Peace In Their Time

Today we finally leave the warlords of the north behind and turn back to China's southern provinces, where Sun Yat-sen and his Kuomintang were still struggling to establish a stable base. Those efforts would be saved by the intervention of an outside party: the Soviet Union. Their aid though came at the price of allying with the tiny Communist Party of China. The partnership would change the KMT i...

The Second Zhili-Fengtian War ended in dramatic fashion. But once again, nobody left on the board was in a good enough position to claim control of China. Instead, the warlord period entered its most factionalized phase, with four major players vying for dominance in the north.    Bibliography for this episode:    Fairbank, John K & Denis Twitchett The Cambridge History of China, Volume 12: Republ...

This week I cover the arms trade fueling the civil wars in China, and the warlords' own efforts at building native arms industries. Then for the second half, I kick off the Second Zhili-Fengtian War, as the region north of Beijing once again became a battleground.    Bibliography for this episode:    Fairbank, John K & Denis Twitchett The Cambridge History of China, Volume 12: Republican China 191...

The wars between the Cliques kick off as the Anhui and Zhili factions go head-to-head. While their battle would be a short one, the results brought the nation no closer to peace, and only set the stage for the next round of fighting. Also, Sun Yat-sen keeps doing his thing in the country's south.    Bibliography for this episode:    Fairbank, John K & Denis Twitchett The Cambridge History of China...

Today I take a partial step back from high politics in China. Dissatisfaction had been building over the Chinese government's failure revise the exploitive relationship the country suffered from with the great powers of the world. And it didn't help that both Yuan and Duan had been actively courting foreign support either. On May 4th 1919, the tension broke and people took to the streets, at first...

This week I give an overview of the emerging networks of Warlords that would come to dominate China. Yuan Shikai might have died, but China's troubles were far, far from over. His most powerful subordinate, Duan Qirui, attempted to fill the void left by his old master, but he didn't command the same level of prestige and fear that Yuan did at his height. Other factions began to emerge and Duan's o...

Fresh off his victory over Sun and the KMT, Yuan fell into the old strongman trap of overreaching while his regime hadn't yet found its footing. That, coupled with his regime being undermined from abroad eventually led him to make a really bad call that totally blew up in his face.    Bibliography for this episode:    Fairbank, John K & Denis Twitchett The Cambridge History of China, Volume 12: Re...

China's decay by the end of 1911 reaches a point of no return and a revolution sweeps the country. The old Qing Empire ends in ignominious fashion as its hand-picked commander decides to parley with the revolution instead. The Qing went away, but the question of what came after would take over 35 years to be answered.    Bibliography for this episode:    Fairbank, John K & Denis Twitchett The Camb...

Today is the start of a new miniseries where I finally get to cover China. This is going to be a fun one because the history of China during this time period is one that gets left out of the vast majority of popular histories. The reason is because it's a hectic mess, which is good because hectic messes are one of the reasons I do this show. This week though we just get the table set, with the fal...

This week we wrap up Japan in the 1920s. While the nation didn't finish the decade gripped by the militarism that would drag the nation into its later disasters, warning signs were already there. The country's ruling class became fearful of the changing times, a shift reflected in the change of monarch as Hirohito takes the throne, and Japan once again had an active emperor.    Bibliography for th...

Returning back to normal episodes on Japan, the country enjoys its most democratic period of the years I'll be covering. Too bad for them, it's also the same time that the economy craters and one of the worst natural disasters in the country's history strikes.    Bibliography for this episode:    McClain, James L A Modern History of Japan WW Norton & Company Inc, 2002 Duus, Peter The Cambridge His...

After almost a year of back and forth, Japan and the Entente launched their biggest intervention into Civil War-era Russia, the Siberian Expedition. The years-long effort was marred by muddled objectives and a hostile populace, and its long-term impact was mostly confirming the Soviet Union as an enemy and undermining the people's faith in Japan's institutions.    Bibliography for this episode:  M...

