Battle of Khalkin-Gol

Khalkin-Gol, battle of (1939). Also known as the battle of Nomonhan, this was an exemplary encirclement by Soviet forces of Japanese troops within a defined and disputed area, leading to a decisive Soviet victory which protected the USSR from a two-front war after the German invasion in 1941. It was also a formative experience for Zhukov, later the pre-eminent Soviet commander in WW II.

The boundary dispute over Khalkin Gol (Halha river) was 200 years old. The Japanese claimed the river Khalkin Gol itself as the border: the Soviets and their Mongolian allies claimed it lay 15.5 miles (25 km) to the east, passing through Nomonhan. On 28 May 1939 a Japanese force tried to encircle a Soviet-Mongolian force in the disputed area. The Japanese then pushed forward not only to the river, which they claimed as the border, but beyond it. On 2 June Zhukov was summoned to see Voroshilov and ordered to Mongolia. Zhukov decided to launch an attack with LVII Special Corps, later renamed First Army Group, to destroy Japanese forces in the disputed area. It had to be decisive, even spectacular, in order to work and neutralize the Japanese as a threat in the region. Stalin approved the plan, and Zhukov reported directly to him.

The area was 404 miles (650 km) from the nearest railhead. A conveyor belt of trucks brought supplies forward, including materials to build defences. This was an important part of Zhukov's deception, to convince the Japanese that the Soviets had no intention of attacking. Zhukov built up a force of 65, 000 Soviet and Mongolian troops against 28, 000 Japanese and Manchukuoan (from the puppet state the Japanese had created in Manchukuo). Soviet troops began pressing forward on both flanks on 19 August. The battle followed what would become a classic pattern of Soviet encirclement: establishing an outer front of mobile forces (tank and mechanized brigades) while an inner front, largely infantry, worked to destroy the trapped enemy. The Japanese divisional commander and 400 survivors just managed to escape. On 3 September the Japanese emperor, aware of the crisis in Europe as WW II began, ordered the incident to be resolved. The USSR admitted 18, 500 casualties in the battle, and claimed to have inflicted 61, 000; the Japanese admitted 18, 000. As Shtern, the Far East Army commander who worked with Zhukov, was quick to recognize, ‘I think it will become the second perfect battle of encirclement (after Cannae) in all history.’

The battle of Khalkin-Gol, August 1939.
(Click to enlarge)

Bibliography

• Coox, Alvin, Nomonhan: Japan against Russia 1939 (Stanford, Calif., 1985).
• Zhukov, Georgiy, Reminiscences and Reflections (Moscow, 1985)

— Christopher Bellamy

In the late 1930s, as events pushed the world inexorably toward war, the Soviet Union and Japan clashed several times over the precise location of their borders. The most serious of these incidents, occurring from May to September of 1939, took place in Mongolia, by a river named Khalkhin-Gol. Soviet forces crossed the river to assert their sovereignty over a disputed tract of land and ran into serious resistance from the Japanese Sixth Army. The Japanese believed that the river marked the border and had just been ordered to treat any incursions with the utmost severity. They launched a series of attacks against the Mongolian and Soviet troops and eventually managed to push back the initial advance. Stalin and his advisors, already convinced that the Japanese army wanted to seize Siberia for its natural resources, decided that this was the great attack they feared. In response, they gave the commander on the scene, Georgy Konstantinovich Zhukov, all the tanks, aircraft, and manpower he would need to deal with the threat.

Zhukov put together a major offensive that would not only drive the Japanese from Mongolia, but also take the disputed land irrevocably for the Soviet satellite. By the time he was ready for his attack, at the end of August, his forces outnumbered the Japanese two to one, and he had far more tanks and artillery than the Japanese could muster. His strategy, which called for the envelopment and destruction of the enemy, worked as planned, and the Japanese army suffered heavy casualties. The Japanese commander, Michitaro Komatsubara, refused to accept the outcome of the battle, however, and had prepared a counteroffensive. This was canceled when a cease-fire was signed in Moscow. War had broken out in Europe, and neither country could afford to be distracted by minor clashes on their borders. The battle at Khalkhin-Gol convinced the Japanese army that a fight with the Soviets would be a long, drawn-out affair, and helped the Japanese empire make the decision to turn southward in 1941, rather than attack Siberia.

Bibliography

Coox, Alvin. (1985). Nomonhan. Japan against Russia, 1939. Stanford: Stanford University Press.

Zhukov, Georgy. (1971). The Memoirs of Marshal Zhukov. New York: Delacorte Press.

—MARY R. HABECK