ABSTRACT
WHEN China was forced to take up arms against Japan’s invasion on July 7, 1937, the most sanguine hopes of China’s friends were that in the face of the well-planned and wellequipped onslaughts by such a mighty power as Japan the utmost that could be expected of poor old China would be that she would not collapse or surrender before the end of that year, so as to give the friendly nations with vital interests in the Far East sufficient time to cope with the threatening situation that would surely follow such grave developments. Three years have passed during which practically all China’s thickly populated cities have been bombed, some repeatedly, with many of them being sacked and ravaged. Millions have been killed and wounded, tens of millions have been rendered destitute and homeless. In the words of many observers China and her people have suffered at the hands of the invaders in a manner and to an extent unknown in modern history.