Support for an intervention into Siberia begins to build momentum as apprehensions over the new Bolshevik government in Russia grow. But it's the appearance of tens of thousands of armed Czechs in the region that really knocks down any barriers to sending an armed force in.    Bibliography for this episode:  Morley, James William The Japanese Thrust Into Siberia, 1918 Columbia University Press, 19...

This week begins a 3-part miniseries within a miniseries covering in detail Japan's involvement in the Siberian Expedition, a haphazard military intervention into Eastern Siberia and the Russian Far East. But it's the twists and turns of actually getting the venture off the ground that are the most insightful bits of history, as the conflicts and cross-purposes of the Japanese elites were on full...

What went up eventually came down, and the wartime boom for Japan's economy ended not long after the hostilities. Japan entered the 20s far more uncertain than it had been just a generation ago, as the world was fast changing. The people in both the cities and countryside demanded more rights and material benefits, and the elites were slow to oblige them. This set the stage for the Taisho era to b...

The Meiji era is concluded this week, and the transition to the Emperor Taisho ushers in a new period of experimentation in Japanese life. Taisho himself was incapacitated with medical ailments for most of his reign, and the throne did not present the solid center it had under Meiji. In addition, the genro which had formed the core of Japan's leadership began aging out, and Ito's constitution turn...

Years before they swept over East Asia in the 30s and 40s, the Japanese... well they swept over East Asia before then too. Seeing overseas possessions as the next logical step towards making their own nation secure, Japan started going to war with the neighbors. Fortune smiled on them in these years and they humbled empires far larger than they.    Bibliography for this episode:  McClain, James L ...

Having successfully resisted becoming colonized by the Europeans, Japan was now free to makes its own destiny and pursue new ambitions. But before that nation could look abroad, it first had a couple of "to-dos" on the domestic front. The first was straightforward, make a modern economy. The other was to reform the government and create a constitution. This was a little trickier, and the end resul...

After a long break from focusing on one particular nation, today starts the introduction to Japan! They're a special case in history, as they're the only nation outside of Europe to dodge being colonized and become a Great Power in their own right (and even then the other Powers were reluctant to acknowledge that special status). Which for our purposes on this show meant that East Asia was one of...

Today we wrap up introducing the colonial empires of France and the UK with the most restive of their conquests, the Middle East. In the wreckage of the Ottoman Empire, the two nations would lay the groundwork for the region's future instability and long years of military occupations for themselves. All the greatest hits are here, with Syria, Palestine, Lebanon, Jordan, and Iraq all being affected...

We've come to the penultimate episode on our tour of the big world empires, and this week we're covering the sprawling French presence in the western half of the African continent. The experience for the colonized was mixed to say the least, but for France the region was a source of vital raw materials and manpower. That last bit, the manpower, was critical to France's status as a competitive powe...

The British might have had the biggest and most influential of the colonial empires, but they were far from alone. Today we take a look at the Netherland's massive Dutch East Indies colony and France's big holding in East Asia, Indochina. Both were resource-rich areas that made fine possessions for their colonial masters. For the people actually living there though, the change to European rule was...

The sun might not have set on the British Empire, but it is on my coverage of it. This week is a sweeping overview of the remaining big pieces of the empire, and their importance to the UK and how they affected the metropole. And also I zero in on Egypt for a bit, because they put up a spirited effort to not be a part of the empire, while the Brits were very insistent on being involved in that cou...

With the campaigns for Indian independence in the post-WWI years a bust, India settles into an uneasy kind of calm. The British might not have been able to properly grasp it, but lines had been crossed and the Indian people had placed themselves on a trajectory towards autonomy and separation. This was reflected not just in the political relationship with the UK, but the economic one as well. And...

Imperial overreach happens to everybody eventually, and the British rule in India during and after WWI became oppressive enough that their subjects began agitating for radical changes in their relationship. The independence movement there began in earnest in the post-war years, and yes this is where Ghandi enters the picture. The British don't take it very well and double-down on the very oppressi...