Chapter CLXIII: The Trials of Prometheus
Chapter CLXIII: The Trials of Prometheus
In late 1937 the SS Krakow arrived in Ryojun, formerly known as Port Arthur, the main port of the grandly titled Empire of Great Manchuria, the Japanese puppet state that in theory was in control of Manchuria. While it was not unknown for European merchant ships to visit the port, delivering industrial cargoes and picking up the agricultural exports which were being used to pay for them, a Polish flagged vessels was unprecedented. This was as nothing compared to the unusual cargo, the ship's holds were filled with tens of thousands of rifles, millions of rounds of ammunition and dozens of heavy machine guns and mortars, none of which could be found on the shipping manifest or any of the paperwork. As soon as the ship docked it was surrounded by troops of the Kempeitai, the military police of the Imperial Japanese Army that actually ran Manchuria. Typically a foreign ship bringing in undeclared weapons could expect to see the crew arrested and the cargo impounded, but the Kempeitai instead greeted the ship's passengers warmly and secured the dock while an IJA labour battalion transferred the weapons to a waiting train. The train made it's way across the Manchukuo National Railway to the border city of Shanhaiguan, through the adjacent semi-recognised state of East Hebei and on towards the Republic of China proper. After a tense but professional handover the Kempeitai departed leaving behind a few passengers and the Polish contingent with their cargo. The next leg of the journey began by train but had to be completed by lorry, along the old Silk Road routes to Tunhwang, in Kansu Province in the North West of China. The weapons were unloaded and transported to nearby military camps, where the Polish instructors introduced the troops to their new weapons under the watchful eye of a range officers; uniforms from the Republic of China, all the main Chinese cliques, several Japanese puppets and even Imperial Russian were all present. That journey is the story of how the Sinkiang Legion, a mixed band of Cossacks, Mongolian Cavalry, Khazaks, mercenaries and loyal volunteers led by White Russian officers, ended up being armed with ancient British, French and even Russian weapons. The reasons why those involved in the effort decided to make the effort to create, arm and train such a force is the subject of the rest of this chapter.
A map of the region produced by the Raj's Survey of India, showing Sinkiang Province and it's neighbours. Located in the far north west of China it shared borders with the Soviet Union, British India, Afghanistan, Tibet and Mongolia, this strategic position meant it had been one of the playing boards of the Great Game. Britain, or more precisely The Raj, maintained an interest in the region, the town of Kashgar in the far west of the province still boasted a fully staffed British consulate which acted as a source of intelligence, advice, support and even weapons for various factions.
The historiographical debates about whether the events in Sinkiang in the 1930s were a continuation of the original Victorian era Great Game, a second round with different players or something else entirely need not detain us, a brief summary is more than sufficient. Sinkiang was arguably the most remote and distant province from the Chinese heartlands, aside from distance the cultural and religious divisions inside the province were stark. Indeed it was only one province on official paper in Nanjing, in reality the provincial governor's writ only covered the northern half of the province, the south was the under the control of the warlords of the Ma Clique and was carving out a new identity as Tunganistan. This in itself was unremarkable, the 'official' provincial governor, Sheng Shicai, was himself a warlord with an associated Clique and had the conflict just been between two factions vying for control of the province it would not have attracted any international attention or our interest. The crucial point was that Governor Shicai's principal loyalty was not to the Kuomintang, China or even his Clique, but to Moscow and Stalin. Soviet interest in the region was not just the usual paranoid desire for more 'buffer states' and, despite the propaganda claims, was certainly not motivated by a fraternal desire to spread the revolution. The Soviet motivation was simple; resources. Sinkiang had long been coveted for it's vast mineral wealth, the gold, silver and iron reserves were well known and rapidly exploited by Soviet controlled 'joint ventures' that never quite managed to generate shared profits, despite the leaps in output and exports back to the Soviet Union. As the Soviet geological teams began reporting back the province was soon elevated in Soviet planning, the discovery of rich deposits of oil, tin, tungsten and beryllium made it strategically important. In a few short years the Sinkiang Clique, like many before them, discovered that Soviet friendship was very much a one way street; Soviet 'advisers' outnumbered his own forces, GOSPLAN had 'integrated' Sinkiang into the Soviet Five Year Plan and taken direct control of the economy, the Soviet Consul General had effective veto over all government decisions and as a result the region was a Soviet colony in all but name. Given this history it is unclear if the Sinkiang purges were ordered by Shicai or imposed on him by Moscow, either way they were the final straw and pushed the province into open revolt. The mutiny of the 6th Uyghur Division transformed the revolt into a full blown war, one that the Ma Clique was quick to join by committing it's own elite troops the New 36th Division, mutual hatred of Soviet (Russian) influence overcoming the other differences. The Soviets themselves, in accordance with their many treaties of universal peace and friendship, mobilised their own 'advisory' troops to defend their puppet and then expand their influence over the rest of the province.
