Joseph Stilwell | |
|---|---|
 | |
| Nickname(s) | "Vinegar Joe", "Uncle Joe" |
| Born | March 19, 1883 Palatka, Florida, US |
| Died | October 12, 1946 (aged 63) San Francisco, California, US |
| Allegiance | United States |
| Service | United States Army |
| Years of service | 1904–1946 |
| Rank | General |
| Service number | 0-1912 |
| Unit | Infantry Branch |
| Commands | 7th Infantry Division III Corps China Burma India Theater Chinese Expeditionary Force (Burma) Chinese Army in India Northern Combat Area Command Army Ground Forces Tenth United States Army Sixth United States Army Western Defense Command |
| Battles / wars | |
| Awards | Distinguished Service Cross Army Distinguished Service Medal (2) Legion of Merit Bronze Star Medal |
| Other work | Chief of Staff to Generalissimo Chiang Kai-shek |
Joseph Warren "Vinegar Joe" Stilwell (March 19, 1883 – October 12, 1946) was a United States Army general who served in the China Burma India Theater during World War II. Stilwell was made the Chief of Staff of the Chinese Nationalist Leader, Chiang Kai-shek. He spent the majority of his tenure striving for a 90-division army trained by American troops, using American lend-lease equipment, and fighting to reclaim Burma from the Japanese. His efforts led to friction with Chiang, who viewed troops not under his immediate control as a threat, and who saw the Chinese communists as a greater rival than Japan. An early American popular hero of the war for leading a column walking out of Burma pursued by the victorious Imperial Japanese Armed Forces, Stilwell's implacable demands for units debilitated by disease to be sent into heavy combat resulted in Merrill's Marauders becoming disenchanted with him. The U.S. government was infuriated by the 1944 fall of Changsha to a Japanese offensive. Stilwell delivered a message to the Chinese Nationalist leader Chiang Kai-shek from President Roosevelt that threatened that lend-lease aid to China would be cut off. The resulting friction atop an already tense relationship made Ambassador Patrick J. Hurley advocate that Stilwell had to be replaced. Chiang had been intent on keeping Lend-Lease supplies to fight the Chinese Communist Party, but Stilwell had been obeying his instructions to get the Communists and the Nationalists to co-operate against Japan.
Influential voices such as the journalist Brooks Atkinson viewed the Communists as benign and Stilwell as a victim of a corrupt regime. The ousting of Stilwell fermented the disillusionment of US policymakers with Chiang that culminated in the 1947 end of American assistance to the Republic of China during the Chinese Civil War.
Stilwell's admirers saw him as having been given inadequate resources and incompatible objectives. Critics viewed him as a hard-charging officer whose temperament and conduct towards Chiang contributed to the loss of China. Barbara Tuchman, who won the Pulitzer Prize for her work on Stillwell, concluded he failed to accomplish an impossible task notwithstanding his indomitable will, and the failure lay with the Chinese's innate rejection of Western means.