Which war mentioned in historic times was the most brutal ever?

[H4run]

reading separately from the Islamic source but I cannot quote the source is not in my hand, the Muslims release their cattle and let them roaming around so the Crusader eat the cattle instead of them.

However what disturb me is, how the idea of eating dogs is worst than eating Muslims as Albert of Aix stated:

"the Christians did not shrink from eating not only killed Turks or Saracens, but even dogs..." ("Nam Christiani non solum Turcos vel Sarracenos occisos, verum etiam canes arreptos (...)")

 

[Tee Kay]

Masada, The Japanese propaganda say that this is a Japanese prohibition campaign: not to burn, commit crime or kill (the property)?

Laughable and flies in the face of everything that is known and admitted by everyone except Japanese nationalists about the conduct of the Imperial Japanese Army in China.

There is a huge slaughter in Nanjing, but it is not at all the same with total annihilation of all population, forgive my lack of knowledge regarding this topic.

Nanjing is only the tip of the iceberg. Japanese conduct in China (and actually pretty much in every occupied territory between 1937 - 1945) was extravagantly brutal. This ranges from inhuman treatment of PoWs (or in the case of Chinese prisoners, often just executing them outright), slave labour, mass rape, countless massacres in pretty much every city that fell to them, human experimentation, deployment of WMDs against civilians (chemical and biological weapons, tested against PoWs and civilians including children and babies) on a scale that makes Hiroshima and Nagasaki pale in comparison.

Add up the terror and scorched earth tactics also used by the Chinese armies (one single action killed 500,000+ of their own people), and what was going on in Europe at the same time, and I think the Second World War wins for sheer mass brutality.

 

[H4run]

thanks TK, I mostly discussed Japanese history with my Japanese friend, he is far from "The nationalist Japanese right wing extremist" however he always noted the two side party are both at fault with covering the crime or exaggerating the crime itself.

I'll bring this to discussion when I met him again, but again thanks for the respond.

 

[Masada]

You'd be hard pressed to overstate IJA atrocities in China. Bayoneting babies? Check. Rape as a strategy? Check. Testing explosive, chemical and biological weapons on live subjects? Check. Using biological and chemical weapons against civilians? Check.

The abbreviation that you used (three alls campaign) was use by the Chinese propaganda.

You're right. The Japanese called it the Burn to Ash Strategy. I forgot that the Japanese took Three Alls Strategy terminology over into Japanese in the mid-50s when Japanese prisoners decided that it was an apt description of what they had done.

There is a huge slaughter in Nanjing, but it is not at all the same with total annihilation of all population, forgive my lack of knowledge regarding this topic.

Nanjing predated the strategy and was one of a series of mass murders perpetrated by IJA forces in major Chinese cities.

Add up the terror and scorched earth tactics also used by the Chinese armies (one single action killed 500,000+ of their own people)

In fairness to Jiang Jieshi that one made capturing Henan and holding Anhui, and Jiangsu impossible for the IJA.

 

[Tee Kay]

thanks TK, I mostly discussed Japanese history with my Japanese friend, he is far from "The nationalist Japanese right wing extremist" however he always noted the two side party are both at fault with covering the crime or exaggerating the crime itself.

Or blame the crime on the other side (the KMT actually tried to do this with their drowning-your-own-citizens thing, but no one bought it). But then again we do have ample documentations and eyewitness accounts that such horrifying episodes actually occurred, and keep in mind that this is after many records were destroyed or hidden (MacArthur largely helped the Japanese in this, particularly regarding their WMD programs and the Imperial Family's complicity).

A lot of the controversy is not over if such-and-such action actually took place (there are the extremists who for instance denied that things like Unit 731 or Nanking never happened) but how many people died.

But then, what if instead of the estimated 30 million people, the Japanese "only" killed 10 million. What consolation could you even take from that?

