893.00/7428
The Minister in China (MacMurray) to the Secretary of State
[Received May 28.]
Sir: I have the honor to advert to my despatch No. 366 of December 30, 1925,44 and to subsequent despatches from the Legation,44 reporting and commenting upon an incident occurring December 16th last, when several motor trucks loaded with Chinese troops, heavily armed, entered within the American Sector of the defense lines at Tientsin. As Mr. Gauss45 remarked in his despatch of December 18th, enclosed in my communication first-mentioned, this was the first case when Chinese armed troops have entered this sector. Theretofore, as Mr. Gauss stated, the Chinese police authorities had always cooperated with the United States Army forces at Tientsin in deflecting any bodies of armed Chinese troops approaching this area, sending them by outside routes around the defense lines to their destination in the Chinese City or elsewhere.
[Page 737]This incident, and the critical state of affairs in Tientsin during the Kuominchun46 occupation of that city on December 24–26, 1925, in conjunction with the question of international trains between Peking and Tientsin, brought up for renewed consideration the entire matter of open communications between Peking and the sea, as provided for in Article IX of the Protocol of 1901,47 and particularly the situation in which the American Army forces at Tientsin found themselves with respect to their part in the combined defense plan there.
In order to lead up logically to the particular difficulties in the above regard, and for purposes of record, I venture to review the situation at some length and chronologically, at the risk of repeating much of which the Department is doubtless informed.
The Commandants of the military forces of the United States, Great Britain, Italy and Japan, stationed at Tientsin for the purpose of maintaining open communication between Peking and the sea by virtue of the terms of Article IX of the Protocol of 1901, necessarily had to establish about the district for foreign residence and trade in Tientsin a defense area to serve as a military base. This the Commandants rightly considered as an area which they must be prepared to defend and into which, therefore, no armed Chinese troops should be permitted to enter. This defense area included inter alia the British, French, Italian, and Japanese Concessions. The sector allotted each Command corresponded, generally speaking, with the concession of the respective nationality; but for military reasons the sectors included, in addition, certain adjacent areas, at the outer boundaries of which lines were to be established even during civil strife in order to divert any approaching troops from entrance into the defense area. By reason of there being no American Concession, the sector allotted to the American Command is in the former German Concession and other adjoining territory wholly under Chinese administration. It is adjacent to the British Sector.
With the practical failure on the part of the Powers concerned to compel the observance of the Agreement of July 15, 1902 (See MacMurray’s China Treaties, p. 317 et seq.) respecting the marching and stationing of Chinese troops within twenty li of Tientsin, the question of the maintenance of such lines became increasingly important, and especially so for the American Command which, not being based upon a foreign concession, was left particularly liable to contact with [Page 738] Chinese troops by reason of the different trunk roads passing through its sector. Unless the other foreign commands, especially the British, were to maintain the lines assigned them under the combined defense plan, including the area outside of their concessions, our forces would be left in an untenable position.
Disregarding the agreement entered into by the Commandants as to the exclusion of armed Chinese troops from territory within the defense lines, the British forces at Tientsin on December 25th, and the French on December 26th, permitted columns of such troops to pass through this territory, subsequently explaining and defending this action on the grounds of expediency and the absence of any anti-foreign sentiment among the Chinese troops concerned. On the other hand, faithfully carrying out the agreement above alluded to, at one moment a small American picket was confronted with an entire Division of Chinese troops seeking a short-cut in pursuit of Li Ching-lin’s defeated Fengtien forces. Fortunately, the Chinese officer commanding the advance guard of the Division assented to the request of our picket and turned aside. This incident, one of many during two days, was of extreme delicacy and danger. A clash was narrowly averted, which, had it occurred, might have had far-reaching results. This serves to illustrate the difficulty that has developed from the fact that Commandants at Tientsin, other than the American, felt justified in departing from the combined defense plan, and considered themselves safe in the inviolability of their concessions as a point for ultimate retirement, while the Americans, without a concession and compelled by elementary military reasons, were forced thereby to an issue of great danger in order to preserve the integrity of their base. (See page seven of mail despatch from the American Consul-General, Tientsin, dated December 28th last, on the subject of conditions in the Tientsin area.48)
Upon learning of the above incident, I called a conference here with General Connor49 and the American Consul-General at Tientsin, as soon as the disturbed conditions permitted. It was agreed at this conference that in view of the present irrational state of mind of the Chinese, it would be utterly impracticable to take up the matter with the Chinese Government with a view to obtaining its cooperation in adjusting the position of the American Command at Tientsin to the new situation created by the breakdown of the combined defense plan. After careful consideration it was decided that, as a first step toward this adjustment, General Connor should confer with his colleagues and present the facts frankly to them and seek an equally candid [Page 739] statement of exactly what he could expect his position to be in the future vis-à-vis these Commandants as regards the carrying out of the defense plan. This conference between General Connor and his fellow-Commandants at Tientsin, although amicable, brought forth no proposal such as he requested for the purpose of relieving his position.
