The Greatest Mutiny in History
R. ERNEST DUPUY
April 16, 1917, just ten days after the United States made formal declaration of war upon Germany, the French Army, in conjunction with the British, launched an offensive to end the War. Conceived and directed by General Nivelle, the hero of Verdun, this hammer blow of thirty-eight divisions of infantry with fourteen more in reserve, supported by 3464 guns and 1650 trench mortars, carried the hopes of a France already bled white. It was her supreme effort—it could not, must not, fail.
Fail it did, smashed to red froth against the reefs of a prepared German defensive zone. Six days later French veterans were screaming, "We are betrayed! They are assassinating us! Long live peace!" The leaping flame of terror flared along quick-burning trains of panic and
defaitisme to a mutiny so vast that in six weeks there fronted Germany's might but the crust of a baffled, beaten army. Behind that crust, soldiers' councils were forming; regiments, brigades, divisions—three of France's best army corps—were frozen in sullen rebellion; while the spindrift of mutineers, thousands upon thousands, some on furlough, some AWOL, thronged roads and railways, bound home to force pcace at any price. And Germany did not realize! At least not until late June, when she struck—too late—to find, more astounding still, a rejuvenated French army.
These are the bare facts. The causes which brought France to her knees, and threatened ruin to the Allies, form a kaleidoscopic background of civilian meddling, military overconfidence, political squabbles, psychological williwaws—all very hard to grasp. The remedies which drove her scrambling to her feet at the count of nine compose a masterpiece of manipulation, by a great commander, of that difficult medium—the stubborn Frenchman. Throttled to the world at the outset by expert censorship, these details have for years been buried under seal of secrecy in the military archives of France. Fragments only of the drama have popped momentarily from time to time to the muddied surface of Gallic politics—salient flotsam which may now be pieced together in the light of dispassionate historical research.
Wythe Williams in
Collier's Weekly, nearly a year later, first jerked the curtain up momentarily to view in this country. Denied officially at once, the story was almost immediately forgotten. After the War, in our revulsion from discussion of all things military, the political mudflinging and recriminations in France passed practically unremarked here. The War was over. No one wanted to talk about it, no one wanted to read about it. Today, if one mentions the French Mutiny of '17, the answer, ninety-nine times out of a hundred, will be a blank stare; the exception, a mumbled "Oh, yes, they did have some difficulty, didn't they?"
And yet, if that mutiny had been successful, there might well have been no A. E. F. and certainly no Cantigny, no Saint-Mihiel, no Meuse-Argonne. November 11 would be just another date on the calendar. War between Germany and the United States would probably have gone on; that it would have been waged on French soil is not certain; Pershing did not arrive in France until June 13; our first meager Regular Army units sailed June 14. But on April 24 General—then Colonel—Duval had reported to the French Minister of War: "
Bv the end of the summer we will have guns, planes, to say nothing of the Americans—but there will be no French soldiers.." (The italics are mine.)
A colossal
if, then, an
if significant among the many dotted along historical crossroads of American destiny. Furthermore, the results of the Mutiny influenced the later frenzied demands by our allies for American troops, particularly after the German offensives of 1918, when fears of another mutiny might well have filled the minds of Clemenceau, Foch, and Haig. Moreover, while Pershing has never gone on record to that effect, one may well believe that the Mutiny was one of the factors considered by him in his irrevocable decision to maintain an American army as an entity on the battlefield. One might speculate as to whether it did not in fact bolster President Wilson's determination to let Pershing have free rein. One thing is certain: Pershing, let into the secret by Petain later on. made report to Newton D. Baker July 9, in strictest confidence, informing him that Petain still feared a possible revolution.
II
To get the right perspective, one must examine the situation confronting the Allies in early 1917. Nivelle had been appointed generalissimo in place of Joffre. Impetuous, aggressive, indoctrinated with the spirit of the offensive, he set himself to end the War in one coup which would drive the Germans clear out of France. Planned by January, its execution was dated for April. The Army Group Michler, composed of the 5th (Mazcl). 6th (Mangin), and 10th (Duchesne) Armies, was to strike the blow. Mazel and Mangin. abreast, would pierce between Soissons and Rheims. Duchesne push in between them as they mushroomed out like two plunging linesmen making way for the ball-carrier. The Germans on the right were to be hurled back across the Meuse; those on the left were to be thrown back against the British, who were to start the Vimy Ridge offensive seven days prior. In theory, a perfect plan. Lloyd George was sold on it, Haig acquiesced. Detailed combat orders were issued to the French units. French morale went up. "
On Ies aura! [We will get them!]" became a slogan.
But actually the odds were building up against Nivelle. There intervened:
1. Lack of surprise. French enthusiasm over a spring offensive became common gossip. The Germans captured on February 15 a complete divisional-operations plan. Oriented, they retired ten days later to the Hindenburg Line—a master stroke of strategy which rectified their front. They knitted the Aisne Heights with barbed wire and machine-gun nests. And on April 5 they captured still another detailed plan.
2. The Russian Revolution. Breaking March 12. it released additional German divisions for use on the Western Front, the while sapping Allied morale.
