‘avoid all obstacles’ to the ‘completion of dealing with the China Incident’ (Lebra, pp. 71–2).

  50. Toland, The Rising Sun, p. 61.

  51. Iriye, Origins, p. 106.

  52. Quoted in Butow, pp. 141–2.

  53. Cordell Hull, The Memoirs of Cordell Hull, New York, 1948, vol. 1, p. 902.

  54. Grew, p. 328 (1.9.40). He swiftly came to see in Matsuoka, nevertheless, the image of ‘a nation determined to achieve its objectives at all cost’ (Waldo H. Heinrichs, Jr., American Ambassador. Joseph C. Grew and the Development of the United States Diplomatic Tradition, Boston, 1966, pp. 243–5).

  55. Oka, pp. 97–8.

  56. Quoted in Bix, p. 374.

  57. Iriye, Origins, p. 106.

  58. Butow, pp. 143–7 (and pp. 115–19 for his earlier appointment as Vice-Minister of War under the first Konoe government); see also the pen-portrait of Tojo in Mark Weston, Giants of Japan. The Lives of Japan’s Greatest Men and Women, New York/Tokyo/London, 1999, pp. 182–9.

  59. James William Morley (ed.), Deterrent Diplomacy. Japan, Germany, and the USSR 1935–1940, New York, 1976 (translated essays by Ohata Tokushiro on ‘The Anti-Comintern Pact, 1935–1939’, Hata Ikuhiko on ‘The Japanese-Soviet Confrontation, 1935–1939’ and Hosoya Chihiro on ‘The Tripartite Pact, 1939–1940’, based upon Japanese documentation), pp. 229–30.

  60. Morley, Deterrent Diplomacy, pp. 201–2; Morley, The Fateful Choice, pp. 136–7. On the American stance in June and July 1940, in the context of the dramatically altered circumstances following the German victory, see Heinrichs, American Ambassador, pp. 309–12.

  61. Morley, Deterrent Diplomacy, pp. 206–7.

  62. Herbert Feis, The Road to Pearl Harbor. The Coming of the War between the United States and Japan, Princeton, 1950, pp. 51–2, 66–71; Iriye, Origins, pp. 102–3; Spotswood, pp. 95–9.

  63. Bergamini, vol. 2, p. 934.

  64. Morley, The Fateful Choice, pp. 138–9.

  65. Morley, The Fateful Choice, pp. 158–9.

  66. Morley, The Fateful Choice, p. 159; Morley, Deterrent Diplomacy, pp. 206–7 (quotation p. 207).

  67. Iriye, Origins, p. 102.

  68. Morley, The Fateful Choice, pp. 245–6.

  69. Morley, The Fateful Choice, pp. 241–2.

  70. Morley, The Fateful Choice, pp. 243–4.

  71. Morley, The Fateful Choice, p. 250.

  72. Morley, The Fateful Choice, p. 249.

  73. Morley, The Fateful Choice, p. 247.

  74. Text in Morley, Deterrent Diplomacy, pp. 208–9; see also Iriye, p. 102; and Spotswood, pp. 99–104.

  75. Morley, The Fateful Choice, pp. 247–8. See also, for the army’s recognition of a ‘golden opportunity’, the remarks of Grew, p. 324 (1.8.40).

  76. Morley, The Fateful Choice, pp. 250–51.

  77. Morley, The Fateful Choice, pp. 251–2.

  78. Sheffield University Library, Wolfson Microfilm 431, Diary of Marquis Kido Koichi, doc. no. 1632X, 8.7.40. And see Butow, p. 141 and Feis, pp. 76–83.Manoeuvres behind the scenes, orchestrated by Kido, to install Konoe as next Prime Minister had begun as early as May (Tanaka Nobumasa (ed.), Dokyumento Showa Tenno Dai Nikkan [Documents of the Showa Emperor], vol. 2, Tokyo, 1988 [in Japanese], p. 113).

  79. Kido Diary, doc. no. 1632X, 17.7.40.

  80. Bix, pp. 178, 373; Tanaka, pp. 114–17; and Kido Diary, doc. no. 1632X, 17.7.40.

  81. The army had been content to leave the selection of a Foreign Minister ‘entirely to Prince Konoye’ (Kido Diary, doc. no. 1632X, 8.7.40), though in the confidence that he would choose Matsuoka.

