The Marco Polo Bridge Incident from July 7 to 9, 1937 AD marks the beginning of the Second Sino-Japanese War, which also marks the beginning of World War II in Asia. What is the accident, and how did it trigger nearly a decade of fighting between two great powers in Asia? Relations between China and Japan were cold, to say the least, even before the Marco Polo Bridge Incident, as Korea, formerly a tributary state of China, had been annexed by the Empire of Japan.

In 1910, it had invaded and occupied Manchuria after the Mukden Incident in 1931 CE. Japan had spent the five years prior to the Marco Polo Bridge Incident gradually seizing larger sections of northern and eastern China, encircling Beijing, and was the de facto government of China led by The Kuomintang, led by Chiang Kai-shek, was located south of Nanjing but Beijing was still a strategically pivotal city.

The key to the Marco Polo Bridge was the key to Beijing, it was named after the Italian merchant Marco Polo who visited Yuan China in the thirteenth century, the modern bridge was near the city of Wanping and is the only road and railway line between Beijing and Kuomintang, the stronghold of Nanjing, the imperial army was The Japanese are trying to pressure China to withdraw from the area around the bridge without success.

In the early summer of 1937, Japan began carrying out military exercises near the bridge, and they always warned the locals to prevent panic, but on July 7, 1937, the Japanese began training without prior notice to the Chinese, and launched a local Chinese garrison in Wanping, which it believed had been attacked and responded The Japanese opened fire, and in confusion a Japanese soldier was lost and his commanding officer demanded that the Chinese allow Japanese troops to enter and search the town.

The Chinese refused, and the Chinese army offered to conduct an inspection, which the Japanese commander agreed to, but some Japanese infantrymen tried to force their way into the town, and the Chinese garrison forces in the city fired on the Japanese and drove them out, with events out of control both sides called for reinforcements, Before 5 a.m. on July 8, the Chinese allowed Japanese investigators in Wanping to search for the missing soldier.

However the Imperial Army opened fire with four mountain cannons at 5:00, Japanese tanks rolled under the Marco Polo Bridge shortly thereafter, a hundred Chinese defenders fought, only four of whom survived, the Japanese overran the bridge, but Chinese reinforcements retook it in The next morning, July 9.

At the same time, in Beijing, the two sides negotiated a settlement of the incident, the conditions were that China apologize for the incident, the officers responsible on both sides will be punished, the Chinese forces in the region will be replaced by the Civilian Peacekeeping Corps, and the Chinese Nationalist government will better control Communist elements in the region, and in return, Japan will withdraw from the immediate area of ​​Wanping and the Marco Polo Bridge, representatives of China and Japan signed this agreement on July 11 at 11:00.

The national governments of both countries considered the skirmish to be a minor domestic incident, and it should have ended with the settlement agreement, however, the Japanese Cabinet held a press conference to announce the settlement, where it also announced the mobilization of three new army divisions, and firmly warned the Chinese government in Nanjing not to interfere In the local solution to the Marco Polo Bridge Incident, this sharp statement of the government caused the Sheikh Kaishek government to respond by sending four divisions of additional troops to the region.

Soon, both sides violated the armistice agreement, and the Japanese bombed Wanping on July 20, and by the end of July the imperial army had besieged Tianjin and Beijing, although both sides were planning an all-out war, tension was incredibly high, and when a Japanese naval officer was assassinated In Shanghai on August 9, 1937, the Second Sino-Japanese War broke out in earnest, and it would move into World War II, ending only with the surrender of Japan on September 2, 1945.