3.
Defaitisme in France. All the elements of class warfare; subversive activities among dissatisfied labor, thousands of slackers in safe jobs.
4. Political squabbles in France, undermining the administration. A Cabinet upheaval brought in Painleve (opposed to the offensive) as new Minister of War.
5. German propaganda. Hurled direct upon the poilus from airplanes, couched in excellent French and purporting to come from French sources, it appealed to the peasant who had left farm and family behind. A good job this, attacking "profiteers, who batten on war," telling of "our wives and daughters prostituted to foreign noncombatants," warning that "the practical English have seized . . . the north of France."
Thus, with the odds against him, Nivelle went ahead. On April 9 Haig sprang the Arras offensive, winning Vimy Ridge but little else. Seven days later the Nivelle offensive (Second Aisne) went off—against a foe who knew every move, held all vital terrain, all the best observation points. The French were stopped in their tracks. Stunned, bewildered, thev floundered on.
On les aura! And actually did make some progress.
Unfortunately, there were, on that fatal morning at headquarters, a dozen or more senators and deputies, hurried out from Paris to see with their own eyes the great finale. One is reminded of the jaunty picnic parties sallying forth from Washington to see the Confederates licked at first Bull Run. They came, these French politicians who had never seen red war at close range; they saw; they were thrown into panic by the horrors they witnessed. And just as those Washingtonians came bleating back when Confederate gray swept the field at Bull Run, so bleated these panic-strickcn politicos; Worse yet, the Frcnch deputies had the telephone—and used it—to clamor to Paris that the slaughter cease.
A paper war has raged about this incident for years. Painleve termed it a legend invented by Nivelle. Mangin declared it true. The investigating board of general officers, who later cleared both Nivelle and Mangin, stated that deputies visiting the front did first spread the panic. At any rate, one M. Ybarnegaray, a deputy serving as a staff officer in the XVIII Corps, did rush from the front to the Elysee Palace on April 22, to demand that the President of France halt the offensive, claiming himself to voice the opinion of the fighting men.
That day the offensive was halted, the plan amended. Came, too, the first rumblings of discontent—in the I Corps of Mazel's 5th Army and the I and II Colonial Corps of Mangin's 6th Army, units particularly cut up by continued assaults against impregnable machine-gun nests. Two days later the British called off the Arras offensive. By April 30 Nivelle had been summoned before the President to explain; Mangin removed from command; Petain appointed to a newly designated job—Chief of the General Staff; Nivclle's plan for limited further offensives sanctioned.
Ill
WHAT had happened on the front? On April 21 and 22, units of the three corps just mentioned, relieved from the line, met replacements coming up, in the vicinity of Montmirail and the camp of Mailly. Stumbling back, they knew but one thing—the attack had failed. Someone had blundered. Furious, heartsick, they gave tongue. "Long live peace! They are assassinating us!" Not mutiny yet, but close to it. The 2nd Division, reeling back after leaving 3300 casualties at the edge of the Craonne plateau, considered their artillery had let them down and said so. Veteran troops these, remember—units which had gone through the hell of Champagne in 1915, not raw recruits appalled by their first losses.
To make matters worse, these troops, moved back to rest camps, within a week found themselves ordered back into the line for resumption of the "nibbling" tactics. Friction was developing between Nivelle and his army commanders, between army and corps commanders. And on May 3, the 2nd Division of the I Colonial Corps, ordered back into the line northeast of Soissons, at first refused to march. Mutiny, this, but promptly controlled by officers and non-coms in this highly disciplined unit.
May 8 the offensive was entirely called off. May 15 Nivelle was formally relieved of command after having refused to resign, and Petain was appointed in his place, Foch assuming the post of Chief of the General Staff. The news flew through the ranks with wings of the wind. The troops, sure now that they had been let down by chiefs in whom they had believed, were told they would have a chance to rest. But they did not.
May 20, it would seem, was the real mutiny day. There is no indication of concerted action, or of a premeditated politico-revolutionary movement. It was just that Jean and Jacques and Gustave had finally decided to let George do it—"George" being the
embusque, the fight-to-the-bitter-end boy who cheered them on from his safe job in the rear. They had had enough. They had been told they were going to end the War. They had discovered they were getting nowhere.
In one cantonment behind the Vesle, mutineers surged forth armed, organized themselves on a neighboring crest defended by their own machine guns, and declared they were through. At Soissons, two regiments, excited by a rumor from Paris, deserted barracks, marched to the railway station, and seized a train with the intention of moving on the capital and forcing the Government to make peace. In another cantonment, the mutineers, ignoring their officers, seized a village and, setting up a soviet government of their own, placed before the high command a series of demands to be put into effect before they wrould return to the lines. These included higher pay, more leaves, and assurance that all enemy trenches and barbed-wire entanglements would be entirely destroyed before any attacks were launched. In still another case, an infantry regiment seized a convoy of motor trucks, mounted machine guns in them, and started a march on Paris similar to the rail move at Soissons. "Down with the War! Down with incompetent generals!" were two favorite slogans. Red flags blossomed here and there, but apparently only one general officer was actually assaulted.
