page_title: First East Turkestan Republic
section_title: Battle of Kashgar (1934)
hierarchical_section_title: First East Turkestan Republic / Battles in the Uighur War for Independence / Battle of Kashgar (1934)
caption_attribution_description: English: Uyghur commander Ismail Beg 1933-1934
context_page_description: The First East Turkistan Republic, officially the Islamic Republic of East Turkistan, was a short-lived breakaway Islamic republic founded on 12 November 1933; it was first state to style itself an "Islamic republic." It was centred on the city of Kashgar in what is today China-administered Xinjiang Uyghur Autonomous Region. The ETR was primarily the product of an independence movement of the Uyghur population living there and more broadly of Turkic-ethnicity in character, including Kyrgyz and other Turkic peoples in its government and its population.
  With the sacking of Kashgar in 1934 by Hui warlords nominally allied with the Kuomintang government in Nanjing, the first ETR was effectively eliminated. Its example, however, served to some extent as inspiration for the founding of a Second East Turkistan Republic a decade later and continues to influence modern Uyghur nationalist support for the creation of an independent East Turkistan.
context_section_description: In the 1934 Battle of Kashgar, 36th division General Ma Fuyuan led a Chinese Muslim army to storm Kashgar on February 6, 1934, and attacked the Uighur and Kirghiz rebels of the First East Turkestan Republic. He freed another 36th division general, Ma Zhancang, who was trapped with his Chinese Muslim and Han Chinese troops in Kashgar New City by the Uighurs and Kirghizs since May 22, 1933, and was involved in continuous fighting, that lasted for more than five and half months, for holding control of a New City with its important Arsenal and Treasury since August 15, 1933.  In January, 1934, Ma Zhancang's Chinese Muslim troops repulsed six Uighur attacks launched by Khoja Niyaz, who arrived at the city on January 13, 1934, with 1,500 troops, inflicting massive casualties on the Uighur forces. From 2,000 to 8,000 Uighur civilians in Kashgar Old City were massacred by Tungans in February, 1934, in revenge for the Kizil massacre, after retreating of Uighur forces from the city in four directions: to Yengi Hisar with the Government, to Yarkand, to Upal and to Artush. The Chinese Muslim and 36th division Chief General Ma Zhongying, who arrived at Kashgar on April 7, 1934, gave a speech at Idgah mosque in April, reminding the Uighurs to be loyal to the Republic of China government at Nanjing. Several British citizens at the British consulate were murdered by troops of the 36th division.
caption: Ismail Beg before the Battle of Aksu
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