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Arsaces -> RE: Ratings of Chiang Kai-Shek (7/25/2004 3:34:37 AM)
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While CKS was a man of some ability, these abilities were mainly political. He chose his military subordinates for their political loyalty, not for their military competence. Since CKS understood that the road to power belong to he who controlled the best army, he was obsessed by the imperative of preventing any of his generals from becoming too powerful.
In any case by 1942, China, was basically exhausted by years of war and invasion and was in no shape to mount any kind of offensive. The fall of Burma, following the occupation of French Indo-China, effectively isolated China from the outside world, and exposed the country to slow strangulation. The situation of China actually deteriorated with America's entry into the war and led to the catastrophes of 1944.
American planners devised grandiose schemes for using Chinese manpower armed by american weapons to defeat the IJA in an asian land war. Chinese leaders, accepted the foreign weapons, made polite noises and pursued the ancient strategy of using the barbarians to fight the barbarians. They could do little else.
Actually Wavell was one of the better generals of the British army, as he showed in North Africa, proving more than a match for his adversaries until he was obliged to send half his armies to Greece and Crete. Churchill gave him one impossible assignment after another. His Far East command was the most impossible of all.
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