The Russian Revolution and its immediate military result (breakdown of discipline) was by this time a fact known to all French soldiers. Hence the trend to soldiers' councils. As a matter of fact, the Russian troops in France had been bitten by the revolutionary bug prior to the Nivelle offensive. There were two brigades of them in Michler's army group and, according to Painleve, they had formed soldiers' councils and actually voted, early in April, upon the question of participating in the offensive. The majority voted in the affirmative. The influence of this group on the subsequent mutiny is not definitely known, but it may be assured to have had much effect upon neighboring units. The Russians fought bravely enough at Brimont, but a few days later they were transferred to the interior, where they remained.
Oddly enough, while action was not concerted, each individual mutiny seemed to follow the same general pattern. Let us consider for a moment the story of the 128th Infantry, a fine organization. Held in reserve at the onset of the offensive, its men learned all the rumors of appalling losses, of blunders, of defeat. It moved into the line April 29 with the mission to storm Mont Spin. Launched May 6, the regiment attained certain objectives and held them until May 15 without shelter and against violent counterattacks. Relieved that day, the men learned, while marching back to rest, that the position had been immediately retaken by the Germans. In the little village of Prouilly the exhausted soldiers fraternized with men of the 120th Infantry and 117th Territorials, exchanged notes on insufficient artillery support and poor aerial observation. One hope remained—rest. But on May 20 came orders to go back into line. The men had been paid, liquor was available in abundance. Replacements, infected by sedition at the depot, joined them. The 120th refused to march. Hotheads in the 128th called for soldiers' councils; men gathered in noisy groups; some refused point-blank to fall in. Soapbox orators urged Russian methods. Quick action by officers squelched the trouble, and the regiment marched, but many rioters were left behind in confinement.
The 128th's story, with few variations, is typical of all the outbreaks. In each case it was not troops in front-line positions who rebelled, but men who had returned from a hopeless fight, were in rest camps, and suddenly found themselves ordered back to fight again. Came liquor, guardhouse lawyers' arguments, little gatherings that swirled almost spontaneously into mass meetings. Here and there officers were threatened, in some few instances, abused. In each case, military control was at least partially restored. The men were not rebelling against France, or their own officers; they were striking against the Government and the high command. This, it would seem, was what misled the German intelligence, which must have had plenty of information from its agents inside the French lines. Had front-line units crumpled, had men deserted to the enemy, one can well believe that the War would have been over in a week.
In rear areas, conditions were worse. As the offensive died down, liberal furloughs had been granted—the primary method to restore morale. However, when the leave trains jolted through stations to the interior, the men, who in many instances had been herded for hours in the torrid sun to await transportation, began to drink. The exhortations of certain malcontents did the rest. Many of the trains became caravans of rioting hoodlums, irresponsive to official restraint. Showers of stones smashed glass in railway stations, raids were made on refreshment booths, entire populations were terrorized. Officers were powerless; police were cowed.
In Paris, at both the Gare du Nord and Gare de l'Est, serious outbreaks occurred, mutinous soldiers and Parisian communists joining forces in the rioting. Local authorities all along the railways called frantically to the Army for troops. Seditious elements did their bit to sow the seeds of revolt. These were no minor disturbances; at big railway depots, such as those in Paris, tens of thousands of men passed through on some days.
In the Loire Basin, heart of industrial France, labor unions began to strike, swelling the tumult as their workmen joined the reign of terror. The Ministry of War was besieged with requests for Senegalese riflemen and cavalry to aid the police and gendarmerie.
IV
Such was the situation confronting not only the new generalissimo, Petain, but the French Government itself, during the last ten days of May and the first fortnight of June. To few commanders has such a prize package been presented: In his hands a mutinous army, in front an aggressive enemy, behind him a feverish cesspool of dissension and sedition already slopping over. With Foch as Chief of the General Staff behind him, with Painleve as Minister of War upholding him, Petain started to clean his Augean Stables. His estimate of the situation was that the French Army must have complete rest. A tentative plan for another joint offensive was discarded June 3 when General Maistre, successor to Mangin in command of the 6th Army, stated that without rest "we risk having the men refuse to leave the trenches." "At that moment," declared Painleve, "there were no more than two divisions between Soissons and Paris on whom we could count absolutely."
Petain demanded that the British take up the task of keeping the Germans busy, to give the French time to reorganize and, as he put it, "wait for the Americans and tanks." Haig responded with the Messines offensive. Significant, Petain's remark, for it determined once and for all the importance and the nature of American participation.
Petain started on a flying tour of his entire army, visiting ninety-two divisions, letting them feel the soldierly influence of their new commander-in-chief. Foch in the rear installed proper surveillance over furloughed men. In the units themselves, where thousands of men were now in confinement or under arrest for mutiny, commanders were calling for Draconian action. Petain asked for a free hand, including repeal of the laws permitting appeals from court-martial convictions and of the presidential power of commutation of death sentences. Painleve, fearing parliamentary discussion would make the Mutiny public, induced the President to relinquish his power of grace, which he could do under the law.
