war with the West, the moderates had always managed to stop short of it. The crisis caused by the wholly unwarranted sinking of the Panay, a United States Navy gunboat bombed by Japanese planes flying over the Yangtse River in December 1937, had been settled. Numerous clashes with Russian troops on the Manchurian-Siberian border, culminating in a month-long battle in 1938, had never been permitted to develop into war. But now the government saw war with the West staring it in the face. In the autumn of 1941, Prince Konoye resigned the Premiership, making way for General Tojo and his war Cabinet.
The Japanese did not enter the war in a spirit of wild bravado. The decision on the part of the militarists, who were now definitely in the saddle, was cool and calculated. They knew how weak the American, British, and Dutch forces in the western Pacific were, and how easily the Japanese could overrun the rich lands of Southeast Asia. There they would find the minerals and oil so desperately needed. These, it was hoped, would soon make the Japanese economy stronger than ever. Russia, apparently on the verge of collapse, seemed to be out of the picture. Britain was in far too critical a situation at home to do much in the Far East, and the United States could never dare concentrate all its power in the Pacific as long as Germany was undefeated.
Germany was thus the first line of Japan’s defense. If she won, Japan was safe. If she lost, she would at least have fought a rear-guard action in behalf of Japan, tiring their mutual enemies and giving Japan time to bring China to her knees and to build an invulnerable