Talk:Marco Polo Bridge Incident

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Not to claim that the Japanese were innocents here, but this article seems a little unbalanced. For instance, there's no mention of the fact that before Japan invaded the city, Chinese took the initiative and try to bomb Japanese battleships in a river near Shanghai. They missed, but according to the book I have (Reischauer) that was the catalyst that started the fighting. I don't know how to integrate that though. Any thoughts? Lepidoptera

Shall we moved the page to Marco Polo Bridge Incident since this title yields more pages on Google including one on EB? User:kt2

The Song Zheyuan article mentions the 24th army, and not the 29th army, as this article does. Which one is correct? olivier 08:47 2 Jun 2003 (UTC)

This article needs quite a bit of cleaning up. --Jiang

The "Background" section uses both "Manchukuo" and "Manzhouguo". The latter redirects to the former. Which should be used? 209.11.79.83 14:31, 7 Jul 2004 (UTC)

Twice the Japanese and Nationalist armies reached agreement and started to withdraw from contact, twice there were shootings happenned to bring the two sides back. Japanese started to attack the Wanpin town after the second shooting from Longwang temple, when the lost soldier was already found.

There was no large scale movement or concentration of either the Japanese or the Nationalist forces before the incident. Both the Tokyo and Nanking governments were caught in surprise. The Chinese Communist responded very quickly when the incident was still on its way to develop into a war.

Troops outside Beijing, the capital of consecutive Yuan, Ming and Qing dynasties of China, and "the Tokyo government was caught in surprise." How convincing. You had already been stepping on my threshold with a gun and you say the full invasion all started with an incident over the doorknob. Heavens.--221.217.104.159 7 July 2005 20:07 (UTC)

Why doesn't the marco polo bridge have its own article? it seems to be significant enough for one.. 68.145.141.4 22:38, 25 February 2006 (UTC)

Not really... This bridge was only a site of a sparking battle. Oyo321 19:37, 7 July 2006 (UTC)

The bridge is really old and that if nothing else should make it notable for one. -- Миборовский 20:37, 7 July 2006 (UTC)

Lukouchiao Incident should be merged I think particularly as it is the Japanese version and provides the evidence of the "shootings" that are the basis for the third party conspiracy theory.Asiaticus 05:20, 13 September 2006 (UTC)

Definitely merge with this article. -- Миборо в ский 05:30, 13 September 2006 (UTC)

[edit] Assesment

I suggest a merge,for these two titles are regarding the same incident. a more appropriate way is to put Lu-Gou Qiao(Lu Gou Bridge,also known as Marco Polo Bridge) incident.

Start: Felix Nietzsche comments Lots of information in this article but it does not capture the heart of the incident. This was an incident where the Japanese were provoked twice and level-headed Japanese/Chinese Generals tried to smooth this incident over. It was hot-headed politicians on both sides which elevated this incident into a full scale war. There were many Japanese against war with China. General Ishihara, an imperialist whose dream was a Manchurian buffer state consisting of five nationalities living democratic harmony. The main purpose of this state was to be a buffer state against future Russian aggression. Ishihara organizeg a group of men to do everything in their power to avoid war with China because they viewed Russia as the greater enemy. He did not believe Japan could safely wage war with Russia until 1952. -From John Toland's book, "The Rising Sun", p44-45.

Also the relationship between the Chinese and Japanese in the Marco Polo Bridge was quite good. General Sung Chi-yuen (China) and Gneral Gun Hashimoto (Japan) were close personal friends. p54 JT "The Rising Sun"

"The first soldier that marching into China will do so over my dead body" General Kanji Ishihara, p 55

"Chinag Kai-shek ignored the truce and ordered Sung to concentrate more troops in the troubled area. Instead Sung kept his promise and began withdrawing troops." p56

"If war breaks out, both Japan and the Chinese Republic will be defeated and only the Russian and the Chinese Communist will benefit." Chinese General Ho Ying-chin (China) talking to his friend General Seiichi Kita (Japan), p56

Also profession James N. Crowley, asst professor of History at Amherst College wrote in may 1963 in the Journal of Asian Studies that "it was safe to conclude that this incident was NOT caused by any conspiracy of Japanese Army officers and that the Japanese military was not primarily responsible for the steady drift to war" He believed it was the Chinese (Mao/Chinag) that raised this incident into a major international incident. p57, JT, "The Rising Sun"

The present article, though heavy in information" lacks soul and does not give the reader a true picture of what occurred. ```` End Felix Nietzsche —Preceding unsigned comment added by Felixnietzsche (talk • contribs) 16:58, 15 January 2008 (UTC)

[edit] Casulties given in Inflormation Box

Whats going on with the information box on the page? It claims that 1,000,000 Japanese troops fought 100,000 KMT in the incident, and that Japan lost 900,000 men. This is obviously nonsense. Can someone with reliable figures edit this? Carl weathers bicep 14:55, 24 October 2007 (UTC) -Yeah, unless we're trying to claim that half the entire Japanese casulties of the campaign happened here. Can someone rectify please —Preceding unsigned comment added by TomHotzendorf (talk • contribs) 13:45, 28 October 2007 (UTC)

In John Toland's book, "The Rising Sun" he has an excelent section on the Marco Polo Bridge incident. Some of the Japanese Generals were personal friends with the Chinese Generals accross the bridge. There were many Japanese politicians and Generals that did not want war with China. Japan was attacked TWICE at the bridge. The author of this article adds some good information BUT.....his article lacks CRITICAL DETAILS behind this incident. The author claims that some right-wing Japanese historians blame Mao for this incident.... Well Assistant Professor James B. Crowley of Amherst College wrote an article in May 1963 in the 'Journal of Asian Studies" that it was the Chinese who were primarily responsible for this event spirally into a war. He implied Mao was behind this incident as well. This is my personal view as well. Mao was getting his ass kicked and he needed relief against Chiang-Kai-shek. There was certainly no reason for China to pick a fight with the stronger Japanese. This would be like Mexico picking a fight with the USA.

Japan deservedly gets a bad rap for the "Rape of Nanking" but in the Marco Polo Bridge incident, Japan was the victim. ```` —Preceding unsigned comment added by Felixnietzsche (talk • contribs) 23:32, 16 January 2008 (UTC)