Trautmann mediation

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The Trautmann Mediation was an attempt to agree peace between Prime Minister Konoe of Japan and Chiang Kai-Shek of the Chinese Kuomintang (Guomindang) Party. The peace agreement was being mediated by the German ambassador Oskar Trautmann. During the Trautmann Mediation, unfortunately, the Rape of Nanking took place, putting the negotiations under considerable strain. Eventually, Konoe rather than Chiang broke off the negotiations, leaving Chiang Kai-Shek with a severe propaganda defeat, having asked for peace even after the Rape of Nanking, presumably to prevent further Japanese violence and reprisals. Communist propaganda played upon Chiang's "submission" in the year following this, and the scale of Japanese atrocities in Nanking, with as many as 300,000 dead meant that this was a highly emotive issue - it is probable that the Trautmann Mediation had a major impact upon the Chinese Civil War, 1928-49.

[edit] Sources

Tetsuya Kataoka, Resistance and Revolution in China: The Communists and the Second United Front