Marco Polo Bridge incident

On the night of 7 July 1937, a clash between Japanese and Chinese troops near the Marco Polo Bridge, south-west of Beijing, set off fighting that neither side managed to contain. Known in China as the Lugou Bridge or July 7 incident, it is generally treated as the opening of the Second Sino-Japanese War, a conflict that lasted eight years.

Relations between the Empire of Japan and the Republic of China had been strained since the Mukden incident of 1931, when Japan seized Manchuria and then set up the puppet state of Manchukuo under Puyi, the last Qing emperor. Japanese forces pressed further into northern China, and a string of small armed clashes was each followed by an uneasy truce. Under the protocol that ended the Boxer Rebellion in 1901, foreign powers could keep guards along the railway between Beijing and the port of Tianjin. By July 1937 Japan had an estimated 7,000 to 15,000 troops in the area, far more than that agreement allowed, and had effectively surrounded Beijing and Tianjin.

The bridge itself is an eleven-arch granite structure, first built under the Jin dynasty and restored in 1698, which owes its Western name to Marco Polo's account of his travels. Japanese units from Fengtai were holding night exercises near the walled town of Wanping, beside the bridge, when shots were exchanged at about 11 p.m. What caused the firing is still unknown. When a Japanese private, Shimura Kikujiro, failed to report back, the Japanese demanded entry into Wanping to look for him. The Chinese regimental commander, Colonel Ji Xingwen of the 29th Army, refused. Shimura soon turned up, having apparently lost his way, and the Chinese were told of his return at around 2 a.m. By then, however, the Japanese had shifted their demand to finding those who had fired on them.

Talks between the mayor of Wanping and the Japanese failed, and both sides rushed in reinforcements. Shortly before 5 a.m. on 8 July firing broke out again. Colonel Ji's men, only about 100 at first, held the bridge with the help of reinforcements but took heavy losses. Casualty figures differ: For the first two days, Western estimates put Chinese dead at 96 and Japanese dead at 660, whereas Japan acknowledged 10 killed and China reported more than 180 killed or wounded. A local ceasefire was agreed on 11 July, under which the Chinese would express regret, punish those responsible and hand Wanping to a civilian police force, although one Japanese commander kept shelling the town for some hours against orders.

The truce did not hold. In Tokyo, despite opposition from officers such as Kanji Ishiwara who wanted to avoid a war in China, the army sent large reinforcements, and by 20 July Japanese strength around Beijing and Tianjin exceeded 180,000. In Nanjing, Chiang Kai-shek moved central government divisions north and, on 17 July, declared in his Lushan Statement that China's endurance had reached its limit. Clashes at Langfang on 25 July and at a Beijing city gate the next day ended the ceasefire. Japan launched a general offensive on 28 July and took Beijing and the Taku Forts at Tianjin by 30 July. Fighting spread to Shanghai in August, and the later fall of Nanjing was followed by the Nanjing Massacre.

Whether the clash was planned remains debated. Some have compared it to the staged Mukden incident, but this view has been widely rejected by historians. The Japanese historian Ikuhiko Hata raised the possibility of Communist provocation but judged an accidental shot by a frightened Chinese soldier more likely. More recent scholarship sees a minor incident that escalated through mutual distrust, Japanese demands to save face and the inability of commanders on both sides to control their troops. In 1987 the People's Anti-Japanese War Museum was opened near the bridge.

Our 1930 map shows Republican China before Japan's seizure of Manchuria, and our 1938 map shows the early stages of the Japanese invasion.