  82. Oka, p. 98.

  83. DGFP, 10, doc. 212, p. 278.

  84. Text in Morley, Deterrent Diplomacy, pp. 218–19; and Spotswood, p. 109.

  85. Morley, Deterrent Diplomacy, p. 220; see also Iriye, Origins, p. 107.

  86. Morley, Deterrent Diplomacy, pp. 214–15. On 26 July Matsuoka told the American ambassador in Tokyo ‘that history is based largely on the operation of blind forces which in a rapidly moving world cannot always be controlled’ (Grew, p. 322).

  87. Iriye, Origins, p. 107; Oka, p. 99; Bix, p. 375; Butow, pp. 148–9.

  88. Text in Political Strategy Prior to Outbreak of War (Part II), Japanese Monographs, 146, appendix 2 (http://www.ibiblio.org/pha/monos/146/146app02.html).

  89. Bix, p. 375; Butow, pp. 150–53.

  90. Text in Political Strategy Prior to the Outbreak of War (Part II), Japanese Monographs, 146, appendix 3 (http://www.ibiblio.org/pha/monos/146/146pp03.html).

  91. Morley, The Fateful Choice, p. 141.

  92. Morley, The Fateful Choice, pp. 254–7, 261.

  93. Morley, The Fateful Choice, pp. 256–60.

  94. Morley, The Fateful Choice, pp. 259–61.

  95. Text in Mor
ley, Deterrent Diplomacy, pp. 283–8, and see p. 221.

  96. Grew, pp. 324–5 (1.8.40); see also his entry of 2.7.40, pp. 320–21.

  97. Theo Sommer, Deutschland und Japan zwischen den Mächten 1935–1940. Vom Antikominternpakt zum Dreimächtepakt, Tübingen, 1962, pp. 384–5; Morley, Deterrent Diplomacy, p. 227. The ‘destroyer deal’ is more fully examined in Chapter 5 below.

  98. Sommer, pp. 386–7; Morley, Deterrent Diplomacy, pp. 225–6.

  99. Matsuoka Yosuke. The Man and his Life, Tokyo, 1974 [in Japanese], pp. 768–9.

  100. Morley, The Fateful Choice, pp. 264–5. Matsuoka, and some in the army leadership, were initially suspicious that Yoshida’s illness was no more than a ‘diplomatic’ one (Matsuoka Yosuke, pp. 768–9).

  101. Morley, The Fateful Choice, pp. 229–30, 266–8; Oka, p. 104.

  102. Morley, Deterrent Diplomacy, pp. 228–33.

  103. Morley, Deterrent Diplomacy, pp. 232–7; Spotswood, pp. 127–9.

  104. Michael Bloch, Ribbentrop, paperback edn., London, 1994, p. 303.

  105. Sommer, p. 387.

  106. Quoted in Morley, Deterrent Diplomacy, p. 233.

  107. Quoted in Morley, Deterrent Diplomacy, p. 239.

  108. Quoted in Morley, Deterrent Diplomacy, p. 241.

  109. Butow, p. 163.

  110. Quoted in Morley, Deterrent Diplomacy, p. 238.

  111. Quoted in Morley, Deterrent Diplomacy, pp. 238–9.

  112. Ike, pp. 4–13, for notes of the Conference.

  113. Quoted in Morley, Deterrent Diplomacy, p. 248.

  114. Bix, p. 382.

  115. Oka, p. 105.

  116. Fully examined in Sommer, pp. 394–426, and Morley, Deterrent Diplomacy, pp. 233–54.

  117. Text in Political Strategy Prior to the Outbreak of War (Part II), Japanese Monographs, 146, pp. 23–30 (http://www.ibiblio.org/pha/monos/146/146chap1.html). See also Feis, pp. 118–19. Butow, pp. 179–80, points out that no precise minutes were taken, as was normal in such conferences, and that the secretaries recorded the gist of what was said. Nevertheless, there seems no reason to doubt that the words cited represented the views of Konoe, Matsuoka and Tojo. Grew, p. 339 (2.10.40), recorded his impressions of extensive lack of enthusiasm for the pact.

  118. Iriye, Origins, p. 116.

  119. Text in Morley, Deterrent Diplomacy, pp. 298–9; and DGFP, 11, doc. 118, p. 204.

  120. The United States regarded the pact as no more than confirmation of a relationship which had in practice long existed (Hull, vol. 1, p. 909).

