Armenian Genocide and the Rape of Nanking
English 12
Period 3
29 April 2013
Armenian Genocide and The Rape of Nanking
There have been far more genocides in our world’s history than there ever should have been. It is astounding to me that our world does not learn from the terrible mistakes others have made, and that our world has allowed for so many terrible hate crimes to keep happening. There needs to be concrete actions we can take to keep horrible things like this from happening again. I believe that one of the best ways to do this is to educate people about these terrible crimes and make sure that we do not forget the things that happened, and all of the people that unnecessarily lost their lives. The Rape of Nanking was a horrible event that took place in 1937 when the Japanese occupied the Chinese province of Manchuria. The Japanese first invaded this province in 1931 and it wasn’t for six more years until they took their next step in their plan of conquest. In early July 1937 the Japanese and Chinese troops clashed in Peking in an incident at the Marco Polo Bridge. The Japanese troops used this to justify launching a full blown attack on the city at the end of the month utilizing massed infantry, tanks and airstrike. With all of this it did not take ling at all for the city and the surrounding area to fall to the Japanese. The first concern of the Japanese soldiers was to eliminate any threat from the 90,000 Chinese soldiers. Although the Japanese were greatly outnumbered with their 50,000 troops they were able to defeat the Chinese with their great amount of infantry and the fact that the Chinese troops were so loosely organized. The Japanese were instructed to inflict as much possible pain on the Chinese soldiers as possible to toughen them up for future battles and get rid of any civilized notions of mercy. There is film footage and photographs taken by the Japanese documenting smiling soldiers conduction bayonet practice on live prisoners, decapitating them with severed heads as
Period 3
29 April 2013
Armenian Genocide and The Rape of Nanking
There have been far more genocides in our world’s history than there ever should have been. It is astounding to me that our world does not learn from the terrible mistakes others have made, and that our world has allowed for so many terrible hate crimes to keep happening. There needs to be concrete actions we can take to keep horrible things like this from happening again. I believe that one of the best ways to do this is to educate people about these terrible crimes and make sure that we do not forget the things that happened, and all of the people that unnecessarily lost their lives. The Rape of Nanking was a horrible event that took place in 1937 when the Japanese occupied the Chinese province of Manchuria. The Japanese first invaded this province in 1931 and it wasn’t for six more years until they took their next step in their plan of conquest. In early July 1937 the Japanese and Chinese troops clashed in Peking in an incident at the Marco Polo Bridge. The Japanese troops used this to justify launching a full blown attack on the city at the end of the month utilizing massed infantry, tanks and airstrike. With all of this it did not take ling at all for the city and the surrounding area to fall to the Japanese. The first concern of the Japanese soldiers was to eliminate any threat from the 90,000 Chinese soldiers. Although the Japanese were greatly outnumbered with their 50,000 troops they were able to defeat the Chinese with their great amount of infantry and the fact that the Chinese troops were so loosely organized. The Japanese were instructed to inflict as much possible pain on the Chinese soldiers as possible to toughen them up for future battles and get rid of any civilized notions of mercy. There is film footage and photographs taken by the Japanese documenting smiling soldiers conduction bayonet practice on live prisoners, decapitating them with severed heads as