Japanese Forces

Kwantung Army Generals

Asahi Graph Magazine 1932

Kwantung Army commander in chief Shigeru Honjō and Colonel Takayoshi Tanaka During the invasion of Manchuria, 1931. Japans invasion of Manchuria had a significant negative impact on the moral strength and influence of the League of Nations. As critics had predicted, the League was powerless if a strong nation decided to pursue an aggressive policy against other countries, allowing a country such as Japan to commit blatant aggression without serious consequences. Adolf Hitler and Benito Mussolini were also aware of this, and within three years would both follow Japan's example in aggrandization against their neighbors: in the case of Italy, against Abyssinia; and Hitler, against Czechoslovakia and Poland