  121. Iriye, Origins, p. 117; Morley, The Fateful Choice, pp. 188–203.

  122. Feis, pp. 105–9; William Carr, Poland to Pearl Harbor. The Making of the Second World War, London, 1985, pp. 109–10; Spotswood, pp. 157–63. The American ambassador in Tokyo, Joseph Grew, only became aware of the possibility of a deal between Japan and Germany as late as mid-September and remained largely in the dark until the Tripartite Pact was actually signed (Heinrichs, American Ambassador, p. 319).

  123. Iriye, Origins, p. 117.

  124. Carr, pp. 110–11.

  125. That control over south-east Asia was the pivotal issue, with Japanese leaders determined to expand and control the area, and American policy-makers increasingly resolute in their resistance, is particularly emphasized by Iriye, Across the Pacific, p. 201, and Spotswood, pp. 13–18.

  126. Morley, The Fateful Choice, p. 274; also quoted by Bergamini, vol. 2, p. 952;and see Weston, p. 193. Yamamoto had told Prince Konoe in August 1940 that he had no expectation of success in a war that lasted longer than twelve months (Bergamini, vol. 2, p. 958).

  127. Carr, pp. 107–8.

  128. Iriye, Origins, p. 116.

  129. Measured by gross national product, of the ‘great powers’ only Italy was weaker than Japan in 1940. Japan had also the smallest of the armed forces (apart from the United States, which was only just beginning to rearm), but spent almost as high a proportion of her national income on armaments as Germany (Mark Harrison (ed.), The Economics of World War II. Six Great Powers in International Comparison, Cambridge, 1998, pp. 10, 14, 21). Akira Hara, ‘Japan: Guns before Rice’ (pp. 224–67 of the same volume) brings out the important point (p. 225) that Japan’s economy had been organized on a wartime basis since the beginning of the conflict with China in 1937.

  130. Carr, p. 111.

  CHAPTER 4. ROME, SUMMER AND AUTUMN 1940

  1. Quoted in R. J. B. Bosworth, Mussolini, London, 2002, p. 369.

  2. MacGregor Knox, Common Destiny. Dictatorship, Foreign Policy, and War in Fascist Italy and Nazi Germany, Cambridge, 2000, pp. 61, 67–9.

  3. Stanley G. Payne, A History of Fascism 1914–45, London, 1995, p. 383; I. C. B. Dear and M. R. D. Foot (eds.), The Oxford Companion to the Second World War, Oxford/New York, 1995, p. 583.

  4. In 1928 Hitler had written a lengthy tract–in the event left unpublished–setting out his policy renouncing claims on South Tyrol in the interests of an alliance with Italy. He had already, two years earlier, taken issue with those on the German nationalist Right using the issue of South Tyrol for anti-Italian agitation. See Hitler’s Second Book. The Unpublished Sequel to Mein Kampf, ed. Gerhard L. Weinberg, New York, 2003, pp. xvi–xxi, and Ian Kershaw, Hitler, 1889–1936: Hubris, London, 1998, pp. 291–2.

  5. Knox, Common Destiny, p. 96.

  6. Denis Mack Smith, Mussolini, paperback edn., London, 1983, p. 235.

  7. Alberto Aquarone, ‘Public Opinion in Italy before the Outbreak of World War II’, in Roland Sarti (ed.), The Ax Within. Italian Fascism in Action, New York, 1974, p. 212; Paul Corner, ‘Everyday Fascism in the 1930s. Centre and Periphery in the Decline of Mussolini’s Dictatorship’, Contemporary European History, 15 (2006), pp. 215–18, pointing out the negative effect on the Duce cult of the alliance with Nazi Germany and the growing likelihood of war.

  8. Quoted from MacGregor Knox, Mussolini Unleashed 1939–1941. Politics and Strategy in Fascist Italy’s Last War, paperback edn., Cambridge, 1986, pp. 39–40.

  9. Ciano’s Diary 1939–1943, ed. Malcolm Muggeridge, London, 1947, pp. 45–6.

  10. Ray Moseley, Mussolini’s Shadow. The Double Life of Count Galeazzo Ciano, New Haven/London, 1999, p. 55.

  11. Quoted in Knox, Mussolini Unleashed, p. 41.

  12. Ciano’s Diary, p. 90.

  13. See Mario Toscano, The Origins of the Pact of Steel, Baltimore, 1967, chs. 4–5.

  14. H. James Burgwyn, Italian Foreign Policy in the Interwar Period 1918–1940, Westport, Conn., 1997, p. 194.

  15. Knox, Mussolini Unleashed, p. 42; Burgwyn, p. 194.

  16. DGFP, 6, pp. 574–80; and see Gerhard L. Weinberg, The Foreign Policy of Hitler’s Germany. Starting World War II, 1937–1939, Chicago/London, 1980, pp. 579–81 (and p. 579 n. 188 for the authenticity of the document, which had been called into question at the Nuremberg Trial and afterwards).