General Connor stated to me, as his considered judgment, that the position of his command at Tientsin, by reason of the failure of the foreign Commandants in general and of the British and French Commandants in particular, to adhere to the provisions of the defense plan for Tientsin, had become militarily untenable and liable to force provocative contacts with Chinese troops. In view of the seriousness of the situation and of the fact that civil strife might at any time again break out in and around Tientsin, I discussed the matter at once with my colleagues concerned—the British, Italian, French, and Japanese Ministers—with the result that a conference of the five interested Ministers, and their Commandants at Tientsin, met at the Italian Legation on February 4, 1926, to discuss the general situation of the foreign commands at Tientsin, with particular reference to the position of the American forces there.
At this conference an agreement was drafted, supplementing the combined defense plan, which more nearly placed the other foreign commands on a parity with the American Command, in that Article 3 of the Supplementary Agreement would provide that when, in the opinion of the Commandant of a Sector, there is any danger arising from an attempted passage of armed Chinese troops through the inner lines of defense, or from civil disturbances in territory under Chinese administration within the area of the inner defense lines, the foreign force in the sector concerned shall, on the demand of the Commandant controlling such sector, be assisted by contingents from the other foreign forces comprising the international corps of occupation. The proposed Supplementary Agreement was by no means entirely satisfactory, having principally a negative value in placing the other foreign commands in the same awkward position in which the American forces might find themselves, through the ability of the American Command to summon other foreign forces to its aid in the event of a clash in territory under Chinese jurisdiction; but this arrangement was at any rate designed to guarantee the United States from the solitary odium of any untoward incident at Tientsin between foreign and Chinese armed forces, by dividing what may be termed the political responsibilities involved in excluding Chinese troops from our Sector.
After discussion and long delay, due principally to misunderstanding on the part of the Japanese and perhaps in some degree [Page 740] to a desire on their part to interpret too broadly the extent of the new agreement, the foreign Commandants at Tientsin have now adopted the Supplementary Agreement with certain minor amendments, together with an explanation (at the instance of the Japanese) to which I have referred above. I have the honor to enclose copies of both these documents.49a
I regret to be compelled to observe that in the opinion of General Connor and myself it is somewhat problematical whether or not all the foreign commands at Tientsin will faithfully observe this new agreement in any given crisis. The British, French, Italian, and Japanese forces have each their respective concessions into which they may retire, within which they are actually less likely to be attacked, and which they have particular reason to defend as a matter of protection to the lives and properties of their nationals. They will, quite naturally, be strongly tempted to contain themselves within their respective concessions, without attempting to control the activities of Chinese troops or disturbers of the peace outside. The American Command, on the other hand, has no concession into which it can withdraw, its base being on territory entirely within Chinese jurisdiction. And the topographical situation, furthermore, is such that the retirement of the other foreign commands into their concessions automatically shifts a much heavier burden onto the American forces in preventing the entry of Chinese troops into their defense lines, as the rudimentary necessities of defense require of a military force.
Having in mind the generally unsatisfactory character of the position of the American forces, which I have described above, and in accord with the strategic retreat which the Powers are seeking to effect in China in respect of their rights under the so-called “unequal treaties”, we appear to be logically confronted with the consideration of the question of the ultimate withdrawal of the foreign garrisons at Tientsin as a necessity in that relation. I consider that the eventual withdrawal of our Army forces at Tientsin—which are clearly to be differentiated from the Legation Guard at Peking—will be expedient at a later date, although I believe their immediate Avithdrawal would be gravely unwise, if not highly dangerous to the welfare and even the safety of Americans and other foreigners in China. In this connection, I have the honor to submit that, as a condition precedent to withdrawal when the psychological time occurs, the Department should preliminarily approach the British, French, Italian, and Japanese Governments with a proposal for simultaneous action; and that every opportunity should be offered the respective Governments to join in a common gesture which would [Page 741] be beneficial to all foreigners in China alike. It seems to me that it would be desirable, if possible, to avoid isolated action, on the part of any one Power, which, while perhaps accruing to the immediate popularity of that nationality, would almost inevitably react to its disadvantage scarcely less than that of other nations, in consequence of the nationalistic agitation which would thereby be stirred up against those which retained forces at Tientsin—such agitations always tending to become indiscriminately anti-foreign, and leading indirectly to new assaults upon the rights and interests even of the countries not immediately concerned. Only in the event that the other Governments concerned should refuse to join in the withdrawal of the foreign commands at Tientsin, upon the opportunity being thus offered them, I believe, as does General Connor, that the United States should act alone in this matter.
