Nomonhan, 1939
The Red Army's Victory That Shaped World War II
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Publisher Description
Stuart Goldman convincingly argues that a little-known, but intense Soviet-Japanese conflict along the Manchurian-Mongolian frontier at Nomonhan influenced the outbreak of World War II and shaped the course of the war. The author draws on Japanese, Soviet, and western sources to put the seemingly obscure conflict—actually a small undeclared war— into its proper global geo-strategic perspective.
The book describes how the Soviets, in response to a border conflict provoked by Japan, launched an offensive in August 1939 that wiped out the Japanese forces at Nomonhan. At the same time, Stalin signed the German—Soviet Nonaggression Pact, allowing Hitler to invade Poland. The timing of these military and diplomatic strikes was not coincidental, according to the author. In forming an alliance with Hitler that left Tokyo diplomatically isolated, Stalin succeeded in avoiding a two-front war. He saw the pact with the Nazis as a way to pit Germany against Britain and France, leaving the Soviet Union on the sidelines to eventually pick up the spoils from the European conflict, while at the same time giving him a free hand to smash the Japanese at Nomonhan.
Goldman not only demonstrates the linkage between the Nomonhan conflict, the German-Soviet Nonaggression Pact, and the outbreak of World War II , but also shows how Nomonhan influenced Japan’s decision to go to war with the United States and thus change the course of history. The book details Gen. Georgy Zhukov’s brilliant victory at Nomonhan that led to his command of the Red Army in 1941 and his success in stopping the Germans at Moscow with reinforcements from the Soviet Far East. Such a strategy was possible, the author contends, only because of Japan’s decision not to attack the Soviet Far East but to seize the oil-rich Dutch East Indies and attack Pearl Harbor instead. Goldman credits Tsuji Masanobu, an influential Japanese officer who instigated the Nomonhan conflict and survived the debacle, with urging his superiors not to take on the Soviets again in 1941, but instead to go to war with the United States.
PUBLISHERS WEEKLY
An overlooked border conflict in Asia on the eve of WWII served as a turning point in 20th century history according to this unconventional analysis from military scholar Goldman. Western-centric textbooks, however, make little mention of "the most important World War II battle that most people have never heard of." Here Goldman chronicles the four-month long battle between Japanese and Soviet forces that took place near the village of Nomonhan (aka Khalkhin Gol, according to the Soviet Union) in the late summer of 1939. At issue was the borderlands of Mongolia and Manchuria, dubbed Manchukuo and used as a puppet state by the Japanese after their seizure of the area in 1931. Reduced to a historical footnote, Goldman argues that the Nomonhan battle was crucial in diverting Soviet forces away from Europe at the tail end of the German-Soviet Nonaggression Pact, leaving Poland vulnerable to invasion by Hitler's forces, and delaying Japan's alliance with Germany. The story of the conflict is gripping thanks to its surprisingly large scale (nearly 100,000 combatants) and its two dynamic leaders: the Soviet Union's Georgy Zhukov, and the leader of the Kwantung elite force, Tsuji Masanobu. Though Goldman wisely avoids overestimating the impact of what the Japanese diminutively call the "Nomonhan incident," he nevertheless makes a compelling case for its fortuitous timing and strategic implications. Maps & photos.