Thus Petain, on June 9, held in his hand the power of life and death; the news jolted the Army like a cold shower. Then he acted. According to Painleve, approximately 150 death sentences had been imposed upon ringleaders in cases of "collective refusal to obey," the French euphemism for mutiny. Twenty-three of these were shot, the remainder commuted by Petain to imprisonment. But—they were whisked away in strictest secrecy to confinement in Morocco, Algeria, and Indo-China, while thousands of others were simply transferred—again in secrecy—to units in the colonial possessions. What happened, so far as the soldiers knew, was that Jean and Jacques and Gustave, yesterday in local confinement, had today vanished into thin air. Where were they? "
Tonnere de dieu! Who knows? Shot, perhaps!" Gossip did the rest. Moral: let's not make the same mistake.
Throughout the episode, one remarkable thing remains clear: the steel grip of censorship and counter-espionage maintained by the French authorities. Despite the activities of the German espionage net, despite the efforts of such foreign correspondents as came in contact with some of the events, no definite corroboration of the rumors could be obtained until the information was too old to be of use to the enemy. Petain frankly told Haig of conditions, but Haig did not inform even his own chief of intelligence, lest some inkling leak out.
According to Von Ludendorff, the German high command was not convinced there was anything seriously wrong with the French Army until the middle of June. On June 5, certain limited-objective local attacks were launched, apparently to feel out the situation, but on June 7, Plumer's 2nd British Army stormed Messines Ridge, giving he Germans something else to think about. By June 20 the German inteligence reports all totted up one way and Von Ludcndorff struck, along the Chemin des Dames. The offensive was so warmly received, however, that it was not pushed home. It was too late; the poilu was himself again, pulled out of his hysteria by Petain, given his second wind through Haig's aggressive tactics.
V
The French Mutiny of '17 stands as one of the greatest examples of the effect of mass hyteria upon the soul of the soldier. It is easy to toss off on Nivelle's shoulders responsibility for an ill-advised offensive; it is just as easy to criticize stupidity which permitted French secret documents to fall into German hands. But one must consider that the Nivelle offensive was almost successful; a major portion of the German reserves been sucked into the battle. Who can say definitely what would have happened if the attack had not been peremptorily halted? As for the captured plans, a similar incident occurred in late October, 1918, when detailed operations orders for the final attack of our own 1st Army in the Meuse-Argonne fell into the German hands; the difference here was that, although warned, the Germans were on their last legs.
The Mutiny was over, we see, by June 15; its immediate repercussions died August 20, when Petain launched his limited offensive of the Third Battle of Verdun. In six days the French had taken their objectives, had repulsed all German counterattacks. But the effect of the Mutiny on American participation was to last until the Armistice. One must not forget the frantic pressure on Pershing and on Wilson for men, men, and more men—pressure that vitally changed our original plan.
The highlights tell their story. When Petain's "Americans and tanks" finally arrived, the former were an unknown quantity until Cantigny, May 28, 1918. By that time the great German offensives were once more beating France to her knees. Foch called, Pershing answered. At Chateau-Thierry, in Belleau Wood, Americans set Germany's high-water mark. Then Foch launched his Aisne-Marne offensive. Once again French soldiers were told their attack would end the War; but Foch could not afford failure. So the spearhead of his attack was composed of the 1st and 2nd American Divisions, with the French Moroccan Division between them. In the Meuse-Argonne operation, when the French 4th Army battered in vain against the Blanc Mont heights, failure could not be tolerated. So the 2nd American Division was called on to do the job.
The Mutiny of '17 was but one incident in the vast canvas of the World War. It is hard to realize that this minor drama—actually on the boards as we so blithely rushed to war, yet of which we in general were ignorant—materially affected the destinies of the United States. It is harder still to realize that an event so momentous to Americans could have been hushed at the time. The very secrecy with which it was blanketed by France's adroit 2e Bureau—G-2, or Intelligence Department—added to its influence upon American history.
From Blue Book, 1941
PRIZE STORIES OF REAL EXPERIENCE
Night Plane to Berlin
The colorful record of a recent bombing raid—as told to, RALPH MICHAELIS
"YOUR target tonight is Berlin."
The Intelligence officer on the rostrum of the big lecture-room was bland and beaming as he surveyed the bomber crews through the fog of their pipes and cigarettes.
"We hear that you flattened out the So-and-So Works pretty effectively on your last visit. We want you to see what you can do to the Such-and-Such factory tonight."
The C. O. "in the chair" rustled his papers thoughtfully. The Wing Commander glanced at the photographic target maps on the wall. Wireless, weather and other experts hovered in the background.
"You'd better make your approach from such-and-such a direction. Avoid So-and-So; he's got some new flak batteries there."
The young men—some were officers, and others sergeants—lolling in their chairs, stiffened, consulted their target maps, and pulled furiously at their pipes.
I hear that Hitler has stigmatized smoking as a filthy, poisonous habit; and I've often thought as I've sat in the briefing room before a big raid, that it was a pity he could not be there to see how well it was smoked over.
"Be careful of that new balloon barrage at X; you spotted it the other night, didn't you, Sergeant?"