 

[Masada]

The Nationalists also kinda, sorta burned down Changsha. There were plans to burn it and there happened to be a fire... which the teams prepped to burn down the place took as a signal to start their thing. In fairness, that was still better than what had happened to the previous Nationalist capital, Wuhan. Wuhan was, among other things, gassed, bombed, shelled, sacked and ultimately depopulated.

 

[Tahuti]

The Iraq-Iran war was pretty bad. Had it been fought internationally, it might have been worse than WWII.

 

[Masada]

That's a good one. Nothing screams nasty like clearing mines with people!

 

[H4run]

You'd be hard pressed to overstate IJA atrocities in China. Bayoneting babies? Check. Rape as a strategy? Check. Testing explosive, chemical and biological weapons on live subjects? Check. Using biological and chemical weapons against civilians? Check.

Yes you are right Masada, however better to ask and get verified, than keeping a false idea about thing and never learned.

The old peoples in Indonesia who witness Japanese occupation oftenly stated, the suffering of centuries under the Dutch is equal to couples of years suffering under IJA.

It might be hyperbolic but from that we can actually take a grasp what do the witnesses actually experienced during that time.

 

[Masada]

Phrossack mentioned Unit 731. To this day, that's the only thing I can't bring myself to read about. It's that disturbing. Even the Wikipedia article gives me the creeps. Unit 100 is also pretty bad.

EDIT: There's also Unit 8604 which starved people to death and cut them up alive.

 

[Kyriakos]

^Hmmm

 

[Masada]

Reading the primary and secondary literature... is even more painful.

 

[Kozmos]

Rape of Nanking. Worst brutality that I ever read that made me squirm in my seat.

 

[Louis XXIV]

While I agree with all the choices, what exactly is meant by "historic times"?

 

[Kyriakos]

Reading the primary and secondary literature... is even more painful.

Indeed even the wiki article shows the face of a monster.

Many of the scientists involved in Unit 731 went on to prominent careers in post-war politics, academia, business, and medicine. Some, however, were arrested by Soviet forces and tried at the Khabarovsk War Crime Trials in 1949; most, however, remained under American Forces occupation. These scientists were not tried for war crimes by the Americans so that the information and experience gained in bio-weapons could be coopted into the U.S. biological warfare program.[8] On 6 May 1947, Douglas MacArthur, as Supreme Commander of the Allied Forces, wrote to Washington that "additional data, possibly some statements from Ishii probably can be obtained by informing Japanese involved that information will be retained in intelligence channels and will not be employed as 'War Crimes' evidence."[9] The immunity deal concluded in 1948.

And a bit of the more detailed stuff:

Prisoners of war [15] were subjected to vivisection without anesthesia.[16] Vivisections were performed on prisoners after infecting them with various diseases. Scientists performed invasive surgery on prisoners, removing organs to study the effects of disease on the human body. These were conducted while the patients were alive because it was feared that the decomposition process would affect the results.[17] The infected and vivisected prisoners included men, women, children, and infants

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Unit_731

etc. RIP.

 

[H4run]

some experiment that I know is, they let the POW out during the winter, and let them die in cold, and then measure the limit of body endurance to cold so they can use it as a reference to design over-coat for the Japanese army.

Watching one documentary they also intentionally shot the stomach of the POW, to train the new recruit Doctor for fast operation.

 

[otaman1]

Battle of the Somme

Remember trenches were sick. Soldier's feet rotted, there were diseases, and at the Battle of the Somme, the French and British, who weren't at good conditions, ran right up to German machine guns which slaughtered 60000 of them in about an hour or so.

 

[MilesGregarius]

I believe Verdun was even worse.

 

[Louis XXIV]

Verdun was a disturbing battle because literally the only objective of the battle was to kill people. The Germans had no intention of taking the location, they wanted to win by attrition.

 

[Wrymouth3]

Any war between Mexico and [Insert polity here]. It's like watching a matchup between the Marlins and the Padres.