Hero Falls

"The Conqueror" Chiang Kai-shek whose nationalist armies recently swept across one-half of China, (TIME, Sept. 29, 1926 et req.) returned last week, a man abased and fallen, to his home and birthplace, the little village of Fenghwa, 100 miles south of Shanghai.

He came in the dense blackness between midnight and dawn--for in China one who has "lost face" does well to hide his features. A 'faithful secretary would say only: "General Chiang Kaishek is with his family here and is going into retirement indefinitely, seeking rest following a year of superhuman efforts to further the nationalist cause."

Meanwhile Occidental correspondents at Shanghai were sweating with Chinese interpreters over a momentous 7,000-word document-- the official resignation of Chiang Kai-shek as Generalissimo of the Nationalist armies.

Resignation. Addressing himself to "The Chinese People" General Chiang reviewed in his resignation the initial brilliant success of the nationalist movement and its present heartbreaking disintegration. "Our revolution got into difficulties because of communism," declared General Chiang, and then mourned that his own ruthless anti-communist activities had been interpreted by many Nationalists as aggrandizement so that "My nationalist comrades subsequently in almost all cases lost confidence in me."

Chiang Kai-shek went on to claim that the Nationalists have now been purged of Communism largely through his own efforts; but concluded that so much bitterness existed among nationalists against him personally that "I should have resigned last spring. Therefore I am willing to sacrifice my own position in order to see the revolution succeed."

While these high principled statements probably came honestly from a man of such reputed nobility of character as Chiang Kai-shek the immediate cause of his resignation last week was simply the recent series of defeats which his armies have suffered in their attempt to take Peking (TIME, March 28).

These defeats became virtually a rout last week and at the psychological moment General Chiang's nominal ally, the eccentric "Christian" War Lord Feng Yu-hsiang suddenly ordered him by telegraph to resign.

Significance. Chiang Kai-shek's withdrawal reduced to insignificance the offshoot Nationalist regime at Nanking which Chiang had headed* placing the parent nationalist regime at Hankow once more in com plete mastery of nationalist affairs. Nominally the "Christian" War Lord Feng Yu-hsiang intervened in the interest of Hankow; but his reputation for treachery is such that Chinese thought that he would soon attempt to seize the whole Nationalist territory himself.

*and which U. S. Senator Hiram Bingham, Republican, recently urged President Coolidge to recognize after an exhaustive survey of China (TIME, July 11).