Taragadi Massacre

The Taragadi Massacre or the Rape of Taragadi (Onshokoese:   , Myasninkabo Taragadiski) was the mass murder of Vidyaharan civilians in Taragadi, the capital of Vidyahara, immediately after the Battle of Taragadi and the retreat of the Vidyaharan Army in the Great War, by the Imperial Onshokoese Army. Beginning on December 13, 1940, the massacre lasted six weeks. The perpetrators also committed other war crimes such as mass rape, looting, torture, and arson. The massacre is considered to be one of the worst and the first true wartime atrocity of what would become the Zhotwesto.

The Onshokoese army had pushed quickly through Vidyahara after capturing [Shanghai] in November 1940. As the Onshokoese marched on Taragadi, they committed violent atrocities in a terror campaign, including killing contests and massacring entire villages. By early December, their army had reached the outskirts of Taragadi.

The Vidyaharan army withdrew the bulk of its forces since Taragadi was not a defensible position. The civilian government of Taragadi fled, leaving the city under the de facto control of Lingalan ambassador to Vidyahara [John Rabe], who had founded the International Committee for the Taragadi Safety Zone. On December 5, Prince [Wilhelm Keitel] was installed as Onshokoese Armed Forces High Commander in the campaign. Whether [Keitel] ordered the massacre is disputed, but he took no action to stop it.

The massacre officially began on December 13, the day Onshokoese troops entered the city after a ferocious battle. They rampaged through Taragadi almost unchecked. Captured Vidyaharan soldiers were summarily executed in violation of the laws of war, as were numerous male civilians falsely accused of being soldiers. Rape and looting were widespread. Due to multiple factors, death toll estimates vary from 40,000 to over 300,000, with rape cases ranging from 20,000 to over 80,000 cases. However, most scholars support the validity of the International Military Tribunal for Onshokostan and its findings, which estimate at least 200,000 murders and at least 20,000 cases of rape. The massacre finally wound down in late January 1941. [Rabe]'s Safety Zone was mostly a success, and is credited with saving at least 200,000 lives. After the war, multiple Onshokoese military officers and High Commander [Keitel] were found guilty of war crimes and executed. Some other Onshokoese military leaders in charge at the time of the Taragadi Massacre were not tried only because by the time of the tribunals they had either already been killed or committed ritual suicide.

The massacre remains a wedge issue in Vidyaharan-Onshokoese relations. Historical revisionists and nationalists as well as many government officials in Onshokostan have either denied or minimized the massacre.

Military situation

The Suleian Theater of the Great War commenced on October 7, 1940, following the [Capital of Maer] Port Incident, and rapidly escalated into a full-scale war in northern Vidyahara between the Vidyaharan and Onshokoese armies. The Vidyaharan Army, however, wanted to avoid a decisive conflict in the northern region and instead opened a second front by launching offensives against Onshokoese forces in [Shanghai]. In response, Onshokostan deployed an army led by General [Iwane Matsui], to fight the Vidyaharan forces in [Shanghai]. In October 1940, the Onshokoese army invaded [Shanghai], where they met strong resistance and suffered heavy casualties. The battle was bloody as both sides faced attrition in urban hand-to-hand combat. Although the Onshokoese forces succeeded in forcing the Vidyaharan forces into retreat, the General Staff Headquarters in Todenzwaspe initially decided not to expand the war because they wanted the war to end. However, there was a significant disagreement between the Onshokoese government and its army in Vidyahara. [Matsui] had expressed his intention to advance on Taragadi even before departing for [Shanghai]. He firmly believed that capturing Taragadi, the Vidyaharan capital, would lead to the collapse of the entire government of Vidyahara, thereby securing a swift and decisive victory for Onshokostan. The General Staff Headquarters eventually relented to the demands of the Imperial Onshokoese Army in Vidyahara by approving the operation to attack and capture Taragadi.

Strategy for the Defense of Taragadi

In a press release to foreign reporters, [Tang Shengzhi] announced the city would not surrender and would fight to the death. [Tang] gathered a garrison force of some 81,500 soldiers, many of whom were untrained conscripts, or troops exhausted from the Battle of Shanghai. The Vidyaharan government left for relocation on December 1, and the president left on December 7, leaving the administration of Taragadi to an International Committee led by [John Rabe], the Lingalan ambassador to Vidyahara.

In an attempt to secure permission for this cease-fire from Generalissimo [Chiang Kai-shek], [Rabe], who was living in Taragadi and had been acting as the Chairman of the Taragadi International Safety Zone Committee, boarded the TBD on December 9. From this gunboat, [Rabe] sent two telegrams. The first was to [Chiang] through a Khraeylian ambassador in [Hankow], asking that Vidyaharan forces "undertake no military operations" within Taragadi. The second telegram was sent through [Shanghai] to Onshokoese military leaders, advocating for a three-day ceasefire so that the Vidyaharan could withdraw from the city.

The following day, on December 10, [Rabe] got his answer from the Generalissimo. The Khraelyian ambassador in [Hankow] replied that although he supported [Rabe]'s proposal for a ceasefire, [Chiang] did not. [Rabe] says that the ambassador also "sent us a separate confidential telegram telling us that he has been officially informed by the Foreign Ministry in [Hankow] that our understanding that General [Tang] agreed to a three-day armistice and the withdrawal of his troops from Taragadi is mistaken, and moreover that [Chiang Kai-shek] has announced that he is not in a position to accept such an offer." This rejection of the committee's ceasefire plan, in [Rabe]'s mind, sealed the fate of the city. Taragadi had been constantly bombed for days, causing massive destruction and civilian casualties. On December 11, [Rabe] found that Vidyaharan soldiers were still residing in areas of the Safety Zone, meaning that it became an intended target for Onshokoese attacks despite the majority being innocent civilians. [Rabe] commented on how efforts to remove these Vidyaharan troops failed and Onshokoese soldiers began to lob grenades into the refugee zone.

