What actually happened: After their unauthorized seizure of Manchuria, the Japanese Kwantung Army was riding high.  It seized additional areas of China from time-to-time, and engaged in an aggressive series of border clashes with the Soviets.  Eventually their aggressiveness led to the "China Incident" and a couple of small-scale border wars with the Soviets, the most serious of them at Nomanham in July through early September of 1939.  The costly fighting in China started to swing the balance of opinion in Japanese military circles against the Kwangtung army and its rogue foreign policy initiatives.

The Japanese army high command was already trying to rein in the Kwangtung Army by the start of the Nomanham crisis, something that actually contributed to the decisiveness of the Japanese defeat there, though the main causes of that defeat were overconfidence on the part of the Japanese, poor coordination of their resources, and the fact that the Soviets ended up pitting several elite divisions and several tank brigades against the inexperienced and undertrained Japanese 23^rd infantry division, reinforced during the early parts of the battle by a tank unit and in the later part of the battle by a regiment from a more experienced division, plus some supplementary heavy artillery.

After the Soviet offensive of late August 1939 almost wiped out the 23^rd division, the Kwantung Army wanted a rematch.  They put together a several division force in early September and were on the verge of launching a counter-offensive when the Emperor and the army command back in Japan stepped in.  The disaster reduced the political power of the Kwangtung Army enough that the homeland was able to reassert control, eventually purging quite a few of the officers involved in the Nomanham fiasco and, ironically, throwing away most of the people who could have passed valuable lessons learned from that battle to the rest of the Japanese Army.

Even after the purge, the Kwangtung Army itched for another round with the Soviets.  The Japanese did a major buildup in Manchuria after the Germans attacked the Soviet Union, hoping that the Soviets would collapse or move enough troops west that the Japanese could take key pieces of the Soviet Far East.  Instead, the Japanese decided to head south, and the Japanese army in Manchuria gradually withered as good units were pulled out to fight elsewhere.  When the Soviets attacked Manchuria in August 1945, they rolled over the remaining Japanese forces rather easily

What might have happened: The Soviets and the Japanese had quite a number of clashes along the disputed borders of Manchuria throughout the late 1930s.  Let's say one of them escalates into a Nomanham-sized clash in 1936.  Maybe the Soviets decide to teach the Japanese a lesson before the Germans get too strong in the west.  The Soviets defeat a substantial Japanese force in a border clash.  Without the sobering experience of the China incident to deter them, the Japanese escalate further.  The war spreads from the initial point of dispute to engulf the entire border.  The Japanese pour in reinforcements from the home islands.  The Soviets pour in reinforcements from European Russia.

The Soviets have more and better tanks, and probably more planes, though they aren't as good as the Japanese stuff.  The Japanese have better logistics because they are fighting closer to their centers of power.  The Soviet Army has not been purged yet, so it is in reasonably good shape for a fight.

My guess is that the pre-purge Soviets hands the Japanese their heads in early fighting, but are not be able to make decisive gains due to poor logistics.  The Soviets are already building T26 and BT-series tanks in fairly large numbers, and the Japanese are a generation behind in tank technology.  That adds up to Soviet victories, but not decisive ones.  The Soviet tanks are not reliable enough and they don't have enough trucks to secure strategic victories.  Tactical victories, yes and probably quite a few of them.

On the other hand, the Japanese army is composed of fanatical fighters who would simply fight to the death in just about any circumstance, and the Japanese will undoubtedly buy more modern tanks as a stopgap, and copy them as soon as possible.  The British 6-ton export tank that inspired the Soviet T26 will undoubtedly get a lot of orders if the British government allows it to be exported.  They probably would at that point.  The British fear the Bolsheviks more than they did the Japanese.

The Japanese are forced to shift military spending from ship-building to tanks and aircraft.  Their pilot training program is quickly overwhelmed as casualties from the war depletes their small though elite cadre of pilots.

