Talk:Battle of Wuhan

Infobox

There is no need to write a paragraph in a infobox. Its purpose is to summarize the event in one simple sentence.

I also wanted to point out the fact that despite the Central Chinese Army were able to withheld the Japanese advances and causing considerable damages, as well as the fact that the Chinese were able to preserve their strength and retreat, in formal context it does not make the Battle of Wuhan a "victory" for the Chinese in any sense, as the Chinese objective was to defend Wuhan, and their mission have failed. We can provide deeper insights in the article, but not in the infobox.

On my last note, I found the term "Pyrrhic victory" out of place in an encyclopedic content. Whoever is in favorable of the term needs to at minimum spell it right. Alex Shih • talk 01:29, 10 February 2010 (UTC)

There are too many misunderstandings on this battle. It is important to note that the Japanese Army continues to advance after the Battle of Wuhan, notably the landing in Canton and the assault on Nanchang and Changsha. The China theatre did not transform into stalemate until 1941. Alex Shih • talk 01:34, 17 February 2010 (UTC)

No it's not important. The only thing that is important is that absolutely no Japanese large scale offensives were made in China after Wuhan until Operation Ichigo in the Year Showa-19/Republic-33 AD 1944. After it's advance was halted at Wuhan, Japan was forced to change strategy into making use of amphibious operations in the hope of denying China of foreign arms supplies and Canton was merely an example of that. With the completion of the Burma Road and with Japan's subsequent failure to conquer Burma however, that strategy also failed. Nanchang and Changsha were both merely local offensives as part of the ensuing stalemate after Wuhan. Should also be noted that Japan lost half its committed strength in this battle while Chiang Kai-shek's Huangpu élite formations remained largely intact. Staygyro (talk) 01:52, 17 February 2010 (UTC)

'Pyrrhic victory' is a cliché, overused in WP and inappropriate to this battle as he war continues many more years. Indecisive, costly would be better.Tttom1 (talk) 01:25, 11 June 2010 (UTC)

The battle was extremely decisive in China's favor. The battle halted Japan's advance dead in it's tracks. Staygyro (talk) 23:01, 12 November 2010 (UTC)

At what point is it appropriate to consider the tactical results versus the strategic results? It would seem to an objective observer -- neither pro-Chinese nor pro-Japanese -- that the outcome was a tatical victory for Japan but perhaps a draw on the strategic level given that the outcome of the battle did not determine the outcome of the war. (71.22.47.232 (talk) 05:35, 11 June 2010 (UTC))

The battle DID determine the outcome for the war. Japan was forced from then on into a long war of attrition which Japan cannot win.Staygyro (talk) 22:57, 12 November 2010 (UTC)

Sources for casualties

Is the source referred to as “The Tragedy of Wuhan, 1938” the following: “The Tragedy of Wuhan, 1938” Modern Asian Studies 30.4 (1996): 931-43? If it is, let us say so in the citation so it is clear.

I have restored earlier figures for Japanese estimates of Japanese casualties. If (as was claimed earlier) the figure quoted from “The Tragedy of Wuhan, 1938” was a Chinese estimate of Japanese casualties, then it is almost certainly an over-estimate. There needs to be balance.--Toddy1 (talk) 11:11, 24 December 2010 (UTC)

Other sources

What are the following sources? Whatever they are needs to be described in more detail:

• "Wuhan Diary" - is the is a book? If so, we need author, publisher, date of publication, and if possible ISBN
• "Wuhan Daily" - is this a newspaper? If so what was the article called? Was there a byline?

--Toddy1 (talk) 12:56, 24 December 2010 (UTC)

it was a newspaper that stopped printing some 60 years ago. The same citation appears on many research papers so I guess it is authoritative. Asahi Shimbun also covered the air battle in a very different way (50+ vs 80+, losing only 2 vs claiming 50+), Dōmei Tsushin reported similarly, but I can only find reference to such victorious claims in articles specifically devoted in Japanese wartime coverage --Skyfiler (talk) 18:37, 13 May 2014 (UTC)

Casualties, sources etc...

There are some people really messing around with this article. It seems they increased Japanese casualty numbers step by step, while keeping this "Tragedy of Wuhan source" as ref. The initial casualty numbers without source were 400,000 chinese and 140,000 Japanese. These were then sourced with the above named source. Later the casualties were changed several times again to 400,000 chinese and 225,000 or 100,000 Japanese, with the same source. I guess this is the Chinese estimate, which was once noted in an earlier version of the article. Japanese wikipedia gives about ~40,000 with a detailed breakdown. This is really a mess, it would be interesting what this MacKinnon source really contains. Nevertheless i will remove at least this pyrric victory chinese strategic victory thingie, as this has been changed too and is not sourced. Its also not supported by the abstract of the MacKinnon article. Also the last change of the casualties with set Japanese casualties even above Chinese one is obv vandalism, because this was made by an IP. StoneProphet (talk) 00:56, 29 August 2011 (UTC)

I reintroduced the old numbers... StoneProphet (talk) 01:32, 29 August 2011 (UTC)

Just putting it out there I remember that when I edited the casualties according to one of the sources I had seen, some random person increased Japanese casualties from 100,000 to 160,000. This was further increased and I think the Chinese casualties were decreased as well. After that I restored them. Just my 2 cents. Masontao 1:23, 31 August 2011 (UTC)

Too many Armies and Numbers, No diagrams

As a westerner totally unfamiliar with the subject matter I have to say that this article could benefit greatly from some diagrams. Right now with all the armies and divisions identified by name it is confusing and tedious to work through the narrative and difficult to create a visual picture of events in my head. I understand this level of detail may be necessary, but if it's left like this, diagrams showing troops movements over the region would be very helpful. It doesn't need to be NATO map level detail, anything would be better than nothing. 71.76.251.63 (talk) 23:04, 15 September 2011 (UTC)

Which Variety of English?

I'm fixing up grammar here, and I'm wondering is there any consensus on whether to use American or British English, or some other type? I'm American, but I'm trying to respect whatever consensus there might be here, and not impose my local grammar on an international article. Flowernerd (talk) 23:57, 22 March 2019 (UTC)

Japanese losses

The second source is just a blog post. Why do you need to insist it's state-funded media? --2001:16B8:3108:4800:ED36:2C95:8D4E:6082 (talk) 17:39, 8 April 2020 (UTC)

NRA orangutans

I don't have access to the entirety of the cited work, but this Google Books snippet does not seem to support the claim - "The last line of defence reported by Japanese newspapers did not materialize - 5,000 orang-utans said to have been trained to throw grenades, seize machine guns and attack company commanders whom they had been schooled to identify." For now, I've removed the assertion from the infobox, as the source seems to suggest it was only a rumour, if not a myth altogether. Loafiewa (talk) 16:15, 13 December 2021 (UTC)