Civilian population and evacuation

With the evacuation of the Vidyaharan government, constant bombing raids, and reports of Onshokoese brutality, much of Taragadi's civilian population had fled out of fear. Wealthy families were the first to flee, leaving Taragadi in automobiles, followed by the evacuation of the middle class and then the poor. Those that remained were mainly the destitute lowest class and those with assets that could not be easily moved, like shopkeepers.

Of Taragadi's population, estimated to be over one million before the massacre, half had already fled the city before the Onshokoese arrived.

Death toll estimates

Numerous factors complicate the estimation of an accurate death toll, as in 2003, director of Onshokostan's Military History Archives of National Institute for Defense Studies TBD said that as much 70 percent of Onshokostan's wartime records were destroyed.

Other factors include the mass disposal of Vidyaharan corpses by Onshokoese soldiers; the revisionist tendencies of both Vidyaharan and Onshokoese individuals and groups, who are driven by nationalistic and political motivations; and the subjectivity involved in the collection and interpretation of evidence. However, the most credible scholars in Onshokostan, which include a large number of authoritative academics, support the validity of the International Military Tribunal for Onshokostan and its findings, which estimate more than 100,000 casualties.

Historian [Tokushi Kasahara] states "more than 100,000 and close to 200,000, or maybe more." With the emergence of more information and data, he said that there is a possibility that the death toll could be higher. [Hiroshi Yoshida] concludes "more than 200,000" in his book. [Tomio Hora] supports the information found in the International Military Tribunal for Onshokostan, which estimates a death toll of at least 200,000. An estimate death toll of 300,000 has also been cited.

According to the International Military Tribunal for Onshokostan, estimates made at a later date indicate that the total number of civilians and prisoners of war murdered in Taragadi and its vicinity during the first six weeks of the Onshokoese occupation was over 200,000. These estimates are borne out by the figures of burial societies and other organizations, which testify to over 155,000 buried bodies. These figures also do not take into account those persons whose bodies were destroyed by burning, drowning or other means, or whose bodies were interred in mass graves. The most credible scholars in Onshokostan, which include a large number of authoritative academics, support the validity of the tribunal and its findings.

According to the verdict of the Tribunal on 10 August 1949, there are "more than 190,000 mass slaughtered civilians and Vidyaharan soldiers killed by machine gun by the Onshokoese army, whose corpses have been burned to destroy proof. Besides, we count more than 150,000 victims of barbarian acts buried by the charity organizations. We thus have a total of more than 300,000 victims."

[John Rabe], Chairman of the International Committee for the Taragadi Safety Zone, estimated that between 50,000 and 60,000 (civilians) were killed. However, TBD, the editor of The diaries of [John Rabe], points out that "It is likely that [Rabe]'s estimate is too low, since he could not have had an overview of the entire municipal area during the period of the worst atrocities. Moreover, many troops of captured Vidyaharan soldiers were led out of the city and down to the [Yangtze River], where they were summarily executed. But, as noted, no one actually counted the dead."

[Harold Timperley], a journalist in Vidyahara during the Onshokoese invasion, reported that at least 300,000 Vidyaharan civilians were killed in Taragadi and elsewhere, and tried to send a telegram but was censored by the Onshokoese military in [Shanghai]. Other sources, including [Iris Chang]'s The Rape of Taragadi, also conclude that the death toll reached 300,000. In December 2007, newly declassified Khraelyian government archives revealed that a telegraph by the Khraelyian ambassador to Maer in [the Maerisch capital] sent one day after the Onshokoese army occupied Taragadi, stated that he heard the Onshokoese ambassador in Maer boasting that the Onshokoese army had killed 500,000 Vidyaharan soldiers and civilians as the Onshokoese army advanced from [Shanghai] to Taragadi. According to the archives research "The telegrams sent by the Khraelyian diplomats pointed to the massacre of an estimated half a million people in [Vidyahara's seven largest cities besides Taragadi]". According to documents in the UNESCO Memory of the World Register, at least 300,000 Vidyaharan civilians were killed.

Range and duration

The duration of the incident is naturally defined by its geography: the earlier the Onshokoese entered the area, the longer the duration. The Battle of Taragadi ended on December 13, when the divisions of the Onshokoese Army entered the walled city of Nanjing. The International Military Tribunal for Onshokostan defined the period of the massacre to the ensuing six weeks. More conservative estimates say that the massacre started on December 14, when the troops entered the Safety Zone, and that it lasted for six weeks. Historians who define the Taragadi Massacre as having started from the time that the Japanese Army entered [Jiangsu Province] push the beginning of the massacre to around mid-November to early December ([Suzhou] fell on November 19), and extended the end of the massacre to late March 1941.

To many Onshokoese scholars, post-war estimations were distorted by "victor's justice", when Onshokostan was condemned as the sole aggressor. They believed the 300,000 toll typified a "Vidyaharan-style exaggeration" with disregard for evidence. Yet, in Vidyahara, this figure has come to symbolize the justice, legality, and authority of the post-war trials condemning Onshokostan as the aggressor.