The Sergeant nodded. "Yes sir— funny place to meet one," he added, as who should remark: "Someone left a pail of water on the stairs."
And so they smoked the raid over for half an hour. The experts got up and said their pieces:
"If your flare parachute doesn't open, and it's because you forgot to pull the pin out, for the love of Mike, tell us so," pleaded a sergeant, "and save us all the work of investigating other possibilities."
"You can have one fix, coming home," said the wireless officer, "but don't monopolize the frequency. Let the next man get his before you start querying it. You've probably forgotten to allow for drift."
Outside on the aerodrome the big bombers were being loaded up. "Big bombs, beautiful bombs," their gay red and yellow paint spattered with aerodrome mud, were being trailed on little go-carts behind a tractor across the aerodrome; while the petrol "bowsers" fussed from one plane to another like a fleet of wet nurses; and sergeants chalked up cryptic signs on their battle-gray flanks to indicate that oxygen or ammunition was aboard.
After tea in the crews' room, the navigators, working two and two, worked out their courses on the big table maps, while the wireless blared a three-step. Then everyone completely relaxed for an hour, prior to nine or ten hours of intense concentration on their jobs.
I went out at dusk as lorries were trundling the crews to their planes—not the sleek, smart models off a film set, but grim, surly old Leviathians—shot at, shot up, tossed all over the sky; rained on, hailed on, snowed on, iced up—they always remind me of old prize-fighters with aggressive jaws, cauliflower ears and spread knuckles.
The rear gunner patted his guns.
"I'm frae Gleskie," he told me, "and I've a message frae Gleskie richt here." [All Original Spelling]
He was short and thick-set; and looked as if he had tried conclusions with a pile-driver, in which the pile-driver had come off second best.
The navigator, a tall, blue-eyed young officer, with fair crinkly hair under his flying helmet, was carrying the regulation basket of pigeons.
"I call them Elsie and Doris," he said. "It doesn't matter what's happening in the air; they just go on gossiping."
The wireless operator and the second pilot went aboard, and they settled down to their jobs.
DAWN was breaking next morning as they told me the story of the raid.
"We met with little opposition until we got near Berlin," the Captain told me. "There were a few searchlights and a little flak off the coast, but nothing much.
"Berlin is never difficult to pick up in clear weather, on account of the hig lakes near by; but last night you couldn't mistake it. Anti-aircraft shells were bursting all over the sky, where the fellows in front of us were getting it hot.
"Somebody had started a nice fire on the target, and I saw that we shouldn't need any flares. As we approached, the searchlights caught us in a blinding cone, and a shell burst about two hundred feet below us. The impact nearly turned us over, and I thought the tail plane must have been torn away as I struggled with the controls. But I pulled out all right, and asked the tail gunner if he and the tail were still there.
"He said, 'I'll just have a look, sir,' and then: 'There's no damage. I think I'm hit, sir, but I'll carry on until the bombs are off.'"
Then the navigator took up the story:
"We were flying pretty high when I got up from my table to go to my bomb window in the nose of the aircraft. I hitched my oxygen container onto my back, and started out. It is only a few yards; but it took me nearly ten minutes in the rarefied atmosphere of fifteen thousand feet. My feet dragged like lead; and I had to stop and take a rest at each step. Then, like a mutt, I took my glove off—found it was too cold to work my instruments without it, and it took me minutes to get it on again.
"Lying on my face looking through the bomb window, I could pick up various buildings easily by the light of the fires. There was the Potsdamer railway station, and near by was the Wilhelmstrasse, with Hitler's Chancellory, the Air Ministry, and Goebbels' Ministry of Information.
"I was just onto the target, which was already well alight, and about to let the bombs go, when a shell-burst gave us a hell of a sock under the port wing and pitched the aircraft clean off my aim. So we had to run over the target again."
THEY made another run—this time successfully, and the navigator let his bombs go.
"As soon as I heard him say, 'Bombs off!' I turned away in a climbing turn," said the pilot, "and called the tail gunner to ask if he had seen our bombs burst. There was no reply, so I sent the wireless operator and the second pilot to see what had happened."
Here the second pilot chipped in.
"We found Jock unconscious. He had slumped down, and was wedged tight in his little turret. Flak was pretty heavy, and what with the captain throwing the aircraft around to dodge it, we had a devil of a job to get him out. However, we got him out, raided the Red Cross box, bound up his wounds, brought him round, and gave him oxygen to keep him warm. We're both on the large side for that turret; but Sparks is a little smaller than I; so he squeezed himself into it somehow, with the assistance of my knee in the seat of his trousers."
The second pilot moved for'ard again to the wireless operator's key, switched to "send," and tapped slowly with out-of-practice hands the routine message to his C. O. back in England—'"Task Accomplished."
From Look, 1949
He defeated Japan—but he has failed us in the occupation. His regime, high-handed and inept, has left the country desperate and confused
The Strange Case of MacArthur in Japan
By HALLETT ABEND [Noted Far Eastern correspondent, author of Japan Unmasked]
Any military occupation of a conquered territory that lasts longer than three years defeats its own ends and is bound to be a failure.