  17. Ciano’s Diary, p. 116.

  18. Ciano’s Diary, pp. 122–3.

  19. Quotations in Ciano’s Diary, pp. 123–5.

  20. Ciano’s Diary, pp. 126–30.

  21. Ciano’s Diary, p. 133.

  22. DGFP, 7, doc. 271, p. 286 (25.8.39); Burgwyn, pp. 203–4.

  23. DGFP, 7, doc. 317, p. 323; Burgwyn, pp. 204–5.

  24. Ciano’s Diary, pp. 134–6; Enno von Rintelen, Mussolini als Bundesgenosse. Erinnerungen des deutschen Militärattachés in Rom 1936–1943, Tübingen/Stuttgart, 1951, p. 71; Knox, Mussolini Unleashed, p. 43. On the concept of ‘non-belligerency’, see Neville Wylie (ed.), European Neutrals and Non-Belligerents during the Second World War, Cambridge, 2002, p. 4.

  25. What follows relies on Knox, Mussolini Unleashed, pp. 16–19; and MacGregor Knox, Hitler’s Italian Allies. Royal Armed Forces, Fascist Regime, and the War of 1940–1943, Cambridge, 2000, pp. 29–32.

  26. Knox, Mussolini Unleashed, p. 10.

  27. Denis Mack Smith, Mussolini as a Military Leader, Reading 1974, pp. 17, 28–9. Nor–what became harmful to accurate evaluation–was there an i
ntegrated intelligence service (which Mussolini saw as a threat to his own power) (MacGregor Knox, ‘Fascist Italy Assesses its Enemies, 1935–1940’, in Ernest R. May (ed.), Knowing One’s Enemies. Intelligence Assessment before the Two World Wars, Princeton, 1983, pp. 347–72, atp. 372).

  28. For the following, see Knox, Mussolini Unleashed, pp. 18–30; and Knox, Common Destiny, pp. 152–7.

  29. Quoted in Knox, Common Destiny, p. 155; and Knox, Mussolini Unleashed, p. 10. Measured by gross national product, Italy was in economic terms by far the weakest of the major belligerent powers in 1940 and her military spending only a third as high as Germany’s (Mark Harrison (ed.), The Economics of World War II. Six Great Powers in International Comparison, Cambridge, 1998, pp. 10, 21). In her contribution to this volume (pp. 177–223), Vera Zamagni, ‘Italy: How to Lose the War and Win the Peace’, concludes that Italy’s level of development did not allow the country to fight the war effectively, let alone to win it.

  30. For the concept, in its application to Hitler’s regime, see Peter Hüttenberger, ‘Nationalsozialistische Polykratie’, Geschichte und Gesellschaft, 2 (1976), pp. 417–42; and the summary in Ian Kershaw, The Nazi Dictatorship. Problems and Perspectives of Interpretation, 4th edn., London, 2000, pp. 58–9.

  31. Payne, pp. 119, 122.

  32. Payne, p. 117.

  33. Adrian Lyttleton, The Seizure of Power, London, 1973, pp. 72–5, 175; Bosworth, Mussolini, pp. 154–5, 160–65.

  34. Payne, pp. 116, 118–19.

  35. Martin Broszat, Der Staat Hitlers, Munich, 1969, p. 262; Dieter Rebentisch, Führerstaat und Verwaltung im Zweiten Weltkrieg, Stuttgart, 1989, p. 422.

  36. Maurizio Bach, Die charismatischen Führerdiktaturen. Drittes Reich und italienischer Faschismus im Vergleich ihrer Herrschaftsstrukturen, Baden-Baden, 1990, p. 111.

  37. Payne, p. 221.

  38. See Corner, esp. pp. 199, 206–17.

  39. See Piero Melograni, ‘The Cult of the Duce in Mussolini’s Italy’, Journal of Contemporary History, 11 (1976), pp. 221–37.

  40. S. J. Woolf (ed.), Fascism in Europe, 2nd edn., London, 1981, p. 62.

  41. Payne, pp. 219–20.