When news of the conflict reached the Chinese capital Nanjing there was a strong temptation to ignore the whole affair, Soviet influence over Sinkiang was viewed as not that different from the Concessions on the coast, officially intolerable impositions but in practice low priority annoyances. The governing Kuomintang was also very distracted by more urgent issues; the fight against the Chinese Communist Party was still far from over, the warlords and Cliques were pushing back against the 'disgusting and malignant British influence' in the Customs and Treasury (i.e. central government taxes having to be paid and the most obvious and gross corruption being challenged) and there was of course Japan. The anomaly of East Hebei, more formally (if incorrectly) the East Hebei Autonomous Anti-Communist Independent Government, was mentioned earlier and was the subject of the first tentative rapprochement efforts from Tokyo. Established as a neutral and demilitarised buffer state it had become a Japanese puppet state in all but name, that last detail was important as it left open the possibility that it could go back to being a neutral buffer without any official diplomatic changes. The needle that Tokyo was trying to thread was giving China and the Kuomintang a win by removing the pro-Japanese collaborators without Japan losing face or provoking a domestic 'Incident' back home. The Kuomintang were not opposed to such a deal, Chiang Kai-shek strongly believed China needed to focus on the communists and then other internal enemies before facing external threats, so peaceful relations with Japan were preferred, in the short term at least. This was view was far from universal and the Nationalists were under considerable domestic pressure to push back, as a result the Kuomintang had deployed a great deal of their most reliable troops around the East Hebei and Manchurian borders, to show they were guarding against the possibility of "Japanese treachery" and would not give up another inch of China. With those commitments, the troops being sent to reinforce the Northeastern Army containing the Communist remnants in Yan'An and the brutal reality that none of the warlord states would risk weakening their own position by sending troops out west, Nanjing resigned itself to a diplomatic response to Sinkiang and trying to get a face saving statement out of the Soviets.
Posters for the Soviet film 'Turksib' about the construction of the Turkestan-Siberian railway which ran through Kazakhstan on the Sinkiang border. The Turksib featured heavily in Soviet propaganda, especially that made for internal consumption, because it matched the story the leadership wished to tell. A heroic feat of engineering and industry, workers from across the Soviet Union toiling together to bring modernity and civilisation to all. What did not feature was the parallel efforts to collectivise and socialise the nomadic Kazakh people, in the resulting famine 1.8 million died, almost 40% of the population, and another million fled to neighbouring republics or across the border into China, Afghanistan and Mongolia.
This gloomy prognosis was not shared elsewhere, several groups in Poland and Japan came to the conclusion that the conflict was both of the right type and occurring at the right time. The timing point was simple, the Soviet Union was being racked by the Great Purge which was tearing through the country, the military and even the NKVD, while also inspiring similar purges in the Soviet puppets in the region. Any response from Moscow would be heavily hampered by the paralysis and paranoia the purge was inducing, as well as the weakening of the army and intelligence services due to loss of so many experienced personnel. The type of conflict is a more interesting point, it was an article of faith among many of the Soviet's enemies that the USSR was held together only by force and that the non-Russian minorities yearned for freedom from Moscow. It was the fundamental basis of the Polish 'Prometheism' project, which supported national independence movements across the USSR as a way to weaken Moscow. While the project had dropped in priority at the start of the decade, due to the Depression restricting funding and the apparently more serious German threat, a recovering economy and the humiliations of Germany during the Rhineland Crisis had seen Warsaw's look again at the old enemy of Russia. The Japanese had similar beliefs so, alongside the considerable individual efforts of the Japanese Army along the border, had established the Bõryaku Kikan (Subversion Organisation) to direct their overseas efforts to support minority groups in the USSR. The Sinkiang conflict was considered particularly promising in this regard, the majority of the province were Muslim Uyghurs who the theory suggested would fight hard to resist atheist Soviet control, particularly given the example of how Moscow had treated the Khazaks, Mongols and other non-Russian groups in the region. This led to the main reason for foreign support and interest in Sinkiang, the wider consequences of a defeat for the Soviets. At it's most basic pushing Moscow back would prove that such a thing could be done and, it was hoped, encourage other resistance movements elsewhere. Even if no actual revolts occurred it would force the Soviet to put efforts into suppressing Central Asia, at a time when due to the purges they were already spread thin, hopefully opening up opportunities elsewhere. The more ambitious even looked to do unto the Soviets what they had done to others; deniable interventions to aid nationalist rebels and undermine central control, though after the Kanchazu Island incident such people were understandably in a minority.
