Evening star. [volume] (Washington, D.C.) 1854-1972, 1938-05-22
SOochow. and After.

Soochow has fallen, Japan has won
signal strategic and prestige victory, but
China is not beaten. The war goes on.
Capture of the key city of her central
defense line on the Lunghai railway is
of indisputable value to the invaders
from two standpoints. 1t promotes the
holly coveted union of their northern
and southern armies and links in an I'M
divided administrative whole the vast
territorial area precariously occupied by
japanese troops, stretching far into the
inland and along the coast from the
Manchurian border to Shanghai. Pos
sbly of even greater importance from
Tokios standpoint is that the "invincible
army after having suffered the first Sc
rious reverse in its history and been
thwarted for weeks, with heavy casual
ties, in a major military objective, has
at last achieved success calculated to
rehabilitate it's shattered glory and check
a steadily rising spirit of discomfort
among the disillusioned japanese people.
That the invaders will proceed to ex-
plot to the full the strategic advantages
accruing from the evacuation of Soochow
is foregone conclusion. It is already
disclosed that an imposing mobilization
of new forces is under way for de
cisive" drive on Hankow, $50 miles to the
southwest of the Lunghai region, to be
followed by the seizure" of Canton, 400
miles to the south of Chang Kai-shek's
present capital. These next moves are
gazetted in not unfamiliar terms, as ia
pans final effort to end the month
old North China incident and ''exter-
inmate" once for all the Kuomintang
government, which has astonished not
only the island enemy but all the world.
by a display of national unity and mill
tary proves once held utterly unbe-
lievabe
Thus Soochow is hailed at Toxic as
"the turning point in the conflict,
fiction propagated successfully for do
mestic sedative purposes after the falls
of Shanghai and Marking. Each of those
Chinese disasters was followed by a re-
crudescence of resistance on crescendo
scale There is no reason to doubt that
the loss of SoochoW will find history re-
peating itself. The brilliant guerrilla
tactics employed by the Chinese in the
far-1ung fighting for domination of the
Lunghai railWay-tactics which earned
the compliment of japanese imitation
are sure to be invoked on an intensive
scale if and when the invaders turn their
attention to the Hankow- Canton OBJ
jective. The defenders have the addi-
tional advantage of seasonal topograph-
ical conditions in the lower Yangtze VAL
ley, which will hamper japanese troop
movements and offensive operations.
From China's standpoint the days i'm
mediately ahead should test the durable
ity Of the nations unity, morale and eco
nomic structure. If these hold out to the
degree hitherto exhibited, Chang Kali
shek's resistance is in no danger of
crumbllng. Provincial warlordisn1, which
was at once China's gravest internal peril
and Japan's most potent ally, has to date
been almost miraculously suppressed.
AS long as the tuchuns continue to give
the generalissimo their fealty. and
granted a fairly uninterrupted flow of
munitions by way of Hong Kong, Saigon
and the motor caravan routes from Rus
STA. Japan's hope of crushing her
formidable foe into submission is still
remote from realization.