This was the declaration of Gen. Douglas MacArthur soon after he landed in conquered Japan in the early autumn of 1945. So far, the American military occupation of Japan has already been prolonged into its fourth year. Yet the end is not even in sight. We will certainly not bring our troops home this year, and probably not even in 1950.
History, it seems, will have to record the sardonic verdict that General MacArthur was the prophet of his own failure as the administrator of the conquered Japanese Empire. It will have to record that the triumphant victor of a brilliant military campaign made a costly botch of the unfamiliar task of rebuilding the fallen Empire's shattered political and economic structure.
The grim facts in Japan today are these:
The nation is not much nearer being self-sustaining than it was immediately after the surrender.
It is costing the American taxpayer about $400,000,000 a year-more than $1,000,000 a day—to keep Japan alive on meager rations. This figure does not count the cost of the enormously expensive military occupation.
Mac Arthur's hope of making Japan over into a Christian democracy has tragically failed.
The country is in dire economic straits and in dangerous political turmoil, with the Communists gaining ground steadily.
Our Position Is Imperiled
Today, when the whole world is fearing a war between Soviet Russia and the West, our position in the entire Far East is one of peril. In case of war, our few thousand men in China could last no longer than could our forces in Berlin itself. Our army of occupation in Korea, a mere 25,000 men, would probably meet the fate which MacArthur's army in the Philippines met in Bataan in 1941 and early 1942. And in Japan itself, where we might by this time have built a great bastion of defense, we face further peril. The Communists are so strong that if war with Russia is thrust upon us, sabotage and domestic unrest will probably seriously weaken our already shaky position.
Knowledge of all the facts about the situation in Japan has been kept from the American public by a curious and unannounced system of censorship. It is a system as vicious as it is effective, one for which General MacArthur must be held personally accountable.
Every American newsman and magazine writer in Japan knows the consequences if he sends to this country facts that displease General MacArthur or the all-powerful members of the high command. He will find all official avenues of information closed tight against him. Besides that, he will very shortly be forced by some means to leave the Far East, with no possibility of returning.
MacArthur Even Dislikes Friendly Criticism
This system of censorship in Japan was probably a natural development under an administrator like General MacArthur. He is supersensitive even to friendly criticism, and is naturally inclined to imperious and dictatorial attitudes.
The case of the Japanese press is hardly better. Official censorship of news before publication was abolished last July 15 for all the principal Japanese newspapers. Under a new directive, Japanese editors must be their own censors. They are told that they may publish everything except "inaccurate news" or news and views "criticizing the occupation." Actually, after-publication censorship continues in full force. MacArthur's headquarters retains the authority to suspend from publication or otherwise punish any newspapers that are guilty of infractions of the new press code.
What is the truth? What are the facts that many correspondents dare not report and many newspapers dare not publish?
Domestically, Japan is down a blind alley. The people are developing a fatalistic attitude akin to despair. Most of the causes are economic.
A stage has been reached where paltry profits from production amount to only a fraction of what black marketeers can make selling hoarded goods. As a result, production has dropped to a point where there seems no hope of restoring any balance between supply and demand. Labor is in no mood to work because the value of wages has fallen so low. Government spending continues to increase at a rate out of all proportion to what the people can endure in taxation. This brings all the evils of violent inflation.
The Japanese yen, worth around four to the American dollar in 1941, is now down officially to 270 to the dollar. The black-market rate is much higher than this.
The situation is further aggravated by bitter public disappointment over the continuation of an acute housing shortage. In spite of all the bright promises and prophecies of the occupation authorities, not much has been done. To date, only 13.4 per cent of the 744.895 Tokyo dwelling units destroyed by our fire bombs during the war have been replaced, and the average is about the same for the entire country. Living space throughout Japan averages only 18 square feet of space for families ranging from two to six persons. This figure makes the housing shortage in the United States seem trifling by comparison.
Closer examination of business, industry and government shows that all three are staggering under a terrible burden of uselessly large staffs. But the economical cutting down of payrolls would bring initial unemployment and hardship. And the labor unions, fostered to new strength under the MacArthur policies, are violently opposed to any reduction in the number of useless employees.
Payrolls Are Swollen
A measure of this intolerable load of swollen staffs is shown by a few official statistics. Before the war, the government-owned railways employed about 50,000 people. Now their payroll exceeds 600,000 men and women. The Foreign Office continues to maintain its diplomatic and consular staffs at the prewar level, though the Japanese government today does not have a single diplomat abroad. The newspaper Asahi, which puts out only a two-page daily newspaper for most days of the week, must find money to maintain more than 6,000 people on its payroll.
At the beginning of the occupation, we tried to institute a liberal policy in Japan. General MacArthur, a remarkably able and harsh realist in military matters, is something of an impractical visionary and idealist in civilian affairs. At first, the General was surrounded by a group of advisers who became known as "the last of the New Deal boys." Their policies did not work and were gradually modified one by one, as the snarl of administrative affairs brought no beneficent results.
Reforms Led to Abuse
We started the program of economic reforms with the announced intention of splitting up all "concentrations of excessive economic power." We confiscated lands, private properties and holdings of individuals and corporations, often selling them at a small fraction of their real value to "good" elements of the population. Abuses were monumental.
