The IJA 5th Cavalry Regiment during the Invasion of Indochina, late 1940.

Japanese Cavalry in Indochina 1940

Japanese Foreign Minister Matsuoka signing the Soviet–Japanese Neutrality Pact. Later, in 1941, Japan, as a signatory of the Tripartite Pact, considered denouncing the Soviet–Japanese Neutrality Pact, especially after Nazi Germany invaded the Soviet Union (Operation Barbarossa), but made the crucial decision to keep it and to expand southwards invading the European colonies in Southeast Asia instead. Historians after the war found evidence that had Stalingrad fallen, Japan would have invaded Siberia.


Soviet–Japanese Neutrality Pact

Japanese Soldiers in the outskirts of Beijing City, July 1937.