The Japanese fleet quickly eliminates the bulk of Soviet naval power in the Far East, and blockades Soviet ports there, but they don't have the range to attack Soviet imports in Europe.  Soviet submarines sporadically try to sink ships coming into Japan or going from Japan to Manchuria.  The attacks generate more bad blood among neutrals than their results are worth, but continue for internal propaganda reasons.

The Soviets can and do hit the Japanese home islands from bases in the Far East.  The Japanese respond in kind against Soviet cities and towns in the Far East.

As the war escalates, both sides resort to poison gas.  Both sides deny doing it while accusing the other side of using both gas and biological warfare.

How does the international community react?  The League of Nations undoubtedly tries to patch together some kind of truce.  The Italians are thrilled to see international attention shift away from Ethiopia.  They may try to polish their anti-communist credentials by sending aid of some kind to the Japanese.  It is unlikely that the Japanese will find anything the Italians send them particularly useful, with the possible exception of Italian pilot volunteers in CR30-series Fiat biplane fighters.

As the two sides frantically build up, they buy pretty much any reasonably usable weapon the outside world will sell them in the early going.  The Poles and French sell off several hundred World War I vintage Renault FT-17 tanks to the Japanese in the frantic first phase of the war.  Both sides get more picky as the war goes on.  The Germans are still early in their buildup, and can't spare anything useful, though they do send a few planes and other weapons to the Japanese in exchange for technical evaluations.

The Spanish Civil War arrives on schedule, but the Soviet Union is not able to spare much equipment for the Republican side.  Only Mexico gives the Republicans significant military aid, and that amounts to just 20,000-odd rifles.  The Poles sell the Spanish Republic small quantities of World War II surplus tanks, and obsolete small-arms, artillery and planes.  They did that to some extent historically, though politically the Poles and the Spanish Republic were at opposite ends of the spectrum.

The Spanish Republic falls in mid-1937.  The Japanese-Soviet war drags on into early 1938. Neither side is really capable of winning a decisive victory because the other side's centers of industrial and political power are out of reach.  By early 1938, both sides are feeling a hard-currency crunch.  That hurts Japan more than the Soviets because Japan imports more of its raw materials.

Stalin is also feeling threatened, rightly or wrongly, by the growing power of the Red Army leadership, and by the rising power of Germany.

So where do we go from here?  The Japanese and Soviets are bleeding each other white.  Both sides want to end the war, but Stalin is not in the position of absolute power that he was by 1938 historically, so he can't unilaterally shut it down and he can't accept defeat without weakening his political position.  The Japanese can't easily back down without some booty after fighting so hard and taking so many casualties.

Both sides have much larger, better equipped and more experienced armies than they did historically at this point in time.  Japan has more heavy industry because they've been forced into more military production.  The Soviets have less heavy industry than they did historically because resources that would have gone to industrialization have gone to buy or produce weapons.

How does this war end?  What happens in China, where presumably the Nationalists, Communists and various warlord factions have been free to pursue their political and military struggles?  Without a Sino-Japanese war, the Germans and Italians would continue arming and training the Nationalists.

The Nationalists would continue their efforts to create heavy industry capable of building their own weapons.  Historically the Nationalists were manufacturing small arms and ammo (both of poor quality) by the start of the Sino-Japanese War.  They were also assembling small numbers of Italian-designed bombers, and were apparently getting ready to do the same thing with a Fiat-designed fighter plane.  Presumably those efforts continue and intensify.

How would things play out in Europe?  The Soviets would presumably be far more likely to want to keep Germany in check, but far less capable of doing that than they were historically.  The Western Allies would be somewhat more willing to resist German advances because they fear the Soviets less, and have less to fear from the Japanese if they get involved in a war with Germany

Revised on Feb 4, 2012.

More Stuff For POD Members Only

What you see here is a truncated on-line version of a larger zine that I contribute to POD, the alternate history APA.  POD members get to look forward to more fun stuff.