•Manchurian Incident: By Elle Donaldson

•Manchurian Incident: By Elle Donaldson
•Where is Manchuria??
Manchuria is located in Asia and depending on your views it either lies in China or separated so it lies half way between Russia and China. The name comes from the family Manchus who were very wealthy and gave their name to the area in the 17th century. The Manchurian Incident is also known as the Mukden incident. Mukden which is now called Shenyang. I will show you where it is situated.

•History Within Manchuria
Three years after the triple Intervention Russia forced China to give them a 25 year lease on the Liaotung Peninsula. With that it was also allowed to connect to the Chinese eastern railway which ran through Manchuria to one of the Russians ports, the Vladivostok and also through Port Arthur. When all this happened it was a major concern for Japan. Then their was the Boxer rebellion that gave Russia full control of
Manchuria. The Anglo-Japanese Alliance was the joining of Britain and Japan which made Japan stronger. When Russia failed to acknowledge Japan’s rights in Korea, Japan declared war. It ended with the treaty of Portsmouth and was then known as the Russo-Japanese war in 1904-05, which Japan had won. From then on Japan was considered one of the most powerful countries and the one that dominate in Manchuria.

•Japanese Version of the Mukden Incident!
There are two versions to the Mudken incident. The version of the Japanese people and the real version of the incident. The Japanese claimed that the section of the railway that was blown up, was bombed by the Chinese, as they both shared hatred towards each other. Japan wanted to have full control of Manchuria so by blaming it on the Chinese they had a way of gaining full control.

•The “Real Version”!
On September 18th 1931 the a section of the Japanese owned South Manchurian railway was blown up. It was right near the capital Mukden. It was blown up by some of Japan’s junior officers and then blamed on the Chinese. Blaming this event on the Chinese was needed so the Japanese had an excuse to take full control of Manchuria and to get their army involved. They were to blow up the railway and then attract Chinese military who were stationed close to the railway. Then use the excuse of they need to protect themselves. Then once they had arrived they would blame it on them as they would be at the scene of the crime.

•What happened after!
As previously stated Japan used the excuse that they needed to protect what they owned. Taking 500 soldiers they went and became engaged in battle with Chinese soldiers. They had a reason to go into battle and they had know competition as the Chinese had been told to remove their weapons and not to fight back if the Japanese tried to invade them.

•League of Nations
League of Nations is an international organization founded after the Paris Peace Conference of 1919. The League's goals included disarmament; preventing war through collective security; settling disputes between countries through negotiation diplomacy; and improving global welfare- Wikipedia.
On the 19th of September, a day after the incident an appeal was made by the Chinese foreign minister to the league of nations to stop the anything else happening in Manchuria. On October 2nd the L.O.N ordered Japanese troops to be out of Manchuria by November 16th but they refused. They only wanted to make negotiations with the Chinese government. After conferences that didn’t change anything and the changing
of the Chairman of Nationalists govt. On Jan 7th 1932 USA stated they would not recognise any govt because of what Japan had done. Following that on the 14th the LON arrived in Shanghai to see what had arose from the incident.

Japan continued to refuse to cooperate and in March created a puppet state named Manchukuo. It was a state within Manchuria. It’s Emperor was Pu-Yi who was the last emperor of the Qing Dynasty, a region of North East China. Later in October Japan explained their reason’s for blowing up the railway as self defence, however know one believed them and the LON stated they would not recognise Manchukuo as an "independent nation”. Japan was forced to withdraw from the league of nations in March 1933.