Then we catered to labor, ignoring the fact that the Russian and Japanese Communists had infiltrated deeply into the labor unions. Under the occupation directives, management may not reduce useless and overlarge staffs in the interests of economy and efficiency. The result is that production continues to lag, the output is largely second class and the black market thrives.
During the period of Japanese expansion into Manchuria from 1931 on through the war, radicalism was sternly suppressed in Japan. Labor unions were kept almost powerless. As a result, the labor leaders were not trained nor prepared for the new liberties and powers given them by MacArthur's officials. Today, encouraged by the Communists, those leaders have distorted ideas of the rights of the Japanese working man.
Through the workings of a peculiar institution called the Labor-Management Council, the unions can interfere in the management of any firm. For instance, the Kyodo News Agency cannot pay its executives more than 8,000 yen a month—a little less than $30 in American money at the official exchange rate. If the pay of any particularly able executive is raised, the pay of all union members must also be proportionately increased. This may sound just in theory, but in practice it paralyzes initiative at the top and makes the whole pay structure stiff and unwieldy.
Under these many handicaps, it is no wonder that, today, after three years of occupation, Japan's industrial production is lagging badly. It amounts to only 53 per cent of the average production in the years 1930-1934. And the living standard of Japan's 80,000,000 people is still 30 per cent lower than the very low standards which existed there from 1930 to the time of the attack on Pearl Harbor. If the American contribution of more than $400,000,000 a year were to cease, hunger and malnutrition would inevitably result.
How much has General MacArthur been to blame for this state of affairs?
He Has a Free Hand
The Allied Commander in Japan has had more freedom of decision and action than any military man in charge of any conquered area in either Europe or the Far East.
Theoretically, there have been only three checks upon his independence, aside from orders from the White House in Washington. These three checks are the Potsdam declaration, the eleven-power Far Eastern Commission sitting in Washington and the abortive Allied Council for Japan. The latter first met in Tokyo in April, 1946.
If any White House orders have ever been sent to General MacArthur that were at variance with his policies, the fact is not known in Tokyo or elsewhere. The Far Eastern Commission has occasionally advised upon the manner of carrying out general directives. But it has never questioned General MacArthur's policies, actions or authority. The Allied Council for Japan, supposed to be an advisory offshoot of the Far Eastern Commission, has been the victim of petty wrangling from the first—with MacArthur always having his own way.
In the beginning, the British and Chinese members of the Allied Council unhesitatingly supported General MacArthur and all American moves and policies. But they have been rudely treated and, latterly, tempers have often flared. In his personal introductory talk to the Allied Council, General MacArthur haughtily declared that that body would not be permitted to "divide the heavy administrative responsibility of the Supreme Commander as the sole executive authority."
Jap War Leaders Have Jobs
The Potsdam declaration has suffered heavily. It promised to eliminate permanently "the authority and influence of those who have deceived and misled the people of Japan into embarking on world conquest." The very fact that war leaders Yoshida and Shi dehara both have headed Japanese governments under MacArthur proves the extent to which the Potsdam declaration has been flouted. Even the notorious Hatoyama, after he had been purged, acted openly as advisor to succeeding cabinets.
Pledges of freedom of thought and speech also have been tacitly broken. MacArthur's headquarters, for instance, has helped reactionary newspaper publishers to break strikes of editorial department workers—strikes not due to wages or working conditions, but to censorship.
Time and his own political aspirations seem to have combined to work against General MacArthur's success in Japan. As late as last May, members of his inner circle expected the General to leave Japan in June and to contend more actively for the Presidential nomination. Even before that, the General had had to change his plans because of lengthening military occupation. At the start, in September 1945, he had confidently expected the negotiation and ratification of a peace treaty within less than three years. At the conclusion of peace, he would have pulled out and left the Japanese to work out their own hard destiny.
Haste Made Waste
The occupation was expected to end before the autumn of 1948, and so a mania developed at headquarters for piling up impressive statistics, to do the job in a hurry. This resulted in confusion, some corruption and much shabby patchwork achievement.
The Japanese government, for instance, was ordered to hasten the sales to small farmers of lands from the confiscated large estates. Sales had been slow because the government wanted, first, to work out various engineering problems of conservation, road building, irrigation and utilization of marginal lands. But these careful plans had to be shelved and sales had to be rushed.
Headquarters wanted impressive statistics about the breaking up of large estates and the number of former slave-tenants who had become independent landowners.
Peace Treaty Was Lacking
When it became evident that a peace treaty would have to wait upon a general world-wide American-Soviet agreement, MacArthur realized the need to revise occupation policies fundamentally. The commission headed by Under Secretary of the Army Draper went to Japan, investigated and drafted plans and recommendations. Its report, briefly summarized, said, 'Turn the wheel to the right."
The Draper report quickly resulted in a brusque discard of the remaining schemes of the so-called "New Deal boys." Management was suddenly encouraged to begin asserting its rights; labor was no longer coddled; many directives against "big business" were rescinded.
