In this, the second installment of a three-part series by Barbara W. Tuchman from her forthcoming book, now retitled The Utmost Try: Stilwell and the American Experience in China, 1911–45 , the turmoil and conflicts that have torn China apart come into focus as Japan launches her long-feared invasion. StilwelLis again on hand to witness the momentous turn of events after seven years spent back in the United States.

He had gone home from China in 1Q29 to become head of the Tactical Section of the Infantry School at Fort Benning, Georgia, a post held open for him by George C. Marshall, like Stilwell a veteran of the lgth Infantry at Tientsin, who, as assistant commandant of the school was reorganizing the curriculum to stress practical experience in the field as opposed to rote training by the manual. It was here that his biting criticisms during maneuvers earned Stilwell his nickname of Vinegar Joe. Although a warm, devoted family man within the sanctuary of his own home, Stilwell acknowledged that he could be at times “unreasonable, impatient, sour-balled, sullen, mad, hard, profane, vulgar. … “He stayed at Fort Benning until May, 1933, and was later assigned to San Diego to train organized reserves. When the opportunity arose the following year to seek appointment as the American military attaché m Peiping, he quickly applied and was named to the post.

The China Stilwell returned to in 1Q35 was in the midst of a deepening internal revolt and menacing external aggression. In September, 1931, Japanese troops had seized Mukden in Manchuria after a staged incident and established themselves on the mainland in control of the puppet state of Manchukuo. Too engrossed in fighting rebellious war lords and Communist insurgents, Chiang Kai-shek made no attempt to stop the invaders. Chiangjelt that pacification of China was more vital than meeting the Japanese threat, for China, he believed, could always retreat from enemy troops into her geographic vastness. Moreover, he hoped that Japanese expansion would ultimately pose a threat to the Western powers and prod them into action. However, “history is the unfolding of miscalculations,” as Mrs. Tuchman pointedly notes, for, unopposed, the Japanese pushed onward toward the Great Wall that separates Manchuria from China proper. Chiang appealed to the League of Nations for sanctions against Japan, to no avail; the British, faced with their troubles in Europe, wanted to avoid another area of conflict in the Far East, and despite its vocal concern for China’s fate, the United States shied away from taking any real action. Avoiding outright confrontation with the Japanese, Chiang set out in 1934 on his fifth “extermination” campaign against the Communists, one that drove them into a great retreat to the west, later famous as the Long March.

By the time Stilwell reached Peipmg in July, 1Q35, north China was crumbling under pressure of the Japanese who had crossed the Wall into Hopei, the