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The first step in the defeat of Japan may well be the recapture of Burma, for there lie the natural supply lines to China. Burma will not be a pushover. Belden's book proves that.
Burma fell, says Belden, for three reasons, which had their bases in three states of mind:
Thin Spots. The first reason was partly military, partly political. "At the start of the war," says Belden, "the Burma defense forces consisted of the First Burma Division and the 17th Division. . . . With such a small force, concentration was indicated. . . . The British were not drawn together as an army, but were scattered about the country like gendarme forces, waiting to be struck one by one and beaten." The civil servants of Empire could not get out of their heads 1) the necessity of defending every town, 2) the idea of an army as a force to quell local disturbances.
Short Lines. The second reason for the fall of Burma was purely military. The British thought of defense in terms of short lines defending successive cities. They set up such a line at Moulmein. The Japanese outflanked it. The same thing happened at Thaton, at Bilin, at Mokpalin, at the Sittang River, at Waw, Pegu, Rangoon.
Blind Men. The third and most important reason was political. The British did not ask for Chinese help until it was too late, never commanded Burmese loyalty.
Early in the war, Chiang Kai-shek had graciously accepted an "appointment" as commander in chief of the China-Indo-China-Thailand theater. As soon as war broke out, the Generalissimo offered Wavell Chinese troops. For some reason his two armies (about 27,000 men) were delayed on Chinese soil until Rangoon was just about captured. Chinese troops were never able to get into effective positions.
But the real British vulnerability was blindness to Burmese feelings. "To the heart-stirring Japanese slogans of: 'Free Burma,' 'Strike for your independence,' 'Down with the British,' 'Asia for the Asiatics,' the colony of Burma opposed mouse-stirring appeals for Loyalty and Law and Order. ... By adopting a negative policy of repression and anti-fifth-column work instead of adopting a positive policy for the unleashing of the energies of the people against the invader, the British authorities, and in fact all members of the United Nations responsible for fixing policies, sealed the doom of the Allied Armies in Burma'."