Reds Get Propaganda Grist
This revision of policy played directly into the hands of the Communists. They were quick to make the most of the propaganda opportunities offered. The occupation headquarters' announcement that Japan invited the investment of foreign capital was immediately distorted by the radical left. "Proof was seen that the United States was bent upon exploiting Japan and reducing the Empire to the level of a "colony."
Russia has made propaganda capital out of General MacArthur's difficulties more than once. Take the recent and continuing controversy over the General's policy of having the government prohibit strikes by workers in government employment.
The Soviet Embassy in Tokyo, in a general denunciation, declared that the MacArthur policy was grossly repressive. In August, Maj. Gen. A. P. Kislenko, of the Embassy staff, issued another aggressive attack. In early September, Lt. Gen. Kuzma Derevyanko, just back in Tokyo after conferences in Moscow, charged that the new law violated the Potsdam declaration. Later that same month, Alexander S. Panyushkin, Soviet ambassador to the United States, charged MacArthur with "gross violation" of international agreements providing for the democratization of Japanese trade unions.
In reply to the Russian Ambassador's attack in Washington, General MacArthur issued in Tokyo a sweeping denial that his labor policy violates the Potsdam agreement.
But the controversy is being ended by high-handed and undemocratic methods. At MacArthur's direction, the present cabinet's temporary order against strikes by government employees has been drafted into a permanent statute by the Japanese attorney general. When the wording has been approved by MacArthur's headquarters, it will be sent to the Diet with orders for enactment.
The danger of high-handed methods of this kind is shown by the fact that Japanese Communists already dominate unions representing over half of Japan's more than 6,000,000 unionized workers.
Nearly all labor unions in Japan, even those not already dominated by the Reds, have organized Young People's Action Corps. These younger members, almost without exception, are Communists. At their demonstrations, they sing the Internationale, wave red flags and display enlarged photographs of Lenin and Stalin.
They Boast a "Unity of Steel"
Without hesitation, they obey the orders of Communist executive committees. They boast a "unity of steel." And they avow their willingness to "brave death for the cause," as did the suicidal Kamikaze pilots during the last months of the Pacific war.
The Communists have also penetrated successfully into the schools and colleges, and most of the university newspapers and magazines heartily support Soviet policies.
The ranks of Japanese Communists are being increased every month by adroit Russian drafts upon a very large reservoir of new converts. As General MacArthur pointed out in a note to General Derevyanko last September, Russia still holds about 523,000 former Japanese soldiers, who surrendered late in 1945, in Manchuria.
The United States, Britain, France, Holland and China have all kept their promise to repatriate all surrendered Japanese. But Russia has kept these men in Siberian and Mongolian slave labor camps.
Red Converts Return Home
For more than three years, these hapless prisoners, who originally numbered more than 625,000, have been subjected to continuing pro-Communist propaganda. Of late, the converts have begun to return to their homeland in increasing numbers. Nearly 15,000 were repatriated in September. Those who persist in an anti-Communist attitude continue to labor as slaves.
What lies ahead for Japan? Three divergent and contradictory lines of thought are developing concerning the country's future.
A number of Japanese foresee a military comeback and a war of revenge—with or without the aid of Soviet Russia. Many highly placed members of the occupation forces see the probability of Japan turning anti-American and pro-Russian. General MacArthur blandly assumes that all is sweetness and light and that Communism has no chance.
Those who speak of a war of revenge are former national leaders who became heroes to the people during the Tokyo war crimes trials. They pose as national martyrs who are being penalized for their devotion to the Emperor and to the greater power and glory of Japan. Today, however, the thoughts of most Japanese are fixed upon a war between Russia and the West—a war much more imminent than a Japanese war of revenge against us.
The second possibility—that Japan will turn Communist—was discussed not long ago by Lt. Gen. Robert L. Eichelberger, who served until recently as commanding general of the army of occupation under MacArthur.
'There is grave danger," said Eichelberger, "of communism spreading in Japan. Trouble might develop if we were to leave.... It must be considered that the Japanese have nothing with which to defend themselves; no navy, no army, no airplanes. All they have are a few policemen—not even an organized constabulary to protect themselves internally. If United States troops are pulled out, trouble might develop."
General MacArthur's viewpoint was expressed about a week later, in a statement he issued on the eve of the third anniversary of the signing of Japan's surrender. It described Japan as "an asset upon which the free world may confidently count" It added that the allies' self-imposed task of "erecting upon Japanese soil a bastion to the democratic concept" is in an advanced state.
MacArthur Ignores Truth
Then the General, the incurable optimist, linked Japan with the powerless and bankrupt Philippine government and with the shaky and endangered South Korean Republic as a "triangular buttress" for democracy in Asia.
"And today," MacArthur added, in the rolling phrases he loves so well, "those practical weapons needed to repel the totalitarian advance—liberty, dignity, opportunity—now safely rest in every Japanese hand."
In pronouncements of this kind, General MacArthur ignores the fact that the Japanese today are a disillusioned and embittered people—pauperized by our failure to make them self-supporting.
He has lulled us into a false sense of security about the perilous situation in the Far East. He has misled the American people.
END
From Police Gazette, 1964
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