Nomonhan, 1939: The Red Army’s Victory That Shaped World War II

Nomonhan, 1939: The Red Army’s Victory That Shaped World War II by Stuart D. Goldman            Hardcover: 185 pgs.             Genre: History, World War II, Mongolia, China, Japan, Soviet Union

     Nomonhan is a Mongolian village straddling the boundary between Mongolia and Manchuria.  Today, Mongolia is an independent country and Manchuria is part of China, but in 1939, on the eve of World War II, the former was a client state of the Soviet Union, while the latter region was controlled by Japan.  The border between them was hotly disputed at the time— so hotly disputed, in fact, that an undeclared war erupted between the Japanese and the Soviets near the small village.  In this book, author Stuart Goldman makes the case that this forgotten border war significantly influenced World War II.  As a result of being soundly defeated by the Russians in the conflict, Goldman contends, Japan turned its attention toward expansion into Southeast Asia, putting it on a collision course with America and resulting in the Pearl Harbor attack.  Hence, the so-called “Nomonhan Incident” (also known as the Battles of Khalkhyn Gol) had a major influence on America’s entry into the war.  Another effect of the decisive Soviet victory, according to the author, was enabling Russia to survive the German invasion of 1941 and ultimately drive the Germans out of their country and all of Eastern Europe, helping to win the war for the Allies.  Goldman gives us a look at the diplomatic strategies of Britain, France, Nazi Germany and Russia leading up to the Second World War, allowing this reader, at least, to better understand the Nazi-Soviet Pact and the Rome-Berlin-Tokyo Axis agreement.  The author paints Stalin, especially, as a very shrewd leader.  I found these passages fascinating, but they make up less than half of the book.  Most of the book, understandably, talks about the conflict itself (the movement of armies on both sides), but in a very detailed, academic way that I found boring and hard to slog through.  I’m sure military historians and military personnel would find this part fascinating, but I think the average reader would agree with my assessment.  My opinion about the book, then, is divided: one “thumb up” for the diplomatic history and descriptions of grand strategy, but the other “thumb down” for an overly-detailed narrative of the conflict itself.