In terms of equipment and motivation Japan could have supplied and trained the Sinkiang Legion alone, they also had a number of puppet organisation that could provide motivated non-Japanese manpower, what they lacked was a relationship with China that would ever allow that to happen; Nanjing had an entirely justified distrust of Japanese intentions. Thus we come to the Polish aspects of the affair, Polish-Japanese relations had been strong since before the Russo-Japanese War and Japanese diplomats had argued in favour of a strong Poland at Versailles. A mutual hatred of the Russians had seamlessly transferred to the Soviets and the two nations shared intelligence on the Soviets, organised training (particularly the training of Japanese cryptologists by Polish experts) and co-operated on supporting resistance groups and inserting agents into the USSR. Crucially Warsaw had kept up its relations with China so the Polish consulate became the main channel of communication, able to get an audience and be listened to when a Japanese emissary would not. The negotiations were far from simple, as has been mentioned many major players in China fundamentally disagreed with the idea of prioritising internal threats over fighting Japan, not least because they correctly feared that meant reducing the power of local governors/warlords. However the strengthening economy following the Leith-Ross mission had brought Chiang and his Clique a considerable amount of political credit and none of the warlords, not even those with Communist sympathies, actually wanted to see the Soviet Union annex a part of China. The fact the plan did not involve weakening forces on the border with Japan or any actual commitments or efforts from the other Cliques was also a factor in it's favour, as was a certain degree of cynical support from certain sections; those convinced it was a Japanese plot and who wanted to use the 'inevitable' Japanese treachery to force a war with Japan against Chiang's wishes.
The raising of the flag at the Polish Consulate in Harbin, Manchuria. The Polish connection to the Far East dated back to the days of the Tsars, the Chinese Eastern Railway had been planned by Imperial Russia and financed by the French and the Belgians, but it had been engineered and designed by Poles. Several thousand had stayed on to run the railway and negotiated several privileges for their community, while not as far reaching as those in the coastal Concessions they were considerable and somewhat justified the claims to be a colony. The Poles were not the only ones to stay, there was a large 'White Russian' community in Harbin and the mutual hatred of the Soviets was enough to smooth over their other disagreements. Following the invasion of Manchuria by Japan Harbin became the favoured location for Japanese-Polish intelligence conferences, unsurprisingly the town was particularly busy in the autumn of 1937.
It is illuminating to note that one of the main breakthroughs in the talks came from an imposition of an extra demand, when the scheme had started Warsaw had expected to merely facilitate the talks and dump a load of small arms it had been trying unsuccessfully to sell for many years. However the need for trainers, and the entirely reasonable refusal of Nanjing to allow entry to Imperial Japanese Army troops, meant a Polish Military Mission would be required. This soon escalated into an escort for the weapons while in transit and a quasi-guarantor role that they would not get diverted. This increasing commitment prompted the Polish Foreign Office to raise the issue of the Polish communities in Shanghai and Tianjin, while not asking for a formal Concession they did ask for those groups to be given the rights and recognitions that the Poles in Harbin had enjoyed when under Chinese control. In deference to Chinese internal politics these would be mutually applied, though all involved knew there was essentially no Chinese community in Poland that could benefit. However this offer did advance the talks, because it meant Poland now had something to gain from success and more importantly something to lose if it was a Japanese scheme. Many of the factions had been suspicious of Poland just acting out of opposition to the Soviets, whereas a European power that wanted better access to China was something they were far more familiar with. The final deal itself was essentially a list of conditions on what the Poles and Japanese could and couldn't do, with a very heavy emphasis on the latter, along with details of when the mutual rights recognition treaty between Poland and China would come into force.