My principal reason for recommending withdrawal of the foreign garrisons, at some time in the future which I hope will not be far distant, is that the reason for their presence in China has virtually ceased to exist. The maintenance of open communication between Peking and the sea, by compelling the running of international trains between Peking and Tientsin, can no longer be counted upon as feasible, in view of the recent developments in the technique of military operations by Chinese forces. In my opinion, that portion of the Protocol of 1901 is no longer practically enforceable under circumstances such as arose in December last and in March and April of this year, and which are likely to recur in the course of the prevalent civil disorders in China,—the only part of the Protocol, in this general regard, remaining to us as practicable of execution, being the maintenance of an open port at Tientsin (as in the case of the recent Taku incident50). A foreign garrison at Tientsin is, therefore, virtually relegated to a secondary function not originally contemplated by the Protocol, namely, the protection of foreigners and of foreign interests at the port of Tientsin. This function, I believe, does not justify the maintenance there of forces whose presence affords recurrent occasions for clashes with the Chinese, which the new temper of the Chinese people makes almost inevitable, sooner or later, as a result of some misunderstanding or accident impossible to foresee and guard against. Should the situation at Peking or around Tientsin become such that a foreign expeditionary force would have to be landed for the purpose of opposing a Chinese army, with modern equipment, acting offensively against foreign lives and interests, I believe (and in this General Connor concurs) that this force could establish itself at Tientsin, by means of naval contingents alone, practically as easily and with as little loss of life as [Page 742] if foreign troops maintained a base there. It is furthermore problematical whether such a small foreign force as is now stationed at Tientsin, say a total of 3,900, would not be defeated during the period of time which would be required for adequate reinforcements to reach Tientsin.
I enclose herewith a copy of a secret letter addressed to me by General Connor on January 13th last in this general regard.51 This sets forth certain conclusions at which General Connor has arrived and which were discussed at the conference I have referred to above as having been held with him and the Consul-General at Tientsin in January last. General Connor is forwarding a copy of this letter to the War Department, by the Legation pouch, simultaneously with the present despatch.
I have the honor to invite the Department’s attention especially to the summary of the situation at Tientsin in General Connor’s opinions set forth on page 8 of his letter of January 13th, and to his conclusions A and B under paragraph 29 on the following page. In the main, I concur heartily in General Connor’s statements. It is necessary, however, to add, as indeed he wishes me to do, that certain of the remarks in the summary of the situation are no longer pertinent, owing to the supplementary defense agreement enclosed with this despatch.
I should likewise observe, in conclusion, that General Connor agrees in my conclusions that (1) in view of the risks now being incurred with insufficient military justification, the situation at Tientsin must ultimately be resolved by the withdrawal of the American Army Forces stationed there—if possible, in conjunction with the other foreign Powers maintaining similar forces; but that (2) this action must be timed with the greatest care in order to avoid what is at the present time the very serious danger of creating a situation in which nationalistic sentiment would be further incited against foreign rights and interests, rather than appeased by such a withdrawal. In view of this latter consideration, I venture to express the most earnest hope that the Department, even though on consultation with the War Department (for which purpose I enclose an extra copy) it may feel fully convinced of the wisdom of such eventual withdrawal as I recommend, will withhold, until it shall have received a further report from me, any definite decision as to the time when it may be advisable to initiate discussions with the other interested Powers concerning the withdrawal of all the foreign occupational forces at Tientsin.
I have [etc.]
- Not printed.↩
- Not printed.↩
- Clarence E. Gauss, consul general at Tientsin.↩
- National armies then under control of Marshal Feng Yü-hsiang.↩
- Foreign Relations, 1901, appendix (Affairs in China), p. 312.↩
- Not printed.↩
- Maj. Gen. William Durward Connor, in command of the American forces in China.↩
- Neither printed.↩
- See pp. 591 ff.↩
- Not printed.↩