While all these talks had been ongoing the conflict in Sinkiang had continued. Initially the rebels, or as they dubbed themselves 'Loyalists' (because they were loyal to Nanjing and China), had the advantage and, after clearing the south of any groups that were not joining the uprising, had pushed north and defeated Shicai's troops in the Battle of Karashar. This was their high water mark as by August the first Soviet troops arrived in the province, Moscow having concluded that the Chinese government was not going to intervene and that they did not want to lose their puppet Shicai and the resources of his province. While an NKVD detachment stayed in the capital and accelerated the ongoing purge, not least of the previous Soviet representatives who's failure to stop the rebellion was ascribed to a conspiracy and wrecking, the Red Army pushed south. While relatively few in number, around 5,000 men strong, the force included a tank regiment and organic air support which more than compensated. The Soviet force pushed the loyalists out of Karashar and then massacred the Ma Clique's cavalry heavy army on the empty plans of the Tarmin Basin, in less than a month they had re-established the old de facto boundaries and were looking to push on to take the entire province. The Soviet arrival had coincided with the first shipments reaching Tunhwang and the formation of the Sinkiang Legion, despite plans to properly train this force it ended up being hurled into battle to try and stabilise the situation. Perhaps fortunately they entered Sinkiang from the east and the Soviet air bases had been established in the West to fight the Ma Clique, so the Legion could at least fight under neutral skies. The Legion also had the benefit of actual anti-tank weaponry, the machine guns provided by Poland may have been old but they were still capable of chewing through the thin armour on a Soviet BT-series tank. These advantages, along with a degree of over-confidence amongst the Soviets, were enough to see the Legion victorious and the Soviet's pushed back across the Tian Shan mountains and into north Sinkiang. Casualties on both sides had been high and the commanders were quick to call for reinforcements, requests which soon became as much political as they were military.
The Fiat CR.40, a variant of the proven CR.32 the most obvious changes are the very low mounted upper wing and the large cylindrical cowl indicating a change to a radial engine. It was the latter which attracted the attention of the Chinese Nationalist Air Force, while the manoeuvrability and firepower of the CR.32 had been much appreciated it's temperamental Fiat A.30 V12 engine and it's unusual petrol/alcohol/benzene fuel requirements had made it a maintenance and logistic nightmare. Keen to get something into production quickly the Chinese acquired the prototype and started manufacture in the Sino-Italian National Aircraft Works in Nanchang, with a not inconsiderable degree of support and parts from the Fiat factories in Italy. Unusually the 'export' version proved superior to the original, the lack of radial Italian engines had forced Fiat to use a Bristol Mercury IV acquired prior to the war, the Chinese were able to fit the almost twice as powerful Mercury VIII which they obtained through their trade links with Britain. The first CR.40s would come off the production line in the summer of 1937 and, despite repeated requests to send them to Sinkiang, they were sent to reinforce the forces on the border with Japan, a clear demonstration of where Nanjing's priorities lay.
While Moscow would weigh up the options and eventually decide to double down and send reinforcements, the problem in Nanjing was finding any troops to send. The local warlords were raising new troops, on the basis they had no idea quite where the Soviets intended to stop, but these would take time to train and equip. What was needed were already trained troops to hold the line, which prompted the first major test of the Sino-Polish-Japanese arrangement. While actual Japanese troops were obviously unacceptable and Poland was never going to send any 'volunteers' there were still a range of other options. Japan had a number of associated non-Japanese forces who were already trained and had their own motivations in wanting to fight. The most obvious group were the White Russians in Manchuria, most of whom had combat experience from the Russian Civil War and Great War which had been supplemented by training from the Imperial Japanese Army. The success of the European based White Russian movement in actually fighting the Soviets, even though it was in Spain, had spurred on their Far Eastern counterparts and prompted a wave of volunteers into the IJA organised Asano Brigade. While too few to make much of a difference as an infantry unit, they were an excellent source of trainers, specialists and commanders. At the other extreme, both of experience and acceptability, was the Grand Han Righteous Army, six thousand unemployed former Chinese Army soldiers recruited by a turncoat general into Japanese service. With Tokyo now seeking better relations an army of Chinese traitors, as Nanjing would view them, had become an inconvenient embarrassment and one they were happy to be rid of. The Nationalists completely disbelieved the claim that the Righteous Army wished to redeem itself by fighting to defend the ancestral lands, but due to lack of options allowed them to 'volunteer' to join the Sinkiang Legion. In between sat Prince Demchugdongrub and the Inner Mongolian Army, a Qing dynasty Imperial Mongol nobleman fortunately also known as Prince De. His faction had decided to collaborate with the Japanese as they shared an enemy, the Soviet backed Mongolian People's Republic. The issue was they also shared another enemy; the Chinese warlords who controlled Inner Mongolia. However Prince De was foresighted enough (or under tight enough control from Tokyo) that his forces were prepared to fight in Sinkiang on the basis that weakening the Soviets meant weakening their control over Mongolia. It was not just trained units that were making their way to southern Sinkiang, the conflict became a rallying point for anti-Soviet groups in the region, in particular those Khazks and Mongols who had fled the purges but still wanted revenge. The conflict even attracted the attention of the exiled Cossack Hosts, their hoped for 'rehabilitation' having been denied by Moscow and replaced by yet another round of purges they rallied to the cause purely as a way to strike back.
The Sinkiang Legion would hold it's own in the autumn of 1937, the experience and motivation of it's forces and commanders being enough to compensate for the more modern equipment and air power of the far smaller Soviet forces. Fortunately for the Legion just as the Soviet reinforcements began to arrive in early November the conflict would literally freeze up, daytime temperatures plummeting well below 0ºC while the nights could hit -20ºC or lower. The response in Nanjing was to pursue a diplomatic solution, the conflict was still viewed as a distraction and it was hoped Moscow would agree to a status quo ante bellum deal where the north of the province remained an undeclared Soviet puppet. In the paranoid atmosphere of the Great Purge these approaches were not received well, instead it was decided that failure was clearly the fault of wreckers, traitors and conspirators in the Red Army and once they had been purged the campaign could begin in the Spring and achieve the original goals. The command of the Legion itself, which had essentially taken over the south of the province as the Ma Clique withdrew back to their core territories to lick their wounds, spent the time looking to re-arm and re-equip. With the Polish armouries fast being emptied of anything of use on a modern battlefield, and with any newer production being reserved for the re-arming Polish Army, they were forced to look elsewhere. Japanese equipment remained off limits for political reasons, however with control of the province came control over the Chinese side of the passes through the Himalayas and into British India. The British consulate in Kashgar had been paying close attention to the conflict and was unsurprised when the Legion leadership approached them to ask what the position of Britain was in the conflict, what did surprise them was the request for the price of a couple of squadrons of Vickers Venoms. The response to those question would determine the next phase of the Sinkiang War.
---
Notes:
A little discussed factor that limits Chinese based AARs is the fact that any province/city/word in China can have at least five translations, so there is some work involved in working out what actual place any source is referring to.
In any event, as has been discussed we are now at the stage where the effects of earlier changes become apparent. There was a revolt in Sinkiang/Xinjiang/Many other names in 1937 and the Soviet did intervene, but the Sino-Japanese war had broken out so no-one in the rest of China could do much. After a brief fight against the Ma Clique the Soviets assumed total control, until late in WW2 when China could push them out again. The Ma Clique were also referred to as the Xibei San Ma (Three Ma of the North West) which is how HOI refers to them. Obviously very different here.
On the Polish angle, the are using the interpretation of Prometheus' theft of fire being about enlightenment and the fight against tyranny. A slightly niche view of the myth but not one they invented. Obviously historically Poland was far too focused on Germany to care about this, but the colonies and interests were there. The arms they are sending out are the ones that OTL got dumped on Republican Spain, but Spain has better options in Butterfly so isn't interested, Sinkiang however is desperate. The Cossacks were hated by the Soviets for ideological reasons and got brutally 'repressed' in the 20s, OTL they got 'rehabilitated' and the Cossack Divisions of the Red Army re-created, in Butterfly they instead got caught up in the purges as unreliable non-Soviet influences so swap sides in Sinkiang.
The Sino-Italian aircraft factory was just producing it's first aircraft around the time of the outbreak of the war with Japan, it was bombed shortly after and the Chinese suspected the Italians had leaked the location. Here it is thriving as there is no Anti-Comintern Pact and Mussolini has no interest in a Japanese alliance so is keeping up the links with China. The CR.40 is an unusual looking plane that OTL was just a step to the last great biplane the CR.42, but the Chinese problems with the CR.32 and it's strange fuel did happen so here it gets sent East and gets a chance to fly and fight.
Last edited:
- 3
- 3
